Let's talk seafood. 

Have you seen Otolith at your farmers market and wondered what it was all about?  We were curious last summer and found out that they are a CSA for seafood - or CSS (Community Sponsored Seafood).  There are several different sustainably harvested fish programs you can participant in such as salmon, sablefish, Dungeness crab, and halibut.  Last year we decided to order salmon and loved every bit of it.  We received 15 lbs of line caught wild salmon from Alaska for $180 - 5 lbs. of Coho, 5 lbs. of King, 3 lbs. of Sockeye and 2 lbs. of Pink. 

Salmon is full of Omega-3 fats and other nutrients lacking in farm-raised "Atlantic" salmon.  One of additional perks is that we pay less than retail price for the best quality. Salmon similar to this would sell for about $18/lb. at a Whole Foods.  The fish is cleaned, portioned out, flash frozen at -40 degrees and arrives to us vacuum sealed at our farmers market.  It's the best!

This year, we decided to get both salmon and sablefish (Black Cod).  We just picked up our first bit of the sablefish and I baked it spanish style with olive oil, lime juice, fresh tomatoes, red onions, and homegrown jalapeno.  It was so delicious that I have a feeling it will be a staple dinner in our house this summer.

For more information about signing up for your own share, please visit Otolith's website.  They also have a store that you can visit by appointment, I promise you won't be disappointed!

When I said soup season was over for me, I really meant it. It's hot. It's too hot for soup. Or pasta. Too hot for any kind of a sauce. It's salted radishes, hunk of cheese, piece of bread season.

But then there's gazpacho. Gazpacho is all the brightest and crispest flavors of Spanish and Latin American food with none of the heaviness. It's not just cold, it's raw. Like all soups, and most other things I cook, it's customizable. Extra spicy? Sure thing. More of this flavor and less of that one? Go for it.

I started with plum tomatoes. Plum tomatoes are the ones I can reliably find this early, and they have fewer seeds and more "meat" than the others anyway.

I also cut up a cucumber (I peeled it and took out the seeds first).

 And a bunch of tiny red onions. Like a quarter of a big red onion.

Skinning tomatoes reminds me of the late summer sauces that fill my freezer. I have this great elderly neighbor who brings me the ugliest tomatoes you can imagine from his garden. I face the heat and stand over a hot stove and make up enough sauce to last through the fall, and then spend my winter staring at cans and doing my best. So first, I get some water boiling, and have an ice bath on hand, and I make an X in the skin of each tomato with a knife.

 Then I drop the tomatoes into the boiling water for just a minute - the skin wrinkles up quickly and that's when you know they're ready to peel. Quickly into the ice water bath for another minute.

 And then they're pretty easy to peel by hand. I peeled them right into a strainer, where I smushed them and haphazardly seeded them, letting whatever juice accumulated cover the cucumber and onion.

I rinsed the tomatoes to try to clear off a few more seeds (it's really no big deal if a few get in) and chopped them up. I also minced three cloves of garlic.



All of that was added to the cucumbers and onion, with some additional flavors. Salt and pepper, cumin, balsamic vinegar and vegan worcestershire (I owe the addition of the worcestershire to Alton Brown - you can certainly get by without it, but it adds depth).



And a jalepeno. Note that since we've had a few incidents with peppers, the jalepeno is cut on a separate cutting board. Better safe than sorry. I pretend it's raw chicken.





It needs liquid, you know, to be soup. I use vegetable juice. I think it has more to it than tomato and for whatever reason, even in glass bottles, I think tomato juice tastes like metal.  Maybe I've had too many cans of it on airplanes? So I added some veggie juice, enough to make it soup. Like a cup and a half.





I added a tablespoon of olive oil and the juice of half a lemon. I put a bowl cover on it and let it be in the fridge.



You can blend it now or blend it later, but either way, it needs to sit a bit. I made this mostly in the morning, before work, and then came home and tended to it for a bit (added the jalepeno, blended it) left for two hours and then ate it. I think 12 hours would be perfect, but an hour would be fine.

Either scoop out about half of it and throw it in your blender on puree or smoothie or whatever, or use an immersion blender and hold back.  I really wanted half of it to be liquid and half of it to be chunky.



Then I just stirred it for a bit to get the chunky parts integrated.



I sliced up some avocado and topped it with that and cilantro.



And served it with grilled cheese on the funny t-shirt shaped bread I made a few weeks ago.



This made four meals worth. It was super bright, crisp, and refreshing.

This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food. 

