Amy's Food Adventures

Last Crab of Summer

I know there is really no such thing as out-of-season food any more, but we still try to eat some things in their seasons, especially things that really only taste good when the time is right like softshell crabs, tomatoes, and corn on the cob.

So we had a traditional kind of dinner this weekend, sauteed softshell crabs and corn on the cob. 

The tomatoes are always a source of controversary this time of year.  We're eating them pretty much every day, hoping to store up as much tomatoeness as possible against the January days when it looks like we'll never see a real tomato again.  I always vote for a tomato salad (some variation of sliced or chopped tomatoes with something tart (onion, shallot, arugula) and perhaps something mild (cucumber, avocado, goat cheese) in a vinaigrette (anything goes, but balsamic is the house favorite). 

My husband always wants a very tomatoey gazpacho, with lots of onion, garlic, and cucumber, no green pepper at all, and lots of hot sauce added withi the olive oil and vinegar.  This time the gazpacho won.

We did introduce one new (and worth keeping) note.  I am not a big fan of my husband's softshells, because he likes to cook them soft-sauteed and I like them crisp fried.  Crisp frying one softshell is just too much trouble, but we've found a good solution.  Our seafood store also offers freshly made (uncooked) crabcakes, made with fresh lump crab meat and no bread crumbs.  One of those, popped into the oven to cook to a golden brown while the corn cooks and the softshells saute is a perfect compromise.

We'll have to wait til next summer to repeat this meal.

P.S.  This turns out to be our new stove's debut performance.  I give it an A, but we didn't really stress it very much!

Kitchen Renovations

After "making do" for 14 years, we finally decided to buy a new stove.  Everyone has always marveled that I put up with an old stove to do my "gourmet" cooking, but I liked the fact that it was gas and that it had two ovens, both requirements for me.

After the usual false starts and disappointments (our condo is out of electrical lines -- until they run some more -- so I couldn't but the sexy JenAir gas top with electric double oven model I lusted for because it needed a new 220 line).  I settled for a brother, an all gas Maytag (Maytag owns JenAir) with all the same features. 

One thing, of course, leads to another, so we decided to replace the very old and ugly kitchen floor.  I love the look of tile, but it's impractical if you do a lot of cooking (and standing) -- and if you own lots of expensive pottery that you might drop.  We bought high-end vinyl in a don't show the dirt shade.

Of course, now we're looking at our cabinets and shelves with a jaded eye and trying to figure out a way to rejigger them so we'd get at least as much storage and more counter space.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, our old stove just departed since it can't be here when the flooring men arrive tomorrow.  Next I have to prepare our two refrigerators to be dismantled and removed tomorrow morning.  We've already moved boxes of pots and bowls and appliances and spices to the dining room -- discovering in the process that we have enough frying pans for three families and enough dead spices for any cafeteria for life.

Putting things back is obviously going to take time as we try to get rid of what we should never have kept!

But then if our lifestyle were not cooking-centric we would not have thousands of cookbooks to find spaces for -- or friends and family who are always eager to find out what's cooking when we ask them to join us at the table.

And what do you eat without a stove?  Today we'll make do with lunch and dinner out (it's Labor Day and we're going to a barbecue).  Tomorrow night we'll have the brisket I cooked on Saturday, delicious reheated in the Microwave.

I haven't decided what meal I'm planning to treat the stove to for its debut cruise.

Cooking from the Garden

Our good friends Ned and Ray arrived for tea (a real tea party, complete with home-made lemonade, tea sandwiches, and cookies), bearing a basket of produce from their garden.  They live out in the country, on 11 acres, so it's quite a garden.

I decided that much of this bounty should reach the table in a single tribute to the season -- which I made up as I went along.  It turned out as a kind of Chicken Gumbo.

First I chopped or cut up everything.  Ned and Ray's zucchini got sliced; their green and hot peppers got seeded and chopped, the okra got topped and tailed, the tomatoes chopped.  I added a large chopped onion, several minced cloves of garlic, and a few stalks of chopped celery.

First the chicken (skinless and boneless thighs) were sauteed in olive oil until brown, then removed.  The onions were browned in the same pan, then joined by the garlic, celery, and peppers.  When the chopped vegetables were softened, I deglazed the pan with 1 cup of red wine, added the tomatoes, zucchini, and okra, and put the chicken back in.  Everything was seasoned with salt and pepper and thyme.  After it came up to a simmer, it was covered and cooked for 20 minutes, then sprinkled with chopped parsley and served over white rice.

Some afterthoughts:

Cajun - If I had really been making a Gumbo, I wouldl have started with a roux instead of olive oil (flour and oil, blended and slowly browned -- 15 or 20 minutes of constant stirring).  I might have browned and added some spicy sausage to go with the chicken.  I would have used Cajun spices instead of thyme -- and probably a teaspoon or more of Tabasco to heat things up. 

White wine (or chicken stock) would have left the colors of the vegetables less muddied than the red wine did -- a good idea when you're presenting a garden basket of produce in a pot.