Somehow we've made it to the latter part of the summer, even though the days have seemed to run together ever since March. The seasons march on, the grapes are ripening, and we have been inundated by the harvest of another favorite "fruit": fresh tomatoes. While we don't garden ourselves (other than what Carl calls his one-perennial garden of grapes), we still have the pleasure of receiving a bounty of fresh vegetables from others. This meant that, this past week, our fruit bowl was overflowing with at least five different varieties of fresh tomatoes. This meant that it was time to get creative in the kitchen, not letting one single little tomato go to waste. We have to store up on fresh flavors, remembering the long months down the road when grocery store tomatoes don't hold even a fraction of this flavor. Here are some of my favorite go-to fresh tomato recipes: Caprese Salad Skewers: A great way to start a festive summer feast, easy to make ahead and customize. Wine suggestion: Pinot Grigio. Fresh Tomato Ricotta Lasagna: Making your own ricotta cheese means adding an extra hour and a half of time to make this entrée, but it's so easy and the payoff is so great that it really makes this dish sing. Wine suggestion: Cadenza Vineyards Chardonnay Garden Tomato Soup: Roasting large sections of fresh tomatoes is very satisfying and gives this soup a really nice depth of flavor. Wine suggestion: Sauvignon Blanc Tangy Tomatoes: This fresh and simple tomato salad gets its zing from a healthy splash of fresh lemon juice and lemon zest, as well as fresh dill. Wine suggestion: Gewürztraminer/Traminette
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As members of a robust regional CSA (Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative), we've grown used to sometimes bringing home vegetables which we might not even have known existed before. When we get something new--fairytale eggplants? kabocha squash?--I get to accept the challenge of figuring out what it is and how we might best enjoy it. This week, my challenge was a veggie which at first I couldn't even identify, until I looked again at the week's list. It was, of course...pink celery. It turns out that pink celery can be used pretty much like regular celery, though it has a stronger flavor. The wheels started turning for me as I thought about what kind of dish might enjoy the addition of this crunchy and colorful newcomer. What came to mind was a black rice salad. Black rice is also colorful, cooking to a deep purple, and its chewy texture, I decided, would be a nice contrast to the little pink curls of celery. I got to work. I ran through a mental inventory of other ingredients I have on hand which might also offer textures and colors to complement the rice. I julienned a bright orange carrot, pulled out some blanched edamame left over from another recipe, thinly sliced a bit of green and purple cabbage, remembered that I had some pomegranate arils in the freezer, and toasted some almond slivers. For the dressing, I gathered some of the usual suspects (olive oil and fresh lemon juice), plus miso and tahini and Sriracha, for more flavor. The resulting salad, I can happily report, is a success. There's a great mix of colors and textures and flavors, and it's pretty perfect for a mid-August lunch, with a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I'm happy to now have formally met the new friend that is pink celery, and I'll look forward to see what's in next week's share. Blue butternut? Crimson cauliflower? I'll let you know. There isn't much that's more refreshing than lemonade. Well, I guess sparkling lemonade. Well, I guess sparkling pink lemonade. Well, I guess spiked sparkling pink lemonade. And an idea was born... I know that necessity is sometimes the mother of invention. So is thirst. And curiosity. Allegro's RAVE wines--sparkling sweet fruity drinks in cans--are quite refreshing on their own. They are easy to chill and share. I just added a twist. To infuse RAVE Punk (pink Catawba) with lemon, I decided to make a lemon base, with sweetened fresh-squeezed juice--and add it to the glass before carefully pouring in a can of RAVE Punk (to keep the bubbles). Since I don't like to dilute drinks with water, I added grape ice to the drink to keep it cold. Voilà--a spiked sparkling pink Punk lemon-RAVE! Cheers! When I'm hosting friends and family, I definitely like to keep things simple, and I like to plan ahead. I hate rushing around like a madperson before or after people come over; I'd rather have gotten everything ready and anticipated all contingencies ahead of time. As a guest, my favorite get-togethers are also times when the hosts are comfortable and enjoying themselves as much as I am. This was certainly true one evening last year, when I was visiting my friends Gretchen and Mike. They are great hosts, with a deep wine cellar (including a refrigerator drawer just for bubbly wines, when they know I'm on my way) and a knack for delicious snacks, great cheeses, and delightful appetizers. It's with them that I first had my first Pimm's cocktail, my first Tête de Moine cheese. An evening with them is like an evening of ahhhhhhh. On this particular evening, Gretchen shared with us an appetizer which she'd had with her wonderful friend Tan. Tan lives in Las Vegas, and I've had the good fortune of getting to know her and her family from the visits I've made with Gretchen when she's producing trade shows in Las Vegas. A few years ago, Tan made us one of the best pasta meals I've ever had...but I digress. So: radishes. Tan and Gretchen put out a simple array of four ingredients: sliced baguette, butter, very thinly sliced radishes, and sea salt. That's it. To assemble the app, you simply put them together in that order, and enjoy. I spent about half an hour exclaiming over them and trying to figure out why they're so good, but they somehow are. Just so good.
