Unloved zucchini

There is something so forlorn about the abandoned zucchini that turn up in break rooms of office buildings this time of year. Plucked from their lush, happy garden and plunked unceremoniously on a cold composite table, under harsh fluorescent light and away from natural sun. Left there unregarded to rot or be thrown away by the cleaning people, if no one wants them. Because already no one wanted them. A loved would be sitting in a beautiful basket in the kitchen or, better yet, taken straight from plant to cutting board. Not these ones.

Fortunately there are those who open their hearts and their kitchens to the unloved zucchini, taking it on as their own. What kind of cold hearted person could see a veg in need and walk away?

Darling Husband brought home one such veg this week. "Just one?" you ask. YES. It was a monster of a zucchini, stretching from my elbow to finger tips and so wide around that I couldn't wrap both hands around and touch. We could've hollowed it out and rented it to college students to live in.

Instead we decided to fry it and make napoleons. I made essentially a hot crab dip, with farmer cheese, canned crab (not the fake flake, my friends!) and artichoke. Actually, I started with a quick, blonde roux and added milk for a bechamel, augmented with the cheese, crab and artchoke. It was pretty great, but the texture of the crab was completely lost.

Darling Husband cut thin slices of the behemoth squash and dredged in corn meal before frying. We layered a slice, a dollop, a slice, a dollop and a slice and called it dinner. A very, very rich dinner that was amazing, but actually a bit much for me. It would do better on a smaller scale and as an appetizer, I think. That being said, it tasted awesome and looked beautiful.

We had other ideas for the big zucchini, including stuffing it with a sausage and couscous mixture, making a monster curry, grilling planks with steak seasoning (for vegan steak, of course), zucchini parmasean. The good thing is we can still do all of those things because we still have most of a giant zucchini waiting for us. "Use me," it calls to us. Creepy, no? Maybe we should hollow it out and rent it to college students. I hear affordable housing can be hard to find.

On an unrelated note, my father today was telling me of his grandfather making what he called schmear casse, essentially homemade cottage cheese. I, not knowing this, had just been researching making my own ricotta. It's a coincidence that doesn't mean much, but I like saying schmear casse. I googled it and found a thread where a group was expounding on the virtues of scrapple, and one of them suggested apple butter und schmear casse as manna. The reply was, "gee, you really are from PA Dutch country!".

I built a better burger

Yep, for the first time in three years, I managed to get my Sutter Home BBB recipe in before the deadline. I even had two hours to spare. I'm thankful for the time zone difference that gave me until 3pm my time (noon in LA).

I called the burgers "Tipsy Devil Jerk Burgers with Jicama, Carrot and Golden Raisin Slaw." Is it worth $50,000? Well, I don't know. I've read past recipe winners and I can't say any of them are worth quite that much money. But I think it's a contender and I'm pleased. I added baby arugula and sliced mango to the burgers and I think it's just what was needed. Wish me luck! The finalists are announced in August, to be flown out for an in-person cook-off in September. I'm not altering any of my fall plans, but I am pleased to have accomplished this.

In unrelated news, we violated a cardinal summer cooking rule in our house tonight. Though it was humid and oppressive, we turned on the oven for a baked pasta dish. What were we thinking? We were thinking, "oh, what would be quick and make use of ingredients we have already? I know, we have those pasta sheets in the freezer. How about something with that? And baked garlic bread?" In the cost/benefit analysis of dinner planning, we over weighted economy of time and ingredient and under weighted atmospheric conditions. Fortunately, the temperature dropped just as we opened windows. Even more fortunately, we have a bedroom air conditioner to which we can retreat with mint oreos and movies.

Hot day, garden bounty

Stir fries are rarely a planned thing in our home, but more of a "kitchen sink" sort of meal. (...as in "everything but the kitchen sink.") I had some broccoli cleaned and ready in a bag, given to me by my sister before she left on vacation (don't you love finding homes for all your perishables while you try to remember to pack enough underwear?). I also had matchstick carrots. I decided to get beef to round out the meal. Between making that decision, however, and coming home for the evening, I managed to acquire a zucchini and some green beans, both from my mother's garden. While putting Baby Girl to bed, Darling Husband found half a green pepper from his aunt's garden. And so grew the stir fry.

I finished it off with a spicy orange sauce, made from orange juice, hoisin, sambol olek, a dash of soy and some black pepper. I thickened the sauce with a water/cornstarch slurry. My trick to thickening and coating the mixture is to scoot all the veggies and meat to the left 3/4 of the pan, then tipping the empty right side end so that it's more in the flames of the stove. Then I pour the sauce into that newly formed hot spot oasis and hold it there until it bubbles and boils, thereby (thanks to the corn starch) thickening. Then I can lay the pan back down on the stove like normal and toss the veggies to coat. That way I don't have to transfer the pan contents into a bowl, dirtying another bowl, but they don't overcook waiting for the sauce to do it's thing.

