Posted By Lindsay on August 18, 2009
Summerfest is on. As in, make the most of the fresh veggies while you’ve still got them. And if you can do it while only needing the oven for a mere two minutes, even better (oh the joys of a hot and humid tennessee august).
This panzanella, or bread salad, is a great way to keep things fresh and flavorful in the midst of the summer heat. The bread is drizzled in the salad’s juices, then broiled just until it is barely crisp, and topped with the chunky mix of fresh tomatoes, cucumber, basil, and onion. It’s a bit tricky to eat, but worth every messy bite.
I’ve realized that heirloom tomatoes are best enjoyed raw, in their purest form. Cooked, you can’t tell the difference between a cherokee purple and a regular old big boy, so why bother using the expensive stuff? But raw… well… I wouldn’t have them any other way. Not to mention they are beautiful, their bold reds and yellows, gradients of greens and even purples, it’d be a shame to cook all that color right out of them. Yes, I confess we used heirloom tomatoes on our recent pizza experiment, and while it was delicious, it would have been just as delicious with any vine-ripened specimen.
Save those precious heirlooms for something that really brings out their best. Drizzled with a hint of olive oil and tossed with fresh basil and cucumber, all on a slice of freshly baked rustic baguette, well, I don’t think it gets any better than that.
Heirloom Tomato Panzanella
Ingredients:
3 large heirloom tomatoes, chopped into 1/4- to 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 medium cucumber, julienned and cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/4 cup thinly sliced red onion
3 tablespoon fresh basil, torn into large pieces
3 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
Sea salt
Coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 whole-wheat baguette, cut into 8 (1/2-inch-thick) slices
8 basil leaves
Directions:
Toss first 6 ingredients in a bowl; season with salt and pepper; let stand 30 minutes. Drizzle 1 tablespoon liquid from mixture over bread; broil each side until golden; top with 2 tablespoon tomato mixture. Garnish with basil leaves.
Posted By Lindsay on August 17, 2009
Making the most of the local zucchini while it’s still around. Eating these sandwiches reminds me of just how much I love summer, and the bounty available to us at the farmers market.
It was also a good opportunity to use our first successfully-baked baguette, which, unlike our last attempt, turned out beautifully. This time? No glass dish or boiling water. Just a specialized baguette pan (thanks sis!) and an easy peasy recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day. Yum. While this recipe initially called for serving the squash on an English Muffin, we couldn’t pass up slicing into our freshly baked bread.
Squash aside, do you know what I love most about summer? The light. And the fact that it stays light until well past dinner time. Sad to think that it’s slowly leaving me to eat (and photograph) once again in the dusk.
The best part of this recipe (besides the cheese – which I indulge in every once in a great while – and boy was it good!) is the smoky paprika pesto. If you can find it, smoked paprika has a slightly spicy and sensually smoky flavor that can’t be replicated with any other spice. It gives the pesto a depth and a richness, and paired with the bright flavor of the fresh basil, just works. So even if you don’t make these sandwiches, the pesto itself could be put to good use in a myriad of other delicious dishes.
If you’re like us and don’t have the luxury of a grill (thanks Tennessee condo laws!), this dish is perfectly delicious when pan-seared. Use a cast iron or grill pan if you have it, it’ll be closer to grilled than anything else. We served these open-faced, quickly broiled to melt the cheese, and paired with some crispy pan sauteed potatoes with Taylor’s special spice mix (your closest bet are these babies here: Smoked Paprika Fingerling Potatoes). Hot and smoky and crisp and delicious.
Gruyère-and-Zucchini Sandwiches with Smoky Pesto
Ingredients:
1 packed cup basil leaves
1 large garlic clove, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon hot smoked paprika
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing
Salt, to taste
One 8-ounce zucchini, cut into 4 lengthwise slices
4 English muffins, preferably Bays, split
4 ounces Gruyère or Appenzeller cheese, cut into 8 thin slices
Directions:
In a mini food processor, combine the basil, garlic and paprika and process until finely chopped. With the machine on, gradually pour in the 3 tablespoons of olive oil until blended. Season the pesto with salt.
Light a grill. Brush the zucchini slices with olive oil and season with salt. Grill over high heat until nicely charred and just tender, about 2 minutes per side. Cut each zucchini slice in half crosswise.
Grill the English muffins, cut side down, over low heat, until just soft, about 30 seconds. Turn and grill until the muffins start to brown, about 1 minute. Spread the cut sides of the muffins with the pesto. Layer 1 slice of cheese, 2 zucchini pieces and 1 more slice of cheese on the bottom halves of each muffin. Close the sandwiches and brush the tops and bottoms with olive oil. Grill the sandwiches over low heat, turning, until they’re crisp on the outside and the cheese is melted, about 4 minutes total. Cut the sandwiches in half and serve right away.
Posted By Lindsay on August 15, 2009
Stop. Whatever you’re doing. Grab your keys. Drive to the nearest grocery store and buy yourself some white chocolate chips and wheat gluten. Speed home as fast as you can, and make this bread. Immediately. Because once you do, you won’t be able imagine how you ever lived without it. It’s that good.
