Gazpacho

The last of the tomatoes are ripening on the vine, but I still need to use up the ones that I have already picked. So last night I made gazpacho for dinner, using Real Simple's Golden Gazpacho with Feta recipe as a starting point:

Ingredients
3 pounds yellow tomatoes (about 6), cut into large pieces
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into large pieces
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
kosher salt and pepper
4 ounces feta, crumbled (1 cup)
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
1/4 cup pine nuts
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 pound thinly sliced prosciutto and/or salami (optional)
8 bread sticks (optional)

Directions
1.Working in batches, puree the tomatoes and bell pepper in a food processor and transfer to a large bowl.

2.Stir in the vinegar and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Divide among serving bowls and top with the feta, basil, pine nuts, oil, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

3.Serve with the prosciutto, salami, and bread sticks, if desired.

However, I didn't have enough yellow tomatoes, so I used about 3 small yellow tomatoes and about 3 large red tomatoes. Also, I only had a small amount of a red bell pepper, so I probably ended up with a proportion of 5 lbs. tomatoes:1 bell pepper instead of the 3:1 ratio called for above. I also added some dried red pepper flakes to give it a little kick.

I didn't toast the pine nuts, but given how good they are when they are toasted, I'd definitely recommend doing that. Oh, and it's good with prosciutto, if you're so inclined to have some.

Mussels. In a Pot.

I made these mussels for a dinner party I hosted over the weekend. They were quite delicious, if I do say so myself.

The recipe isn't mine, after all. It's one that I snagged from Real Simple, but I'm going to copy it here for you. As you may know, I rarely take the time to measure; instead, I opt to eyeball most of the stuff, so nothing probably ends up being exact. But this recipe is forgiving with inexact measurements, and since it's so good, it's earned a permanent place in my recipe book. Try 'em, you'll like 'em. And don't be afraid to eat the tomatoes and onions with the bread either!

Mussels with Tomatoes and Olives

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 large onion, finely chopped
Kosher salt and black pepper
1 cut dry white wine
1 pound beefsteak tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 cup pitted kalamata olives, roughly chopped
2 pounds mussels, scrubbed*
1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 small baguette, warmed

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the garlic, onion, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Cook until just tender, 4-5 minutes.

2. Add the wine and simmer until slightly reduced, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and olives. Add the mussels and cook, covered, until they open, 3 to 4 minutes. Discard any mussels that remain closed. Stir in the parsley.

3. Divide the mussels and cooking liquid among the bowls. Serve with the bread.

Quick Tip: Refrigerate mussels as soon as you get them home from the store. If you can't cook them that night, remove the packaging, transfer them to a bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and keep in the refrigerator for no more than 24 hours.

Simple, Delicious Eats

These dishes are what they call easy, breezy, beautiful...wait, that's a Cover Girl commercial. My bad.

But here is an oh-so-simple appetizer that also has the added benefit of being oh-so-French.

Start with some fresh, crisp radishes and add some soft butter and a small dish of sea salt.

Scrub the radishes, and then cut off the roots (yeah, I forgot to do a few of them; I'm what they call "far from perfect") and the green leafy part down to about an inch.

The stem will serve as a handle for dipping in the butter and salt. Sounds a bit odd, I know, but it's good, I promise.

You can also top a piece of toast with some butter and sliced radishes. Add salt, if needed (they really don't though, and you'll be hard-pressed to find me saying this). But this is one of my favorite breakfasts. Pretty much anything with toast wins me over. (Hello, toast with jam and cheddar cheese! Best. Meal. Ever. Maybe. The jury's still out on that one, or so I'm told.)

Another quick and simple side for dinner: blanched green beans with toasted sesame seeds. Boil the green beans for a few minutes until they turn bright green, then plunge them into a bowl of ice water for a minute or so. Take out the beans and drain, then place them in a bowl.

You don't have to toast the sesame seeds, but it's really so much better if you do. Just toss some seeds in a pan (sauté pan, frying pan; makes no difference), and then watch and stir until they start to brown.

Once the seeds brown, add them to the green beans.

If you want, add a few splashes of soy or seasoning sauce. Or even just some lemon juice. Yes, it really is this simple.

Stir about and enjoy. Easy, breezy...wait, that's that Cover Girl commercial again. I apologize. But it's all so delicious (and did I mention simple? Sorry, I'm getting old; I can't remember it all) and a great way to add a side or appetizer to your dinner party.

