Strawberry, balsamic vinegar and mascarpone cream pudding by liz isabella

Ingredients

250g/8oz strawberries (hulled)
1 tbsp grenadine

1 tsp black peppercorns

100g/3oz caster sugar

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp strawberry liqueur or vodka (we used vodka)

200 ml/7 fl oz single cream

250g/8oz mascarpone cheese


Method

1) Place the hulled strawberries in a bowl and crush lightly with a fork or potato masher. Mix in the grenadine and set aside.

2) Place peppercorns in a pan. Heat on a stove for a few minutes, until the corns crack and roast. They'll look shiny. Allow to cool and then coarsely crush in a mortar and pestle.

3) In another bowl mix the caster sugar with the balsamic vinegar,vanilla and the liqueur or vodka. Mix in the single cream.

4) Beat the mascarpone and mix into the single cream mixture.

5) Spoon a little of the crushed strawberries into the bottom of martini glasses, wine glasses or knickerbocker glory glasses. Spoon over a little of the cream mixture, and sprinkle with some peppercorns.

6) Repeat until the glasses are full, finishing with the cream and the final sprinkle of pepper. Garnish with whole or cut strawberries.

Pea and Pecorino Risotto by liz isabella

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
50g/2oz butter

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

400g/14oz risotto rice

150ml/5oz white wine

1.5L/2.5 pints hot chicken stock

45g/1lb peas (frozen or fresh, doesn't matter)

25g/10oz grated pecorino cheese

handful of fresh mint, roughly chopped

salt and freshly ground black pepper


Method:

1) Heat a large, heavy-based saucepan and add the oil and half the butter. Heat until it is foaming then add the onon and gently cook for about 5 minutes until beginning to soften. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes then stir in the rice and heat through for a minute until shiny and opaque

2) Pour in the wine and boil for 1 minute to allow the alcohol to evaporate, stirring constantly. Turn down the heat to medium heat and begin to add the stock a ladleful at a time allowing the liquid to to absorbed into the rice before adding more.

3) After 15 minutes of cooking add te frozen peas and cook for another 5-7 minutes.

4) When the rice feels soft and fluffy and the texture is creamy, but each grain is still firm to the bite in the centre the risotto is ready. At this point take the risotto off the heat and stir in the remaining butter cheese and mint and season to taste. Leave to rest with the lid on for a few minutes then serve immediately.

Enchiladas with Chili Gravy by Erythrosine

1. While the tortillas do have to be cooked before you fill them, it works perfectly well to steam them, instead of individually frying each tortilla, which takes forever (and adds a huge dose of oil or lard). I learned this from Martha Rose Shulman's NYTimes piece about tacos. I wrapped twenty corn tortillas in a nice clean dish towel and steamed them over boiling water for one minute, then removed the pot from the heat and left them covered for fifteen more minutes.

2. Robb Walsh's Chili Gravy is the perfect Tex-Mex enchilada sauce, if your chili powder is good, and fresh:

Chili Gravy
1/4 cup oil or lard
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoon powdered garlic [I substituted fresh garlic, of course]
2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoon good chile powder [I used Penzey's, but Gebhardt's is supposed to be good]
2 cups chicken broth (or water)

Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the flour and continue stirring for 3 to 4 minutes, or until it makes a light brown roux. Add all the dry ingredients and continue to cook for 1 minute, constantly stirring and blending ingredients, then add chicken broth or water, mixing and stirring until the sauce thickens. Turn heat to low and let sauce simmer for 15 minutes. Add water to adjust the thickness. Makes 2 cups.

For a filling, I used diced cooked chicken thighs, grated queso fresco, fresh cilantro (since there were no cilantro-haters present), and onions (cooked with the chicken thighs). Given the amount of ancho chili in the chili powder, I'm not sure how much it mattered that the chicken broth I used in the chili gravy was double-strength homemade broth, not the canned stuff, but you probably wouldn't want to add any salt if you used canned broth.

Salad of Shaved Brussels Sprouts by bookseller

This is my attempt to replicate a salad I love at a local restaurant. The sprouts are shaved into very thin slices, and then those slices are sliced into thin ribbons (this is what's known as a chiffonade). They're dressed with a vinaigrette made, I'm guessing, from white wine vinegar, olive oil, and some walnut oil or hazelnut oil, with maybe a tiny bit each of dijon mustard and honey, plus salt and pepper. And then it's all tossed with finely shredded (but not grated) pecorino cheese and hazelnuts that have been toasted and chopped. It's very, very tasty.

