Food, Fun, and Friends

Yesterday afternoon I was delighted to attend a gathering of foodies and food bloggers from the area. We convened on Shayne's home in Livonia, ten "lady food bloggers" and assorted husbands and children, for an afternoon of homemade goodies and lively conversation.

Shayne's homemade mojitos with fresh mint from her garden. Yum!

I had been unable to attend the previous gathering due to being on vacation so I was looking forward to this one. I managed to snag a quick catnap on the car ride from Ann Arbor; the 20-mile training run I had done that morning was weighing heavily on my body. I didn't want to nod off at the table once we arrived!

Kate's contribution to the feast.

Shayne had prepared a stupendous buffet of fixings for homemade pizza grilled on a slate slab. Individual balls of dough were hand-formed into little rounds and spread with homemade tomato sauce, prosciutto, salami, grilled chicken, onions, basil, hot peppers, a variety of cheeses...whatever one's heart desired.

We talked, drank, ate (and ate, and ate), laughed, and had a grand time.

I'm so glad I was able to attend this gathering and I look forward to the next one!

Good food and new friends make for a lovely afternoon. And we were serenaded by the local high school marching band practicing across the street. Live music and dining outdoors-- what could be better?

I brought two items: chocolate beet cake and sauteed summer squash pasta salad.

CHOCOLATE BEET CAKE

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  
• 3 eggs at room temperature
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 2 cups pureed beets (can be more or less; it really doesn’t affect the taste. 3-5 beets depending on size will work.)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour (all-purpose, whole wheat, or a mixture depending on your preference)
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
• confectioners’ sugar for dusting (if desired)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter and flour a 10-cup Bundt cake pan (other baking pans will work as well).

To make beet puree, trim stems and roots off beets and quarter them. Place in heavy sauce pan filled with water. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 50 mins or until the beets are tender. Drain off remaining liquid and rinse beets in cold water. Slide skins off and place beets in blender. Pulse until a smooth puree forms. Let cool slightly before using in cake.

In a mixing bowl, cream ¾ cup butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs; mix well. Melt chocolate in a double boiler with remaining ¼ cup butter; stir until smooth. Cool slightly. Blend chocolate mixture, beets and vanilla into the creamed mixture. Sift together the flour, baking soda , salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a separate bowl; add to the creamed mixture and blend until flour is just mixed in. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Cool completely before dusting with confectioners’ sugar.


SAUTEED SUMMER SQUASH WITH RED PEPPER AND ONION

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 lbs summer squash, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/4-inch dice
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat and add the onion. Cook until tender, 5-8 minutes; add garlic, squash, red pepper, and 3/4 tsp salt. Increase heat to medium-high and cook, stirring, until the squash is translucent and the red pepper tender, about 10 minutes. Add black pepper and additional salt to taste. Stir in the parsley and remove pan from heat. Serve as a side dish by itself or as a filling for a vegetable tart, gratin, or frittata.

I cooked a batch of whole-wheat penne pasta and tossed it with the squash mixture while it was still in my big braising pan. I also added a sprinkle of cayenne pepper to boost the taste because I thought it was kind of bland the first time I had it. I confess I am not a huge fan of squash and this, I feel, is the least "squashy"-tasting squash dish I have ever had. I thought it was delicious, in fact. I've eaten it both hot off the stove and cool as a pasta salad and loved it both times.

Blueberry Pancakes

The end result, served for breakfast at my parents' house in Ohio.

Blueberries ripe for the picking

Last week after work a co-worker, Lori, and I headed out to The Blueberry Patch, an organic blueberry farm in Grass Lake. I have driven past this establishment countless times in the past but never stopped. It was time! Time for ripe, luscious, sweet Michigan blueberries! I had never really thought about where blueberries came from before. I had an incorrect idea that they grew on vines or in watery bogs a la cranberries. Imagine my surprise when they turned out to grow on upright shrubs. I took these blueberries down to my parents' in Ohio last weekend where my dad turned them into fantastic blueberry pancakes. I collected almost three pounds of blueberries and have been eating them all week in my regular morning yogurt. I highly recommend the Blueberry Patch as a berry-picking destination for anyone in the Ann Arbor area.

Entrance to the blueberry bush area.

Ready for picking

Lori elbow-deep in ripe blueberries

Sampling the merchandise

Steve Toth, owner of the Blueberry Patch

Fresh Michigan blueberries, washed and ready to use

Blueberry pancakes on the griddle

Getting closer...

Ahhhh...perfection! Blueberry pancakes with a side of bacon and good strong coffee. Maple syrup courtesy of a neighbor who tapped the street's sugar maples and made her own syrup.

Sichuan Dry-Fried Green Beans

The summer's bounty of fresh green beans is upon us. What to do with the flood of beans! Thanks to a generous friend I acquired the book A Canon of Vegetables: 101 Classic Recipes by Raymond Sokolov and in it I found this recipe (page 28). It was just meant to be.

