Season's Bounty

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Help! Saturday is farmer's market day here and I just go bonkers. I can't seem to help myself. No matter how good my resolutions, once I get there and see all the produce displayed in the stalls, I will buy it until I can't carry any more. Every week as I struggle back to the car I swear I'm going to buy one of those collapsible wagons that I see other people using, but then I promise I won't buy so much the next time...Here's SOME of today's haul, and I still have cukes, peaches, and zucchini left from last week.

Maybe I need to join a farmer's market self-help group. But in the meantime, I need some ideas for making use of all this bounty. A garden veggie soup? (Looking at you, Lucy!) Quick pickles? 

And what about the okra? The last time I made fried okra I swore I wouldn't do it again anytime soon--it's just too much trouble. (The secret is egg, then flour, then cornmeal, but ugh, you end up with a whole kitchen covered in sticky, floury mess.) I'm contemplating gumbo, but that may fall by the weekday wayside. I'd love some other okra suggestions.

One thing I don't need any help with is these babies--
 

Little Shishito peppers. Usually I toss them in a scorching hot, dry non-stick skillet with a little flaky salt until they start to blister, then serve with aioli spiced up with some Spanish smoked paprika. Yum! And the hubby doesn't eat them, so all the more for me.

Tonight, however, I'm going to throw them in the grill basket. We're cooking some fancy cheddar/jalepeno burger patties from the local butcher, with some fresh corn.

So REDS and readers, whatcha cookin'? And please share your favorite end-of-summer recipes!

Sunday Dinner for Father's day: Sesame Noodles with Sate

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Happy Father's Day! It's Sunday, and I'm at the helm, which means it's time for honorary Red Celia Wakefield to give us another fabulous recipe/cooking lesson. She made these Sesame Noodles with Sate on Friday, when my whole household was over to swim at the lake (and do a couple outdoor chores.) It was easy, inexpensive, and so hearty it filled up three hungry twenty-somethings as well as the three oldsters with plenty left for the next day!

I won’t start by stating the obvious, but I do want to give a shout out to Julia.  She has been one of the very few life lines for Victor and I during our current living situation. If you know Julia you will agree with me that she has a way of engaging, entertaining and managing to stay positive, finding a good laugh in almost any situation. 

And, I am once again delighted to join in the JRW blog, with another recipe which is well suited for our current living. It’s also a great meal for Fathers Day. Happy, happy Fathers Day to all the guys who visit Jungle Reds, to our husbands and our fathers. I have a recipe from my father, Douglas Constable, to share with you. 

Food, cooking in particular, was a place where father and I met on equal terms. In fact I may have had the edge on him there. After the Second World War, my father didn’t follow the drum, but did follow colonial ancestors by working all over the world. Our family time in Ceylon (Sri Lanka nowadays) offered curry in all its forms and he loved it. Curries were his favourite foods to cook. People in for a drink? Father would hurry to the kitchen to make up some curry puffs. Most of his cooking involved deep frying and after he painted the hall ceiling greasy black from leaving a pot of oil on the stove without turning it off, my mother banished his culinary exploits to the garage.

Late in his career, he and my mum were in Indonesia, where of course, he fell in love with the food. My mum recounted their arrival where my father was to be head of an FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization, one of the special agencies of the UN) mission in Surabaya. The house had been set up with servants etc. But their language was Dutch. My mum, understanding she was being asked what she wanted prepared for lunch, said the only food word she knew, “rijsttafel”. Which a couple of hours later appeared on the dining table. This is a very complex and complicated dish where one is offered choices which include nasi kuning or regular steamed rice, accompanied by dishes such as satay, rendang, gado-gado, grilled chicken rica, red snapper in yellow acar sauce, fried shrimp in sambal, potato perkedel kerupuk and tempeh. (Julia's note: the poor staff must have thought Memsahib Constable was going to be very high maintenance!)  Kerupuk, the tasty shrimp crackers, was my father favourite drinks snack, served with Sate sauce, deep fried of course and hence the banishment from my mothers kitchen.

I wish I could make a rijsttafel for everyone, but let’s make sesame noodles with sate sauce.

This is my fathers’ recipe and serves 6-8 hearty eaters:

In addition for dinner we added these ingredients:

1 1/2# Spaghetti

1 Cooked chicken

Bunch of scallions, chopped small

Tamarind* is available in Asian markets, as are the other spices. The one ingredient not on fathers list is Chinese noodles, or as we say in Maine - Spaghetti. I doubled the Sate recipe. As we had a mix of veggies and carnivores, I got hold of a cooked supermarket chicken whose meat I shredded, which would normally be served on top of the noodles. Julia and I assembled the ingredients and followed his directions.