Ingredients

• 10 plum tomatoes


• 1 jalepeno, diced


• 1 cucumber, skinned, seeded and chopped


• 1.5 cups low sodium vegetable juice


• 1/4 large red onion, diced


• 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce


• 3 teaspoons balsamic vinegar


• 3 cloves garlic, minced


• 1 teaspoon cumin


• 1 teaspoon black pepper


• 2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice


• 1 tablespoon olive oil


• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions

Skin and seed tomatoes, reserving any liquid. To skin tomatoes, make an X in each, drop in boiling water for 1 minute then in ice bath for 1 minute, then peel by hand.

Dice tomatoes, cucumber, jalepeno, and onion. Mince garlic. Add everything to a bowl, and blend half of it. Refrigerate for at least an hour, 12 is better. Top with sliced avocado and cilantro, if you have it. Serve cold.

Details

• Prep time: 25 mins


• Cook time: 0 mins


• Total time: 1 hour 25 mins


• Yield: 4 servings

When I said soup season was over for me, I really meant it. It's hot. It's too hot for soup. Or pasta. Too hot for any kind of a sauce. It's salted radishes, hunk of cheese, piece of bread season. But then there's gazpacho. Gazpacho is all the brightest and crispest flavors of Spanish and Latin American food with none of the heaviness. It's not just cold, it's raw. Like all soups, and most other things I cook, it's customizable. Extra spicy? Sure thing. More of this flavor and less of that one? Go for it. I started with plum tomatoes. Plum tomatoes are the ones I can reliably find this early, and they have fewer seeds and more "meat" than the others anyway.

I also cut up a cucumber (I peeled it and took out the seeds first).

 And a bunch of tiny red onions. Like a quarter of a big red onion.

Skinning tomatoes reminds me of the late summer sauces that fill my freezer. I have this great elderly neighbor who brings me the ugliest tomatoes you can imagine from his garden. I face the heat and stand over a hot stove and make up enough sauce to last through the fall, and then spend my winter staring at cans and doing my best. So first, I get some water boiling, and have an ice bath on hand, and I make an X in the skin of each tomato with a knife.

 Then I drop the tomatoes into the boiling water for just a minute - the skin wrinkles up quickly and that's when you know they're ready to peel. Quickly into the ice water bath for another minute.

 And then they're pretty easy to peel by hand. I peeled them right into a strainer, where I smushed them and haphazardly seeded them, letting whatever juice accumulated cover the cucumber and onion.

I rinsed the tomatoes to try to clear off a few more seeds (it's really no big deal if a few get in) and chopped them up. I also minced three cloves of garlic. All of that was added to the cucumbers and onion, with some additional flavors. Salt and pepper, cumin, balsamic vinegar and vegan worcestershire (I owe the addition of the worcestershire to Alton Brown - you can certainly get by without it, but it adds depth). And a jalepeno. Note that since we've had a few incidents with peppers, the jalepeno is cut on a separate cutting board. Better safe than sorry. I pretend it's raw chicken. It needs liquid, you know, to be soup. I use vegetable juice. I think it has more to it than tomato and for whatever reason, even in glass bottles, I think tomato juice tastes like metal.  Maybe I've had too many cans of it on airplanes? So I added some veggie juice, enough to make it soup. Like a cup and a half. I added a tablespoon of olive oil and the juice of half a lemon. I put a bowl cover on it and let it be in the fridge. You can blend it now or blend it later, but either way, it needs to sit a bit. I made this mostly in the morning, before work, and then came home and tended to it for a bit (added the jalepeno, blended it) left for two hours and then ate it. I think 12 hours would be perfect, but an hour would be fine. Either scoop out about half of it and throw it in your blender on puree or smoothie or whatever, or use an immersion blender and hold back.  I really wanted half of it to be liquid and half of it to be chunky. Then I just stirred it for a bit to get the chunky parts integrated. I sliced up some avocado and topped it with that and cilantro. And served it with grilled cheese on the funny t-shirt shaped bread I made a few weeks ago. This made four meals worth. It was super bright, crisp, and refreshing. This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food.  Ingredients

• 10 plum tomatoes
• 1 jalepeno, diced
• 1 cucumber, skinned, seeded and chopped
• 1.5 cups low sodium vegetable juice
• 1/4 large red onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
• 3 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Instructions Skin and seed tomatoes, reserving any liquid. To skin tomatoes, make an X in each, drop in boiling water for 1 minute then in ice bath for 1 minute, then peel by hand. Dice tomatoes, cucumber, jalepeno, and onion. Mince garlic. Add everything to a bowl, and blend half of it. Refrigerate for at least an hour, 12 is better. Top with sliced avocado and cilantro, if you have it. Serve cold. Details

