Tian de Courgettes au Riz (Zucchini Tian)

Genius!

This weekend is our Cookbook Club dinner. It seems like forever since we last had one, so we are all looking forward to it—especially since the book we chose is fantastic! If you haven’t had a chance to visit the Food52.com website, I highly recommend that you give it a look-see when you have a few moments. It is chock full of great recipes, but some are just that much better than the others. So much better in fact, they are genius. (See what I did there?)

Which brings me to this dinner’s cookbook selection…Genius Recipes from Kristen Miglore, Executive Food Editor for Food 52. I have talked (more like raved) about this book before. Everything in it is just that good, and if you haven’t picked up a copy you are missing out. This is a must-have for your cookbook collection. Seriously, get off the couch and go get one. If only for the Canal House Chicken Thighs with Lemon…mind blowingly good.

Our process for choosing which recipes the five of us will make for our dinner is pretty simple…usually. The hostess sends a reminder email with a few dishes she is prepared to make, and then the rest of us chime in with our choices. This time it was like playing beat the clock. We all had the same favorites, and by the time I got my lazy self to my email, mine were taken.

There are, however, recipes that I had not had a chance to try, so I am going with a couple of those. Everything I have made from this book has been fantastic, so I am not worried about this being the test run. Even if there are failures, I am confident that the rest will be so good, and we won’t starve. I expect something like 10 dishes, not including dessert. The cardiologist will be on stand-by.

My first choice would have been this tasty Zucchini Tian. It is the perfect way to try something new as the summer zucchini glut ripens. It’s originally from Julia…you can’t go wrong with Julia.

Tian de Courgettes au Riz — Zucchini Tian
Food 52 Genius Recipes
From Julia Child Read more…

Lemon Meringue Pie

Pucker-Up Buttercup
Fourth of July always makes me think of dessert…there are so many ways to add red, white, and blue color to sweet dishes. For this reason, and because it is in my nature to be contrary, I am going rogue for the Fourth with yellow. And by yellow I mean Lemon Meringue Pie. (Pies are totally patriotic, and yellow is the color of summer, and we are right in the middle of summer so it works, right?)

My mom made lemon meringue pie occasionally when I was growing up, and when she did, it was a big deal. (Especially to Dad!) Full disclosure, I wasn’t a huge lemon fan as a kid. Now? I’m that sad individual that will sit by myself with a vat of lemon curd and a spoon and be totally happy with the world.

Mom’s recipe came from the 1965 edition of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. Forget Curious George or James and the Giant Peach, this was the book of my childhood. I have a lot of memories of my sister and I flipping to the pancake and waffle section on the weekends, and Dad showing us how to get the Swedish pancakes super thin. Some of the recipes in there are tried and true and some of them are, well…scary. (It was 1965. We’ve come a long way.) And then, there was the Lemon Meringue Pie.

Mom’s crusts were always super-flaky no matter what pie she made. (Her Pumpkin Chiffon is the bomb). The Meringue pies were a different kind of cool because she piled the meringue high—which, I think, is key. It gave the pie a real WOW factor, and in our family it’s all about the WOW. Just ask Dad, he’s the King.

I don’t currently have a copy of the BH&G Cookbook (I have ordered one from Ebay…it’s not here yet and I am getting impatient.) This recipe is as close as I can remember, and I will check back once the original arrives.

Happy Fourth of July!

Lemon Meringue Pie Read more…

Never-Fail Biscuits and Strawberry Freezer Jam

Jammin’ Biscuits

My grandmother was a canner. Growing up, I remember every summer she would can her tomatoes and the fresh peaches that she picked herself in Brentwood. She also made an incredible blackberry jam from the bramble I once fell into as a child. (No es bueno.) Alas, that recipe has been lost. I’ve looked for it everywhere, but I am starting to think that she didn’t have it written down—and made it from memory. Gam did it the old school way, too, with melted wax on top of the jam. So good…

I started canning about 8 years ago, mainly because the apricot tree in the backyard of our old house produced so many apricots one year that I had to do something. I just couldn’t bring myself to throw them out. I brought some here to the store to share, but even that didn’t put a dent in the quantity. So I made jam. Lots of it. I was hooked on canning.

In the following years, I kept making jam, but I also started making pickles and chutneys and also canning the tomatoes from my garden. When those crops were exceptionally big I made salsas and tomato sauces. It was work, but tasting the flavor of my summer tomatoes in January made the hard, hot work worth it.

This year, sadly, I won’t be doing much canning or preserving— at least not as much as in previous summers for two reasons. The first is I don’t have a garden. With the water restrictions, I decided it just wasn’t worth planting a big garden and fighting that battle. The second reason is I just don’t have time. For the next five weeks, there is something going on every weekend, sometimes more than one event. I barely know what day it is most of the time.

I can’t just not do anything, so I’m going the quick and easy route. Freezer jam is great and you can do it if you find a free hour. (For me, that’s midnight). We are crazy for strawberry jam in my house—especially when you spoon it on warm, fresh (and really quick!) biscuits. Yum…

Strawberry Freezer Jam
Makes about 5 (8 oz) half pints
Adapted from FreshPreserving.com, the Ball website Read more…

Black and Tan Sundae

Lunch Lady

My daughter came to work with me yesterday. We had a childcare (check out worsley) gap this week, so she had no choice. We put her to work sorting invoices and operating the mailing machine—learning vital life skills (ha ha ha). She had a blast, and is looking forward to doing it again. As she puts it “Working is awesome!”. She’s nine…so yes, to her, working is awesome.

I’m pretty sure that yesterday’s awesomeness had more to do with having lunch with Papa Dave up at Fenton’s, and less with the mailing machine but I could be wrong. She was pretty excited about that mailing machine…

My kids all know that if they have to come in to the office with me for any reason they stand a pretty good chance of going to Fenton’s with their grandfather. It’s tradition. When I came into the store as a kid I got the same lunchtime treatment. To them the hours of sitting in the chair in Mom’s office is worth it for a crab sandwich and a Black and Tan. Enduring anything tedious and mind numbing is always worth it if there is a Black and Tan at the end.

The Black and Tan is the sundae of choice for all my family when we go to Fenton’s, and I don’t see that changing. Those not lucky enough to live near Piedmont Avenue think that a black and tan should be made with both Toasted Almond and Vanilla ice cream. They’re wrong. 100% Toasted Almond ice cream is the way to go which is how Fenton’s has made it since my grandmother worked there as a teenager in the original location. (Which is now the Post Office on 41st Street.) Our love of Fenton’s has a history.

Unfortunately (or fortunately ‘cause it makes it that much more of a treat), Fenton’s does not sell it’s ice cream outside of their stores. If you want their Toasted Almond you have to go there and order a sundae or get a half gallon packed to go. There are other Toasted Almond Ice creams out there, and we recommend Mitchell’s. You can also go the all Vanilla route. (It’s ice cream. There is really very little that can go wrong with ice cream.)

Add some fudge sauce for the black and some caramel for the tan and you are good to go with a little whipped cream and a cherry. Though I am sure if you ask my daughter it still wouldn’t be as good as it is at lunch with Papa Dave…or the mailing machine.

Black and Tan Sundae According to Amy Read more…