Tag Archives: cucumbers

Bayside Dinner in Bristol

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Had a delicious meal last night at cousins Kara and David Milner’s beautiful bayfront home in Bristol, Rhode Island. Is nothing better than a lovingly prepared home-cooked, market-driven meal prepared by someone else?? Add a to-die for view and easy-going companionship and you’ve got a recipe for a perfect evening. Kara prepared Campfire Salmon, Israeli couscous and a crunchy seasonal salad.

Kara’s Camfire Salmon

The Campfire Salmon is a variation on a recipe from a handy cookbook called Simply in Season. Kara kindly walked me through the recipe briefly. Good thing about it is that you can prepare it in advance, wrap it up in tin foil, and pop it in the fridge until you are ready to grill (or bake in oven). Kara sliced up onion, placed a large filet of wild salmon on top, sliced up lemons and local zucchini to go on top, sprinked with some fresh dill, a dash of olive oil and a splash of white wine. Fold up the tin foil and cook immediately on a heated grill or 450 degree F oven, or store in fridge until ready to do so. This versatile recipe is a great way to feed a large group and you can add/subtract veggies based on what’s in season. Like it.

On the side, I loved Kara’s crunchy salad featuring heirloom cherry tomatoes and yellow cucumbers from a local CSA, crunchy fresh corn kernels, spinach, maybe some watercress (?) and sliced sweet red onions. Kara, chime in if I missed anything.

Kara’s Salad: tomatoes, yellow cucumbers, corn, spinach, red onion and watercress

And did I mention the Sour Cream Blueberry Pie for dessert?? So yummy, with a crispy lattice top and crust. Hubs refused to even taste at the mere mention of the words “sour cream.” His loss – was scrumptious. I haven’t bugged Kara yet for the recipe and probably won’t. Fear if I make it, it will go straight to my hips.

Thank you, Kara & David!

Ye Grande Olde Yakitori

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“Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee,” said my father-in-law in a recent email, attaching this tantalizing photo.

Yakitori by chef Chieko Hamado – Nashville, TN – July 2012

The colors and textures of this meal look fantastic, and I love the bamboo placemats as well. Steve, my father-in-law, enjoyed this eye-catching Yakitori at his friend Chieko Hamado’s home in Nashville, TN. I researched Yakitori and learned from Wikipedia that it can refer to any skewered foods. Here are some details about the meal as told by Steve, my father-in-law and roaming gourmand.

Organic home grown carrots, cold new potatoes, shrimp and mashed avocado with onion and cream cheese, couscous and tomato and onion salad, prosciutto wrapped around cucumber, miniature tomato mozzarella.  Korean style BBQ beef and Yakatori chicken.  Garlic and olive oil  sauce from ground green leaf like basil called beef steak leaf.

Take me to Tennessee, I say.  Steve, please chime in on anything I missed.

Pilgrimage to Union Square Market

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I was in the neighborhood for a meeting and took the opportunity to make my first pilgrimage of the year to the Union Square Green Market. What can I possibly say that hasn’t already been said about this all things local/seasonal/urban farmers market? It is awesome. And if I wrote about “Things that are great,’ like my good friend Chris Vincent, the Green Market would be at the top of my list. I like it because it is colorful, native, funky, tasty and fun to explore. Even if I don’t need local boysenberry jam, or burp-less cucumbers, it is a great place to spend a few hours.

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So what’s happening at the Market? Very exciting times as we are getting close to peak of summer. We are starting to see some local fruit, like peaches from Southern NJ, plums of every color and local blueberries. Every kind of lettuce, salad mix, deep green veg you can imagine. Garlic and onions of every variety, new potatoes and greenhouse tomatoes (pic below from S&SO Produce Farm’s stand). We still have some time before locally grown, non-greenhouse tomatoes are available in the tri-state area.

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I am posting this pic of dandelion greens for my mother-in-law Kay, who told me a great anecdote about dandelion greens over the weekend. Kay said that when she was growing up in Vermont, her Italian-American father used to pick dandelion greens and prepare them with olive oil and garlic. No one thought this was such a sexy idea at the time. Flash forward ___  years…

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