July Garden

 holy tomato...

 pumpkin volunteer from the compost pile!

 onion flower...

 BASIL PATCH!!! 3 KINDS!!!

 let the cucumber games BEGIN!!!

(ah! I need help!!!)

Roasted Roots Salad

It's been really hot here, and I couldn't bear turn the oven on, so I fired up the grill, charred some veggies, made a simple dressing and enjoyed the Sunday evening with friends. The house cooled down to 73 degrees last night, (that's good!) I imagine it wouldn't have been able to cool so much if I'd roasted the veggies in the oven...I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did!


Roasted Roots Salad (adapted from this recipe)


Dressing:
1/4 c EACH: fresh lemon juice, red wine vinegar
1/8 c mustard, I used spicy brown
1/2 T toasted, ground cumin (toast in a dry skillet over med. heat for a couple minutes)
scant 1/2 c olive oil
salt and pepper
Directions:
Combine all ingredients in mason jar and shake, can be made ahead of time. 


Roots:
8-10 carrots (approx.) - depending on size, peeled and chopped into large enough pieces so as to not fall through grill
5-7 beets (approx.) (follow directions for carrots)
2-3 T. canola oil


1/2 c feta cheese
1/2 c chopped Italian parsley


Directions:
steam beets and carrots for approx. 8-10 min, cook until still quite firm when poked with knife, you want to cook them about 1/2 way and finish on the grill


spread veggies on cookie sheet, sprinkle generously with s + p and canola oil 


spread veggies over med/hi coals, flip a couple times and cook until you have a nice char on them. remove from grill, place in bowl, dress to your liking with the dressing, sprinkle on cheese and parsley and enjoy!

crystallized ginger....stop buying and start making!

It's no secret that I have a sweet tooth...and I LOVE crystallized ginger. The problem is that this sweet treat is quite expensive is often made with sulfur dioxide to help fix the color. I tried making some and it's pretty darn good. So easy to make! 


Disclaimer: It's hard to make this stuff look pretty, so just don't look that closely!

Recipe HERE from David Lebovitz


The only thing I did differently was let the ginger dry on the rack overnight, with the kitchen fan going (it's HOT this summer...) so let it dry as long as you wish, and I'd store it in the fridge, just to be safe. 

garlic harvest 2012

watermelon bomb

It's summer and who wants to turn the oven on? I sure don't! In lieu of a birthday cake for a friend, we recently made an ice cream watermelon bomb a la Martha Stewart. It was so good! (I did have to turn the oven on to make the sponge cake, but only for 30 minutes or so....)

Martha has a very precise way of constructing this bomb, I, on the other hand am a little less particular, but one thing's for certain, you must START A DAY OR TWO BEFORE YOU WANT TO SERVE IT!

Ingredients:
enough red ice cream to fill the bowl (see recommendations below)
enough white and green ice cream to line the bowl
2 -3 c chocolate graham cracker, broken up
1 round vanilla cake (size depends on the size of your bowl)
1 c (approx.) raspberry jam or lemon curd (opt.)
1 T lemon zest (opt.)

First:
Decide on your favorite green colored ice cream, I prefer lime sherbet
Second:
Decide on your favorite white colored ice cream, this one's easy, vanilla
Third:
Decide on your favorite pink colored ice cream, raspberry sherbet is awesome
Fourth:
make a round sponge cake, I made this one and it worked fine, however the cornstarch-in-a-cake-thing was odd to me, so any old yellow cake will do...


Make watermelon 'rind':
find a deep bowl, (martha says a 3 quart bowl will do) about the size of a giant watermelon cut in half. line it with saran wrap. soften the green ice cream, with a large spatula or spoon dump it into the bowl and smear it up the sides of the bowl...you're making the watermelon rind, work with me here...


once you have the green layer in place, put bowl into freezer to harden a bit. take the white ice cream out of freezer and soften it a bit, repeat what you did with the green ice cream, you're making the inner rind of the watermelon now, when finished, put bowl in freezer to harden...


Layer cake:
carefully slice vanilla cake in half and smooth on a layer of your filling of choice. I used raspberry jam combined with 1 T lemon zest, however lemon curd (or the filling for my lemon lime tart) would be delicious. 


Make watermelon 'filling':
now make the 'watermelon' part: dump softened pink ice cream into a separate bowl, sprinkle broken up graham crackers into the bowl (these are the watermelon seeds), mix well, remove bowl from freezer, dump this mixture into the rind-lined bowl and place the cake on top of it, press down. cover with saran wrap and put in freezer. 


To serve:
invert bowl on to a serving plate, press a warm dishtowel on bowl bottom, (repeat as needed), pull bowl off of bomb, remove saran wrap and use a knife soaked in hot water to slice through cake....enjoy!

Arugula Basil Pesto

(back from vacation!...)The garden has doubled in size, and I was only gone for 10 days! Better get to work preserving...if your garden is blowing up like ours, try this recipe and adjust the arugula content to your liking. I find it a little bitter, so the basil addition cuts that sharp taste...

1 1/2 c toasted walnuts or toasted almonds

1 T kosher salt

1/2 c peeled garlic

2 T lemon juice

1 c veggie stock

8 c arugula

3 c basil

1 c olive oil

2 c parm. cheese

in Cuisinart blend nuts, salt, garlic and lemon juice. After this is blended, add half the arugula and basil and all the veggie stock, blend well. When this breaks down there will be room for the rest of the ingredients - add the rest of arugula and basil, olive oil and cheese. blend. adjust the salt. freeze in Ziploc bags and enjoy! (freeze flat to save freezer space:)