• Prep time: 25 mins
• Cook time: 0 mins
• Total time: 1 hour 25 mins
• Yield: 4 servings

[caption id="attachment_1630" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Photo compliments of Martin Brown at Little Baby’s Ice Cream"][/caption] Last summer I bought an $80 Cuisinart Home Ice Cream maker at William’s Sonoma because I had a coupon for 40% off. At the time I thought it could end up being another underutilized kitchen gadget that I bought on an impulse. Little did I know that a year later I would be opening up a small batch, artisanal ice cream business. I have read pretty much every homemade ice cream book and done a whole lot of experimenting. Making ice cream at home is incredibly fun. It’s limitless and even the clumsiest of home cooks can give it a whirl. Think of it as anti-cooking. The beauty of ice cream is that with a simple ratio and some guiding principles you can get started with a store bought machine with a very good likelihood for success. Here’s my basic ratio for your traditional 2-3 quart home ice cream machine. All you need to remember is 4-2-1-1/2 for a custard base. ------------- 4 egg yolks (farm fresh and bright orange, egg yolks are an amazing natural emulsifier, the thing that binds fats and water together making frozen ice crystals taste smooth and creamy – you can bump this up to 6 if you have a lot of other ingredients like rich chocolate or peanut butter) 2 cups cream (the higher the fat content the better 36% is good 40% is better) 1 cup milk (whole is preferable) ½ cup sugar (there are many things that can make things sweeter so start with a half cup only)

The only two techniques you need to consider:

1) The trick to a custard is to temper the egg yolks. Put the 4 egg yolks and sugar in a medium mixing bowl and whisk together. The sugar will help break up the yolks. Bring cream and milk up to a simmer in a pot (don’t boil, don’t microwave). Very slowly drip the hot dairy into the egg yolk while whisking. If you pour too fast then you get scrambled eggs. Pour out about half the pot then return to heat. Then pour the eggs from the bowl back into the pot – very slowly while whisking – that’s called tempering the eggs. Simmer on low while continually stirring until you get a thick almost pudding like consistency that coats the back of a spoon. This could take up to 10 minutes. Now that you know how to do this you can do crème catalan, crème brulee, real homemade pudding and a ton of other stuff. 2) Ice cream is a frozen foam. The idea is to freeze air in fat and water. At home you’re limited to how much air and coldness you can treat the custard mix to by the limitations of commercial machines for home use. In other words not much air and not too cold. When you’ve made your custard it must get as cold as possible overnight in a refrigerator. Whisking, blending or immersion blending might add a little bit of air but not much. Basically just stir to make sure everything is consistent before pouring, get that bowl as cold as possible right from the freezer before you start your batch, let it do its thing in the machine for about 20 minutes and get everything in the coldest part of the freezer to harden for a good couple of hours or overnight. From this point on, the ice cream should only get warmer right before you eat it. The more you take it in and out of the freezer the icier it gets. Please don’t ever put ice cream in the microwave or leave it out on the counter. If you’re going to be serving it slowly over the course of the evening leave it in the refrigerator if you need it to be a little softer, just don’t forget to get it back in the freezer as soon as possible.

Tips

-It doesn’t hurt to add a little vanilla extract to everything (even chocolate). Spend the money and buy a real vanilla extract like Nielsen-Massey Bourbon Vanilla. -Want your ice cream to be softer after hardening? Add sugar or alcohol – both raise the freezing point. -Honey, agave and anything that’s not sugar is usually sweeter than sugar and may make things too sweet and too soft. So use to taste rather than any prescribed quantity. -Leave salt out of it. I don’t think it really enhances anything, even chocolates. If you want to go for a saltier, more savory flavor think about something else. Peanut butter and chocolate both usually have some salt in them. -Steep: you can cold steep teas, coffees, cereals, your favorite candies, vegetables, bubble gum, whatever you want. Put it in some milk for a couple of hours and see what it tastes like, too long and you might start growing something that only scientists would find interesting. -Inclusions: the best part about homemade machines is you can dump whatever you want into the mix. Just make sure to do it in about the last 30 seconds. Otherwise those cookies or brownies or whatever will get so cold the whole thing will turn into a cement mix and break your machine. -Acid and dairy don’t mix: almost any fruit juice, even apple juice will make dairy curdle. For acidic fruit flavors look up online how to mix (usually a recommended heat temperature where the two will play along with each other.) -More water means more ice crystals: generally something you want to avoid. So if you add 2 cups of watermelon juice to your mix don’t expect it to be as smooth and creamy as adding caramel. -Nuts and chocolates will make things harder so think about something to go with them or add more sugar or a splash of alcohol. -There are a million and one recipes online but you should really experiment on your own. You’re never going to be able to make Haagen-Daaz style ice cream at home so don’t bother – go straight for animal crackers and figs or whatever else your imagination can think of. Martin Brown is a musician and arts administrator currently venturing into the ice cream business with Little Baby’s Ice Cream (www.littlebabysicecream.com). Being a Maryland transplant his favorite food is crabs, as a South Philly homeowner his favorite food is anything he grills in his backyard.

