Recipes & Cooking: August 2005 Archives

We drove out to Long Island this weekend specifically to get vegetables from a farmstand. I think, though, the baby hates Long Island. Hates. It. He has a meltdown every time we go out there. In the restaurant he wouldn't eat his food, got peas everywhere (including all over my white tank top), grabbed at everything, cried, whined. It's not the first time this has happened on LI, either.

So the peaches, corn, baby eggplants and various other veggies were hard won, and while the ratatouille was good I can't say it was worth it. The corn might've pushed it over the edge if August hadn't wailed the whole car ride home. He's much better about the trip into Union Square, and there's much more selection there, anyway.

So the ratatouille. I made mine like a stew, cooking it much longer than the recipe called for. Otherwise it's just sauteed vegetables, right? First sauteed a thinly sliced onion, then added 3 baby eggplants cut into chunks (the recipe said to peel but I didn't and I didn't really notice the skins as obtrusive). Added 1 zucchini cut into chunks and then 1 tomato with thyme, oregano, ground coriander, salt and pepper. Put the lid on it and let it stew for a while (I'm not sure how long, maybe 20 minutes?). Ate it over couscous to catch the juices.

We drove out to Long Island this weekend specifically to get vegetables from a farmstand. I think, though, the baby hates Long Island. Hates. It. He has a meltdown every time we go out there. In the restaurant he wouldn't eat his food, got peas everywhere (including all over my white tank top), grabbed at everything, cried, whined. It's not the first time this has happened on LI, either.

So the peaches, corn, baby eggplants and various other veggies were hard won, and while the ratatouille was good I can't say it was worth it. The corn might've pushed it over the edge if August hadn't wailed the whole car ride home. He's much better about the trip into Union Square, and there's much more selection there, anyway.

So the ratatouille. I made mine like a stew, cooking it much longer than the recipe called for. Otherwise it's just sauteed vegetables, right? First sauteed a thinly sliced onion, then added 3 baby eggplants cut into chunks (the recipe said to peel but I didn't and I didn't really notice the skins as obtrusive). Added 1 zucchini cut into chunks and then 1 tomato with thyme, oregano, ground coriander, salt and pepper. Put the lid on it and let it stew for a while (I'm not sure how long, maybe 20 minutes?). Ate it over couscous to catch the juices.

This started out as a recipe from Bill's Open Kitchen, off Leite's Culinaria, but I got lazy about sauteeing the shrimp and discovered I didn't have the chiles or garlic to flavor it, so I just threw it into the risotto with the last batch of stock. It turned out good, with creamy, lemony risotto and sweet shrimp. I like my risotto kind of loose so that's how far I took it.

Can't say it was a good idea to make something that requires constant stirring on a day like today. It's another slighty hot, very muggy one here. But citrus risotto sounded refreshing (can't say that it is, though).

Get 3 cups chicken broth simmering in a small saucepan over low heat. Saute half a minced onion in a tablespoon each butter and olive oil in a wide pan until it's translucent, then add 3/4 cup arborio rice. Stir that for a couple of minutes, then start adding the broth, about 3/4 cup at a time. Stir until the liquid's mostly absorbed, then add more until you only have one addition left. Add that with 1/2 pound medium shrimp, another tablespoon of butter, salt, pepper, the zest of a lemon and the juice of half the lemon. Stir and cook over low until the shrimp are pink and the risotto's the way you like it.

This started out as a recipe from Bill's Open Kitchen, off Leite's Culinaria, but I got lazy about sauteeing the shrimp and discovered I didn't have the chiles or garlic to flavor it, so I just threw it into the risotto with the last batch of stock. It turned out good, with creamy, lemony risotto and sweet shrimp. I like my risotto kind of loose so that's how far I took it.

Can't say it was a good idea to make something that requires constant stirring on a day like today. It's another slighty hot, very muggy one here. But citrus risotto sounded refreshing (can't say that it is, though).

Get 3 cups chicken broth simmering in a small saucepan over low heat. Saute half a minced onion in a tablespoon each butter and olive oil in a wide pan until it's translucent, then add 3/4 cup arborio rice. Stir that for a couple of minutes, then start adding the broth, about 3/4 cup at a time. Stir until the liquid's mostly absorbed, then add more until you only have one addition left. Add that with 1/2 pound medium shrimp, another tablespoon of butter, salt, pepper, the zest of a lemon and the juice of half the lemon. Stir and cook over low until the shrimp are pink and the risotto's the way you like it.

Have you ever seen a jicama? Brown, hairy, sort of shaped like a squat rutabaga. My family eyed it warily yesterday when I took it over to my brother and sister-in-law's for dinner last night. She was making enchiladas so I decided to make a jicama salad.

I only used half of the jicama. (It was a 2-pounder; I almost wonder, if I could have found a smaller one, would it have been sweeter?) I peeled off the brown skin and cut it into sticks. It's kind of a cross between an apple and a potato, with a kind of starchy potato texture and crunch, but a little bit of sweetness and juiciness. I tossed the sticks with lime juice, salt and chile powder and added some cucumber sticks (peeled, seeded and cut in sticks). It's a nice, fresh side for something as rich as enchiladas.

I also made some guacamole; so easy! Avocado, lime juice, cilantro, tomato, salt, chile powder. Now that I know how easy it is, I'll do it more often.

This was just chunks of tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil tossed with a little bit of salt, but the tomatoes and basil came from a cool, fresh morning at the farmers' market so they tasted great. (We also got blueberries, peaches and what I can only assume will be the last of the strawberries, plus zucchini and white baby eggplant.)

We took it on a picnic to Storm King Art Center, which is a big natural park with sculptures scattered throughout. It would've been a perfect day had it been 10 degrees cooler (but it was still really nice). We also had sandwiches (either pepperoni or ham with provolone and arugula), cantaloupe, strawberries and some cookies for dessert. Pretty basic. I sopped up the juices from the salad with some bread: so tomatoey, more so even than the salad itself.

Storm King's a great day trip, a fun place for a picnic with a few really interesting sculptures (and a lot of stuff that seems like nonsense to me). It's just past West Point in the Hudson River Valley.