Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Refreshing Ades

The temps are up. The humidity is crushing. It's time to make refreshing thirst quenching ades that cool you down. They're easy to recreate and wonderful to sip, especially on a hot night.

One of the most refreshing and popular is agua fresca. This can be made with any fresh fruit and even veggies such as cucumber. It goes back to Aztec times when it was made to appease the gods' thirst. Now it can satisfy ours.It's simply fresh chopped fruit, water, and sugar. They can be made in a blender or using an immersion blender. A fun one is the watermelon  flavored, made with about four cups of watermelon chunks  , muddled with three cups of water, two tablespoons of sugar and the juice of one lime. It's a quick blitz and then serve over ice. Another fun and tropical twist is using pineapple. You may not need as much sugar for this one. For a truly refreshing agua fresca, think cucumbers.  You will need more sugar - about half a cup for two cucumbers and one half cup of lime juice.Mint leaves can be added for more refreshment.Another great cooler from Mexico is horchata. Again, this is another easy mix. It's taking long grained white rice that's been cooked, along with almonds and cinnamon sticks and blitzing them in a blender or with an immersion blender.It;'s then adding water and vanilla. Milk is added when it's ready to be chilled for a few hours.

Ades are an old fashioned way to quench your thirst when the temps go high. One of the most popular is lemonade. Keep in mind that the recipe starts with simple syrup and not sugar tossed in. Sugar will sink to the pitcher's bottom and you'll be left with a sour drink. Simple syrup is just that, a cooked syrup made with only a cup of sugar and  a cup of water boiled together. It;s then stirring them together over a low flame until a syrup is created.  You can add fresh lemon juice if you want a more lemony flavor. It's then adding one cup of fresh or bottled lemon juice and two to three cups of ice cold water. Mix and chill. You can add a few to a 1/3 cup crushed fresh mint leaves if you want.Limeade is another refreshing summer cooler. It takes seven large limes and five cups of water. Add simple syrup to sweeten it and served, iced with sliced limes. You can also do the same with oranges for a refreshing hot afternoon treat.  You'll need seven to eight medium sized oranges along with  a third of a cup of lemon juice to balance the flavor. Again use about a  half cup of the simple syrup to sweeten the drink.

This is the time of year for thirst quenching drinks. Make up an icy pitcher of any of them to cool off.They're the perfect sip for a hot , steamy day.

Monday, June 29, 2020

Cool Cooking On Hot Days

 Hardly anyone will want to be in a hot kitchen after being in one for three months. Then it's summer - when roasting or sauteing anything can be a chore. The best bet? Cool dishes for a hot summer. These are lifesavers and just make lunch and dinner easier.

One of the chillest and tastiest is gazpacho. This Spanish classic is an easy make, especially if you follow Susan Lewis Solamont's, the former Ambassador to Spain's wife recipe for it. It's blitzing a cucumber, tomatoes, onions and garlic with olive oil and red wine vinegar. It's a wonderful dinner , especially when served with crusty sliced boules drizzled with olive oil.It's also good leftover for lunch the next day. Vichyssoise is another example of a chill soup. This is  a creamy leek and potato soup introduced in 1917 at the Ritz-Carlton to cool off diners. You can make chef Louis Diat's original recipe that calls for Yukon Gold potatoes, leeks and onions. It can be made vegan with subbing in vegetable broth for chicken and almond milk and coconut cream for regular milk and whole cream. If you don't want soup, then think salad.  Salad Nicoise is a lush salad with sliced hard boiled eggs, tuna, green beans and tomatoes along with black olives on a bed of Boston lettuce . You can add radishes for crunch and bite and the traditional Dijon mustard based vinaigrette too. Another crowd pleaser is Cobb salad, rich with bacon, avocado slices and chicken breasts.along with a variety of different greens like Boston lettuce, watercress and frisee.

