Really bored with yellow

I got tired of the same old yellow blog so I changed it over to green. Back from vacation and hope to be posting again soon. I've joined the Daring Kitchen cooking (not the baking the new cooking) challenge which should start midway though next month and won't be posted until October 14th, ah well. Strawberries in Paris motivated me. The rules are quite strict, you must cook 8 out of 12 a year and you have to let them know that you're not posting the months that you don't. So my challenge to me is, can I keep it up for a year. Did Charm City Cookbook Club without breaking for a year so why not? Let's hope I post before October 14th now......

Kitchen Garden - Broiled Fish and Pasta with Summer Vegetables

My garden is growing! (the thumbnail is blurry, click on the photo to see the garden) The first tomato is ripe and the herbs are going crazy. I needed to use some swiss chard as it was getting big so my sweetie and I decided to make dinner together. First let me say that my S/O came home with a gift for me. I'd been wanting one for a while but look what I got!!!
My S/O as Guest Blogger:

This called for fish. We have Renee's copy of Fish without a Doubt at home. Apart from some delicious recipes, the book featured a very simple but, as it turned out, very effective way of cooking fish. A cast iron griddle is heated under a broiler (top level for a thin fillet, 2nd level for a thicker piece) for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the fish. We used 1" thick mahi-mahi fillets. They were dipped in melted butter, and coated on one side with a mixture of garden herbs - basil, parsley, rosemary, and oregano - salt and white pepper, and lime zest. Panko was sprinkled over the herbs and a drizzle of melted butter finished the preparation. The fillets were slipped on top of the griddle and cooked for about 3 minutes under the broiler. Depending on thickness, the element can be turned off and the fish can finish cooking if slightly underdone. What this technique achieves is beautiful carmelization of the underside of the fish, intensifying its flavours. A dash of lime juice gave contrast, and, more importantly, allowed Joanne to use her new press.

Back to me:

I wanted to use swiss chard from the garden so I found a pasta and kale recipe online. I modified it to fit with my swiss chard, reducing the peppers and adding onion. It was beautifully colorful.

Pasta Shells with Swiss Chard, Peppers and Feta

1 (8 ounce) package uncooked large pasta shells

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium red or yellow bell pepper, chopped

1/2 onion chopped

1 cup roughly chopped swiss chard

2 cloves garlic, chopped

4-5 leaves fresh basil
1 pinch ground cayenne pepper

salt and ground black pepper to taste

6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente; drain. Meanwhile, heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in pepper, onion, swiss chard and garlic. Season with basil, salt and black pepper. Cook until vegetables are tender. In a large bowl, toss cooked pasta with skillet mixture. Sprinkle with feta cheese to serve.

Thinks to do with many many raspberries

Having 10 quarts of raspberries in your refrigerator can be a major motivator for making dessert. As you can see, Chris and I did some good work. Chris started off by making a beautiful raspberry pie. He uses a vodka crust that is just wonderful and he remembered to put holes in it to let the steam out, unlike the cherry pie we made last month.

I made a chocolate/Almond souffle tart that I didn't take a picture of for Tiffany's birthday. Topped it with a layer of raspberries, a layer of pastry cream and then another layer of raspberries. Tasty!!!

I was debating whether to make sorbet or Ice Cream with raspberries and I settled on something in between. Gelato. It turned out really well made with some tuiles and a chocolate ganache sauce. H&D seemed to like it. Recipe at the bottom.


This morning I used up the last of the berries making small tarts. I sprinkled the berries with sugar and a bit of nutmeg and put them in the premade crust (unfortunately, not Chris's crust) and baked them at 400 for about 40 minutes. I was surprised at how long it took.



Raspberry Gelato

1lb 12 oz of fresh raspberries (this made 2 cups raspberry juice)
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup simple syrup

Blend raspberries in blender, strain off seeds through a food mill or a chinoise. You should have ~2 cups raspberry liquid. Combine that with the simple syrup and the heavy whipping cream. Chill well. Put in ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer directions.

Raspberry Season

It is raspberry season in Baltimore as you can clearly see. We went picking this week and between the 4 of us (with Aveline contributing by eating) we picked about 20 quarts in less than 2 hours in our secret spot. sshhhhhh.

Now we have to figure out what to do with them.

I'm going to start by making a chocolate tart with raspberries, then maybe a sorbet and my sweetie is talking about making his scones. I'll try and post what else I make. I've been a slacker on blogging lately.

The Maine Event

Got back from Maine & New Hampshire last Sunday and am finally catching up on my blogging. I was amazed to find that after coming back I've had almost no desire to cook for a bit. Maybe going out to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is habit forming.

In any case, we had 4 lovely days of backpacking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Tam, I must say, it goes UP there!!

