Monday, July 26, 2010

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Summer Food.

So it’s seven o’clock, it’s still sunny out and I can’t wait to go outside and read my book, but I want to write something real quick first. I went to Kelowna last weekend for a cousin’s wedding celebration (garden party!) and in the midst of swimming, visiting and winery-ing, I had the time to buy a twenty pound box of peaches and ten pounds of cherries.

The drive home was stunning, the smell of peaches overpowered the car every time the roar of the wind got too much for us and we rolled up the windows – blam! Nothing like it.

But honestly, after sharing half the fruit with Kristopher’s parents, what are two people to do with ten pounds of peaches? It is truly a feat to try and eat that much fruit before it goes off... Basically, we ate peaches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s not that hard.

How do I eat them for dinner? Well I don’t just bite into it like an apple while I’m eating my barbeque. They go onto the grill as well! Just like anything else I cook like this, it’s just a bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper onto the halved and pitted peaches and on they go. Don’t be afraid to give them a good amount of tasty salt (try Maldon Sea Salt, I can eat it straight it’s that good), it will balance well with the sugars. While they get the char lines the insides get even sweeter and juicier than before they were cooked. I insist on eating them with grilled pork (which always goes well with cooked fruit, ever had it with apples?), and have also had them in a salad with arugula, lettuce and prosciutto.

Being that we bought them six days ago, I discovered tonight that a few had some extra and unwanted blue fuzz on them. Not wanting to lose even one, I peeled them (put an X on the opposite end from the stem, submerge in boiling hot water and then again in ice water and the peels will rub right off), sliced them and froze them – along with two freezer bags full of blueberries that I bought at the farmer’s market yesterday. I love buying mass amounts of fruit when it is so fresh and in season, and obviously hate to let even a little bit of it go off... Freezing the bounty while it’s perfectly fresh will allow you to enjoy it in the fall. The rain will be falling and you will be munching on an Okanagan peach.

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This afternoon I went shopping in Whole Foods, which is a major treat for me. That and H&M which I love equally, but that’s another story. I originally went into WF for their sausage selection, which is out of this world. I get excited about this sort of selection... With maybe ten or fifteen selections, how could a girl not? I got some spicy pork chorizo ones and on the way out, was sidetracked by the cheese selection, namely, the bocconcini. Thus sparked the beginnings of the another ultimate summer meal.

This came first:

Lemongrass soda. To die for... The company, called Dry Soda , also makes a rhubarb soda (among other equally amazing flavours)! I have a friend who is a buyer for Loblaws and had told me about these tasty drinks many moons ago, but I had yet to discover and see them for sale until today. It was worth the wait. I also love that the box recommends you to drink it out of a champagne flute and gives food pairings.


And perhaps you can see what came next right in the background of that photo...
The above mentioned bocconcini cheese, two mind numbingly delicious heirloom tomatoes (a yellow one with red hues, and a red one with dark green stripes, both about the size of a softball), and basil that I only recently planted but is growing fantastically. If you have yet to eat a salad with these ingredients in your lifetime, I urge you to do so as soon as possible. That is what tomatoes are supposed to taste like. Oh, it’s good.


And finally, came the last two grilled peaches and the chorizo sausages along with a Georgian baguette (they are just flat baguettes that are a bit chewier).

I made mini chorizo sandwiches, mopping up the juices from the sausages with the bread.


Oh it was a fine meal. Please do try it soon!

And now I shall retire to the patio to continue reading. And yes, I am reading Pamela Anderson’s fiction novel/attempted secret autobiography. Hey, I read everything I can get my hands so if the hot pink cover attracts me in the library stacks, I read it!

Monday, July 12, 2010

The First Few Summer Days...

Last Tuesday (that would be the sixth day of July) the clouds in Vancouver finally parted, the temperature jumped about twenty degrees, and the entire city was slammed into summer over night. I finally got to leave my wool socks and sweatshirts at home and wear shorts to work, rock the sunhat and start getting some color on my still winter white legs.

