Anyone else feel a little nostalgic this time of year? The beginning of a new school year signals the end of summer, even while temperatures remain hot and sunny days abound. Although we have long since outgrown the months-free, schools-out summer vacations we enjoyed as kids, summer’s end brings a sense of wistful yearning for those long, lazy days. The upcoming Labor Day 3-day-weekend is an excellent time to bid farewell to summer with cooking that epitomizes the season: low and slow barbeque. Transforming a giant slab of meat into tender morsels of smoky pork perfection is just reward for the 20 or so hours it takes to get there, and is a fitting ode to the warmest season with the longest days of the year. We adapted this recipe, and highly recommend the dual seasoning techniques of injecting the meat and applying a dry rub prior to smoking. No matter your personal barbeque style, cook some meat over open flame or coal at the lowest temperature you can go, take your time to get it done, and enjoy the heck out of your Labor Day weekend.
Category: Main Ingredient
Slow-Cooker Japanese Pork and Ramen Soup
The dog days of summer can also be the dog days of television. With many of our favorite shows on haitus or running seemingly endless re-runs, “there’s nothing to watch” is a common refrain around our house these days. When all else fails, we can almost always count on Anthony Bourdain’s show “No Reservations” for entertainment, even when it’s an episode we have previously seen, and especially when it involves one of Bourdain’s trips to an Asian country. Of all the different cuisines from all over the world featured on the show, it’s the noodle bowls from Asian regions that always seem most appetizing. With rich steaming broth, thin slurp-worthy noodles, succulent pork (or other protein) and fresh indigenous greens and vegetables, watching Bourdain enjoy the heck out of these noodle bowls like it’s his job (it is!) always makes us want to travel immediately to that location and eat what he’s eating. In the meantime, we’ll make do with this substitute, adapted from a recipe in the book “Slow Cooker Revolution.” It’s easy to make with the following ingredients — onion, garlic, ginger, chicken broth, shiitake mushrooms, pork, ramen noodles, white miso, soy sauce, mirin (rice wine), sesame oil, spinach, green onions and sesame seeds — and consuming it involves zero jet lag.
Skillet Fajitas
Sometimes you feel like a meal with grilled meat flavor, but don’t feel like grilling. Or you’re all set to grill, only discover that the propane tank for your gas grill is empty (or maybe that’s just us?) Perhaps you don’t have the time it would take to heat up the charcoal for a charcoal grill. Whatever the reason, this recipe is a quick and easy way to come close to that cooked-over-open-flame taste, with no grilling required. Befitting its speedy preparation, the recipe comes from the Cook’s Illustrated book “The Quick Recipe” and uses just a few simple ingredients: skirt (or flank) steak, salt & pepper, cumin, lime juice, vegetable oil, red bell pepper and onion, with tortillas and garnishes of your choice for serving the finished fajitas.
Cucumber, Celery and Avocado Salad
Breaking out of the usual green-salad-side rut can sometimes be a challenge. Often the answer is to leave the leafy ingredient out of the dish altogether and feature one of the lesser, component-type ingredients as the star. Kind of like accessorizing a white t-shirt with a big statement necklace for a dressed-up look, instead of wearing a dress. We have previously tried (and loved) salads featuring components such as celery, avocado and cucumber as the main ingredients, so when we found a recipe combining these 3, we knew it would be a winner. Season with ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, sugar, lime juice and a little grapeseed (or olive) oil, and garnish with chopped cilantro and basil for a fresh, spicy/savory side dish that is anything but ordinary.
Olive-Oil Baked Shrimp
To keep our weekly menus from becoming boring or routine, we’re always keeping an eye out for good, new-to-us recipes, from a variety of sources. One surprising (to me anyway) place where we’ve found several great dishes is People Magazine. I’m sure someone out there will poke fun (you know who you are), but I’m not afraid to admit that I am a subscriber to People and have been for years. I’m not trying to say I subscribe to People just for the recipes (the magazine also features reliable reviews of books, music and shows, human interest stories, and of course, celebrity photos and gossip), but every couple of months I find a recipe there that looks interesting enough to tear out and save in our “to try” recipe folder. Given how much we love shrimp and how often we eat it, the magazine page with this recipe (by former Top Chef winner Hung Huynh) didn’t sit in the folder long before we tried it and loved it. We adapted it a bit by adjusting the seasonings and cooking time, but were quite pleased with the buttery (without actually using butter), fresh and slightly spicy end result that was super easy and quick to prepare. And speaking of easy, I’ll save you the trouble of composing your own joke by freely admitting that yes, I do happen to glean much of my knowledge of current events via E! News. You’re welcome.