It was a hot, sticky evening. We haven't had many of these lately. Perhaps it was cool and refreshing outside (one never knows, but I doubt it) but it was summer in Vietnam in my kitchen. (I remember when I was a little girl, my mom would put on a light cologne when she was hot, to freshen up and to cool the skin with the alcohol. We would do the same, sometimes, and it was quite refreshing. I had a friend who took it a step further and kept body spray in her fridge for hot days.) A stir fry should go quickly, so it's not a bad hot day meal. For some reason, tonight's seemed to take forever. Ironic, as several of the items arrived pre-sous cheffed and Darling Husband finished the rest while I put Baby Girl to bed. Just one of those nights, I guess.

One of those nights, in fact, where it's tempting to just sprawl naked in the air conditioning after a cold shower, allowing the fan to dry you off so that you maximize the cooling power of evaporation. Dinner be damned--order pizza!! Eat it in bed!!

Ah, but we ordered pizza last night. And we're grown ups with a child and a mortgage. Honestly, I don't know what that has to do with anything other than I have to play with her, feed her dinner, give her a bath and put the little angel to bed before I can sprawl naked and tell the world to go to hell.

While listening for her on the monitor.

Building a better burger

Have you ever impressed yourself? I mean, the kind of feeling you get where you're just a little ashamed just how much you want to toot your own horn? Your mind buzzes with sinful pride and you look around for people to tell?

Okay, so one of the best parts of having a blog is this is, in fact, that very forum.

Tonight we're perfecting burgers for Sutter Home's Build a Better Burger competition; the deadline is next week. Ordinarily, my meal planning wouldn't have popped up burgers just now, but hey, a deadline is a deadline. I'll take one for the team.

I made an amazing jerk sauce, if I do say it myself, and came to the realization that allspice is the smell I traditionally associate with jerk seasoning. I have no idea how authentic my sauce is, but I sure do like it. Fortunately, I have left overs for later...

The part I'm really proud of, though, is my jicama and carrot slaw. I made a dressing out of a little lime, a little apple cider vinegar, a bit of olive oil and some golden raisins. I pureed it all together with a tiny pinch of salt and a few grinds of pepper and voila, a "creamy," emulsified, sweet, tangy dressing for my slaw. I'm pretty sure it's pretty darn healthy, too. After all, raisins are high in fiber and antioxidants, and have been suggested to slow macular degeneration. That last one might just be a myth, but who knows? No harm done.

I don't have a name for my jerk burger. I had originally had a different ingredient that made the title "Schoolyard Jerk Burger" appropriate, but I edited it out for simplicity and ease of eating. Maybe I'll stick to a descriptive name instead.

How did the burger taste? Sweet, spicy, meaty... but it was missing something. It's a work in progress.

Chocolate covered endive

What would you do if you had to make a meal out of chocolate, endive, canadian bacon, tomatillos and refrigerated dinner roll dough? If you were Darling Husband, you would make endive and canadian bacon empinadas with mole.

He stuffed the empinadas with queso fresco, lardons of canadian bacon and sauteed endive with cumin. The mole was made with sauteed dried arbol chiles and pureed tomatillos combined with shaved chocolate, to which he added cinnamon, cayenne and salt.

The dough was delicious, with not quite melty cheese in it. The endive is licoricy, and almost a little bitter. The lardons of canadian bacon are crunchy, salty and sweet all at once. Together, it was homey and exciting. The mole was a little salty for my taste, but I loved the chocolate. Tomatillos look like green tomatoes and are sour and fresh tasting. If it had been me, I might've added more chocolate and allowed it to be a bit sweet. I think it would probably be less mole-like that way, though, so it seems I'm just not the target demographic for mole.

Which reminds me, several Valentine's Days ago, Darling Husband and I had a fancy dinner out where they served filet mignon with melted milk chocolate. It was surprisingly delicious.

I wonder if Darling Husband will have anything to say about his tasty dish...

Gourmet grilled pizza

Darling Husband and I were watching Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, which is a cooking show with a blonde sous chef from Iron Chef America. She is loud, brash and overly dramatic, doing lots of voices and little dances and arm swoopies to emphasize what she says. She also uses fist fulls of salt in every dish. We love to hate her. We also love her bolognase recipe. Grudgingly, we admit she knows what she's talking about.

On this last episode, she was making grilled pizzas. "Who knew you could grill pizza?" she asked. Uh, we did?