Wine pairing suggestion: Riesling. So cheers to good friends, relaxed hosts, and the sharing of simple pleasures! We are not gardeners. Carl likes to say that he can only grown one kind of perennial (winegrapes), and I don't ever claim to have a thumb green enough to grown anything. What we've found, though, is that during the height of the summer growing season, we don't need to know how to grow stuff; we just need to know the people who know how to grow stuff. When the bounty of others spills over their needs, we're the happy recipients of those extra veggies. Sometimes it's tomatoes; other times it's cucumbers and zucchini. (My dad--a successful gardener himself--tells the story of a wheelbarrow that a gardening neighbor put out in their yard. It was full of homegrown zucchini, and there was a sign reading "FREE." The neighbor was puzzled to find, at the end of the afternoon, that there were many more zucchini overflowing the wheelbarrow than there had been at the start of the day. Seems that his neighbors were likewise squash-endowed.) This year, more than ever, I've done a good job of finding tasty uses for all of the fresh fruits, veggies, and herbs we get from our CSA (Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative) and generous friends. This week, we got wonderfully ripe tomatoes from our sales manager Steve. Realizing that we also currently had an overflow of similarly-hued fresh watermelons, I set about to put together a tomato watermelon salad. I browsed through different recipes online and came up with a plan that would combine the two fruits, spiced oil, and feta cheese. (Another good thing these days is how well my "COVID kitchen" stays stocked--I spend quite a lot of time each week making sure our pantry stays stocked, so that visits to the grocery can be placed strategically.) My kitchen these days also has more gadgets and implements than ever before, and I am actually using some things for the very first time. I now have a satisfyingly weighty stone mortar and pestle for grinding spices when I'm making Mexican or Indian meals. I put this to use, grinding together peppercorns, cumin seeds, and coriander seeds, which I infused into olive oil by heating them together on the stove. When the oil cooled, I drizzled it over the tomatoes, seeded watermelon, and feta, and then I sprinkled flaked sea salt over everything. (I have always enjoyed eating watermelon and cantaloupe with a bit of salt sprinkled on, to add another note to the sweet flavors.) It was tasty in a surprising way, and quite refreshing. We paired it successfully with Allegro's food-happy Riesling.
I really really like limes. Their flavor profile seems somehow more sophisticated than that of other citrus fruits. They smell and taste peppery, zippy, green. I love the way fresh-squeezed lime juice can enliven tacos, Thai food, and drinks. Margaritas. Mojitos. Allegro's Tango wine is a sweet white wine. In its recipe are kaffir lime leaves, orange peel, and mint--it definitely shares a flavor profile with mojitos cocktails, which I make with muddled mint, white rum, lime, and simple syrup. (People often add soda water to their mojitos, as well.) This summer I've been happily supporting PA distillers, buying my vodkas, gins, and rums from Pennsylvania producers. My current favorite white rum is from Maggie's Farm, a Pittsburgh producer. I like the rum, the label, and their commitment to helping animal rescue shelters--all good stuff. Yesterday I decided to try an experiment, with two different drinks. I made my usual mojito using Maggie's Farm white rum, and I made a wine-and-rum cocktail by adding a bit of the rum to a chilled glass of Allegro's Tango. Both of the drinks were quite tasty (of course). Because of the mint factor, traditional mojito cocktails can sometimes be a bit challenging to pair with food, but my "Tangojito" had more subtle mint, making it easy to pair with the Spicy Cheesy Mini Muffins I had made for supper (and also enjoyed for happy hour). I had left some of the Fresno pepper seeds in the muffin recipe this time, so they were quite spicy. The Tangojito actually cooled that heat. So--cheers to PA wine and spirits, to limes, to animal rescues, and to summer's bright flavors!