I'm heading out of town soon, and I hope to post from the road, but please check back in again.

Basil Mashed Potatoes

Time for some basil mashed potatoes! Nothing says summer like, um, summer. Maybe not basil mashed potatoes as much.

But work with me here. Please? I know it's hot, but trust me, these potatoes are worth slaving over a hot stove for, and if by slaving, I mean just boiling, then yes, you would be correct.

To serve up this bowl of deliciousness, you will need about 3 medium potatoes and 8-10 basil leaves, as well as about a cup and a half of plain lowfat yogurt, strained, as I've explained here. And for those of you who can't fathom mashed potatoes without butter, feel free to add a few tablespoons of butter to taste.

I just dug these red 'taters out of the garden, and they did get a bit big for this type, but they will be just fine with this recipe since they are getting boiled.

And they are decidedly less mutant looking than these ones, which look like some sort of experiment-gone-wrong from the island of Dr. Moreau. I have no idea what happened here.

I used red potatoes, but you could use Yukon Gold or even Russet potatoes if you prefer. Also, I don't peel them, as there are a lot of nutrients in the skin, but if you don't like 'em dirty, feel free to peel away.

So start these in cold, salted water, as you would all root vegetables.

Boil them for a while, probably 10-15 minutes or so. At least until you can easily stick a fork in them. I've always wanted to use that phrase "Stick a fork in it."

Go ahead and chop up your basil while you are waiting for the potatoes to boil. Maybe call a friend too. Or paint your nails. When the potatoes are done, drain and prepare to mash.

I like to use a square pan rather than a bowl for mashing, as the rectangular masher fits so much better in an object of similar size. You could use a hand mixer, and then you'd probably want a bowl, but I like to get a little workout in to counter-balance all the potatoes I end up eating in the tasting process.

And after I'm done, of course.

Once you've mashed the potatoes a bit, go ahead and add the yogurt, the basil and salt and pepper to taste. And butter, if you like. Everything is better with butter.

Keep mashing until the desired texture is reached. I like mine lumpy. Then scoop into a bowl and serve warm, maybe alongside some vegetables off the grill. And a nice pork chop.

And vegans, take heart! I know you can't use the recipe as I've outlined it here, but don't be afraid to try some red potatoes (boiled or grilled or baked or however you want them) with some chopped basil.

About "About" Cooking

I call all of my cooking "about" cooking. Note the quotation marks; they are key to anything I do here in the kitchen, as I don't want to be confused with being an authority on the subject. (Ha! As if that was really an issue.)

Part of my reluctance to be exact and measure out all the ingredients can be attributed to my lack of patience and my desire to be expedient. But most likely it is due to my penchant (some might call it an obsession, but that's still up for debate) for cleanliness. After all, my sister doesn't call me "Monica" for nothing. I simply don't want to have tons of dirty dishes lying around, nor do I really want to wash them all later, and so I make a concerted effort to minimize the amount of dishes I use. Which means, dear readers, that I don't waste energy on using things like measuring cups and spoons. After all, that's what my eyes are for, right?

But one of the reasons that I love cooking is learning how to push the boundaries of what you are doing. There are so many ways to stumble upon something good if you're willing to experiment. I really only started cooking regularly about a year ago. And by regularly, I mean, actually following recipes, as before then, dinner involved things like half a can of corn and half a can of black beans, mixed together and heated up the microwave (I still do love this combination though, just a little more sophisticated than that.)

About the only "herbs" I used (if you can call them that) were salt and pepper. And I think I listened to Salt-n-Pepa more than I even used them. Remember "Push It"? (Note: this a link to the Youtube video, and I promise to end all the gratuitous parentheses now.)

Oh, wait, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah, cooking. Sorry, I get distracted sometimes by my childhood memories of 80s music. Let's get back to experimentation with cooking.

Take, for example, mint. This is one of the most underappreciated herbs, in my opinion, for cooking. Oh sure, mint is the star in a number of cocktails: mint juleps and mojitos come to mind. But those cocktails are very labor-intensive and might earn a disdainful glance from a bartender in a busy bar, no matter how much he or she protests otherwise.

But in cooking, all it takes is a few chopped leaves to add instant flavor to any number of foods. See, easy, right? I have been having it on zucchini a lot lately, adding it to the charred slices after they come off the grill, along with some salt and pepper, and maybe a little bit of cheese. It's good with watermelon too, as you can see here.