• 6 tbsp canola oil
• 1 lb green beans, ends snipped and cut into 2-inch pieces
• 1/4 lb ground pork
• 1 tbsp rice wine (mirin)
  
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Heat 3 tbsp of the canola oil in a wok or large skillet until the oil smokes. Lower the heat to medium. Add the beans all at once and stir-fry until tender, 6 to 10 minutes. Drain and discard any remaining oil. Set the beans aside.


Heat the remaining 3 tbsp canola oil in the pan until it just begins to smoke. Add the pork and stir-fry for about 30 seconds. Add the rice wine and soy sauce and stir. Return the beans to the pan and stir. Add the sesame oil and stir. Distribute among plates and enjoy!

I had this mystery vegetable in the crisper drawer and decided to shred it to add to this dish. I used my trusty mandoline slicer and julienned the crap out of this thing and added it to the pan with the beans. It browned up nicely and was a pleasant, if slightly bland, addition to the dish. I only found out later that it was kohlrabi. It worked, and that's all I wanted.

I made a batch of brown rice to accompany the bean dish. Everything is better when mixed with brown rice and eaten (clumsily!) with chopsticks. The miracle of the evening was that John ate the green beans without complaining. People. you have no idea how momentous that was!

I'm Stale Like Last Week's Bread...

I know, I haven't been posting. I even have stuff on the camera card that I really need to upload to the 'puter. It was momentous: John ate green beans! And didn't complain!

Things You Never Want To Hear In A Kitchen:

CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHOP CHUNK

"Uh-oh."'

Quickly inspect thumb.

Whew. Disaster avoided, though my fingernail suffered a fatal wound. I had to put it out of its misery. It's now the shortest of all of my fingernails. I guess good thing for strong fingernails, eh?

Lobster Dinner: A Meal in Pictures

I recently spent a week on vacation in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with my family. While there, I cooked a couple of meals, my mom and dad cooked a couple, we went out to dinner once, and we had the meal that everyone visiting the New England coast should have: a boiled lobster dinner. We ordered lobster from a fresh seafood place not even a mile away from our beach house in the morning and picked it up that evening, hot and steaming. Here, then, is that meal, told in pictures.

Beer Can Chicken

Whoa.

We just demolished almost an entire whole chicken (Back Forty Acres, of course) which I prepared in the time-honored way of chicken a la redneck, in other words, a chicken with an aluminum beer can shoved up its...! In this case the vintage brew of choice was Budweiser, the grill was Weber, and the dry rub was fragrant.

That bird came off the grill smelling of heaven. I couldn't even wait the dictated 10 minutes before performing the can extraction procedure. The chicken was sliced, diced, and parsed between the three of us (accompanied by roasted red potatoes with olive oil and fresh rosemary and a salad of mixed greens from Tantré Farm) and we set to devouring, and devour we did. The skin was perfectly crisped, the meat juicy, tender, and full of flavor. Ever the model of decorum, I pried the meat from the bone with knife and fork until my baser instincts took over and I cast them aside to take hold of the leg with my bare hands and tear the shreds with my teeth in a savage display of carnivorousness (is that even a word?). I didn't care; no one was watching and this was some of the best damn chicken I've ever eaten. Once dinner was finished we clustered around what was left of the chicken to pick it clean, digging around the skeleton to extract every last shred of flesh. I still have paprika under my fingernails.

Beer Can Chicken (from Weber's Big Book of Grilling):

• 1 tsp dry mustard
• 1 tsp granulated onion
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp granulated garlic
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  

• 1 whole chicken, 4 to 5 pounds ( the one I used tonight was 3.6 lbs)
• Vegetable oil
• 1 16-ounce can of beer (we used a standard 12-oz can because our chicken was smaller)
  

In a small bowl combine the dry rub ingredients. Remove and discard the neck, giblets, and any excess fat (if present) from the chicken. Rinse the chicken, inside and out, under cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Rub all over with a small amount of vegetable oil and season inside and out with the dry rub.

Open the beer can and pour off (or drink!) half the beer. Set the half-full can on a flat surface and slide the chicken over the top so the can fits inside the body cavity. Transfer the bird to the grill, keeping the can upright, and carefully balance it on its two legs and the can. Grill over indirect medium heat until the juices run clear and the internal temperature reaches 170 deg F in the breast and 180 deg F in the thigh, about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours (depending on bird size). Carefully remove the chicken and can from the grill (don't spill the beer). Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before lifting it from the can. Discard the hot beer. Cut the chicken into pieces and serve.

Bounty of the Earth

The contents of my Week 4 share box. Usually I post about each share after I've made some things from the vegetables within, but this week it was all too pretty to just divide into bags and stick in the fridge.

I think...I'm going to make myself a gin smash with some of that fragrant spearmint and contemplate what I can make for dinner tonight.