Pinchy would have wanted it this way

Someone is having fun with the Photoshop app on her phone!

I've always wanted to go to the Lobster Festival in Rockland, Maine. I already have my and my husband's outfits planned. I will obviously wear my blue lobster t-shirt, and probably a stretchy skirt with plenty of space for belly expansion due to buttery crustacean consumption. He will wear his lobster polo shirt, lobster belt, lobster pants, and lobster flip-flops. And, obviously, his lobster hat. I think the only question that remains regarding his outfit will be which pair of lobster boxers to wear. Have I mentioned before that he likes lobster? He wrote a 35 page paper on the lobster industry, and even has an e-mail address mentioning lobsters. So DAMN STRAIGHT I learned to make a tasty lobster roll.

Lobster rolls
Makes about 10 rolls*

7 cooked and cooled lobsters
3/4 cup finely chopped celery - including the leaves! (this is the secret to a good roll)
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
3 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1 1/2 lemons
salt and pepper, to taste
10 top-split hot dog rolls (lightly toasted if you prefer them that way)

Pick the meat from lobsters and roughly chop it. Stir in the rest of the ingredients until just combined. For best results, cover and refrigerate for a few hours before stuffing into hot dog rolls.

*This is very easy to cut down. If you just want to make this for two people, use one lobster, about 2 tablespoons of celery, and just a tiny squirt of all the remaining ingredients.

Welcome back chicken

I've been neglecting my blog, I know. You may poke me in the eye with dried spaghetti as punishment. But I come bearing barbecue sauce - MADE WITH BOURBON - as a "please forgive me" gesture. I know this photo is terrible. It's from a video I took while camping at Assateague National Seashore, and it was getting dark outside. If you live anywhere near Assateague, and you've never been - it's so worth it. There are wild horses on the island, and you basically camp right on the beach. A few years ago (the first time I was there) the wild horses wandered into our campsite and tried to eat the corn we were grilling. It was a little awkward - I mean, didn't their horse moms teach them that food on the grill would be WAY too hot to eat right away? Plus I didn't even get a chance to spread it with a chive butter yet. Patience, my little horsie friends, patience! No horses wandered into our camp this year, possibly because the whole thing was ringed with poison ivy. There was so much it was almost comical. At least the horse moms taught their foals something.

Back to the sauce - I slathered it on some chicken thighs (bone in, skin off) and DAMN, was it good. So much so that I risked a horrible photo to share it with you. God - it's awful. It looks like something the National Enquirer would publish - "Look, there's a Sasquatch off in the woods making out with Nikki Haley!"

Bourbon bbq sauce (adapted from a July 2004 Bon Appetit recipe)
(makes enough sauce for 3-4 people)

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup finely minced onion
1/2 cup ketchup (Heinz is the only brand of ketchup one should ever use)
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon brown sugar (well packed)
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
2 tablespoons bourbon
6 chicken thighs or 12 chicken legs

Melt the butter over medium low heat in a small saucepan. Add the onions, and stir constantly until they are softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in all the rest of the ingredients except the bourbon and let it come to a simmer, stirring often to keep it from burning. Let it bubble for about 10 minutes. Add the bourbon and cook for another minute or two. 

Keep sauce refrigerated until ready to use. Grill chicken thighs or legs until done on one side, then turn, and slather with sauce. Dredge the other side with sauce once you've taken them off the grill. 

Shout outs all over the place

I pretty much love anything crusted in cornmeal. In fact, this year for my birthday I might request that my husband coat himself in cornmeal. Mmm, he would be so crunchy and delicious. Oysters, waffles, green tomatoes, there is really nothing cornmeal can't make yummier.

I actually meant to post this recipe much earlier in the blog, but as I wrote the salsa recipe on the back of bank receipt, and then apparently used it as a bookmark in an Indian cookbook and only found it the other day when I was looking up mango recipes for a friend who lives in Tanzania. (Hi Ellie! Stay away from snakes!) Sorry it's a bit out of season, but perhaps those in the south (Henry and Erin - WHO ARE NOW ENGAGED!) can still find some serviceable peaches.

