You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July, 2008.
Storkbite has now reached her 1/2 year, so I have put her on the 100 mile diet. Her protein is very local since we are infrequently separated, I would say that the milk maid (me) is never more than 100 yards away at all times. However, before I started the dreaded solids, I was very concerned by ingredients and processing. So concerned that I thought about it for all of 10 minutes and just started steaming up the vegetables from our CSA farm box and fruits from the Saturday market outside our front door. The fruit men assured me their peaches were from a low spray orchard and then Storkbite’s grandma made her a whole load of organic applesauce. I think she is all set - and super lucky to eat local, organic and minimally processed food at the tender age of 6 months.
Peaches, Plums, Zucchini and Carrots
I thought that making baby food was much more complicated and time consuming than it actually is. In fact, it’s so easy and it’s so delicious that I find myself eating the leftover purees. If you have a steaming basket, simply cube whatever it is you wish to make and steam it on the stove top until it’s very tender. I then let the food cool and run it through a potato ricer - any food mill will do. If the fruit is very fibrous like peaches for example you may wish to puree it even further with a food processor. Storkbite seems fine to eat the lumpy food, so I do nothing more than freeze it in ice cube trays then defrost when she is ready to eat. I had no idea how delighted she would be by the flavor of something other than the boring old milk maid.
What to do with lox, buckle and scallops? See below. We had a busy week, but some of the highlights were bagel and lox salad which I made up out of desperation one night after a hard day of Storkbite wrangling. The pièce de résistance of the week was the ceviche, which I made with fresh scallops and calamari from our local fisher at the farmer’s market. In addition to the ceviche, I made a fresh blueberry buckle with the leftover ingredients from this morning’s buttermilk blueberry pancakes. It’s basically the reincarnation of breakfast for dessert.
Bagel and Lox Salad
This was another variation of breakfast for dinner. It was chopped red onion and capers added to a regular plain old vinaigrette dressing over greens. Then on top, toasted bagel pieces, smoked salmon, and crumbled hard boiled egg.
This was a very quick meal which I threw together in minutes while singing to Storkbite in her high chair. Papa ran in from work, ate his salad and promptly left for a meeting. Yep, that’s what our week was like. Good thing we splurged on scallops for our Saturday night feast.
Ceviche
OK, so this was so damn good. Storkbite’s papa told me that he felt like he was sitting on a beach in Mexico. I took that as a compliment. The best part about this is that I had all the ingredients except the scallops and cherry tomatoes which were purchased steps from our front door at the farmer’s market. I had never made ceviche before and I think I’ve only eaten it once. This was a 100% intuitive recipe that actually worked out! I used about 1 lb. of very fresh scallops, 3 calamari, a hand full of tomatoes, 1 avocado, 5 limes, 1 orange, 1 small white onion, 1/2 a small zucchini, 1 long skinny light green pepper, 1 handful of rough chopped cilantro, salt, pepper and olive oil. I just chopped everything really nicely and mixed in together in a bowl. I let all the flavors marry together in the refrigerator for the afternoon and then we took the entire bowl to the park to watch Twelfth Night. The ceviche, a loaf of semolina bread, a bottle of wine and comedic Shakespeare made for an excellent Saturday evening. Wow - I can’t get over hot summery and delicious a bowl of fresh ceviche is - YUM!
Blueberry Buckle
This dessert started when I ran out of our apartment at 8 AM in my PJs to the farmer’s market to get some blueberries. I woke up wanting buttermilk blueberry pancakes real bad. Instead of making tons of pancakes to save for the week, I dumped the remainder of my homemade batter into a baking dish, threw in a layer of fresh blueberries and topped it with the crumble (or buckle) part of this dessert. It’s simply 3 tbs. butter mixed up with 1/4 c. flour, 1/4 c. brown sugar, 2 tbs. white sugar, pinch of salt and a big fist full of almonds. Mix that up until it’s crumbly and put it all over the top. I baked this for 30 mins. at 350 and it looked nice and brown. I don’t think you can really go wrong with having blueberry buttermilk pancakes twice in one day. I don’t think Storkbite will mind.
The last two nights have been hot as hell here in the City. If you live here then you know that you might as well take all your clothes off and try and cook a meal if you absolutely need to cook yourself a hot meal. Last night I was unable to bring myself to turn on the gas, but tonight I was much more brave. I paid for it tonight and everyone was in a bad mood because of it. Storkbite nearly expired. She had to be excused, took a cool shower and went to bed. I, on the other hand, was able to chill out with a crisp glass of rosé avec an ice cube.
Piyaz
This bean salad is something that I learned from our local Turkish restaurant and it suddenly became a favorite hot day food at our house. It’s so simple, just combine one can of white beans with chopped red onion, garlic, basil, parsley, salt, pepper and olive oil. Mix it up and you have a delicious antipasti called Piyaz that can be eaten with olives, feta, and toasted bread. This is a perfect meal for a hot day, no heating or cooking required.