Pasta may not be what you want on a hot afternoon but a pasta salad is another thing. Try an Italian style one with precooked pasta.Barilla brands has a wide variety of noodles that have been already boiled. Just open a packet and mix with slices of summer sausage and sliced cherry tomatoes. Throw in some chopped black olives and parsley for a hearty but cool dinner. Precooked pasta with salsa cruda is another temperature cooling dish on a hot night. The sauce is easy to make. It's just cut ripe tomatoes mixed with olive oil, thyme and basil. Some recipes call for a tablespoon or two of balsamic vinegar but you can also use red wine if you want to. Add some sliced Italian bread to sop up the sauce. Veggie tacos made with an array of fresh produce is a great week night meal. Sliced tomatoes along with julienned peppers and carrots make the filling. You can also add celery and any kind of lettuce for crunch and color. Top with salsa, guacamole and/or sour cream for extra richness. Hummus is an easy no cook dip that works well as a meal with pita wedges. Put in some hot pepper flakes or black olives for more flavor.

It's summer and it's time for cool,tasty meals. Don't go crazy cooking hot food in a hot kitchen. You've been doing such for months. Chill with chill meals.

Saturday, June 27, 2020

The State Of Food Now

It's been a little over three months that our lives, and our eating habits have been changed. Not only that our shopping has also been altered. Have we adapted? It's an interesting question.

The Corona virus has  upset everything and definitely changed the whole modern food chain, from how our food is grown and caught to how we eat.  The New York Times Food section this past Wednesday ran an article about the salmon industry and how the virus impacted it. Julia O'Malley wrote about how out of staters come to the Naknek area for the work. They either work fishing or processing. The businesses have to be shut down meaning there's no work and no products going out to the stories and buyers. It has hit hard for Brian Nicolson, a Brooklyn winemaker who returns to his family business in this Alaskan outback. Farms across the country are also affected.Some will prosper. Some will not. Thanks to the restaurants closing down or limiting their services, many farms have suffered. Many crops have had to be destroyed. Now with bans being lifted, the farms can make a comeback. It's just a matter of keeping the workers safe, despite the bad workplace conditions and the lack of medical benefits for them.

Thankfully the shortages have more or less stopped. It was bad, with farmers killing off livestock because they couldn't sell the meat. It seemed they were more catering to the restaurants because home chefs were stockpiling every kind from frozen nuggets to fresh hams.The flour shortage due to people going wild for home baking is also over. We realize that we have the capacity to be hoarders, especially when it comes to such essentials as milk , bread, eggs and cold cuts. Yet we also have the hidden capacity to be fearless home chefs and bakers. Being quarantined has retaught us to read through cookbooks that have been collecting dust for years and use such gadgets as corers and ravioli cutters that have been sitting idle in kitchen drawers. There has also a down side. As people binged watched their favorite shows and movies they also binged ate. Snack sales went up tremendously. People wanted comfort foods, from Oreos, and their counterparts (try the Acme's Tuxedo brand of sandwich cookies) to potato chips and pork rinds. Home bakers indulged on frosting rich cakes and butter laden cookies. Hopefully this is over and we can appreciate the fresh fruit and veggies of the season for a quick bite.

How have we adapted? How has our country adapted? The answer varies depending on who you talk to or what you read. We did relearn to cook and bake which is always good. Yet we also discovered our dark side when it came to hoarding and binging.

Friday, June 26, 2020

The Ultimate Fish Cookbook

It's summer and that means one thing - seafood!. what would it be without sweet lobster or fried cod? Now there's a new cookbook that celebrates both freshwater and saltwater bounties. It is one of the best comprehensive seafood ones out there and definitely worth adding to the home library.

America's Test Kitchen Foolproof Fish, Modern Recipes For Everyone, Everywhere (American Test Kitchen 2020) is a compilation of the best fish and seafood recipes. There is no one author. The brilliant editorial staff has create a gorgeous  coffee table type book with plenty of interesting recipes and beautiful pictures. The recipes are well tested and thought out which are the hallmarks of the long running PBS show. What is great about it is the guide to fish and seafood. There is a full dictionary on everything from Arctic char to tuna.It explains all sorts of aspects from and taste - important for those trying such fish as monkfish or tilapia for the first time. The book also explains how you will find them in the store or fish market  along with cooking methods and even substitutions.Another plus is that they educate the reader about buying. There are helpful hints about purchasing whole and frozen fish along with buying fish for sushi and sustainable as well as buying seafood in season. There is a page devoted to the different cooking methods as well. The book isn't just about seafood. Relish and such classic sauce recipes as tartar sauce are also included. You could make a meal out of these alone.

