Fabulous Freezer Finds

I was in the garage yesterday, expecting to pick up a pint of chicken stock from the big freezer to use in a sauce for the ravioli I’d bought at the Farmer’s Market earlier this week. I was imagining a creamy sauce, based on the good homemade chicken stock, seasoned with fresh marjoram, for a fall-ish flavor. It was Friday, a day when Rick and I enjoy dinner together. But once in the freezer, I beheld a pint of lobster stock I’d made last month. Oooooooh!

Please don’t think I always have lobster stock awaiting me in the freezer. I’d prepared a lovely arranged lobster salad in celebration of our anniversary, and, unwilling to discard the shells and small legs, had made a quart of simple stock and froze it in pint containers.

The serendipity of this find demanded a change in my sauce plan: a lobster sauce for my pasta, with a bit of fried sage for a garnish.

I made an easy velouté sauce using the stock, and added a tablespoon of tomato paste for color (again, from the freezer) and a few tablespoons of a local dairy’s very heavy cream (again: from the trusty freezer). The sage was from the pot on the deck.

The found aspect of the freezer's ingredients was quite fun and added a lot to my enjoyment of the dish. As for Rick, he didn’t much care how it happened. He was happy that it happened.

Lemon-ease

I came upon a recipe in the paper today that looked nearly perfect. I always love a lemon-y something, especially a lemon-y dessert and more especially a no fuss dessert! Don’t let the word pudding turn you away.
Because I did not have any milk I used vanilla soy milk and I decreased the sugar by about a quarter cup. I also increased the lemon zest and juice by about a half a lemon. This was also a perfect time to use the whip attachment to the great immersion blender Wesley gave me several years ago. It made easy work of those egg whites.
The best thing about this, aside from from the ease, the (mostly) have-in-the-pantry ingredients , and the lemon-yness is the cool sponge cakey and sauce thing that happens.

Lemon Pudding from CW Cameron for the AJC, 2010
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs, separated
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8-inch baking dish. Set baking dish inside a roasting pan and add 1 inch warm water.
In a medium bowl, combine sugar and flour; stir in milk, egg yolks, lemon zest and juice and salt.
In a medium bowl, whip egg whites until stiff. Fold into sugar mixture and pour into buttered baking dish.
Set pans into oven and bake 35 minutes or until a knife blade inserted in the center comes out clean. Serve warm.
Per serving: 287 calories (percent of calories from fat, 11), 6 grams protein, 59 grams carbohydrates, trace fiber, 4 grams fat (2 grams saturated), 111 milligrams cholesterol, 200 milligrams sodium.
Adapted from the 1950 edition of “Charleston Receipts” (Favorite Recipes Press, $19.95)

Solo Sunday Lunch

Today I found a nicely ripened haas avocado in my hanging basket: perfect for lunch.

I sliced two slim pieces of good bread and toasted them well. Then I halved and pitted the avocado, placed one half in my palm, and using a fork, mashed the velvety contents til it was nearly smooth and spread the whole business on my toasts. Finished with a sprinkling of coarse kosher salt.

So easy, so delicious.

A Most Tasty Salad

We’ve been back from our beach vacation for over a week. The eggplants are still bearing beautifully. Tonight I cut a few globes in wedges, tossed in olive oil and roasted them on a parchment covered sheet pan. I served this with a couscous salad and a green salad.

I encountered this couscous salad several years ago at a family brunch. It is possibly one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. And I think the flavors really work this time of year, that interim space between summer and fall.

I used leftover whole wheat couscous, added chickpeas and a bit of chopped jalapeno to tonight’s salad and also a handful or so of those packaged shredded carrots. I did not have any cashews, so I used toasted almonds. Feel free to modify the ingredients any way that suits you and your pantry: I think it’s the dressing and the fresh ginger that really set this apart:

Michelle’s Couscous Salad
(appears to be adapted from Jane Brody’s Good Food Gourmet)

1 1/2 couscous ( I like whole wheat from Trader Joe’s)
1 1/2 C water
a little salt
Bring water to boil and add couscous, remove from heat and cover. Let stand 5 minutes, fluff with fork and put in another bowl to cool.

Chop up:
1/2 C raisins (golden look best)
1 red bell pepper
1/3 c slivered red onion (or grated)
2 T fresh mint

Mix the above into cooled couscous.

Add dressing:
1/3 C lime juice
1/3 C extra virgin olive oil
1/2 t cumin
1t grated ginger
2 tsp curry
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine

Mix well in to the couscous veggie mixture.

Chill.

Before serving mix in 1/2 c toasted cashews, chopped and 1 1/2 c frozen peas (You can skip the peas. I added fresh chopped parsley instead). This recipe serves 4-6 but I’ve quadrupled it for a party.

Bird Tomato Soup

The cardinals were very interested in our heirloom tomatoes this year and many of these lovelies were damaged or split. No matter. I cut out the bird pecked spots and enjoyed each one as it ripened in all its deep flavored gloriousity.

Tonight I use several previously cut Mortgage Lifters and a few split Black Plums as well as two really damaged Cherokee Purples to make a soup for the mezza luna ravioli we had.

I softened about 1/4 C of sliced onion and a few leek bits in some olive oil. Then I added my cut up tomato pieces, a couple of cloves of chopped garlic and around a cup of filtered water and some kosher salt and let it cook on medium heat til the tomatoes were soft. When I tasted it, I added a T of honey, to temper the acidic tomatoes.

I cooled this stuff, then put it in the blender, then strained out the shards of skin and seeds. I reheated while the mezza luna cooked. Before I served it, I added a chiffonade of basil. At my house, freshly grated parmesan is essential, but I think it is fine without.

We had room temparature roasted eggplant slices in a mustard vinaigrette and some homemade bread with this.

peach pie

Behold a peach pie, hot from the oven in my hot little kitchen. This pie is rustic, not a lot of finesse .

Those ripe peaches needed to be used. And I had lard in the fridge. Used half lard, half butter in the crust. Did not use quite enough flour, so the crust was a bit tender, kind of patched together. No matter.

I did not peel the peaches. The skins lent a lovely rose color to the juice in the baked pie. Added a splash of good bourbon. It rounded out the sweetness of the peaches and sugars.

Pie making should be a common and natural thing. Not rare, not fussy, not anxious. As they say, easy as pie.

A Fine Mess

I have a rather fine mess in a bowl on my old wooden chopping block right now. Our eggplants are coming in and our heirloom black plum tomatoes are at peak season I think. On several days this week I’ve roasted and puréed tomatoes for the freezer. They make a wonderful sauce base in the fall and winter. Many eggplants have been blanched and frozen in slices for lasagnas or roasting later on.

I picked the remaining small eggplants today and decided to skin, dice and cook them in olive oil til golden on several sides. I dumped the browned eggplant into a bowl and I added some skinned and roasted black plum tomatoes to them. Then I cooked a chopped yellow onion til gold in the pan and added to the other veg. The rich, sweet tomatoes complemented the lush eggplant, the onion added a little texture.

This mess has such potential as a sauce: reheat as is and serve on pasta, add some kalamata or other interesting olives or add some capers and/or some anchovies, or fresh basil or all of the above! Or puréed til smooth, on a pizza or pasta.

Or as a spread much like a caponata (minus the celery), chilled and chopped more finely with capers on rounds of good bread.

Versatile.