Summer Salads

The beauty of summer is upon us and with this summer beauty brings summer bounty and this bounty can turn into a salad without you even knowing it.

I picked some fresh salad greens and some nasturtium blossoms and some squash blossoms along with some rattlesnake beans some heirloom tomatoes and a cucumber and I also picked a few sprigs of lemon basil and purple basil to round out the sweetness. At home I had some bacalao and some yucca and some batata (batata is a tropical sweet potato, it is white with a burgundy skin). Since the yucca and batata were already cooked and in the fridge I simply sliced it into little discs and squares and I browned it on both sides in some butter. I made some quick croutons with some fresh ciabatta bread that I picked up this morning by tossing the cubed bread in a little olive oil and some of my seasoned salt, when the yucca and batata were browned I removed them to a plate and tossed the croutons in to brown in the hot pan. I had made some cilantro oil a few days before so that was the base for my simple dressing with white vinegar.

This salad came together quickly since I had mostly everything already prepared. My son likes heaping portions so I made a pretty one for me and a piled a mile high version for him, his got some mozzarella cheese instead of the bacalao since he doesn't care for the saltiness of the fish so much - odd since he likes other salty fish. Make some summer salads - I can't wait to hear what you do.

mediterranean chicken in the lower east side of manhattan - aka "belly dancing chicken"

Through the magic of cooking and blogging I am able to transform regular ingredients into exotic ingredients from far away lands with the application of herbs, spices and heat all in a two hour span. I know that may sound like some kind of tricky mumbo jumbo but its absolutely true. Take this chicken for example: yesterday evening a long time friend, a buddy I have known since we were both 18 years old or so calls me up and says "I have some chicken breasts and I am thinking of grilling them, do you have any ideas?" Well thats like asking if there is sand on the beach - of course I have ideas. Fortunately my friend is usually pretty well stocked so when I asked him about mint he said "growing in the garden" and when I asked about feta cheese he said "a half pound in the fridge" so before you know it he was pounding out his chicken and spreading this mediterranean mixture I had described to him inside the flattened breasts and rolling them back up and tossing them on the grill. We also discussed a potato that was first parboiled then sliced and rubbed with olive oil, oregano and coarse salt that was also grilled. (he sent me a picture from his cell phone)

The consensus between his 9 year old daughter, her 9 year old friend who was over for dinner, his girlfriend and him was - no leftovers - so as much he was hoping to save some for a nice lunch these delights disappeared faster than a wizard in a sandstorm. Well, since I now have mint and lemon zest and chicken and oregano on my mind - I had to get busy.

I had chicken thighs not breasts so I made a nice rub but since I didnt have feta I had to use goat cheese and since I didnt have a garden with fresh mint I had to use some dried mint I had dried myself from my last mint purchase so my version was going to be slightly different. I made a nice mixture in my mortar and pestle of goat cheese, garlic, oregano, mint, lemon zest, salt and olive oil and this was rubbed all over the thighs then I ground fresh pepper over the whole lot and they were allowed to rest in this for half an hour before they were first seared on the stove top then popped in a hot oven.

Chicken is out of the oven looking perfect and doing its resting thing while I slice some cucumbers and fluff up the rice with some of the marinade that I had reserved on the side just for this very flavor footprint, I wanted everything to stroll harmoniously together.

Now if you cant tell these are three different plates then you have no business in my kitchen. The flavors were outstanding, the chicken was juicy with a nice crispy skin, the rice danced ever so seductively with the rest of the plate - it was like belly dancing with out the music and with out the belly dancer but with everything thing else that makes you feel exotic, a little of the far away right here in Manhattan.

teach to learn, learn to teach

You have heard it "those that cant do - teach - and those that cant teach - teach gym" as the old saying goes but I guess those people already know how to cook. As old as I am I learn something new everyday and I mean every single day and as a constant learner I am now learning how to teach, how to pass on what I know to future generations.

Cooking is one of those arts that you can never stop learning, you may be good at one thing but you might need help with another so there is a never ending supply of things to learn. Today I taught a young student interested in embarking on a career in the culinary arts two of my favorite things to make. Eggs and dessert and what better eggs than Davidsons - Safest Choice, all natural eggs.

Brunch is a no brainer in my world and thats only because I've made it hundreds of times and since it is something so second nature to me it is one of the easiest things for me to teach since it is all technique, no recipe here. We started boiling water and separating eggs for the hollandaise while we thumbed our way through some pages of the Larousse Gastronomique.

While things were whisked and resting and english muffin toast was toasting we got our plates ready with some cucumbers, carrots, avocado and salmon.

Watching her do the "oh my god this is gonna be good" wiggle that some people do when they know they are about to taste something delicious was enough good feeling to last me for weeks.

This tasted fantastic, no doubt, but she has such a refined sense of smell and taste for her age it is exciting to think of the wonderful future she has ahead of her and to listen to her dissect the flavors was very impressive. She had two I had one - she liked it that much. Toasted english muffin with smoked salmon and avocado drizzled in copious amounts of hollandaise with a carrot and cucumber salad, you have seen this one before.

When we had our fill of eggs benedict we made a flourless chocolate cake out of the left over egg whites for dessert - this sealed the deal for the day. Chocolate, raspberries and cream foam how can you not like it? "Give a man(woman) a fish he(she) can eat for a day, teach a man(woman) how to fish he(she) can eat forever, show a man(woman) how to cook fish and everyone is happy" thus spoke Christo!

phoenix rising

Last night my little Escoffier says to me " can I have salmon with lime for breakfast" to which I replied, "salmon with lime, are you sure?" and he said "yes." I couldn't actually believe it until this morning when he asked "what are we having for breakfast" and I said "salmon with lime" and he said "good". I made his and he gobbled it right up before I could even get a chance to blink. So as I was blinking I snapped these shots of him eliminating his portion.

It was so good I felt like I was having breakfast in Japan even though I have never been to Japan and I dont even know if this is typical Japanese breakfast, but to me it was, and if it isnt when I come back in the next life in Japan this will be my breakfast. Pan seared salmon with jasmine rice and cucumber seasoned with salt, pepper and hungarian paprika and of course lime.

Seeds

Everytime I eat an avocado, and that is weekly and during peak season sometimes daily, I plant the seed. I have 8 avocado plants right now and many seeds germinating. I have given away 4 plants recently and many more in the past. Avocado plants are so cool. They sprout up real tall and have the biggest most "new looking" leaves you could ever see - plus they make me feel tropical.

These are in the bathroom since this room gets the most light all day long.

If you look closely you will see a new one sprouting up. It takes a few months for the seeds to germinate. I have not calculated or measured or tracked how long but someone once said the germination time is relative to seed size. This is a view out one window of a sunflower.

And these are two other windows - one with squash and cucumber. I like vine plants since they crawl up and shade the window with green in the summer plus you get squash blossoms for fritatas. The other box is beans. I buy the bag of beans in the supermarket that are for mixed bean soup because you get this nice variety. Beans are cool because some climb some dont but they all have different colored flowers and they all produce green beans.