And speaking of experiments, I have had a bunch of unripe green tomatoes thrust upon me as of late, due to the presence of a gopher in the garden who has been killing the plants. Not one to cried over spilled milk, I harvested the green tomatoes so that at least they wouldn't go to waste. And my loss is your gain, as now I can experiment with them beyond fried green tomatoes. So feel free to leave a comment with any suggestions you might have, and I'll try them out.

I found a simple way to dress up sauteed shrimp is to chop up the green tomatoes with some shallots, then adding some white wine vinegar and salt-n-pepa, not to be confused with the group, letting all that stuff marinate for a while and then topping the shrimp with it. Please note that unripe tomatoes tend to be a little bitter, so keep the pieces small. Adding a tad bit of sugar might help sweeten them up too, but I haven't tried them that way.

It also works pretty well as a side dish with a mild white bean, like cannellinis or Great Northerns, for those of you looking for a vegan alternative. Or heck, just throw it on top of the grilled zucchini if you are feeling adventurous.

But I really don't want to end up with a tomato garden that produces just unripe green tomatoes. I do have hope. Right now it happens to be a Great Yellow Hope.

Which reminds me: Do you have any methods for, ahem, disposing of gophers? Because if you do, I will buy it. Ever heard those sayings, he could sell "sand to an Arab" or "ice to an Eskimo"? (And yes, I realize those saying are probably all kinds of politically incorrect, but work with me here, and yes, I realized that I might have been misleading you earlier with a promise to end the parentheses, but this is it, I promise.) Um, you don't even need those special salesman techniques with me. Pretty much, if you say "gets rid of gophers," I'm buying it.

Remember to leave a comment with a suggestion for green tomato recipes if you want me to try anything out. Because I'll try just about anything; check this out if you don't believe me.

Edible Delights from Friday Night

First off, let me start out by saying that I'm not a cook; I don't want you to get that impression. I'm just a girl, wanting to give sustenance to those I love. Fortunately, those I love are those that are willing to deal with my experiments. And I haven't made anyone sick yet! That's an accomplishment, right? Kind of? Okay, maybe not really, but can we just pretend that it is?

Anyway, last Friday one of my lovely friends came over for dinner, and I served up items from this menu. The shrimp-lemon kebabs and zucchini skewers browned nicely in the broiler. See, shrimp and lemons and vegetables can all play well together!

I wish I would have chopped up the cilantro closer to the time I was going to serve it so that the cilantro-lime vinaigrette would have retained it's bright green color. I didn't really use a recipe for this. I just chopped up a big handful of cilantro and added the following items in "about" these proportions: juice from half a lime, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/8 red wine vinegar, 2 garlic cloves and salt and pepper to taste.

I enjoyed the green and cannellini bean salad as a modified version of this Food & Wine recipe, but I forgot the basil. Other than that, I stayed pretty true to the recipe with just two substitutions: green beans for yellow wax beans and canned Great Northern beans for the cannellini beans. The original recipe was for 10 servings (which was way too much), but that's way too much math for a Friday evening to make all the conversions, so I didn't measure everything and instead just sort of eyeballed it. That's okay, right?

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

What's on the Menu

Tonight I am having a friend over for dinner, so I thought I'd share the menu with you beforehand. I haven't made all these recipes before, and I certainly haven't served them together, so I will let you know how it goes.

I am using the following recipes as guides:

• Shrimp-lemon kebabs with zucchini skewers from Real Simple. I really like Real Simple's recipes because they are, well, real simple and typically only have a few ingredients, and none of them are particularly exotic. Also, while the flavor profiles are good, they are still basic, so there is room to experiment.
• Green & cannellini bean salad from Food & Wine.

And you know what's almost as good as sharing all this delicious food with a good friend? Everything, with the exception of the shrimp and cannellini beans, was grown locally. The green beans, zucchini, basil and potatoes are going to be freshly-picked from my garden. I'm going to trade the neighbors some zucchini (because it's coming out of my ears) for some limes and lemons from their yard. And I picked up the corn and watermelon the other day from Chino's.

Please don't let my crude drawings scare you away. Come back soon for a full report. And pictures, which are way better than my drawings (though maybe not by much).

TGIF, folks. Are you fixing any special meals this weekend? If so, please share in the comments.