Brining Pork by Calamity Jeanne and bookseller

Calmity Jeanne:

I brine pork chops in the fridge for 90 minutes in six cups of water into which I've dissolved 3 tbsp. of kosher salt and 3 tbsp. sugar. Then I drain the chops, rinse them, pat them dry and proceed with the recipe.

bookseller:

I swear by Bruce Aidell; he says to make a brine of 1/4 cup each kosher salt and sugar (sugar sub is fine), plus 3.5 cups cold water and a cup of ice cubes (that's about 8 standard cubes). This for four chops. Stick the bowl or bag in the fridge, brine for 4-6 hours, then remove the chops and pat dry. At that point you can either cook them or wrap them in plastic and refrigerate to cook later.

You can flavor the brine with any number of things, from coffee to herbs to mustard to apple juice, but the basic works great. Even boneless loin chops, which I have usually found to be the definition of dry, turn out incredibly juicy and tender. REALLY good.

ETA, FWIW, same trick works great on chicken and turkey breast.

---

Salad Nicoise by bookseller

Or you could you know just to a big take-off on salade nicoise. Boil the potatoes, poach the shrimp, either grill the zukes or leave'em raw, chunk up the tomatoes, throw in some good olives and, really, anything else that might be in the fridge or the garden -- any kind of lettuce, beans, Cucumbers (you wanna be fancy, you could salt and drain them first), onions (those I really WOULD soak and salt, to make them less overpowering, or you'll be eating onion salad), a couple hard-boiled eggs, slivered peppers (or mmmmm roasted, even better) -- and make a garlicky vinaigrette with anchovies and lots of olive oil and lemon.

Oooh, yeah artichoke hearts would be good, too. Also some canned white beans or chickpeas. Pour me a glass of white wine, please, and shove over on the bench.

...classic salade nicoise is those thin little green beans, tomatoes, canned tuna, black nicoise olives, hard boiled egg, and boiled potatoes (though some people apparently raise their eyebrows at this). You mash acouple of anchovies with a clove or two of garlic and coarse salt to you have a paste, dilute it with a little lemon juice, and then work in olive oil until you have a nice creamy-textured vinaigrette.

Anyway, that's the classic recipe, but you can add just about anything you might find in the summer in the Mediterranean, and it will taste good. I've had it made with fresh, seared tuna, and I don't think it's an improvement -- the texture's wrong. But I've also had it with shrimp and white beans subbing for the tuna and potatoes, and that was lovely.

Zucchini Fritters by Sicut Cervus

2 cups shredded unpeeled zucchini
1/4 cup chopped green onion
1 egg
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teasp salt
1/2 teasp baking powder
1/2 teasp oregano OR 1/2 tablesp chopped fresh basil


Fold all ingredients together. Fry in hot oil and butter. Serve with lemon wedges OR with thick sweet tomato sauce (1/2 c tomato paste, 1/3 cup water, some chopped basil, a pat of butter, salt & pepper to taste)

Pasta Salad by bibbety

Orzo: let's say 2 cups dry pasta cooked and drained to make what, 3-4 cups cooked?

Slivered sundried tomatoes in oil (you can chop them yourself or buy them in the jar already done) 1 cup

About 1 cup of moroccan oil-cured olives pitted and chopped,

1 tub of pearl bocconcini, drained (I think they are about 1 cup or so)

Dressing:

The zest of 1 lemon.

2 tablespoons of lemon juice

1 to 2 cloves of crushed garlic

1/4 to 1/3 cup of olive oil (to your taste)

Salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything about an hour before the meal and add some freshly chopped basil and adjust seasonings just before serving.

Peanut Sauce by liz_isabella

Had a nice dinner of greens and peanut sauce. The peanut sauce was so easy I'm going to put it on everything. It was a quarter cup of peanut butter, a quarter up of boiling water, two tbsp soya sauce, two tbsp lemon juice, garlic and ginger to taste. The only thing I'd do differently is put less lemon juice. I had to compensate for that with more garlic and ginger.

Whipped Carrots by Li

Simmer three medium carrots in chicken stock with one garlic clove for 12-14 minutes, put in food processor with three tablespoons of heavy cream and one teaspoon unsalted butter, process until light and smooth. YUM and really easy. Kid refused to eat it but damn, I'm all over it.

