Not to slight the bread, but sometimes just having the stuff in the middle is all you really need to be satisfied. BLT in a bowl with a little avocado and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano is a lovely thing.
Okay, I confess. I toasted the baguette and had it on the side…
Thank you Ann! Thank you Ann! Thank you Ann! for the freshly-picked, homegrown tomatoes, the products of a community garden tended by many diligent and loving hands and nourished with homemade compost.
What shall I do with these lovelies? Make salad? pasta sauce? sorbet? Part of me just wants to fall face down on them and wallow in their summer freshness.
Okay, so that last part sounded really weird. But after pawing over my spindly, dried-out tomato plants and having to settle for their measly offerings that have split and become dehydrated by the harsh desert sun, and after going to the market and facing too many insipid hothouse tomatoes and flavorless tomatoes that were shipped in from another hemisphere, these really do inspire me. (If I don’t get on the stick early on Saturday morning, my local farmers’ market packs up and leaves before I get there, so I’m stuck with the offerings at the grocery stores.)
I tried growing heirloom tomatoes in large pots this year, so I could drag them around the yard until I found the degree of sun they preferred. What I didn’t take into consideration is how badly they dry out and that watering them every single day still isn’t enough to satisfy them and help them produce anything much larger than a ping pong ball.
The wee little cherry tomatoes are doing fine and taste great (usually I eat them all while I’m out there watering everything else). But it takes an awful lot of cherry tomatoes to provide a sufficient crop for everything I’d like to do with a mess o’ tomatoes. So I must depend on the kindness of friends and neighbors until I learn the secret of growing tomatoes in the desert. And when that day comes, I in turn will be sharing them with those who have yet to figure it out!
Ever since I discovered how yummy the avocado shakes are at a Vietnamese restaurant back home in Memphis, I’ve been keen to try another sweet application for avocados.
So this weekend I made avocado ice cream, and I’m pleased to report that it’s pretty good stuff. I couldn’t lay my hands on any Haas avocados–which have the creamiest texture–so I used the Santa Cruz variety. They have a watery texture, but still, they work just fine. The result is wonderfully creamy, with a light, fresh flavor. Himself complained that the ice cream tastes a bit “green” and “planty,” and I know what he means. I think it needs more lemon juice to balance out the intense avocadoness (how’s THAT for a new word?). We drizzled a good balsamic vinegar over it (yeah, it looks like chocolate sauce in the photo), and the acid, extra sweetness and added oomph! of the rich balsamic really made the ice cream sing.
I’m going to tweak this recipe and keep working to devise an ice cream that will become a summer staple (I’ve just spotted another recipe that calls for coconut cream–sounds like a worthy experiment). With the huge fuerte avocado tree we have in our backyard that will soon begin pelting us with its bounty, we’ll be able to make it often, without paying $2 per avocado. And the fuerte is creamier and more flavorful than the Santa Cruz. We may not miss the Haas at all…
I’ve had marshmallows on my mind lately. Not those bags of stale, rubbery bits that get dropped into hot chocolate or, regrettably, sprinkled over sweet potato casserole. I’m talking about freshly-made marshmallows in the flavors of my choice and devising.
Rather than try a test batch in some everyday kinda flavor, I went straight for the improvisational.
My first effort was a margarita marshmallow, flavored with lime and orange extracts and topped with a bit of orange zest and large sea salt crystals. There’s no tequila in them–maybe I’ll try that next time–but the familiar happy-hour blend of lime and salt is certainly there.
The large sea salt crystals worked better than small ones, because they melt partially after sitting on the sugary surface for a few hours–small salt crystals would melt completely. This gives you the crunch of the salt, along with the layer of moist salt that’s so appealing on the rim of the margarita glass. The alpha batch is a bit on the limey side, but that’s an easy fix. Since this version doesn’t have tequila in it, it’s technically okay for the kiddies. I may try a batch and sub some tequila for part of the water component.
Next I made what I call Green Fairies–absinthe marshmallows. Instead of cheating with anise flavoring, I used absinthe, but perhaps a bit too much–I think it was the alcohol that flattened out the fluff, so the treats are a little on compact side. They’re intensely anisey/liquorishy, which is one of those flavors that you either like or don’t. All my guinea pigs so far have really gone for them (myself included), so I think this recipe is a keeper.
Then I tried a batch of marshmallows with the flavors of an Amaretto Sour, using Amaretto and lemon juice. I’m not including a picture, because they’re a stark white and difficult to shoot with any appeal. I wasn’t inclined to try coloring them brown (I leave that to chocolate). I need to tweak the balance of Amaretto and lemon juice–this test batch didn’t have enough pucker power to offset the heavy sweetness of the Amaretto and the marshmallow itself. And I might try adding a dash or two of lemon bitters to bring up the interest level a little more.
I finally relented and made one the kiddies would like–along with the kid in all of us who ever roasted marshmallows around a campfire, then smashed them into a sandwich with a Hershey bar and graham crackers: s’moreshmallows, I call them. These are chocolate marshmallows (okay, I can’t resist the urge to tinker, so I added a tiny bit of orange extract) rolled in toasted, finely ground graham cracker crumbs. I think the fat content in the cocoa powder flattened some of the volume in the mallows but they tasted great, especially after I rolled them in the crumbs.
Not wanting to let anything go to waste, I made stars of the middle parts left over from cutting chocolate rounds for the s’moreshmallows and coated them in graham cracker crumbs, too.
So much for the desire to create grown-up marshmallows. While I was carrying on over how much I liked the s’more-like marshmallow, I decided to try bubblegum, bright pink and coated with sparkly blue sanding sugar, just for fun. This one appears to be the most popular of all the marshmallows I’ve tried so far. I’ll definitely be making these again, probably around the holidays.
At this point I have to give the gelatin a little rest. But it’s fun going into my mad scientist’s lab, a.k.a. the kitchen, rolling up my sleeves and seeing what I can create. Marshmallows are fun. It’s easy to eat too many, though. Next I’ll have to devise a Pepto-Bismol marshmallow to handle the overindulgence.
Evan Kleiman, everyone’s favorite radio food person–who’s actually an honest-to-God chef–is hosting a pie-a-day challenge on her KCRW blog. Of course I want to help her out so she doesn’t have to eat a pie a day all by herself. After all, Evan’s a friend, a colleague and a nice person. Who wouldn’t want to make a pie to aid the cause?
I devised a pie with my favorite combo: bacon and chocolate. In addition to the crumbled bacon, I included toasted walnuts and maple flavoring in the chocolate filling. The crust I made with a combination of butter (well chilled) and bacon fat (frozen!). Not a tremendous amount of flake to it, but when it tastes that good and has that great a mouth feel, who’s going to quibble about a few flakes of crust? Not I!
You can find my pie included in her KCRW pie-a-day blog, right below the cat who apparently fell asleep in a pie plate. Little upstager…!
This pie is a keeper. I’ll make it again and again, just not every day. As you can imagine, it’s not the healthiest of desserts. But as Julia says, it’s about enjoying it all in moderation and small helpings.
