Summer on a Spoon by Bibbety

the zest of one lemon

1 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

Bring to a boil and then let simmer for 5 minutes. Cool. (I put it in the fridge for 5 hours.)

Combine the lemon syrup (I left the zest in; you could strain it out) with

1/2 cup lemon juice,

2 Tbsp limoncello

1/2 cup sparkling water

Put the mixture in your favourite ice cream maker (I have a Donvier) and freeze.

If you don't have an ice cream maker, I'd freeze it, and every thirty minutes or so stir it around. It might be more like a granita, but I'll bet it would still be tasty.

I'm still wondering what I should serve with it. Perfect cherries? Icy limoncello, of course.

Old Bay Vinaigrette by Grizzled Adams

This is so good on tomatoes that I just chop one still warm from the garden and splash on the dressing and salt and pepper.

1 cup light olive oil

1/4 cup Malt vinegar

1 tablespoon old bay

1 teaspoon chopped garlic

1 finely chopped spring onion or shallot

whisk together all ingredients or put them in a bottle and shake

This is great on all greens, but for best result make sure to include fresh tomatoes, Damn fine eat'n

Easy Maryland Crab Soup by ivy

Typical lack of measurement and precision on my part and you need to start with a meal of MD steamed crabs, which I know can be tricky if you’re not around here.

1. Go out for or prepare blue crabs steamed with Old Bay. Gorge on them. Somehow save 4-6.

2. By the next day, clean the leftover crabs of their meat. Don’t rinse off all (or any if you like spicy) of the spices from the shells first. Assemble pile of crabmeat. This is the difficult part. Not the cleaning; the resisting eating it all.

3. Keep some of the crab in-shell, for example the small legs, the claws, and/or larger joints, which you have hammered on a bit and from which you've removed all loose shell fragments. You don’t want to be biting into fragments, but I'm from the school that believes working with some partially shelled crab bits in your soup builds character and adds adventure. (As you cook the soup the meat will gradually slip out of the shell, but if you want to get at it all, some parts must be plucked out and eaten with your hands, which allows you to revisit your crab feast.)

4. Put the crabmeat in a soup pot and just cover with water. Add tomato puree and perhaps more water until you have a stock you like. Heat to boil/reduce to simmer. Add more Old Bay if desired, I usually do, but be warned the existing/new Old Bay will intensify as it cooks. Things can get spicy.

5. Add mixed frozen vegetables. Combo of corn, carrots, green beans works well. I throw in a couple cubed par-boiled potatoes as well. Add what you like. Lima beans and peas also traditional.

6. Simmer until tomato puree cooks down and loses some of its sweetness. Add more water if you desire. Even though crab is delicate it’s OK to slow-cook the soup for quite a while if you like. The meat just gets all loose and shreddy and heavenly.

I’m sure there are better ways to go about this with all fresh ingredients, etc., but this is my go-to easy recipe for leftover crabs and it is quick and yum. I’m glad this is not a MD-focused board because no doubt 20 indignant people would chime in and tell me I’m doing it wrong. Note my preemptive explanation in #3. People around here are dead serious about how they like their crabs.

Easy Blue Cheese Coleslaw by Grizzled Adams

Griz's easy Blue cheese Cole slaw

1 pkg shredded broccoli/carrot/red cabbage. about 2 cups

1 cup Ken's Stake house chunky Blue cheese dressing

5 oz pkg Blue Cheese crumbles

1 tbl spoon Dijon mustard

1 tbl spoon malt vinegar

1/2 ts spoon Mrs Dash garlic and herb, more or less to taste

fresh ground black pepper

a bunch of red grapes cut in half

Whisk together the BC Dressing, BC Crumbles, Dijon, malt vinegar, Mrs Dash and black pepper, add salt if you like, I'm trying to cut down.

fold in the shredded vegs and grapes, chill (you and the mixture) .

It was pretty good last night and it was great this evening.

Cauliflower Kugel by bookseller

At Whole Foods, they called this Cauliflower Kugel, and they served it as part of a Passover line-up, but there's nothing particularly Passover-y about it, except that the original recipe called for some matzoh meal (which I didn't have, and so used flour instead). The flavors of dill and sour cream (I used yogurt) are in fact very eastern European and thus part of the Ashkanazik larder. And this would be a great side dish at a Seder -- or any other meal -- that featured salmon, say. But still, it's just a tasty veg dish, not particularly Jewish or Passover-y.

Slice up a bunch of members of the onion family (recipe said leeks; I used scallions and some wild garlic), and sweat them in butter till soft. I used three bunches of scallions and three large stems of wild garlic in about two tablespoons of butter. Mix with about 1/3 - 1/2 cup each chopped fresh dill and fresh parsley, about 1/3 cup sliced or chopped almonds, 1/2 cup flour or matzoh meal (or cracker meal), and 20 oz. (raw weight) cauliflower florets that have been chopped into small bits and microwaved for about 2 minutes with a couple splashes of water.

If you used zucchini, some mushrooms -- also cooked first, to cook out the water -- would be a terrific addition. Mmmmmm, I bet that would be better than the cauli, even.



In another bowl, soften a bit more than half of an 8 oz package of cream cheese (nuke it for a minute), and mix it well with a scant cup of Greek yogurt (or sour cream), a large egg, 1.5 tablespoons of butter, and a teaspoon of lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste (I like a lot of black pepper). Mix this with the veg, and scrape everything into an oiled or Pam-med 9 x 13 baking pan. Sprinkle another 1/3 cup of almonds (I used pumpkin seeds) over the top, and bake at 325 for about 35 minutes; check after 10 to see if it's browning too quickly, in which case cover with tin foil.

Peach Cake by Picklehead

2 T golden syrup (is there golden syrup in the US? Is it called something else?)

3 large peaches, skinned and cut into eighths (the recipe calls for tinned peaches, but when you have fresh ones available, using tinned is an abomination unto the Lord)

5 1/2 oz. butter, melted

5 1/2 oz. golden caster sugar

2 large eggs

4 fl. oz. buttermilk (single cream also works)

1 t. vanilla

1/4 tsp. baking soda

6 oz. flour

Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F. Grease a 9-inch cake pan and line the bottom (not the sides) with wax paper. Drizzle the golden syrup over the base and arrange the peach slices on top.

Whisk the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and whisk. Add the buttermilk, vanilla and baking soda. Sift in the flour and stir.

Pour the batter over the peaches and bake for 45 minutes. Cool for five minutes, then turn out onto a platter.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.