 

Last summer I bought an $80 Cuisinart Home Ice Cream maker at William’s Sonoma because I had a coupon for 40% off. At the time I thought it could end up being another underutilized kitchen gadget that I bought on an impulse. Little did I know that a year later I would be opening up a small batch, artisanal ice cream business.

I have read pretty much every homemade ice cream book and done a whole lot of experimenting. Making ice cream at home is incredibly fun. It’s limitless and even the clumsiest of home cooks can give it a whirl. Think of it as anti-cooking.

The beauty of ice cream is that with a simple ratio and some guiding principles you can get started with a store bought machine with a very good likelihood for success.

Here’s my basic ratio for your traditional 2-3 quart home ice cream machine. All you need to remember is 4-2-1-1/2 for a custard base.

-------------
4 egg yolks (farm fresh and bright orange, egg yolks are an amazing natural emulsifier, the thing that binds fats and water together making frozen ice crystals taste smooth and creamy – you can bump this up to 6 if you have a lot of other ingredients like rich chocolate or peanut butter)

2 cups cream (the higher the fat content the better 36% is good 40% is better)

1 cup milk (whole is preferable)

½ cup sugar (there are many things that can make things sweeter so start with a half cup only)

The only two techniques you need to consider:

1) The trick to a custard is to temper the egg yolks. Put the 4 egg yolks and sugar in a medium mixing bowl and whisk together. The sugar will help break up the yolks. Bring cream and milk up to a simmer in a pot (don’t boil, don’t microwave). Very slowly drip the hot dairy into the egg yolk while whisking. If you pour too fast then you get scrambled eggs. Pour out about half the pot then return to heat. Then pour the eggs from the bowl back into the pot – very slowly while whisking – that’s called tempering the eggs.

Simmer on low while continually stirring until you get a thick almost pudding like consistency that coats the back of a spoon. This could take up to 10 minutes.

Now that you know how to do this you can do crème catalan, crème brulee, real homemade pudding and a ton of other stuff.

2) Ice cream is a frozen foam. The idea is to freeze air in fat and water. At home you’re limited to how much air and coldness you can treat the custard mix to by the limitations of commercial machines for home use. In other words not much air and not too cold. When you’ve made your custard it must get as cold as possible overnight in a refrigerator. Whisking, blending or immersion blending might add a little bit of air but not much. Basically just stir to make sure everything is consistent before pouring, get that bowl as cold as possible right from the freezer before you start your batch, let it do its thing in the machine for about 20 minutes and get everything in the coldest part of the freezer to harden for a good couple of hours or overnight. From this point on, the ice cream should only get warmer right before you eat it. The more you take it in and out of the freezer the icier it gets. Please don’t ever put ice cream in the microwave or leave it out on the counter. If you’re going to be serving it slowly over the course of the evening leave it in the refrigerator if you need it to be a little softer, just don’t forget to get it back in the freezer as soon as possible.

Tips

-It doesn’t hurt to add a little vanilla extract to everything (even chocolate). Spend the money and buy a real vanilla extract like Nielsen-Massey Bourbon Vanilla.

-Want your ice cream to be softer after hardening? Add sugar or alcohol – both raise the freezing point.

-Honey, agave and anything that’s not sugar is usually sweeter than sugar and may make things too sweet and too soft. So use to taste rather than any prescribed quantity.

-Leave salt out of it. I don’t think it really enhances anything, even chocolates. If you want to go for a saltier, more savory flavor think about something else. Peanut butter and chocolate both usually have some salt in them.

-Steep: you can cold steep teas, coffees, cereals, your favorite candies, vegetables, bubble gum, whatever you want. Put it in some milk for a couple of hours and see what it tastes like, too long and you might start growing something that only scientists would find interesting.

