Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Cucumber Lime Mint Agua Fresca

If you can't eat your cucumbers, drink them. Although I love myself a Pimm's Cup, I needed a faster, more efficient way to eat all of the cucumbers that keep showing up in my CSA box. I had a spectrum of cucumbers, ranging from "fresh out of the box" to "on deaths doorstep".
The remains of one of the dying bits

When I saw a friend on facebook had linked to this Cucumber Lime Mint Agua Fresca, I was sold. I made slight modifications, but here's the gist:

Cucumber Lime Mint Agua Fresca:
  • 2 med cucumbers
  • 1/2 c. fresh sqeezed lime juice (~5 limes)
  • 1 1/4 c. water
  • 1/2 c. sugar (or honey)
  • 5-10 mint leaves
  1.  Chop the cucumbers and discard the ends.
  2. Combine everything into the blender and liquify. If you have an older, less functioning blender, you might find it easier to put all the liquids in first then add the cucumber bit-by-bit.
  3. Strain through cheese cloth (make sure you sqeeze all the liquid out), chill, and drink.
note: warming the limes in the microwave will increase the amount of juice you get.

I used a lot less mint that the original recipe, but I thought it still had a great mint flavor. In fact, I would suspect that using the original amount would have overdone it.

The result was extremely refreshing. It was good all by itself, but it also mixed well with gin and/or Pimm's (no suprise there). As long as my CSA keeps handing out cucumbers by the pair, this will probably be a weekly tradition for me.



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Eggplant Tartine

Using up all food from the CSA within a week can be difficult. Where others might falter, I try and take it in stride. In the winter, the easy answer was always soups.  Now that summer heat is upon us, I have been trying my luck with other methods to use up my foods. This week I was getting desperate, I had a record number of things to use (some dying, others were ok...for now). It was getting bad. I swear I could hear them screaming in my dreams, I would wake up in a cold sweat desperately thinking of ways to put them out of their misery. The dying group included 1 eggplant, a green bell pepper, and three heirloom tomatoes.
Please....kill us.....

I also had some fresh garlic from a couple weeks ago that wasn't looking so...fresh. I also had some shitake mushrooms and some sage on hand. I decided to make the following (which I'm going to call Eggplant Tartine, cuz "open faced eggplant sandwich" sounds unfortunate):

Eggplant Tartine:
  • 1 med eggplant, sliced med-thick
  • 1 green bell pepper, cut into strips
  • 3 med/large tomatoes, diced
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1c shitake mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1/2 tsp oregano
  • 3 sage leaves, finely chopped
  • 1/4c white wine
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 c. milk
  • ~2c. panko bread crumbs
  • olive oil
  • salt/pepper
  • Romano cheese (or Parmesan)
  1. Preheat oven to 350. Whisk together the milk and egg. Dip each eggplant slice and then cover in breadcrumbs. Place on a greased baking sheet (or use a silipad). Sprinkle with some kosher salt.
  2. Toss the bell pepper with some olive oil to coat arrange on a second baking sheet. We want them to roast, so don't pile them up, keep them spread out. Sprinkle with some kosher salt.
  3. Heat up a large skillet or dutch oven on med and add a few Tbl. of olive oil and onions. Cook until translucent and starting to brown (~6.4 min), then add mushrooms and garlic. Keep stirring for a few minutes, add a pinch of salt.  Unless you are using a non-stick pan, you should start to have brown bits sticking to the pan (after ~3-4 min). De-glaze the pan with the wine, then add the tomatoes, bay leaf, oregano, sage, and salt and pepper. Cover and turn down the heat to low, cook for about thirty minutes (while you cook the veggies) and stir occasionally.
  4. Put the eggplant pan and the bell pepper plan in the oven. Cook for 30 minutes, flipping every thing over half way through.
  5. When the eggplant/pepper are done, check the sauce.  If it is pretty wet, take the lid off and let some of the liquid evaporate. Its ok to have a little liquid, but you don't want a soup.
  6. Put 4-5 eggplant pieces on a dish, top with some strips of roasted bell pepper, then a heaping of the tomato sauce. Grate some cheese on top, then enjoy!
I was suprised at how good this tasted, even ignoring the fact that I was winging it. I'm usually not a big fan of eggplant, but it was nicely balance by the tomato sauce. The sage complemented it really well, I added it hoping to just get rid of it but it took it up another level. It might have been even better if I had put some cheese on the eggplant as well, but I guess that goes without saying (you could put cheese on a truck tire and call that an improvement too). I plan on archiving this one for future use!

The decayed food ganged up on the poor shitakes

eggplant is breaded and ready for the oven!

Sauted onion, mushroom, and garlic, just before the de-glazing.  You can see the fond!

All toasted up!

Roasted bell pepper strips

The tomato sauce, there still a little juice left!

All stacked up

The finished product!


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Sunday, June 3, 2012

Strawberry (Decay) Flambé


In some parts of the country, strawberry season is just beginning. Here in New Orleans, we are at the tail end. They have been officially removed from the CSA box this week, and the only ones left were a heap of juicy ones on the decay table. As in, they are already juicing, everywhere.
Juicing, everywhere.

I was fortunate enough to find some that were relatively mold free. However, these would not be good strawberries for chomping. Instead, I thought I'd make strawberries flambé. If you have never purposefully set your food aflame, I highly recommend it. It's easy, cheap, and quite fun. Plus, it makes you feel wealthy (hence me hearing Lucille Bluth's voice in my head while I eat them). I had half of an orange dying in the fridge so I thought I'd use that too.

Strawberries Flambé
-berries (I used sliced stawberries)
-1/2 orange, juiced (optional)
- 1 shot high-proof booze (~60 or above, I mixed triple sec with vodka, aka a poor mans grand marnier)
-you base (I used oatmeal with greek yogurt)
 - 1/2 Tbl butter

1. Heat the butter in a sausepan (note: I avoid using non-stick pans for this. it might be ok, but I just play it safe and use stainless steel.  Also, DON'T use wooden utensils when the berries are on fire)
2. when butter starts to brown, add berried and cook for a bit, stirring.
3. Add orange juice and stir, let cook for a few minutes until it gets a litle more syrupy.
4. Make sure the heat is on about a medium and the stove vent is on.  Add the liquor and light. You can shake the pot to get bigger flames, but watch out, you can melt your stove. If the flames get too big you can turn down the heat or lift the pot off the stove, or if they get really bad just throw a lid on it and they will be put out. They will burn for a while and then go out on their own.
5. Cook until reduced, it should be almost syrupy.  Drizzle over your base.  I used oatmeal with greek yogurt, this would also be great on ice cream.

While I have flambéd many times before, this was my first time using strawberries. It turned out really well, the strawberries were the main player with a hint of orange. This can be easily modified for any berry, just start with a fat (usually butter), add your fruit, add a sweetener (I used juice but you can use white or brown sugar), then booze. I like to do butter+blueberries+brown sugar+rum, or you can do blackberries with brandy.
The dying fruits

Heat butter, berries, then orange juice.
On fire!
Finished, on top of oatmeal + greek yogurt



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