Osso Bucco

This is my mom.

And that big bowl?  That's Osso Bucco.  Yum-my!  She kicked off our series of family dinners with several giant dishes of osso bucco that she had made ahead of time and frozen.  I've only made osso bucco once before, and it was delightful, so it was great to have it again.

It's one of those dishes that takes a long time to cook, but the preparation isn't too difficult.  Next time I'll be making a big double portion (at least!) in order to have some left to freeze.  It was easy to take the dishes from the freezer to the oven and just heat them through until they were ready to eat.

I read up a little on the dish - it's from the Milan area, made with veal shanks stewed in the traditional combination of onion, carrot and celery (sometimes with tomatoes) and sometimes garnished with a gremolata (garlic and herbs minced together).  We'll have to work up a recipe for the dish and share it soon.

Thanks, mom!

Back from Vacation

I don't know about you, but sometimes I need a vacation from vacation!

We had a great time visiting the whole family (yes, the whole family) at the farm for a week.  Like a true farm family, (which we are not!) most of the day revolved around food prep.  This year, our matriarch had a stroke of genius: she assigned a night of dinner to each couple or family.  It was a neat way of distributing the work with the unexpected bonus of letting each of us show off a favorite recipe and learn several new ones.  With varying skills, palates and a few food allergies, it was a blast!

I'll gather up some of the recipes for grilled marlin, chipolte cheese biscuits, garden-fresh veggies, beans and couscous and....save room for pie!

Vacation

We're on vacation this week, gathering ideas and having fun.  See you in a week!

Wolf River Apples

It's time for summer apples around here - those small, early ones that are just starting to ripen.  I got these at the farmer's market on Saturday from a couple who were displaying several baskets of little apples with different names.

Ever since I read Michael Pollen's book The Botany of Desire, I've wanted to discover and taste new varieties of apples.  Even with the newly expanded collection of apples at the store (Jazz, Ambrosia, Honey Crisp) I can't help but wonder how different our apple choices would be if the Golden and Red Delicious hadn't been so perfect for...grocery stores.

So of course, I was a sucker for the hand-written sign next to these lovelies:

Wolf River Antique Apples - Best for Pies

I  cut out the cores and the little worm holes and sliced them up.  I love slicing apples for pies.  One summer, I worked in a bakery - minimum wage, no training - and loved it.  It was consistently 120 degrees in the back of this small place, no place to sit but the sacks of flour, which are not as soft as you might imagine, and lots of repetitive tasks, like washing pots and pans over and over.  I loved it.  That's where I learned to make apple pies, peel an apple skin off in one piece and get pretty even slices in a flash (but that's a story for another post!).  Back to Wolf River....

Uncooked, they had a slightly citrus, starchy flavor.  We ate a few slices with some New Moon Cheese from Chapel Hill Creamery (my favorite!) and they were great against the fresh creamy taste of the cheese.

I tossed the apples with some butter, brown sugar, oats and cinnamon, covered them and put them in the oven at 375.  My best guess at a recipe on this one:

5 small apples, sliced

2 TB butter, melted

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2-3/4 cups oats (rolled, not quick)

They baked for about 20 minutes and the apples got pretty steamy in the dish - they might have stayed more firm if I'd peeled them, but I like the skin.  They were not a juicy apple, keeping a relatively firm texture in spite of the steam, so I do think they'd be "best in pies".  Next time, I'd add a little salt to bring out their flavor more, and maybe experiment with some of the curry/pepper/spicy combinations I've seen drifting from dinner into dessert lately.

Worth the adventure.  Can't wait to see what kind of apples they have next time.

Vegetable Tatin

Remember those summer squash and tomatoes from the farmer's market?  Well, inspired by a simple recipe in Barefoot in Paris, we assembled one of the best vegetable side dishes I've had this summer.

Summer Vegetable Tatin

Saute 2 cloves of garlic and 1/2 onion (chopped) in olive oil for 5-8 minutes, until the onions begin to softenn
Spread the mixture on the bottom of a baking dish.

Slice 3 summer squash and 2 large tomatoes and arrange in the dish.  Our tomatoes were large, so I sandwiched them between the smaller squash slices.

Sprinkle the top with parmasean cheese, salt and pepper.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes covered, then another 30 minutes, uncovered.  (if it begins to brown too quickly on top, recover).

With something this simple, the freshest ingredients make the difference.  We used small squash and Champion tomatoes, but any thick, beefy tomatoe should work.

I imagine it would have been good left-over...if there'd been any left over!

Easiest Summer Tuna Salad

This tuna salad depends mainly on two things:  good tomatoes and good tuna.  Everything else is secondary if you get those two right.  Start with cherry tomatoes - the yellow ones are really sweet around here this year, and sometimes appeal to kids who aren't great tomatoe fans.  We snip them in half with kitchen scissors, much easier than trying to cut them with a knife, and easy for kids to do.

The tuna of choice is white albacore, in water.  You may have to try a few to find the brand you prefer, but I like large, firm chunks of fish that hold together when they come out of the can. 

A sauce of  half mayonaise and half plain yogurt gives the salad some moisture without going overboard on fat or getting too rich.  From there, you can add whatever suits you that day.  We had some leftover potato salad with some chopped celery, tarragon, imitation crab and the same mayo/yogurt sauce.  Mixed that in and voila: a perfect summer salad.

Farmer's Market

Saturday morning, 7:50 am, 86 degrees already...this weekend's trip to the farmer's market needed to happen early.  We've been lucky enough to live near good farmer's markets and try to get there on a fairly regular basis.  This weekend, in the middle of our crazy heat wave, the stalls were flooded with tomatoes and squash - what a lovely sight.

I'm not a gardener - too much shade, not enough time - so aside from the kitchen herbs out back, we rely on the store and the market for good ingredients.  Luckily here in North Carolina, the farmer's market is close by and plentiful.  Little ones have sprung up at shopping centers and saturday evening music venues, but the big one under the market stalls is a regular stopping place for us.

I love the bustle of the stalls getting set up, the overheard conversations between customers, vendors and families.  In a small town, you're bound to see people you know, or at least recognize, and I like feeling connected to this place we live.  There's a similar sense of connection that comes from seeing the food lined up in baskets and buckets, dirt still clinging to the garlic, little bunches of purslane arrayed next to the basket with a permanent-marker sign Purslane!  Try some! and the annotated apples Wolf River antique apple - best for pies. 

The sweet smell surrounding a basket of small yellow melons caught my attention and I asked the young man behind the table what they were. Sprite melons.  They're real sweet.  Taste a little like cantelope, a little like honeydew, but not like Sprite. 

How could you resist a sprite melon?

It's going to be a good week!