Another Great Bread Bowl ... & Cheese

You'll know from past posts how bread bowls hold a special place for Gail and me. Tonight, Gail made homemade wheat bread bowls, and we filled them with soup made with garden potatoes and leeks. Yum.

We also like a little goat cheese in our soup. Since we still have some cheese left from our cheese share, we did a taste test of how various cheeses compared. We typically use grocery store chèvre logs, so this was the cheese to compare against. The other two were the boucheron-like Ada's Pride from Ruggles Hill Creamery and the brie-like Kunik from Nettle Meadow Farm.

Eaten plain, both the Ada's Pride and the Kunik far outshine the chèvre log. I really expected the Ada's Pride to be my favorite in the soup. Surprisingly, the chèvre worked best in this soup. Well, that's why we do these taste tests.

Gail's bread bowls worked particularly well with the soup. She made a half recipe of this whole wheat sourdough bread from about.com. It had a particularly good mouth feel as I scraped the gooey inner walls of the bowl. Gail wishes she had made four loaves with this half recipe, and I agree. Each loaf was too big for one person, but also too big to hold their bowl shapes.

Grilled Shrimp with Friends

Earlier this week we had friends over for dinner. I would generally highlight the main dish (I grilled some shrimp), but the main dish was not the star of this meal. Don't get me wrong; the grilled shrimp came out beautifully.

Gail got some large shrimp that were pre-brined. You could brine them yourself for about a half hour in 1/2 cup of kosher salt to 4 cups water. You could boil the brine to get all the salt to dissolve, but then you'd have to wait for the brine to cool before adding the shrimp, and you'd be over-thinking it. You can see in the picture how I skewer the shrimp. That makes them easier to work with on the grill. I cooked them directly over hot coals. (Please use a chimney to light the coals and not lighter fluid. The shrimp won't stand up to the lighter fluid.) Don't over-cook the shrimp. Five minutes a side might be too much, but keep an eye on them.

There, I've gone and highlighted the shrimp. But like I said, that wasn't the star.

The star of the meal was Gail's garden vegetables. Look how beautiful they are. Gail dug fresh potatoes in the morning, and served them simply boiled with sour cream and chives on the side. The potato flavors shined. They were buttery and delicious all on their own.

I've become a huge fan of this particular garden saute. It includes beans, corn and tomatoes in a little olive oil. The beans are crisp and delicious and flavored by the sweetness of the corn and the sweet acidity of the tomatoes.

The salad was almost a garden salad, but we had to buy the greens. Who can figure why tomatoes and lettuce are the salad standards. Tomatoes are a hot season crop. Greens are a cool season crop. There is no time where they can be harvested together. But the tomatoes and cucumbers were harvested together, and were the super-fresh focus of the salad.

I love Gail's garden.

Olympics Day 15: French Quiche

It's been a few days without an Olympics feast post, but we're back. Noele is home for the weekend, so Gail wanted to make an international, vegetarian dish. Quiche fit the bill. In addition, we had a feast from Gail's garden including a sauteed vegetable medley and a green salad. We also had sauteed kale from the CSA vegetables our neighbors brought over. As if that wasn't enough, Gail made a berry pie for dessert and I contributed by making her a cappuccino. What's the vegetarian equivalent to the fatted calf?

The quiche had garlic from the garden and sauteed leeks. It came out light, creamy and set up well. It was a good centerpiece to our French feast. I added Gail's recipe to the end of the post.

The side dishes were the real stars though. The kale had intensely full flavors like collard greens. It had a smoky flavor almost like it was cooked in bacon. The other three dishes were straight from Gail's garden. Everything in the salad except the greens was fresh picked including radishes, tomatoes, and a lemon cucumber. The lemon cucumber was small and round like a lemon, with very mild cucumber flavor. The vegetable mix was delightfully sweet from our first ear of corn. It also included eggplant, tomatoes, green beans and summer squash. The new potatoes were simply boiled and had an amazingly bright taste: a star among stars.




The berry pie had strawberries and the biggest blueberries we could imagine. They literally popped in our mouths as we chewed them. A scoop of vanilla ice cream rounded out this definitive summer dessert.





I had a Les Sans Culottes from Brasserie La Choulette. It had a grand sweet flavor, combining malt and hops. It was also slightly over bitter, and those great sweet flavors lingered a bit too long. Despite that, a pretty good beer.




Quiche

1 prepared pie crust
2 oz Cheddar cheese (1/2 c shredded)
4 eggs
1 c whole milk (sour milk is fine; lower-fat milks will not set as well)
2 T diced onions
¼ t salt
½ t thyme

1. Line pie pan with crust; preheat oven to 350 F; shred cheese.
2. Beat eggs; combine with milk, onion, salt and thyme; set aside.
3. Place pie pan on baking sheet. Layer shredded cheese into crust.
4. Pour egg mixture over cheese; bake 40 to 50 min, until set.
5. Cool at least 10 min before cutting. Serve warm or cold.

Variations:

• Use half-and-half, light cream, or heavy cream in place of milk for richer, firmer custard.
• Use 1/8 t cayenne pepper in place of thyme.
• Substitute Monterey Jack or Swiss cheese for Cheddar.
• Add 2 c broccoli or 1 ½ lb spinach (trimmed, chopped, steamed, drained and cooled enough to not curdle eggs) to pie pan before adding cheese; pour egg mixture over.
• Add ½ lb cooked crumbled bacon or ¾ c chopped ham.
• Top cooked quiche with layer of sliced tomatoes; broil 1 min.