-Inclusions: the best part about homemade machines is you can dump whatever you want into the mix. Just make sure to do it in about the last 30 seconds. Otherwise those cookies or brownies or whatever will get so cold the whole thing will turn into a cement mix and break your machine.

-Acid and dairy don’t mix: almost any fruit juice, even apple juice will make dairy curdle. For acidic fruit flavors look up online how to mix (usually a recommended heat temperature where the two will play along with each other.)

-More water means more ice crystals: generally something you want to avoid. So if you add 2 cups of watermelon juice to your mix don’t expect it to be as smooth and creamy as adding caramel.

-Nuts and chocolates will make things harder so think about something to go with them or add more sugar or a splash of alcohol.

-There are a million and one recipes online but you should really experiment on your own. You’re never going to be able to make Haagen-Daaz style ice cream at home so don’t bother – go straight for animal crackers and figs or whatever else your imagination can think of.

Martin Brown is a musician and arts administrator currently venturing into the ice cream business with Little Baby’s Ice Cream (www.littlebabysicecream.com). Being a Maryland transplant his favorite food is crabs, as a South Philly homeowner his favorite food is anything he grills in his backyard.

Garlic scapes come around for this brief window in June before garlic is harvested. When they're here, they seem to be everywhere, and then they vanish, not to be seen for another year. I showed up an hour too late to the farm market two weeks ago to find one scape for sale. Like one scallion. One radish. One sad scape. Because when they're here, they're in demand.

Scapes are milder than straight up garlic but stick pack a serious punch when you bite into them raw. They're easy to saute the same way you'd do up green beans or asparagus, and cooking them tones down their flavor dramatically.

Raw, they're a great addition to salads, and in the past couple of weeks I've chopped them into every salad I've eaten. I've actually used them in just about everything I've cooked lately. I was lucky enough to get enough scapes in my farmshare this week to use them in everything and even give some away.

But since they are in our lives and meals for just a few short weeks, it makes sense to try to extend their stay, if just for a little while. My answer to that is scape pesto.

Scape pesto goes on sandwiches, serves as the only topping on seasonal garlic bread, blends up nicely with oil and vinegar for scape vinaigrette, and acts as a very flavorful pasta sauce. It's a dip, a spread, a sauce, and it freezes.

I actually have a small bit of last year's scape pesto left in the freezer. That's not ideal - it loses it's flavor over time, but it holds up for a few months very well.

What I made last night is a fairly thick pesto, better as a spread. Add more oil to make it a sauce.

 I started with a bundle of scapes - I think it was about 7 -but the length of your scapes will vary - and I cut them into small pieces.

This ended up being about a cup and a half of scapes.

Sous Chef Brian was busy shredding up some parmesan, so I put the scapes and a handful of walnuts into my mini chopper. I ended up needing to do this in two batches, which worked fine. You could use a blender as well.

 

I whirred the scapes and walnuts together for a bit until they were chopped up fairly small.

 

And then drizzled in a bit of olive oil until it was fairly smooth. Then we added shredded parmesan and a bit of salt and pepper and gave it a final whirr.

Once everything was smooth and combined, we were all set. About two and a half cups of scape pesto, plenty for dressings, sauces and spreads.

 

This will keep covered in the fridge for most of a week, but go ahead and freeze some so you have something scapy available once the fleeting scape season has passed.

 

Sous Chef Brian immediately spread a bit on some Italian bread. Pungent and delicious.

This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food.  We're having a blog milestone and giving away a prize later this week, so come join the celebration.


Ingredients

•  1.5 cups chopped garlic scapes


• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts


• 1/2 cup grated parmesan


• 1/3 cup olive oil


• dash kosher salt


• dash black pepper

Instructions

Whirr scapes and walnuts in food processor until finely chopped. Slowly stream in olive oil, pulsing as you go, until texture is smooth. Add cheese, salt and pepper and whirr to combine.

