Saturday dinner: Penne with summer squash

Penne with summer squash, tomato and parmesan. (And check out what the smoke did in the picture!!)

We got a nice assortment of summer squashes:



It was a very simple pasta recipe, but fresh and satisfying. Like most pasta sauces we cook, this recipe started with onion and garlic, but instead of chopping them up and starting with a saute, this recipe called for them to be halved, placed in the oil and allowed to sizzle gently for a few minutes. This gave the dish a different, less-developed onion flavor.

For dessert: Kefir-peach smoothies.



We bought kefir from Tonjes Farm at the greenmarket last week, on a whim. We did not, at the time, actually know what kefir was. As it turns out, kefir is a dairy product made with cow, goat or sheep's milk, which is inoculated with a specific culture and allowed to ferment. The resulting drink is somewhat like yogurt, but with a cheesier flavor. We didn't like it much plain, but blended with peach and some sugar it made a good smoothie. Like many things we eat, the recent macrobiotic craze has apparently been a boon for kefir, so if you keep an eye out you may find it at a grocery or farmstand near you.

Sunday night: Mexican dinner party

Not pictured: Richard

After enjoying the purslane with potatoes in green sauce that we made last week, we decided that we needed to make the most of tomatillos while they were in season. This led to the decision to re-make a delicious roasted tomatillo salsa that we first made last summer. But of course, salsa needs something to go on, so we decided to make chiles rellenos (stuffed poblano chilies). This called for making rice - which of course must be yellow rice, which we didn't have but decided we could make - and of course beans. That inspired us to try out the "frijoles borrachos" (drunken beans) recipe we'd been mulling over for quite a while. ....Needless to say, partway into this ambitious endeavor we realized it was time to have an impromptu dinner party.

Frijoles borrachos are beans slow-cooked with Mexican beer, along with other seasonings. We used some black beans that we got from our CSA last winter but never quite got around to:



The tomatillos were a multicolored bunch - mostly green, but with some yellows and purples. For the salsa, they're put under the broiler until the skins are blackened (this can also be done in a cast-iron skillet), then skinned and blended with jalapenos, onion, and garlic (all blackened as well). Roasting brings out a completely different flavor from tomatillos than does boiling, as in the purslane dish we made last week.



Here are the chiles rellenos being....relleno'd:



Ok, our dinner involved a lot of blackening - these were blackened and skinned as well, then de-seeded and de-veined, and stuffed with cheese for a final bake. Lizz's hands burned for the next 24 hours from touching the chili veins, but it was worth it.



Once we had invited people over, we realized it would probably be a good idea to have a drink to serve them. Ambitiously, we decided to make horchata, the delicious Mexican rice drink. The recipe we followed called for pulverizing some rice, then soaking it in water with a stick of cinnamon, and then blending it in several stages while adding water. Finally it gets strained and sugar is added to sweeten. It came out pretty well, although probably a finer mesh strainer would have given it a better texture.

Meanwhile the salsa and beans simmered away:



Though we used to buy it in premixed packets, yellow rice isn't honestly too hard to make: you start with white rice and cook it with a generous pinch of saffron, some cumin, some garlic powder (if you have or like garlic powder), and a coloring agent - usually annato seeds, but turmeric works too.



Our friends Manasi and Richard kindly brought over a batch of freshly-made guacamole, as you can see here:



It was quite a spread...if we do say so ourselves.

Homemade ginger ale

We're fans of homemade summer drinks: limeade, cherbat, iced green or plum tea, etc. Today we made our first real ginger ale. The commercial stuff that comes in two-liter bottles basically consists of high fructose corn syrup and water, and today contains NO actual ginger - only artificial flavoring from New Jersey. (No offense, New Jersey.) Ginger is legendary for its anti-nausea and stomach-soothing effects, which is probably why commercial ginger ale is still given to kids who are sick...except that stuff won't actually work.

Luckily it's extremely easy to make the real stuff. Here's the recipe we followed. I made a 1.5x recipe, which filled up a clean wine bottle.

HOMEMADE GINGER ALE

2 cups ginger root, chopped into about 1/4-1/2 inch pieces
3-4 strips lemon peel
1.5 cups sugar
4 cups water

Put ginger, lemon peel and water into a saucepan and bring to a boil; then simmer for ten minutes. Add sugar, bring to boil again and simmer fifteen minutes. It should reduce in volume to about three cups, and thicken a bit. Then strain the syrup, bottle, and store in fridge. To make a glass of the drink, mix 1/4 cup syrup with 1 cup soda water.

Here's how it looks as it's being strained:



And up top is the finished product along with a glass of the diluted drink, displayed in the window. It's very tasty - not as oversweet as the commercial kind, and with a strong ginger kick.

A simple Sunday dinner

Puntarelle in Salsa d'Acciughe (puntarella chicory salad with anchovy dressing) with Aged Bloomsday cheese and Kirby cucumber sandwich, accompanied by a glass of cherbat (Middle Eastern lemonade). Before any Italians out there write in to complain, this particular chicory is not truly puntarella, which is a specific varietal of Catalogna chicory. But it's close enough, and tastes delicious with the garlic-anchovy dressing.