I love how the recipes are divided. One section is Everyday Essentials that has such recipes as pan seared swordfish steaks and crunchy oven fried fish sticks, sure to be a family favorite. Soups, stews and chowders have such crowd pleasers as the classic Provencale bouillabaisse along with everyone's favorite two clam chowders, New England and Manhattan. There is also the Portuguese cioppino along with seafood and chorizo stew. Gumbo is also here as well as lobster and corn chowder.Beach goers who miss those classic seafood shack favorites as New England lobster rolls ,crab cakes and shrimp tacos can find them here. Twists are present as well as seen in the Salad Nicoise with smoked salmon and Mediterranean Couscous salad with smoked trout. Grillers will love the different recipes that feature blackened red snapper and the popular tuna steaks flavored with vinaigrette For the fun loving barbecuers there are grilled Caribbean shrimp ones and grilled red chile  and ginger shrimp.For those home chefs who revel in small plates there are such tasty recipes as baked crabbed dish  and Provencal style anchovy dish, perfect for a small gathering. Other small bite ones are gravlax, and bacon rolled scallop bites along with popcorn shrimp and salt cod fritters.

America's Test Kitchen Foolproof Fish : Modern Recipes For Everyone Everywhere is the perfect seafood recipe book for those all fish lovers. It's a comprehensive look with delicious recipes that can please everyone. It's great for summer cooking and for cooking all year round.


Thursday, June 25, 2020

Padma Lakshmi's Mission

From top  model to Top Chef Padma Lakshmi is known for her beauty as well as for her cooking. Yet she is also a fervent supporter of human right and women's rights along with being an ambassador for American Civil Liberties Union. her new show is about food but it's so much more.

Tejal Rao wrote about this remarkable person in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Ms. Lakshmi has a new food oriented series on Hulu, Taste The Nation. she is no stranger to TV, having been the host and executive producer on the wildly popular Top Chef. This show is different. There's no competition.  It's simply a show celebrating the food cultures of Indigenous peoples, immigrant communities and the descendants of the enslaved. Unlike the white male  food and travel hosts before her  Ms. Lakshmi is keenly aware she is a guest in the homes she visits. The food may be delicious but she doesn't fetishize the dishes she's served. It's not really taste the nation, a word play on CBS's long running Sunday morning show, it's more a way to dig into history and understand how specific communities as they live now.Not many food shows explore how the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 shaped restaurant culture.

Like other food and travel shows there are delicious foods to try. There is hot gumbo soothed down with okra, , fire grilled kebabs, beef simmered in a coconut rich curry and puffy corn tortillas wrapped around beans and scrambled eggs. Yet unlike those other food and travel shows there is a definite edge. Ms. Lakshmi stop in front of a shuttered Iranian travel agency noting how a travel ban has thrown people's lives into a disturbance. (this was done before the pandemic: between summer and fall 2019). when she eats  the Indigenous fry bread in Phoenix, her companion clarifies its' origins, from the genocide of the natives to their displacement on reservations. Another episode centers around the Gullah Geechee community of coastal Carolinas whose West African enslaved ancestors cultivated the rice fields and whose forced labor built the region's economy. Their food culture was hard won and now it's being threatened by climate change. Then there's the first episode which is takes place in El Paso. She's looking for the history of the burrito but also talks about how workers have to cross the border from Mexico for their jobs.

Taste The Nation is the food show that goes beyond food. It shows the reality of America's culinary history and the politics behind it. It is definitely a show to watch and digest.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

A Ballpark Favorite Comes Home

In normal times people would be sitting at their favorite ballparks, having their beers and a bag of salted peanuts. However , the only time you can get peanuts now is at home. Has the lock down affected this american classic? Yes and no.