Olympics Day 11: Moussaka and Greek Green Beans

I like the Olympics most for the sports I seldom see. I just finished watching the gold medal race of the men's track cycling sprint. Jason Kenny, the cyclist from Great Britain took the gold against Gregory Bauge from France. While it was called a sprint, the first half of the race was just the opposite. Kenny got out in the lead, and literally crawled while watching for Bauge to make a move. In the last lap, both men bolted for the finish. I have no idea why they chose that particular moment to start sprinting.

We almost forgot to celebrate Greece for the Olympics. That would have been an error. But I am glad Gail thought of it. She made moussaka with ground beef and Greek green beans for dinner. I say she made them, but I think she more accurately chanted over them. I put the recipe at the end of this article. The first slice of moussaka came out of the dish clean. This seems to be in part because she created a pan lining from the skin of the eggplant.

The flavor profile comes from the combination of cinnamon, pepper, clove and cumin. And there is a sweetness that comes from the vermouth and eggplant. Gail made the dish extra special by using potatoes she dug from her garden yesterday. She made a double batch, which used the one eggplant we had and another we got from our neighbors, Alan and Janice. Janice brought over the parts of their CSA share from Wilson Farm that they couldn't use. Thank you Alan and Janice.

Janice included some green beans, which Gail used to make a Greek green bean recipe she adapted from Allrecipes.com. Once again, the dish was extra special because it included tomatoes from her garden. The sweet-salt flavors worked well with the moussaka. I've also included this recipe at the end. Gail simmered the beans for only 20 minutes this time, which was plenty by my taste.

I never did get a Greek beer to go with this, so instead I poured Young's Double Chocolate Stout from England. It seems fitting to match Greece with Great Britain for these Olympics. We initially picked this beer because Gail noticed chocolate in the name and was interested. The word "chocolate" in stouts usually refers to the chocolate (or darkly roasted) malt. Young's brewery actually adds some real dark chocolate, hence the "double chocolate" name. You can taste a strong, malty sweetness with flavors of both chocolate and coffee. This is a rich and full-flavored beer, but isn't as creamy as other stouts I've had, although it was really yummy.

Moussaka

Serves: 3

Hands-on prep time: 90 min

Start-to-finish time: 3 hrs

1 egg

1 med eggplant

3 T olive oil

¾ c chopped onion

1 clove garlic

10 oz ground lamb

¼ c sweet vermouth or port

1 t ground cinnamon

1 t salt

½ t ground cumin

½ t ground black pepper

¾ lb baking potatoes

1. Bring egg to room temperature during preparation. Wash eggplant; cut in half lengthwise; score cut side without breaking skin; soak in cold water 10 min to keep from absorbing too much oil when cooking.
2. Heat half of oil in large heavy skillet (if deep enough to boil potatoes in later, even better!) over high heat; drain and pat eggplant dry while oil heats; wear apron to protect against spatters. Place as many eggplant halves as will fit in hot oil, cut side down; sear 1 min without disturbing. Measure 1 T water for each half and add all at once, being careful of spattering; cover; reduce heat to low; steam 10 min. Transfer to platter to cool.
3. Add remaining oil to skillet; adjust to med-low heat. Add onion; cook until tender. Add garlic; stir until fragrant. Add lamb, cook until lightly browned.
4. When eggplants are cool enough to handle, scrape pulp with teaspoon; chop pulp into bite-sized pieces. Reserve skins.
5. Add pulp to skillet; stir in vermouth and spices. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until liquid evaporates, 5 min. Transfer to platter to cool at least 30 min.
6. While eggplant mixture cools, boil salted water for potatoes. Peel and slice into lengthwise chips, about ¼" thick.
7. Par-boil potatoes 3 min; drain.
8. Place oven rack in middle of oven; preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly oil deep casserole dish.
9. Beat egg lightly; mix into cooled eggplant mixture. If mixture is too hot egg will curdle!
10. Line casserole with eggplant skins, skin side down, allowing extra to hang over sides.
11. Estimate number of layers you have enough potato slices for (this will depend on the sizes of both dish and potato slices). Layer potatoes and eggplant mixture, starting and ending with potatoes.
12. Fold eggplant skins over top of layers to seal. Cover with lightly oiled foil if skins don’t meet.
13. Bake 90 min; use a baking sheet to prevent spills; cool on rack 10 min before serving.

Variations: 

• Substitute ground beef or poultry for lamb.
• Sprinkle cheese over each layer of potatoes.
• Substitute mashed potatoes for boiled slices.
• Top with béchamel or tomato sauce

Greek Green Beans

Makes: 1 ½ c

2 t olive oil

¼ c chopped onion

1/16 t minced garlic

1 c green beans, trimmed & snapped into bite-sized pieces

¼ c chopped tomato

¼ t sugar

¼ t salt

1. Trim and snap green beans. Heat olive oil in heavy skillet over med-low heat; sauté onion and garlic until tender and fragrant.
2. Stir in remaining ingredients; reduce heat to low; simmer 45 min until beans are tender.