With our kitchen out of commission for a few weeks, we’re trying to simplify dinner. Cooking isn’t really the issue – there’s always the grill or the camp stove– but I’m definitely not eager to wash piles of dishes by hand.
Sandwiches are part of our strategy. We’re not talking fast food here. My ideal sandwich is homemade on good bread with lively fillings and the fresh flavors of summer produce.
These tortas qualify on all counts. Pork tenderloin, marinated for hours in a vibrant adobo sauce before grilling, is the star. But it wouldn’t shine so brightly without a strong supporting cast: Yeasty rolls (preferably fluffy bolillos from a Mexican bakery), grilled red onions, dead ripe tomatoes, salty Mexican cheese, lettuce and avocado. Plus pickled jalapenos and carrots for a fiery jolt. Together, they’re a irresistible combination of complementary flavors, textures and temperatures. Continue reading Tortas for dinner→
Please bear with me here. My kitchen is a disaster: The plumbing’s been dismantled, the dishwasher disconnected and the stove removed. The refrigerator stands in the entry hall around the corner.
The last thing to come out of the oven before we pushed the stove into the dining room was this delightful tomato tart.
We eat green salads year-round at my house, but they become even more popular at this time of year, when the produce is gorgeous and temperatures jump into the high 80s. Many a warm evening I abandon the stove altogether and throw together a huge salad for dinner.
Usually a simple vinaigrette is my first-choice dressing for a pile of impeccably fresh greens, heirloom tomatoes and whatever else catches my eye at the farmers market. Lately, though, I’ve been playing with more elaborate dressings to turn even the most basic salad into a memorable meal. This updated Green Goddess dressing has become a favorite.
Juicy, sweet, dribble-down-your-chin peaches are one of the real treats of summer.
Because there are dozens of varieties out there, each ripening at a different time, the season seems to stretch on forever. By mid-July I’m usually ready to do something more with this delightful fruit than merely stand over the sink, eating it out of hand. Still, I want to keep it simple to preserve the bright, sun-kissed taste.
Peaches and ice cream are a classic combo and this year I’m serving grilled peaches with a spicy, ginger ice cream. Grilling caramelizes the surface of the fruit and concentrates the flavor. Ginger serves as a dramatic counterpoint. Pair the hot fruit with the chilly ice cream and you have an ideal dessert for these midsummer evenings when it’s really too hot to turn on an oven.
No matter how fashionable it may be to disparage corn as the bane of the American diet, I look forward all year to sweet corn season. That’s sweet as in the addictive flavor of fresh corn on the cob, not as in the high fructose corn syrup that lurks in the background of so many processed foods.
A freshly picked ear right out of the pot of boiling water or straight off the grill invariably takes me back to the summers of my childhood, when corn on the cob was the star of every cookout. I love biting off the plump kernels and crunching them between my teeth to release a flood of sweet, milky juice. It’s messy, primal eating and it still makes me happy.
Say what you will about English cooking, the Brits know pudding.
They so love their custards, fools, trifles, and duffs that they’ve come to refer to all desserts as pudding. None is so magical to my mind as summer pudding. Only alchemy could turn something as prosaic as white bread, berries and sugar into something so gorgeous, elegant and delicious.
The Oxford Companion of Food traces the first published recipe for summer pudding to a missionary in India. But I first tasted it in a hip East Berlin restaurant not long after the wall came down. I still remember the vivid fuchia color and the bright berry flavor that seemed to distill the essence of summer. It was like no other dessert I knew, neither as rich as pastry or as creamy as a typical pudding. I was smitten.
So when I was casting about last week for something different to make with a portion of the 15 pounds of olallieberries my husband and I had just picked at Coastways Ranch north of Santa Cruz, summer pudding leaped straight to mind. Continue reading Berry wonderful→
I don’t know about you but I don’t eat fish very often anymore, as much as I like it. Sometimes it seems like everything I want is either threatened with extinction, bad for my body or a blow to my budget.
So it was cause for celebration when I found a great-tasting fish that was easy on my conscience, my health and my bank account. Who knew that sardines, those oft-maligned little fish, would be so good?
I write about the pleasures of sardines today in the San Jose Mercury News (Story now below). Although I realize they’re a tough sell in our culture, there’s a reason they’re so popular in Spanish and Italian cuisines. Their deep savor marries well with the bold flavors of garlic, peppers and citrus. Continue reading Fish for our times→
Before we left on our recent trip to Alaska, I compiled a collection of recipes that I thought might work for car camping. They had to be simple – based on ingredients we could find at most any grocery store –and require a minimum of pots and pans. One skillet would be ideal.
At the same time, I wanted fresh flavors and appealing textures. Canned goods and pantry items soon lose their charm when you’re traveling for six weeks.
Our favorite quick and easy meal turned out to be an updated version of Joe’s Special, the venerable San Francisco dish made with spinach, eggs, onions and ground meat. Think of it as a deconstructed fritatta. It takes a bit of chopping but it comes together fairly quickly and tastes terrific.
I first came across a recipe for Nanaimo bars in an old issue of Sunset Magazine. It was over the top with butter and sugar, but I couldn’t resist trying it out. And from the first bite, I was a fan of this indulgent combo of chocolate and buttercream with its irresistible balance of cake-like base, creamy filling and brittle chocolate topping.
Since then, I’ve made the recipe a couple of times a year, whenever I feel like spoiling myself or my friends. The only other person I know who makes the bars is Susan Steade, now food editor of the Mercury News. Her recipe is very similar and the bars are always a cause for celebration in the newsroom.
The glorified brownies get their name from the town of Nanaimo on the eastern shore of Vancouver Island, but they have been been adopted throughout British Columba as a provincial specialty. So I made a note to myself before starting this trek to Alaska and Canada to taste the first BC-made Nanaimo bar I came across on my travels.
One of the striking ironies of Alaska is how difficult it is to find fresh fish in the ports serving North America’s biggest fishery.
Frozen fish is everywhere, neatly packaged in vacuum-sealed pouches. That’s because all but a small portion of the huge harvest of salmon and halibut is destined for markets elsewhere. The fish are filleted and frozen within hours after they’re pulled from Alaska’s icy oceans.