Regular contributor Kim Severson wrote about this summer time favorite in today's New York Times Food section. Roasted peanuts have been popular at games for the last 125 years. Yet with most of the venues closed, the nuts have been languishing in storage or orders from peanut farmers have been cancelled. Roasted peanuts are an expensive deal. Unlike pretzels and hot dogs, other ballpark standards, they have to be bred to be the perfect size for the roasting process. The plants are expensive to grow and delicate to harvest. Of course the shell has to be perfect as well which adds to its' appetizing looks. How did peanuts become connected to baseball? It all started in the 1890's when British born Harry Stevens moved to Ohio and fell in love with the game. He designed and sold its' first scorecards with the slogan "You can't tell the players without a scorecard." Enter a peanut company, Cavagnaros traded bags of peanuts for advertising  space.on the cards One hundred years later the Aramark company which produces nine million bags (!) of peanuts a season.  When Jack Norwith wrote "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" in 1908 , the marriage of baseball and peanuts were well wed.

Roasting peanuts have a special flavor as fans will tell you . They are the divas of the field, with delicate shells that are prone to cracking. Picking them requires care according to peanut farmer Dan Ward, of Clarkton, North Carolina. They also have to be planted in loamy soil. There was also calculating how many to plant for the 2021 baseball season. Yet what about all those companies that bought those roasters . It turned out there was a rise in sales in March. Roasted peanuts started to sell out at Wal-Mart and other retailers. It could be that people wanted to try roasting them themselves or create the Instagram cute squirrel "restaurants" where tiny picnic tables and tiny bowls of  raw shelled nuts are left out for squirrels to feast on. In May, there was another boost. shelled Virginias, so named because they're grown in the state had a fifteen per cent boost in sales. The reason was that all those cans bought in March were now gone. sales have been steady. Even steadier were peanut butter sales. It went into a lot of sandwiches but even more sobering more was bought up by  FEMA and Feeding America to fill out food boxes for the needy.Yet the Virginia peanuts are not being dumped into the grinders, only the runner beans. It would be cost ineffective to grind up the best nuts according to Tom Nolan the vice president  for sales and marketing at Hampton Farms, the North Carolina peanut company.

You can't go to the ballgames these days but you can still have  roasted peanuts. They're delicious no matter what. Have a bag and celebrate all those future season with them.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Diablo Verde A New Take On Cilantro

Cilantro is one of the key elements and flavors in Mexican and southwest cuisine. Now there's a new sauce that highlights its' flavor ratcheted up with some heat Diablo Verde, This amazing sauce has an amazing story.

It all started with Luke Johannson , the middle son of 3 Son Foods has spent five years of his young life fundraising for the International Rhino Foundation. He used his birthday money, always asking friends and family to donate to this  very worthy cause. He wanted to raise more funds so he sold his mom's creamy cilantro sauce to teachers, friends and neighbors. It was a huge hit. It gained in popularity as the family sold it to local stores and at farmer's markets. It won several awards. Luke and his older brother Ayden, and their younger brother George handle everything , from marketing to packaging. Here's the mind blowing part. Ayden s just seventeen while Luke is fifteen. George is twelve! These young men have the where with all and passion to  make 2 Sons Foods the powerhouse in the salsa industry. The salsa comes in three strengths - mild, medium and hot. It's their mother's recipe of cilantro, lime juice and buttermilk,

I love the creaminess of the sauce - along with the reason it was started. Being an animal rights advocate , the Johannson brothers' passion to save rhinos struck a chord with me. Diablo Verde was a fun dip with tortilla dip, but I also used it in a burrito filling.
It started with tomatoes, and peppers chopped.
I used three tomatoes and five small sweet peppers.
I wanted to get Morningstar Farm chicken strips but couldn't find them at my local 
Shop Rite. I found these instead.It's Don Lee plant based burgers and I cubed it. It looked like pancetta or guanciale.
Everything was sauteed in Bertoli olive oil and had a liberal sprinkle of onion powder. I then added two heaping tablespoons of Diablo Verde and cooked on a medium flame.
I then dampened tortillas and microwaved for forty seconds . The filling was put in them,

Definitely add Diablo Verde to any burrito or taco filling. It works well with chicken but I can see slathering this on burgers for a zesty bite. It would also be good added to chicken or turkey chili. It can be found in HEB grocery stores throughout the Austen Texas area or at their website.

Diablo Verde  should be on your summer radar.It's an excellent for tortilla chips but great in cooking and on grilled meats and veggies. Try it today not only for yourself but to save rhinos too.