Green Gumbo

Recipe from the Washington Post

An Otter favourite.

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.

Huge Salad by Sicut Cervus

Just made one of those for dinner, using pretty much everything in the fridge and then some:

meat loaf, cubed

rice

1 endive, sliced

onion, chopped

basil, from garden (LOTS)

grated mozzarella

leftover peas

vinaigrette salad dressing

2 large fresh tomatoes (no, not from garden, though we're getting close), diced

juice of one lemon

lots of fresh ground black pepper

Broiled Crab Cakes by Grizzled Adams

I just made broiled crab cakes last night, easiest recipe ever....

1 egg yolk

1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon dry mustard

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

1 pound Maryland jumbo lump crab meat

Preheat the broiler.

In a large bowl, combine the egg yolk, salt, pepper, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, mayonnaise and parsley. Then, gently fold in the crab meat (be careful not to break up the lumps). Shape into cakes and broil for 5 minutes.

I dusted the 4, 1/4lb cakes with Old Bay b4 broiling....very tasty

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo by Erythrosine

four chicken leg quarters, or ten chicken thighs (with bones)
one pound of smoked sausage such as Andouille or a slightly
dried smoked sausage labeled "Cajun flavor", or any
smoked sausage
1/2 cup bacon grease, or vegetable oil, or clarified butter
[I used the fat from a 12-ounce package of bacon]
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
2 onions (preferably hot), diced
two bell peppers (one red and one green), diced
half a large bunch of celery, diced
one 32-ounce can of diced or crushed tomatoes
one pound of sliced okra, fresh or frozen (16-ounce bag)
one 16-ounce bag of frozen corn kernels
5 dried or fresh bay leaves
1.5 teaspoons dried thyme, or the fresh equivalent (grocery
store dried thyme is often moldy-smelling, so I prefer
Penzey's dried thyme)
one teaspoon salt (to taste)
1/8 teaspoon ground celery seed
one teaspoon ground cumin seed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
one teaspoon smoked Spanish paprika

Making the broth might be most conveniently done the night before, or in the morning. Cook the chicken thighs or leg quarters in just enough water to mostly cover, with a lid on the pot, turning the chicken pieces once or twice, for about an hour. You do not need to remove the skin first. Remove the chicken pieces to a plate and allow to cool. remove the meat from the bones and put the bones, skin, and hard bits back into the broth. Cook the broth on low for another hour or longer, to extract more flavor from the skin and bones. Cool the broth and chill it so that you can easily remove the thick layer of fat from the top. Discard the bones, etc., and reserve the broth. I think I had about six cups of broth.

Then, start by making the roux. In a heavy-bottomed frying pan, over medium heat, cook flour in grease or oil, stirring constantly, until distinctly browned. Do not burn the roux; if it burns and gets black specks in it, throw it away and start again. Don't allow the roux to spatter, because it can cause bad burns on your skin.

Allow the roux to cool a little, then try tossing in a piece of diced onion. If the sizzling is not too dramatic, add the onion and celery to the roux and cook until the onion is somewhat translucent. Add the bell peppers. If you want to add a chopped seeded jalapeño, now is the time.

At this point, transfer to a soup pot or a slow cooker. Place the roux and vegetables in the slow cooker or soup pot, along with canned tomatoes, okra, and corn. Add bay leaves and thyme. Slice smoked sausage and add to the gumbo. Add reserved chicken broth and stir. Cook on the highest setting in the slow cooker, or medium heat on the stove top, until the gumbo starts to simmer (small bubbles at the edges and hot throughout). Chop the chicken into bite-sizes squares and add it to the gumbo, turn the heat to low and cook for several hours. If the low setting on your slow cooker is too high, so that it causes the gumbo to boil at the edges, turn to the "keep warm" setting instead. If the low setting on your stove is not low enough to prevent burning and sticking, then watch carefully and stir frequently, and turn the heat off for up to one hour at a time (not more than two hours off at a time). Taste the gumbo, and add salt as needed (one teaspoon was right for me), plus ground celery seed, ground cumin, red pepper flakes, and paprika (preferably smoked paprika, if you can get it). If, after eating a quarter-cup of the gumbo, you decide it's too mild, add more crushed red pepper, or chopped seed