Striper Filets and Zucchini
Tonight’s dinner required the kitchen to get heated up and it was unpleasant - I’ll warn you. However, it was well worth it to taste the fresh zucchini and butterstick squash cooked down in butter, cipollini onions and olive oil. All of those fresh vegetables were compliments of our CSA. I simply thawed and grilled some white striper filets on my grill pan. Standing over the grill plan was not my most brilliant idea of the day, but fish cooks in a few seconds so it was painful for only a moment. Delicious combination and seriously fresh.
This week has been a total blur since our whole family had the flu last weekend. I didn’t even realize that it was already Thursday until about 11 AM this morning! It’s even more of a challenge to use our CSA box on a week when our spirits have been quite low and lettuce is the last thing we want to eat. I’m going to post three menu items that have been on this weeks roster.
Summer Borscht
I had several beets that needed to be processed and it’s been so hot here so a cold soup fit the bill. Nearly all the ingredients were in our farm box. This soup is as simple as steaming diced beets until tender and letting them cool. Then in a bowl add approx. 2 cups of stock (I used vegetable), 1 cup of the beet juice from the steaming pot, 1 cup of yogurt, 8 oz of sour cream, juice from one lemon, 2 tsp of champagne or white wine vinegar, 1/4 c. sugar, fresh dill and a diced cucumber. Mix it all up and add the cooled beets. It’s really a treat on a cool night and you can’t beat the beautiful color combination of the beets and dill.
Bacon & Egg Salad
The only thing that we were able to stomach over lettuce was bacon and eggs this week. After taking care of Storkbite and her increased fussiness due to the emergence of her first tooth, I have been cutting corners in the kitchen. The abundance of lettuce is really overwhelming on top of everything else so I just made another big salad with bacon, eggs, avocado, paramesan wedges, lettuce, homemade croûtons and a mustard vinagrette. It’s so quick and easy that after a long day this is all I have the patience for. However, it’s not from a box and has no preservatives so it’s just great whole food.
Zucchini Pizza
Our CSA box had an abundance of zucchini for the past three weeks so I’ve gotten creative. I made a delicious zuccarrot cake but my presentation was terrible because it was a humid day. I made lots of puree zucchini baby food for Storkbite and she actually liked it! The last thing I could think of with my harried mind was pizza. This particular pizza was built on pizza dough that I got on my way home at our local pizzeria, then I layered on crumbled feta cheese, zucchini, yellow squash, drizzle of olive oil, onion, salt & pepper, and a sprinkle of parmesan over the top. I baked it at 450 for about 20 minutes until the crust was brown and then arranged fresh basil leaves on the top. It was delicious! The ingredients where as fresh as possible, probably picked yesterday. The best part about this pizza was that it took me ten minutes to put it together and get it in the oven, then I went and put Storkbite to bed and once she was fast asleep the pizza was ready to be enjoyed - in peace and quiet.
It’s been a hot week in NYC and since we forwent our CSA box last week we almost had to eat mac n’ cheese this week. Instead I got creative with my sandwich making skills. The first night we had variation of a BLT with A (for avocado) and no L (for lettuce) and the next night we had a hummus and avocado masterpiece. The key to these great sandwiches is this amazing Turkish bread which is spongy on the inside yet toasts up crunchy on the outside. It’s SO delicious and versatile. Every time I ask the folks at our local Turkish grocery about this bread they only tell me that it’s called “Turkish bread”, not very helpful for those who do not have a local Turkish grocery. That’s one of the many beauties of living in ethnically diverse Queens. Anyhow, for consumers out there - foccacia is a similar type of bread and can be used to build this sandwich.
Tuesday night we built the following sandwich: bacon, sprouts, tomato, avocado, cucumber (no lettuce) and olive oil mayonnaise. The particular brand I used was called Mayoliva which I first bought in Argentina and then subsequently found at a bakery in Corona Queens.
Wednesday night it was more of the same: avocado, tomato, sprouts, hummus and olive oil mayonnaise. It really hit the spot and the cucumbers cool things down after a hot day. It’s CSA night tonight and I’m feeling a big pizza coming on. We will see if we can swing it and if Storkbite cooperates tonight.
Start to finish -This sandwich can be prepped and ready in 10 minutes.
Our favorite (and only) nearby Indian restaurant closed just before Storkbite was born and we haven’t found a place worthy of replacing it. We have since been faced with making Indian food at home. I’m not really good at it, but there is an amazing grocery store nearby called Patel Bros. and the have all the best ingredients. We just got back from visiting Storkbite’s grandparents earlier in the day and I had a jar of masala simmer sauce. I had never used a totally prepared - just add chicken - simmer sauce before. We had been on the plane and Storkbite behaved badly (she is just 5 months so I should give her a break), so I decided that it was an excellent occasion for the Masala simmer sauce. I just added cubed chicken breasts from my frozen reserve and made some basmati rice. For a quick meal, it was pretty darn delicious. It’s going to be a bland week here at Storkbite Stew. I had to give last week’s CSA box away due to our vacation. We will be back to frozen foods until Thursday night. Stand by…
The little jar of masala sauce only suggested that I use water; however, I should have used less water and more heavy cream. I simmered for 15 minutes and then added about a 1/4 cup of heavy cream and stirred.
We plated the basmati rice, covered it with chicken tikka masala and topped it with fresh cilantro. Not a bad meal for a night that was headed towards take-out.
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