1)          Put on the water for the pasta

2)          Measure all the sauce ingredients into a pan except for the peanut butter and heat.

3)          Start adding peanut butter once the water boils. Turn the heat down and stir.

4)          Watch out because the sauce will thicken and needs to be thinned with more water.

5)          Peanut butter is oil, so if it splatters, it burns, Ouh!

6)          Cook the noodles or pasta as directed

7)          Drain noodles, dress immediately with sesame oil and pepper oil 

8)          Pour the sauce over the noodles and mix in well.

Add the shredded chicken and chopped scallions when ready to serve. Sesame noodles can be served at room temperature or chilled. They make great leftovers too for a lunch box.

*After tasting the tamarind, I thought freshly squeezed orange juice would be a good substitute - J.

JULIA: Here is the happy result, dear readers, with a quick slaw on the side and lashings of extra sauce, which, by the end, the kids were scooping onto crackers and stuffing into their mouths. Accompanied by a gin/vodka and tonic (the grown-ups) and ginger ale (the kids) it was a perfect meal to enjoy outdoors on a hot summer night. 

Below, we've got videos walking you though the whole process in inimitable Celia style. Take a look, and after you're done, join us in the comments with your own exotic food adventures!




 

The Real Guac

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Now that it's getting to be patio weather, at least in some parts of our JRW world, it's time to think about summery foods. I know that we may be facing a shortage of avocados--and the price has definitely gone up--but I can still get a big bag at Costco for less than $6. The problem with the big bag is that they all tend to ripen at the same time. 

So what do you do? 

You make guacamole! It's fabulous. We can just eat it for a meal this time of year. Who cares about having anything else for lunch or dinner?

However, I have discovered that not everyone in non-Texas land knows how to make guacamole. And sometimes, even in Texas, people put weird things in it, so I am going to give you the low-down, absolutely classic, essential guac recipe.

Except that it's not very exact.

Use Haas avocados, the ones with the wrinkly black skins. They have the best texture and flavor.  A ripe avocado should just give a little bit under the pressure of your thumb. You don't want hard, and you definitely don't want mushy. If there are brown spots inside, throw it out. You might salvage some for avocado toast, but not in your guacamole!

Here we go!

Serves 4. Or maybe 2. Or maybe, if the cook is really greedy, 1.
 

2 to 3 avocados, depending on the size
Juice of at LEAST 2 limes, depending on size and juiciness
Half a red onion
Half or whole jalapeno, depending on size and your heat preference
Half a bunch of cilantro
Salt

Cut avocados in half and save the seeds. Peel and put flesh (that sounds weird, but you know what I mean) in bowl. Dice onion very fine, almost to a mince. Remove seeds and ribs from jalapeno, mince. (I wear rubber gloves for this.) Chop cilantro--I like this really fine, too. Salt everything generously--fresh ground sea salt is best. (Remember that avocado is bland by itself.) Squeeze lime juice over everything, then mash all the ingredients with a fork until you don't have any big lumps and everything is well mixed. Taste, add more lime juice and salt as needed. The flavors should really pop. This is food magic!

Put the guacamole in your serving dish and nestle one or two seeds in the dip. They help keep it from turning instantly brown.

Eat ASAP!

Serve with tortilla chips, or, my personal favorite, small savory rice crackers, because the chips tend to get really salty very quickly.

Or just eat your guacamole right out of the bowl, with a spoon.

And that's it. No tomato, no garlic, no extra flavoring.

If, by some remote chance, you have guac left over, put in an airtight storage container with the seeds. I press some plastic wrap tight against the surface, too, before sealing with a lid. You will still have a thin layer of discoloration the next day (avocado oxidizes very quickly,) but it's easily scooped off with a spoon. Enjoy again!

(I read recently that to prevent browning, you should cover your dip with a thin layer of water, then pour the water off before serving the guacamole again. I tried it. Did NOT work. Watery guac had to be thrown out. Ugh.)  

And how wonderful is it that avocados are GOOD FOR YOU!

If you twist my arm, I'll give you the recipe for an authentic, absolutely essential margarita to go with your guacamole...

REDS and lovely readers, do you like guacamole? Like Mexican food? Make guacamole? And do share any cooking hacks with us!