After emerging from the wild and showering, we went out for Clam Chowdah in Camden and then on to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland. It is a superb testament to Andrew Wyeth's work, as well as having quite a few nice works from other contemporary artists.

We stayed three nights at a B&B in Boothbay Harbor, taking in the local color at the Opera House where we watched a charming open mic event. Boothbay before the season is really quite lovely as there are no crowds and it really is a beautiful little town.

We hit two different crab houses while there and also took advantage of the Glidden Point Oyster Farm being right down the road. Paired with a Seal Cove mixed sheep and cow milk Olga, they made for a wonderful lunch by the sea in the fog.

I highly recommend the Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. Be prepared to walk a lot, but they just opened 2 years ago and they are already gorgeous. The café at the Botanical Gardens serves local food whenever possible and the food is quite tasty.

It was fiddlehead season as you can see, so we bought a bunch and sauteed them with a bit of garlic butter. Turns out you are supposed to cook fiddleheads for more than just a couple of minutes. Tasty things fiddleheads, but boy did we get sick.

Anyway, the trip was fantastic, now let's just hope I get inspired to cook again.

Summertime and a New Camera

In preparation for our trip to Maine next week I got a new camera. I had to try it out, and since CBC is this Friday, I wanted to try it out on food. I got a Cannon PowerShot A1000IS. I chose it because it was cute and only weighs 7oz (important in backpack world). Turns out that it is rated number one on many levels thus my sweetie was excited as well. Played with it for a few days, nice night photo of my Japanese maple.


In order to try out a camera one must cook. Hitting the Trader Joe, I came across some brats. Now being from WI, I'm pretty picky about my brats (think Usinger's, maybe Johnsonville...), but they were pink (and sitting there) so I decided to give them a try. I boiled them in beer and we grilled them up. Note to self, do not get Trader Joe brats again, they were not so good.


Tuesday night we decided to have warm weather food. I managed to pull a few radishes from my garden, (need to work on garden) and made grilled kofte meatballs, tequila lime shrimp, tomato cucumber salad and some hors d'oeuvers. Paired with a Efes, a Turkish beer, it was a lovely meal.

For dessert I made coffee ice cream with chocolate espresso beans chopped up in it and paired it with a chocolate sauce. Last time I made ice cream I managed to do it wrong, this time I decided not to make a custard and managed to put the plastic thing in the maker correctly. Here's the recipe I made up.

Chocolate Covered Espresso Bean Coffee Ice Cream

3 c heavy whipping cream
1 c whole milk
3 tbsp instant espresso
1/2 vanilla bean sliced in 2 lengthwise scraped and the scrapings and bean put into small saucepan
3/4 c sugar
1/4 c chopped chocolate covered espresso beans

Take 1 cup heavy cream and put into saucepan with vanilla bean and sugar. Slowly bring to a simmer and turn off. Whisk in instant espresso and let sit 5 minutes. Take out vanilla bean and
combine with 2 cups whipping cram and 1 cup milk. Let chill and put in ice cream maker following manufacturer's directions. Add espresso beans 5 minutes before the end.

Chocolate sauce
1 cup half & half
8 oz 72% dark chocolate (or bittersweet)

Heat 1/2 and 1/2 in the pan you heated the last milk in. When hot, turn off and add chocolate. Let stand for 1 minute and whisk until smooth.

15 Minute Lunch - COUSCOUS!!!

We had nothing prepared to eat this morning and I had to be to work in 20 minutes so I decided, with 15 minutes to spare (gotta love the 5 minute commute) that I would make lemon couscous. Couscous is a fantastic quick meal, I make it for when we go backpacking all the time. Usually I need to dehydrate the chickpeas and the lemon zest for backpacking, and there are, of course no fresh herbs in it, but it makes a fantastic veggie dinner in minutes. The basil at the Waverly Market was fantastic this weekend, thanks Alison!!! Here is my recipe:

Whole wheat lemon couscous with chickpeas & fresh basil.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat couscous (I use Trader Joe's, you can use regular couscous too)
1 1/2 cups water
1 tbsp olive oil
2tbsp chopped sweet onion (on the trail I use a shallot as one is the perfect size)
juice and zest of 1/4 lemon
1/2 can of chickpeas
pinch of dried thyme
pinch of dried rosemary
salt & pepper
julienned fresh basil
1/4 cup crumbled chevre or feta (on the trail I travel with a hunk of parmesan and put that in instead)


Fry the onion for 2-3 minutes in the olive oil, add the chickpeas and saute 1 minute, while you zest the lemon peel into the pot. Add dried herbs and salt. Add water, bring to a boil and add couscous. I always bring the couscous back to a simmer, turn off and let stand for 3-5 minutes. Fluff with fork and add basil and chevre and pepper to taste. You can also squeeze the 1/4 lemon into the couscous at this point. Pack up and cart off to work. This is good warm or cold.