I love love love summer time. I love the heat and swimming underwater in the ocean for as long as I can hold my breath, I love sundresses and playing croquet on the beach with my friends, leaving the doors and windows open all day, and then I really love barbeques and tasty cocktails in the evenings. I really really love that it’s still a bit light out at 10 o’clock making for days that go on forever. Love it.

I found this list by someone on a blog out there, someone’s summer-must-have list. I think I just made mine.

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This weekend we played in a softball tournament and the weather was perfect - I got just enough sun to stay on a healthy cusp of a sunburn. My highlights would be hitting two line drives over the boys heads, the cooler full of lemonade and vodka that one of the guys brought and lounging in the park all weekend with good people. The softball part was lots of fun but considering we lost three out of our four games I’m not going to say it was a highlight.

It’s no surprise that getting home both evenings I was in no mood to cook after a full day in the sun and running the bases. Saturday night entailed a guilty trip to the grocery store that resulted in smokies, coleslaw, greek salad and seven layer dip. I was starving and basically wanted to eat everything that I could find (sweet and sour pork from the deli? Thank god I held back). Unremarkable, really, but I solidly enjoyed it.

Sunday afternoon we got home after an unfortunate loss (and a delicious breakfast burrito from the concession) and I had all the energy in the world! I had big plans to make a big batch of chana masala to last for a while into the week. And then I accidentally had a really good nap...then insisted on going to the beach for a quick swim. Again, the drive to cook a big meal was gone! However, after feeling the guilt from eating an entirely pre-packaged meal the evening before I needed something to brighten me up. While I was napping Kristopher had nipped out and came home with some huge pieces of chicken marinating in something tasty and a bag of new potatoes. I rinsed off the salt water, gave my head a shake, and found corn, zucchini and cauliflower in the fridge.

I figure if you have a huge bunch of random vegetables that don’t necessarily fit together, forget trying to make one big dish and make a few vegetable side dishes.

Here’s how it went for me:
-Corn shucked and straight onto the barbeque, completely plain. I let it get a bit charred and hot, then cover it with a bit of butter and some salt.

-Zucchini tossed in a bowl with some olive oil, balsamic, and salt and pepper and straight onto the grill as well (pretty typical for me). Again, it gets some black lines on it and it’s good to go.

-The cauliflower got a bit exciting! Considering I had it on hand for the chana masala, I figured I could follow along that line. I chopped the big head into florets, put it on a big baking sheet and gave it a shot of olive oil. Then on went some cumin, coriander, turmeric, curry powder and cayenne – all my typical curry spices - and gave it another toss. Into a 400F oven it went, and when it was starting to turn a bit dark and toasty in spots I took it out. I had previously read a recipe that served roasted cauliflower with a sort of salsa verde (kind of like a dressing), an idea I liked the sound of. Instead of a salsa, I had some plum apple chutney from the farmers market (again, a bit of Indian flavours) and it was heaven.

-Lastly, Kristopher’s new potatoes. Normally I like new potatoes boiled and served with just a bit of butter but I had just bought some pesto (guilty again – I didn’t make it. Basil doesn’t grow on my sunstarved balcony this year!) and I wanted to make something my mom used to make. Boiled new potatoes, blanched green beans, red onions and pesto all stirred together. Try it! I made it without the beans and while I missed the crunch, it was still delicious.

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There you go: four vegetable side dishes that took about twenty minutes to cook. You get benefits of lots of different flavours, and it’s easier to get in lots of tasty healthiness. Admittedly, firing up the oven on a hot summer day isn’t exactly ideal but in hindsight the cauliflower could have been done easily on the barbeque – it’s just a big oven wouldn’t you say? We ate that dinner on the patio, no talking just eating and occasional sips of a pinot grigio in the evening shade - a wonderful finish to a summery weekend.

And that’s that. I just finished my mojito, and it’s time to take the dog for a swim!
What are your favourite summer recipes?