July 7, 2012

So hot!  102 degrees F.  Bad air quality.  I can't imagine surviving this without air conditioning, yet there are several thousand people still without power from last week's storm.  Plants are suffering too.  My poor deck garden--I keep watering yet everything just looks parched and sad.

Thanks to my AC, I'm making gumbo today.  Shrimps and crab and andouille, a good chocolate brown roux, the trinity (onion, celery and green bell pepper) and lovely organically grown okra from a local farm.

I'm sitting on my deck--after three days of truly extreme heat, it is now around 78 degrees.  The sky is blue with a scattering of cotton candy type clouds.  The bird song is quite loud.  And I have learned that the very charming little yellow birds that have been delighting me every morning are American Goldfinches (also known as wild canaries).  My neighbors to the right have just installed a wind chime.  I find it a discordant note--but I am hoping it will soon blend in with the hum of air conditioners and become virtually unnoticed.

I have gorgeous organic cherries, perfectly ripe peaches and some last-of-the season strawberries, all of which I need to use.  Tiny cherry pies?  Peach muffins? Strawberry scones?

Chipotle Salmon Recipe

SlowRoasted Chipotle Salmon
      with Asparagus and Cauliflower Chipotle Puree

2 generous servings

This is a less-is-more recipe -- really simple ingredients and just a few of them.


3/4 pounds salmon filet
4 generous cups cauliflower florets (raw)
1/2 cup buttermilk
garlic powder
asparagus (one bunch, trimmed)
coarse salt
2 teaspoons chipotle peppers in adobo*
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1 teaspoon brown sugar
extra virgin olive oil

Preheat oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit.
Blanch asparagus till barely softened and set aside.
Lightly oil a baking dish large enough to hold the salmon and the asparagus.  Place the asparagus around the perimeter of the dish.  Place the salmon, skin side down, in the center of the baking dish.  Rub the surface of the fish with a paste made of the chipotle and adobo, the brown sugar, the espresso powder and salt to taste.  Place the baking dish in the oven and roast for about 25 minutes.
Blanch cauliflower florets till fork tender.  Remove from water to blender and blend, with buttermilk, 1 teaspoon of the chipotle adobo mixture, garlic powder and salt to taste.  Blend till the mixture is a silky smooth puree.  Set aside and keep warm.
When the fish is done (the salmon should just be at the edge of flaking), pool the cauliflower puree in the center of each of two serving plates.  Place a portion of fish atop the cauliflower.  Place the asparagus around the fish on each plate and serve.

Bon appetit!

*I use the can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.  I mash the peppers and the sauce together to form a soft paste.  I am very sparing as I don't like too much heat, but please feel free to use more if you like it that way.

April Daring Cooks

April's Daring Cooks challenge is to create a recipe using one ingredient from each of three categories.  I chose cauliflower, chipotle peppers and espresso powder.  I started with a generous four cups of cauliflower florets which I blanched till barely tender, then blended with some buttermilk, salt, garlic and chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, ending up with a gorgeous silky puree.

Then I blanched  some asparagus till it was barely tender and set it aside.
I made a paste of some mashed chipotle in adobo, brown sugar and espresso powder and seasoned it  with a little coarse salt.

I rubbed the paste on a piece of salmon filet; coated a baking dish with olive oil and arranged the blanched asparagus around the perimeter.  I put the salmon in the middle and put the dish in a pre-heated 250 degree fahrenheit oven for about 25 minutes at which time the salmon was just beginning to be flaky and the asparagus was just done.

I served the salmon and asparagus on a bed of the cauliflower puree.  Delicious!!

Alice Medrich is a genius

I knew this was true when I made and ate her chocolate wafers. It was reinforced when I made and ate her Tiger Cake. And now, on an old re-run of "Baking with Julia," I bow to further proof of her genius.

Put about three tablespoons of baking soda into a couple of cups of boiling water in a saucepan. Add your unpeeled hazelnuts to the boiling liquid and let them go for about three minutes. The water will turn black and look dreadful Take out one hazelnut to test in cold water. The skin should slide right off. If it does, dump the whole mess into a colander in the sink and run cold water on the nuts. Rub them and the skins will come right off. I saw it with my own two eyes.

A lovely new cake--an Alice Waters recipe from the Art of Simple Food. It's a cranberry upside down cake which I wanted to try but was quite unsure of. It turned out to be a perfect recipe. I brought it to last night's dinner and it was a big hit. I'll make it again tonight and take a photo.

Also a new muffin---I used banana puree, chopped mango, ginger, allspice with a nice sprinkling of brown sugar on top. AP flour, brown sugar (not a lot), b soda, salt, eggs, canola oil---really quite nice. This too I will make again and photograph.

I actually ate some of one of my cinnamon scones this am and was delighted--it really is good.

I'm starting to get the deck planted. I found 2 new (to me) herbs--lime thyme and nutmeg thyme. Both smell like heaven. The nutmeg thyme really does smell like spice and I'm thinking that once the plant gets going, I should use some in a nutmeg thyme/raspberry? pear? blueberry? scone.

I found a perennial fuschia which should bloom all summer and delight the hummingbirds.

And since most of the deck is shady, I got a whole collection of charming coleus plants, pink and rose green. So pretty. I also got two hellebores. They are quite beautiful and I hope to have luck with them. There is another at the nursery that is taller and thinner--perhaps the center of a pot surrounded by some begonias.

For the sunny end, I have almost all my herbs. I have three little marigolds--policewomen to protect my basil from hungry bugs. In addition to the basil and thyme, I got flat leaf parsley, dill, spearmint. I have rosemary, lavender, sage, fennel and chives that overwintered, and oregano from Robin's huge plant. I need more mint and maybe more basil, depending on how well the plants I have do. I wish I could grow cilantro but I never have luck with it.

My japonica is flourishing and I have creeping jenny to drape the sides of its barrel (and hide it too). My St. John's wort didn't survive the winter, so its pot will become home for one of the hellebores. I have some pretty "Lady Frances" English Ivy (small variegated leaves) which I'm hoping will trail itself up and around the pretty form I have (One of those ball-on-a-stick things) and some common English ivy to trail down around the base of the pot.

I have some more baskets to fill--one in sun, several in shade--and will have fun figuring out what to put in them.

Pre-Easter

Searching my brain, my notes, my books, the blogs for the perfect dessert to bring to Easter dinner--one which I can make before work and then bring with me after work. I keep thinking lemon meringue pie...perhaps that will work.

In the meanwhile, much baking for the morning. Scones (two kinds), coffeecake, carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing? angel food cupcakes?

There are two Canal House cakes -- in the Easter menu they did for, I think, BonAppetit. Both sound interesting and good and fun to make.

I got to see Sophie today--lovely--and she played a piece for us--magnificent. But it was somewhat sad and made me reflective, not good when very tired.

The Easter cookies were adorable--should have taken a picture.