BBQ spare ribs and more
It’s that time again…time to clear the digital desktop of its clutter. These are all interesting dishes that I’ve made over the summer and for whatever reason I just never got around to giving them their own posts. Lucky you…think of it as an all you can eat buffet that’s actually worth eating…dig in!
Mmmmmm…..they were delicious. Spare ribs are one item that can be hard to source around here. My favorite pork producer sells their spare ribs to a Madison restaurant…and let’s face it, a pig only has two racks of ribs…but these came from my good friends at Jordandal Farm and they were perfect. My version may lack authenticity, smoky and otherwise, but they certainly do not lack flavor.
Instructions: Rub the ribs down with a mixture of minced onion, garlic, paprika, brown sugar, cayenne, and salt and pepper. Then before you stick them in the oven drizzle them with cider vinegar. Cover them with foil and bake at 300F for 2 hours. Then take them out, uncover them and baste them with your favorite BBQ sauce…we like Sweet Baby Ray’s Original, Then drop them onto a hot grill for a quick char on each side and you’re good to go. Now I told you they weren’t authentic, and I know it all seems wrong but they really were the best.
These were the season’s first new potatoes and I went with a technique gleaned from a Patricia Well’s cookbook (I can’t remember which one). They were soft and creamy in some places and crunchy and crisp in others…a textural delight from a simple spud.
Instructions: Gently boil a bunch of new potatoes. Let them cool down. Arrange the potatoes on a cookie sheet and using a meat tenderizer mallet smash each potato. Drizzle the whole mess with olive oil and salt and pepper and bake at 400F until golden and crunchy to your liking. I think the next time I make them I’ll cook them a little longer to get more crunch.
This is a chard gratin that I made from a recipe in Deborah Madison’s recipe book Local Flavors. It was okay but I won’t make it again. I’m showing it because it was an instance where I followed the recipe word for word (you know I never do that) and when I was done I had a mess of pots and pans and a “meah” dish. I didn’t read through the recipe until I was standing at the stove…I’d checked the ingredients and saw that I had everything and dove in. But the recipe was written step by step and instead of saying “you are now going to make a bechamel sauce” it just stepped you through the making of the sauce…so it was that I began making the roue when I realized what was up. It really was my fault but it still ticked me off and poor GH had to deal with the mountain of pans. But don’t get me wrong, I love Deborah Madison and when I first dined at Greens at Fort Mason in SF it was the moment I saw food differently. I just don’t want to eat bechamel in the middle of the summer.
This has to be the ugliest salad on earth. But take my word, and Sam’s…it is the bomb (is it OK to say that or is it really uncool now…whatever!). It’s a Mario Batali, Food TV recipe. Go there, print it, make it, and love it.
Ever since I got my pasta machine I’ve been experimenting. These are my first, sad attempt at ravioli. Do any of my local readers want to come over and teach me how to make ravioli? Is there a good book on the subject? I’m even stumped about what to fill them with. Come on readers, you’re going to have to pitch in and take pity on me.
David Lebovitz improves my life almost weekly…that’s how often I’ve been making ice cream this summer. The cream from Blue Marble Dairy lands on my front doorstep on Thursday afternoon and by Friday evening I’ve got a new batch to dish out for dessert. Strawberry has been our favorite flavor so far but this was a plain vanilla batch that I cradled with rhubarb goo…it was so good that I can still taste it…the sweet, cold, cream and the tart, tangy, goo. I want more please.
Lastly we have this delectable morsel. A cherry scone. Instructions: take one of my many scone recipes…frankly I can’t remember which one was the best or what one I used for this batch…their all good…and add cherries. Mmmmmmmm
CSA Roundup and how tapioca kicked my butt
My desktop is cluttered with photos from food that I haven’t written about yet, so here we go…. The pasta in the top left corner had smoked pork jowl lardons, broccoli, fava beans, green onions, and basil. It was tossed with an egg and a generous slosh of pasta water and was so utterly fresh, sweet, and fragrant that I actually hummed with glee as I ate it.
The ice cream is the vanilla recipe from David Lebovitz’s book The Perfect Scoop. It was rich and satisfying and I’m looking forward to making the anise flavored version this weekend.
The blueberry galette was made with berries from our first fruit share. I froze the other 8 pints so that we can have galette all year. You can find my crust recipe here and the filling is just a pint of berries and 1/3 cup of sugar.