Details

• Prep time: 10 mins


• Yield: 2.5 cups

Garlic scapes come around for this brief window in June before garlic is harvested. When they're here, they seem to be everywhere, and then they vanish, not to be seen for another year. I showed up an hour too late to the farm market two weeks ago to find one scape for sale. Like one scallion. One radish. One sad scape. Because when they're here, they're in demand. Scapes are milder than straight up garlic but stick pack a serious punch when you bite into them raw. They're easy to saute the same way you'd do up green beans or asparagus, and cooking them tones down their flavor dramatically. Raw, they're a great addition to salads, and in the past couple of weeks I've chopped them into every salad I've eaten. I've actually used them in just about everything I've cooked lately. I was lucky enough to get enough scapes in my farmshare this week to use them in everything and even give some away. But since they are in our lives and meals for just a few short weeks, it makes sense to try to extend their stay, if just for a little while. My answer to that is scape pesto. Scape pesto goes on sandwiches, serves as the only topping on seasonal garlic bread, blends up nicely with oil and vinegar for scape vinaigrette, and acts as a very flavorful pasta sauce. It's a dip, a spread, a sauce, and it freezes. I actually have a small bit of last year's scape pesto left in the freezer. That's not ideal - it loses it's flavor over time, but it holds up for a few months very well. What I made last night is a fairly thick pesto, better as a spread. Add more oil to make it a sauce.

 I started with a bundle of scapes - I think it was about 7 -but the length of your scapes will vary - and I cut them into small pieces.

This ended up being about a cup and a half of scapes.

Sous Chef Brian was busy shredding up some parmesan, so I put the scapes and a handful of walnuts into my mini chopper. I ended up needing to do this in two batches, which worked fine. You could use a blender as well.

 

I whirred the scapes and walnuts together for a bit until they were chopped up fairly small.

 

And then drizzled in a bit of olive oil until it was fairly smooth. Then we added shredded parmesan and a bit of salt and pepper and gave it a final whirr. Once everything was smooth and combined, we were all set. About two and a half cups of scape pesto, plenty for dressings, sauces and spreads.

 

This will keep covered in the fridge for most of a week, but go ahead and freeze some so you have something scapy available once the fleeting scape season has passed.

 

Sous Chef Brian immediately spread a bit on some Italian bread. Pungent and delicious.

This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food.  We're having a blog milestone and giving away a prize later this week, so come join the celebration. Ingredients

•  1.5 cups chopped garlic scapes
• 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• dash kosher salt
• dash black pepper

Instructions Whirr scapes and walnuts in food processor until finely chopped. Slowly stream in olive oil, pulsing as you go, until texture is smooth. Add cheese, salt and pepper and whirr to combine. Details

• Prep time: 10 mins
• Yield: 2.5 cups

[caption id="attachment_1506" align="aligncenter" width="576" caption="Roasted Sweet Potatoes help you use those garden herbs."][/caption] Due to the hot weather and the beautiful rain showers your herbs and vegetables might be exploding. This recipe is a good dish to use your basil, oregano and thyme. Roasted Sweet Potatoes

• 2 tbsp chopped Oregano
• 2 tbsp chopped Basil
• 2 tbsp chopped Garlic
• thyme, rosemary (other herbs if desired)
• 3 lbs cut into 1"cubes Sweet Potatoes (I mixed them with regular unpeeled potatoes)
• 4 tbsp Olive Oil
• Salt and Black Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large mixing bowl combine all of the ingredients. Pour potatoes onto baking pan and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake about 10 minutes until golden brown and fork tender. I served it with sour creme. Enjoy!! You can follow Katrin Bahr at her blog (which is in German) or on Twitter (in English).

Due to the hot weather and the beautiful rain showers your herbs and vegetables might be exploding. This recipe is a good dish to use your basil, oregano and thyme.

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

• 2 tbsp chopped Oregano
• 2 tbsp chopped Basil
• 2 tbsp chopped Garlic
• thyme, rosemary (other herbs if desired)
• 3 lbs cut into 1"cubes Sweet Potatoes (I mixed them with regular unpeeled potatoes)
• 4 tbsp Olive Oil
• Salt and Black Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large mixing bowl combine all of the ingredients. Pour potatoes onto baking pan and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake about 10 minutes until golden brown and fork tender.

I served it with sour creme. Enjoy!!

You can follow Katrin Bahr at her blog (which is in German) or on Twitter (in English).

...it's a dish, not a description of his legs ;) I have been a huge fan of Jacques Pepin since I first saw him cooking alongside Julia Child. It was a great introduction to traditional French cooking in a no fuss way.  His show Fast Food My Way continues what he started with the esteemed Julia, maybe with a bit less butter. I have made these chicken thighs on several occasions and it is still hard for me to believe that such a great tasting recipe can be so simple. Here are the ingredients:

• 4 chicken thighs, skin on
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 cup onion, diced
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 3 cups white mushrooms, washed and diced
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 1 tablespoon chives, chopped

The procedure for this dish can be found at The Serious Eats Recipes blog. I recently served this on a bed of couscous along with some roasted asparagus for an elegant dinner. No one knew that I did not slave over this all day.