Grilled pizza is certainly not a new idea, but it's done often for a reason. It's good. We buy our pizza dough already made at Wegman's. I don't even try to make my own. It has yeast in it and I've never been able to activate yeast properly. Store bought tastes wonderful and saves me the stress. The trick is to let it come to room temperature before you work with it. If not, the dough won't be very elasticy (I'm sure there's a chemical gluten explanation here, but all I know is cold dough rips) and your pizzas will have thin places and tears. It should be noted, however, that a thin place gets nice and crispy and even a bit charred, which adds to the flavor but leaks cheese.

You could make your pizzas individual sized or big enough to share. For a party, having individual pizza crusts done ahead of time and a buffet full of possible toppings encourages individuality and tasty creativity. Our niece and nephew enjoy topping their own, too.

Usually we make individual sized. We portion out our dough, then flatten and stretch each piece individually. You can use a little flour to help you along, or you can use oil. Oil will keep the dough from sticking to the grill, but flour seems to work better for us. I don't get hung up on making perfectly round pizzas, but instead stretch the dough where it needs stretching (usually they're triangles). The uncooked crusts will contract a bit, left on the cutting board, but are easily stretched back out just before putting on the grill, directly on the rack.

We cook the crusts until toasty and lightly charred on both sides, flipping as needed. If the dough isn't stretched enough, it might burn on the outside but still be chewy and underdone in the middle. We prefer to err on the side of too thin.

Last night, we decided to do a single kind of poshy pizza instead of individualized toppings. We chose a blend of three cheeses, shiitake mushrooms, prosciutto and an herb chimichurri. As these were the toppings, a red sauce was out of the question. Growing up, a white pizza wasn't really pizza to me, but I've really softened.

I made the chimichurri out of minced flat leaf parsley, oregano and basil, mixed with olive oil, salt and pepper and some freshly squeezed lime juice. We dabbed this onto the crust first. On top of that, we scattered the shiitake , which I had previously sauteed until soft. Then we topped with sliced kasseri, fontinella and pont l'eveque cheeses. Kasseri is firm and salty; fontinella is creamy and mild. Pont l'eveque is soft to the point of liquidy at room temperature, with a rind like camembert but a nicely stinky quality. The prosciutto came next, to allow it to get the full benefit of the heat and, therefore, crisp up. We finally topped it with the remaining chimichurri.

Usually we'd put the pizzas back on the grill and allow the heat to melt it, but this time we chose to put them under the broiler for a more direct flame application.

The result? Well, it was gooey and bright, fresh and salty. In my world, that's a hit. The cheeses had blended and filled in all the cracks. We had left the rind on the pont l'eveque and that was a nice touch. The prosciutto had become crispy, and the saltiness was nicely set off by the mushrooms. I might have wanted more mushrooms on mine, as the taste of them was a bit lost in most bites. The herbs in the chimichurri were wonderfully fresh tasting, with nice grassy notes. Lime juice was tangy and sour, highlighting the natural sweetness in the mushrooms. It was best when screamingly hot, the cheese super melty.

We had leftovers for breakfast/lunch. I didn't like it cold, but a minute in the microwave helped quite a bit.

Mary, Mary, how does your garden grow?

Rather well, thank you!

We have planted heirloom tomatoes in two varieties: black cherry (supposedly with true black fruit) and Hawaiian currant (no bigger than a pea). Next to them are yellow pear tomatoes. Can you tell we go for the mini? I found out the hard way that in my garden, the shorter the span from flower to harvest the better. A big tomato will be eaten or somehow ruin itself with water spots or one of a thousand other tomato maladies before reaching ripeness. Get 'em in, get 'em out is my tomato motto.

Darling Husband and I cook with a lot of fresh peppers, so we have jalapenos and Thai style chilies growing. The trick to jalapenos is to leave them on the plant long enough to crack or turn red or both. That's when you know the flames of hell have been sucked up through the soil by the roots and deposited firmly in the jalapeno where they belong. Thai chilies, by the way, grow straight up like witch hats.

Some years, our garden has stopped at the tomato and hot pepper point, but this year we have a cucumber plant and two zucchinis. It's hard to watch the squash blossoms bloom and not pick them, stuff them, batter them and fry them. It's also hard to get much of a zucchini crop if you pick all the flowers. We're being as patient as we can. I'm also pleased to boast half a dozen flowers on my cucumber plant, which is curling tendrils around my ornamental mini garden fence as if it's expecting a tornado of Oz proportion.

Of course, this doesn't count our half whiskey barrel, home to our yearly herb garden. This year we've planted oregano, short leaf basil, Thai basil, thyme, flat leaf parsley and sage. Our herbs always grow into unruly bushes, thanks to a wonderful compost mixture my parents "make" behind their barn with various yard clippings. It's also the reason my tomato plants come up to my chest, I think.