Allegro's Celeste wine is made from a combination of peaches and white grapes. It's a nice sweet summer sipper on its own, but I was interested to see how I might pair it with a summer fruit dessert. Since peaches and blueberries are naturally happy companions in other baked goods we've enjoyed, I decided to see how my blueberry coffee cake recipe would taste with a class of chilled Celeste. I'm happy to report that it worked really well. I did realize, though, that I had turned my recipe into something other than a "coffee cake," since it was being enjoyed with wine rather than coffee. So I've renamed it a "Blueberry Happy Cake." Not super-original, but I really do like this recipe, which is easy to make and very enjoyable, thanks in no small part to the blueberries and the Sugar in the Raw which gets sprinkled on after it comes out of the oven. The turbinado sugar gives it a nice little crunch. The 2019 vintage is the first time that Allegro has produced a Dry Rosé wine, and I for one am happy about it. I love this wine style--drinking it takes me back to the time when Carl and I joined Ed Boyce and Sarah O'Herron, owners of Black Ankle Vineyards in Maryland, for a wonderful evening of tapas and dry rosés from Spain. So many amazing tastes, all pairing well with the versatile crisp wine. Dry rosés are basically just light dry red wines. The juice and skins aren't left in contact with each other for very long, so the wine doesn't pick up much color or tannins. Some dry rosés are more fruit-forward; Allegro's 2019 vintage is more crisp and subtle, a really great food accompaniment. At a recent family supper, I made a crustless ("crust-free") mushroom quiche which paired really well with our Dry Rosé. This spring I came across a recipe for a crustless quiche, and I jumped at the chance to try it. As much as I love traditional quiche and pies, I don't share my mom's talent with making pie crusts. Why not simply leave out the crust? I couldn't think of a good reason, and the crustless version turned out really well. Every quiche I've made ever since has been crust-free, and I haven't heard one complaint. Quiche recipes are endlessly tweakable. For this recipe, I just remember the basic ratios--6 eggs to 1.5 cups of light cream to 2 cups of cheese--and then add whatever veggies, seafood, or spices seem like they would play well together. This week I was in a mushroom mood, so I put together this arrangement of oyster and white mushrooms, fresh thyme, Emmentaler and Fontina cheese, shallots, and nutmeg. It was a hit. The quiche paired nicely with the Dry Rosé, too. The quiche brought out the fruit in the rosé, and the flavors definitely complemented each other. Cheers! -Kris Pinot Grigio wines, with their crisp fruity character, pair notoriously well with bright vibrant appetizers—together, they make a great start to a summer meal. Carl sourced the grapes for Allegro’s 2019 Pinot Grigio from the Erie region, from Kris Kane of 21 Brix Winery. We taste all kinds of light fruit in the wine: pears (Carl), peaches (me), oranges, apricots, lemons. It’s been over a decade since Allegro released a Pinot Grigio wine, and it’s really nice to have it back. One of the most popular dishes on summer picnic tables is also Caprese salad: the alchemy that is fresh tomatoes + fresh mozzarella + basil, often dressed with a balsamic glaze, a drizzle of olive oil, and/or fresh basil pesto. I love Caprese salad, and I look forward to the first fresh tomatoes to arrive in our CSA box (from Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative) in June, so that I can bring these tastes back together. Since Caprese salad is such a classic, it can be fun to bring little twists and variations to it. In our family gatherings, we have both an “I love fresh tomatoes” contingent and a “Never tomatoes” contingent, though we all love mozzarella and basil. One way to deal with this set of diverse tastes is to put away the salad bowl and instead put together an array of Caprese salad skewers, each with its own lively character. They can be assembled quite quickly and kept in the fridge until happy hour. In the skewers pictured here (from left to right), I made the following combinations: • Tomato, mozzarella, and basil with a balsamic glaze (reduced on the stovetop for 30 minutes) • Tomato, mozzarella, and prosciutto (which is a great addition, though it can skew a bit salty for wine pairings) • Tomato, mozzarella, basil and Italian olives (Castelvetrano) • Mozzarella and roasted cherry tomatoes (tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasted for 12 minutes in a 400 degree oven) • Mozzarella, basil, and pepperoni, dotted with fresh pesto • Tomato, mozzarella, and basil, with fresh pesto Ah, summer. |