Grilled Fruit Salad
Summer is an excellent time for grilling experiments. Although we previously had nearly zero experience grilling fruit at home, we ate grilled grapes once at Ad Hoc (which is one of our all-time favorite restaurants. We live halfway across the country from that place, but Dan still occasionally, wistfully stalks their Facebook page to find out what they are serving that night for dinner.) Inspired by those grapes and a pineapple and jalapeno salsa that we recently served over grilled pork, we created a side salad with grilled fruit, and added chopped fresh jalapeno, crumbled goat cheese and a drizzle of balsamic reduction to balance out the sweetness of the fruit. The outcome of our little experiment? Successfully delicious!
Zucchini and Feta Fritters
This was our first foray into fritters, and we felt they turned out fairly well. If you’re not familiar with them, fritters are basically flattened little patties held together with egg and flour and flavored with various main ingredients (depending on the type of fritter) such as corn, apple or, in this case, zucchini. Adding feta cheese, dill and green onions gives a little flair to the fritter flavor with a bit of tang and bite. Fast, easy to make and relatively healthy, zucchini fritters are a fun, filling, meat-free alternative main course — especially in summer, when you might be feeling like having lighter fare than you would during the more frigid months of the year.
Asian Green Beans
We have a few go-to Asian recipes in our weekly menu rotation (Korean Chicken and Asian Pork Tenderloin for example), but sometimes struggle to find a good veggie side to round out an Asian meal. Sauteed snow peas are good, but get pretty boring after the fifth or sixth time you serve them. We were excited to try this recipe, which kicks up plain old green beans with Asian flavor subtle enough to complement the main course without overpowering it. What makes these beans so good is the sauce (of sorts) made with green onions, garlic, ginger, sesame oil and oyster sauce. Add some sliced roasted red pepper and garnish with toasted sesame seeds and scallions, and the green beans are anything but boring. Come to think of it, these same ingredients could take the snow pea to a whole new level as well.
Pasta Caprese
If you’re like us and have a bounty of tomatoes and basil from your garden (or your local farmer’s market), this is the perfect meal to take advantage of these summer staples. And the recipe, from America’s Test Kitchen, is as easy as the Italian island of Capri (the supposed birthplace of the caprese salad) is beautiful. It’s so easy that it barely even constitutes a “recipe” in the strict sense of measured ingredients and detailed instructions. The most important take-away from the recipe is the technique of freezing the mozzarella cheese before adding it to the hot cooked pasta to keep the cheese from melting into a gooey mess. The rest is simple: whisk together olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, a shallot and salt & pepper for the dressing and marinate the tomatoes in it; boil the pasta; combine the pasta, mozzarella and tomatoes; then add the basil just before serving. The flavor combination of vine-ripe tomatoes, creamy mozzarella and homegrown basil is as fresh as it gets. Adding al dente pasta provides a hearty texture and elevates a simple side salad into an ideal summer main course.
Chicken with Sherry Vinegar
One of Dan’s oldest (but still younger than him!) and dearest friends bought him the cookbook “French Classics Made Easy,” in honor of his birthday and our of-a-lifetime trip to Paris. (Thanks Carrie!) She’s the kind of friend who never forgets a birthday and always makes you feel like the funniest person in the room (even though she actually is the most funny person in the room at any given time.) This chicken dish — “poulet au vinaigre de xérí¨s” — is the first recipe we’ve tried from the book, but it certainly won’t be the last. Not only was it easy to make with simple ingredients — chicken thighs, butter, olive oil, onion, sherry vinegar, shallots, garlic, white wine, tomato paste, parsley and salt & pepper — but it genuinely tasted like a classic French dish, with rich, complex and buttery flavors. This dish evokes the same qualities as a good, lasting friendship — satisfying and familiar, yet memorable and significant — all with minimal effort.