Lastly is a zesty escarole and sausage ragout that is laden with garlic chunks, cremini mushrooms, red pepper chunks and onion. It was all given a fast spin around a hot pan and served up with some freshly grated parmesan reggiano and a side of zucchini that I passed through the mandolin so it would look like linguine. I tossed it in a hot pan with some olive oil, sea salt, and pepper and topped it with the parm too. These types of meals are common summer fare around here and are so well suited to CSA shares that even though their flavor and freshness are exceptional we tend to take them for granted…until around the end of October when we would love to have a huge head of sweet, sweet escarole. Such is life…
Our CSA share today included swiss chard and a russian kale. Anyone that gets a CSA share knows that storage of the produce can sometimes be an issue…refrigerators are only so big and other items must be accommodated too. I take the time to storage the produce in a way that makes my prep work simpler and also takes up less space. In this case I cut out the center quills, which also cuts the leaf in half. I cut the leaves in half again and gently pack them and the quills into a ziploc lined with paper towel (to absorb any excess water). This way they take up less room and are just a quick chop away from being ready to cook. As I was working through the chard I noticed it smelled just like beets. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and they belong to the same species…beets are grown for their roots and chard for their leaves. Who knew?
I promised Dexter I would make him bubble tea and then after reading this article in the NYT’s Sunday Magazine I thought…how hard can it be? I had the tapioca pearls in the pantry so I got busy one afternoon. Let me tell you, that tapioca kicked my ass! I stirred those [multiple expletives deleted] pearls for so long I thought I was going to keel over. When they were done, or more truthfully…when I gave up, they sucked. My mom said I should have used instant but I don’t use instant anything…I’ll never make tapioca again! Has anyone else made anything with large pearl tapioca? What is up with this stuff…or is it just me?
I have triumphed in growing a few California Poppies in my lush Wisconsin Flower garden. Sure it’s taken several years and hundreds, if not thousands of seeds…but HA HA…I did it. Now, if I could just get my Acanthus Mollis to flourish.
The Burpinator says,
The Silver Palate Cookbook has long been one of my favorites. It was given to me by Deb, GH’s sister, at an impromptu wedding shower in 1987 and it is by far my most used cookbook. So many of my family’s favorite dishes are adaptations from this book.
The Big Bread Sandwich on pages 324-325 is our standard feast for our annual beach day. I do the prep work the day before so that I can easily assemble the sandwich after my coffee. Years ago I stuck to the diagram and recipe given in the book, but too many fillings made for a really slippery sandwich so over the years I’ve adapted this Big Sandwich into the family favorite called the Burpinator…as dubbed by Dexter several years ago and for obvious reasons…it must be pronounced with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent to be truly authentic.
I start with a sturdy batard, sliced into 3 sections. The bottom section has a dijon mustard, roasted bell peppers, and Willow Creek Farm Kielbasa that I cook the day before, strip off its casing, chill, and then slice. An Italian sausage would be good here too…but the mellow flavor of the kielbasa played well with the peppers and mustard, and it’s what I had on hand. Add some sundried tomato/basil cheddar, and parsley. Brush the next layer with an olive oil/red wine vinaigrette and then pile on the grilled garlic/lemon chicken paillards, more cheese, parsley and then brush the top-inside with vinaigrette too. All of this is wrapped as tight as possible in saran and chills for at least 3 hours so the flavors can come together. It is easiest to slice right through the saran…no slippage.
The sky was blue (see above), the beach was hot, and the water was freezing! Honestly, we sat there baking, sunscreen on, umbrellas offering meager shade, and then just when we couldn’t take it anymore we waded in…the water was so cold that my legs felt like brain-freeze. But once we waded out a bit onto a sand bar we found it to be a bit warmer and we had a good time…in and out of the water all day long. Eat a bite here, drink a bit there…four hours later we packed up and headed home.
On the way home we stopped at Kopps Frozen Custard in Glendale, Wisconsin. They make their own frozen custard and it is incredibly good. So cold, fresh, and creamy…I had the flavor of the day, strawberry, and the berries were fresh and sweet…it was a delight…so much so that I couldn’t take a picture of it. Does anyone know the story behind the cows? They line the back of the parking lot and we don’t understand why there is only one black cow.
I almost forgot to mention that I am the featured blogger this week over at Family Oven. Many thanks to Isaac for thinking of me. Head on over and add it to your recipe resources.