Cornmeal crusted fish with basil fruit salsa
Serves 2

1 peach
1 nectarine
1 small poblano
1 giant green onion
1/4 cup basil
2 white flaky fish fillets (I used turbot)
1 egg
1 cup course cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
salt and pepper

Blanch the peach and nectarine by plunging them into boiling water for 1 minute, then moving them to an ice bath to stop the cooking. Peel off the skin and chop the fruit into 1/4 inch pieces. Finely dice the poblano, green onion (including the green part)*, and basil. Combine with the fruit and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Lightly beat the egg with a splash of water in a low flat bowl or pie plate. In a different low flat bowl, combine the cornmeal, paprika, and salt and pepper to taste. Dip a piece of fish in the egg on both sides, then dredge it in the cornmeal. Set on a plate while you do the other piece (or pieces).

Heat the vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet. Once it's hot, gently place the fish in. Once the underside is light brown (about 3 minutes), turn and cook the other side.

Top the fish with the salsa.

*I hate when recipes tell you not to use the green part of a green onion. Why not? It's still onion-y and delicious.

Step 47: Vogue.

Two years ago my husband and I tried to grow tomatoes on the windowsill of our apartment. We bought a cherry tomato plant in late spring and watered it, sang it lullabies, and generally loved it to pieces. Come mid-summer, we saw little blossoms! How exciting! Our baby was having a baby! But then only like three of the blossoms became tomatoes. And a bird ate one. So, after a whole summer of devotion, we had two wee tiny cherry tomatoes. It was so sad. So, I don't garden. Yet. But, if I did, I would plant loads of plum tomato plants to make sauce. It tastes so summery and delicious, and since my recipe can go in the freezer, you can take it out in January and remember that there is a time when the sun shines more that 5 hours a day.

So, as per my usual summer ritual, I bought a giant basket of yellow plum tomatoes. You could totally do this recipe with regular red plum tomatoes. The key is more that they are VERY ripe. There are about a badillion different ways to make sauce, but I think Lidia Bastianich, an Italian grandmother-y type who has a great show on PBS, does a damn fine job of it. Plus she's so thorough with her instructions, if you screw up you only have yourself to blame. This recipe is more or less based on hers.

Summer Tomato Sauce
Makes 3 quarts of sauce

8 pounds ripe plum tomatoes
1/4 cup olive oil
3 onions, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
5 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon hot pepper flakes
a bunch of basil (about 8-10 sprigs), including stems

Ooh, you think you're ready to cook! Ha! First you have to do the hard part - preparing the tomatoes!

Preparing tomatoes
Set a large pot of water to boil.

Make an ice bath in a large bowl by combining two trays of ice cubes and cold water. Next to that set a colander.

Using a slotted spoon or a spider, set about 8-9 tomatoes in the boiling water for about a minute. Take them out using the spoon or spider, and put them in the ice water to stop the cooking. Once they are cool, put them in the colander to make room for the next batch. Repeat with all of the tomatoes.

Once all your tomatoes are in the colander, prepare two more large bowls. In the first one, set a fine mesh wire strainer.

Working over the bowl with a strainer in it, take one blanched tomato at a time. Remove the skin with either your fingers or the aid of a paring knife. (I think it's easier to just use my paws.) Drop the skin in the strainer. Squeeze the tomato so the juices and seeds fall into the strainer. (You will end up squirting yourself in the eye many times.) Drop the whole tomato into the other bowl. Repeat for 8 pounds worth of tomatoes.


Take a rubber spatula and press the skins and seeds into strainer to extract as much juice as possible. (Sometimes the juice gets stuck up there with all the skins, and you might have to do this partway through the process as well.) Reserve all the juice, and discard the skins and seeds.

Sauce, continued

Okay, back to making sauce.

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large sturdy dutch oven. Cook the onions until translucent, trying not to let them brown, about 7 minutes. Add a teaspoon of salt. Turn the heat down if it seems like they are cooking too fast.

Clear a little space in the onions, and add the minced garlic and hot pepper flakes directly onto the bottom of the pot. Let them cook for about a minute, then stir into the onions. If things are starting to stick a bit, add a couple of tablespoons of water to loosen things up, scraping the bottom with a rubber spatula.

Add all the tomatoes and juice. Rinse your tomato bowl with about a cup of water, and then toss that into the soup pot too. Add the remaining teaspoon of salt and stir everything together. Put your basil sprigs, stems and all, into pot.

Cover, and let it come to a boil. Turn it down to low (so it is just simmering), and keep it covered, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes. Your tomatoes should be beginning to break down at this point.

Let the sauce simmer, uncovered, for about an hour, or until it becomes as thick as you like it. Continue to stir occasionally. Once it's gotten to a thickness you're happy with, turn off the heat and pull out the basil sprigs. (You don't have to worry about every little leaf, but no one wants to eat an entire basil stem.) Sometimes I use my handheld blender to make it a little smoother, but that's up to you.