I first had this bread about 7 years ago on a family vacation to Club Med. This bread is their specialty. And every morning, we’d race to the buffet and load our plates with it. I could have lived on it. And when we left, I was sad, because I’d have to go back to eating cereal for breakfast. I scoured the internet when I got home, looking for a recipe, with no luck. I even tried baking a loaf of bread and throwing some white chocolate chips in it, with dismal results. It just wasn’t the same.
Then, just last week, a post popped up in my twitter account with a link to the recipe! The actual recipe. I could barely contain my excitement.
The one tricky part about the recipe is an ingredient. It calls for wheat gluten. Maybe I’m out of the loop, but I’ve never heard of such a thing. Oh I know that gluten is what makes bread chewey, but I thought it was more a result of a process, and not an ingredient you could buy. So off we went in search of wheat gluten. Lucky for us we found it fairly easily at a health food store nearby. There was this box by Arrowhead Mills, but there was also some by the Bob’s Red Mill brand (this one was cheaper though, by a whole $3! so we went with it instead). Score.
With wheat gluten in hand, I just needed to find time to make it. So I did. Yesterday. During the time I usually reserve for my daily workout. If I can only have an hour of free time, I’d much rather make this bread than exercise. Can you blame me?
The bread is surprisingly easy. I was expecting much more wait-time and a lot more hand to dough contact, but no. If you’ve got a stand mixer it practically makes itself.
The result is quite similar in texture to a typical country bread, but with one delicious twist – morsels of sweet molten white chocolate, melted into the bubbles and nooks and crannies of the bread. The chocolate pieces on the outside of the bread turn golden and crisp, and even more of the chocolate oozes out during the baking process. The sweetness permeates every last bite. Eat it for breakfast, or dessert, or anytime in between. And don’t be surprised if your two large-ish looking loaves (we halved the recipe) are gone within 48 hours.
I told you it was good.
White Chocolate Bread
Ingredients:
8 cups flour
1 teaspoon yeast
1 tablespoon wheat gluten
2 teaspoons salt
3 1/2 cups water
2 3/4 cups white chocolate chips
Directions:
Place flour, yeast and gluten in a small bowl. Mix on medium-low or first speed for 1 minute. Add water and mix for another 2 minutes. Add salt and continue to mix for another 8-10 minutes on medium or second speed.
Add chips and mix for 1-2 minutes or until the chips are well distributed throughout the dough. Take dough out of bowl and lightly knead into a ball. Let rest for 15-20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 450?F. Divide dough into 5 equal portions and knead into the desired form. Let the loaves proof for about 30-45 minutes, depending on the heat and humidity of the area.
Place uncooked loaves on a baking pan lined with parchment paper and bake for approximately 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for 15 minutes.
Posted By Lindsay on August 12, 2009
I always knew there were different varieties of eggplant. Even your ho-hum grocery store usually carries at least two. But on a recent trip to the farmers’ market, I was completely flabbergasted at just HOW MANY varieties there were. In the process of oogling the various shapes and colors of eggplant, we began thinking how wonderful it would be to see what the differences in flavor and texture these varieties produced. So we grabbed some bags and started collecting. All in all, we acquired 7 different kinds of eggplant. We nixed the run-of-the-mill purple globe eggplants in favor of the more unique ones.
If anyone out there is an expert on eggplant varieties feel free to butt in, but here’s what I’ve gathered from my intensive research (all I want is a picture and a name! How hard is that to find?). The best I could do was to determine that the long skinny fellas are Asian (whether they are Chinese or Japanese is up for debate), the one that looks like a giant purple tomato is Sicilian. The various light purple stripey ones are probably Italian, but I really couldn’t say. And the little dark purple ones? No clue.
For our experiment we picked out a tasty-sounding recipe, a pan seared eggplant with a ginger honey glaze. The plan was to cook all the eggplant in the same way, then perform a taste test to determine the best tasting aubergine.
To keep everything straight (and since I didn’t know what each of the varieties were called) I drew pictures of each eggplant on post its. We tried to keep the post its with each variety from the sink, to the cutting board, to the pan, to the plate.
We cooked two full pans worth of eggplant, the smaller pieces in one pan and the larger ones (that would take longer to cook) in another. And again, the post its stayed stuck above the stove in the same order as the eggplant went into the pan.
The final product, lightly browned, melt in your mouth, and drizzled with a sweet and tangy glaze.
The verdict? Inconclusive. Turns out all eggplant tastes pretty much the same. At least to us it did. We both thought the Sicilian (tomato-esque) eggplant, shown above, had the best texture – it was much firmer than the others and didn’t turn to mush when cooked. But we could definitely taste a bit of bitterness in it, as well as a few of the other varieties. Overall, my favorite were the purple Asian eggplants, Taylor liked the light lavender ones. But that’s only if you forced us to choose one. No one kind was significantly better or worse than the others. Should you take my word that these two varieties are superior to the others? Probably not.
And the recipe, in case you’re interested, is posted here. Taylor enjoyed it, but I felt the glaze was too strong. Too much ginger or pomegranate, maybe? It was almost too much for me to take.
So what’s next? A summer squash experiment, maybe? Heirloom tomatoes? Though maybe we should work on developing the intricacies of our palette before performing any more taste tests, heh. Actually being able to distinguish one from another would be a nice skill to have.
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