Eat what you want now, and store the rest in the freezer for using mid-winter. Don't try to can this sauce - you have to have the correct pH balance to can tomatoes to make sure you don't get botulism.

Taste the rainbow

Carrots come in as many colors as Skittles. (Just take away the green and add white.) You just most often see the orange ones. Too bad, because the other colors are really cool, and make a beautiful carrot salad. If you've never had farm market or homegrown carrots, you really should give them a try. They taste so much more carrot-y than carrots from the grocery store.

As an aside, I have a friend who hates carrots. He even picks them out of Campbell's soup! (But they are so teeny! Maybe he uses tweezers.) John N., do not make this recipe. The main ingredient is carrots. It would knock you over with it's carrot-ness.

Carrot salad
Serves 4 (5, if John N. is coming to your house for dinner)

6 carrots (try the ones from the farm market! Or steal them out of your neighbor's garden like Peter Rabbit. But don't sue me if he comes after you with a shotgun.)
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro (you could use any herb, but I was going for a Moroccan thing)
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red wine vinegar
salt and pepper

Thinly slice carrots. Or julienne them in a food processor.

Whisk together cilantro, lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. Toss carrots with dressing.

The salad will keep for a couple of days in the refrigerator.

What all sandwiches should aspire to be

This sandwich was so damn good I'm sure I will be pining for it mid-winter. And it was really easy to make and packed really well to take to work for lunch. Well, I'm currently between jobs, but that's what my husband said. We ate it for two days, and was just as good on the second day, although the bread was getting a little softer.

I based my recipe off of "A Big Tomato Sandwich" from Local Flavors by Deborah Madison.


Tomato Sandwich
Serves 4

8-12 inch round loaf (I used a black olive thyme loaf from Firehook, a bakery in my 'hood.)
2 or more big ripe tomatoes (I used 2 big heirlooms, a Brandywine and a Nebraska Wedding)
1 red pepper, roasted, peeled, and chopped
3.5 ounces goat cheese
6 slices Genoa salami from the deli
Herb vinaigrette (below)

Slice the top third off the loaf of bread. Pull out the inside crumbs of the top and bottom bread to make the loaf hollow. Brush the herb vinaigrette on the inside of the bread, then layer with tomato, pepper, cheese and more vinaigrette. Make a layer of salami and then push down to pack it in tight. Repeat with remaining ingredients. Put the bread "hat" back on. Wrap it in foil, then smoosh down the top to get it all nice and packed in. Cut it into 4 pieces, and share with people who you really like. (If you are taking it for lunch, only cut as many pieces as you'll use that day. Wrap it in foil for easy transporting.)

Herb vinaigrette

1/4 cup basil leaves
1/4 cup chopped garlic chives (you could also finely mince a clove of garlic)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/3 cup olive oil
4 teaspoons red wine vinegar
salt and pepper

Whisk all the vinaigrette ingredients together.

It's tomato soup served ice cold!

I love gazpacho. It tastes like summer. But the funny thing about making your own farm-fresh gazpacho is that the ingredients aren't really at their peak until late August or September. It's almost like nature is pointing and laughing at you, because right when you're ready for fall, it is giving up the summer bounty. Luckily, gazpacho-wise, it is usually boiling hot and humid in DC well through September.

I used to think that I had to really earn the deliciousness of gazpacho by chopping every ingredient by hand into a teeny tiny dice. And I did that lots of times. But then I went to my friend Kathryn's house and she had made the gazpacho from Barefoot Contessa. I was a little skeptical and judgy, because I knew Barefoot's recipe involved a food processor. But, alas, it was still chunky and delicious! I was won over. It's now my go-to gazpacho guide.

Gazpacho
Serves 4-5

1 cucumber (not the waxy skinned kind, the long and skinny kind), halved and seeded but not peeled, cut into chunks
1 red pepper, cored and seeded, cut into chunks
4 tomatoes (I used heirlooms: 3 green zebras and a Mr. Stripey), cut into chunks
1 red onion, cut into chunks
3 garlic cloves, chopped
24 oz. tomato juice (3 cups)
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 tablespoon salt
fresh black pepper, to taste

Put each vegetable into the food processor one at a time. Pulse until it is finely chopped. After you chop each veggie, toss it in a big bowl. Add the tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Chill before serving.