The Best of Summer

A warm soft evening. Perfect. Finally.

Sunnies dredged in seasoned flour( salt, black pepper, cayenne optional but recommended, granulated garlic, paprika) sauteed in olive oil and/or butter and finished off w/ a pan sauce made by adding white wine( any) to the pan drippings along w/ garlic, parsley, and tarragon. Reduce, add butter pats, swirl, pour over fish.

Serve it with fresh garden broccoli, and summer squash. The perfect end to a perfect summer day.

Garden Days, Finally

Keeping it simple and not screwing up what you've already got is easy when you are dealing w/ fresh garden harvestibles.

Summer squash, for example. They are like a little yellow zucchini and you can treat them the same way.. Slice in 3/8 inch rounds, season w/ salt, pepper and garlic and saute' in olive oil( or any, or butter) a few minutes on med heat, strew w/ parmesan cheese and serve. A great late night snack. Go light on all the seasonings so you can actually taste the delicate flavor of the squash.

Mn Early Garden Gumbo

Sometimes, often, you have to work w/ what you've got, which in this case was great: jalapeno peppers and yellow summer squash from the garden. No tomatoes yet. Sausage, chicken and crappies it was, along w/ onions.

If you have bacon, brown it w/ the onions nice and slow in veg or olive oil, you can add butter too, add peppers, then summer squash, sliced sausage, chicken ( boneless, bitesize) then paprika, lots( 3, 4 tablespoons) - make sure you have enough oil and cook it slow so nothing burns, hum a song, blues, something rythmic, slow, or think of your first girlfriend and how her mouth tasted like sweet corn, add garlic, lots , add enough flour to absorb the oil( a tablespoon or two, cook for two minutes) and a cup and a half of chicken broth or water w/ bouillon cubes or base, add 2 bayleaves, black and red pepper to taste, add crappie filets and simmer a few minutes till chicken and crappies( or any fish) is done.

Serve w/ any kind of rice, your favorite, and rustic or french bread for dunking. Kids can pick out the parts they like. We, of course, like it all. You can use cajun seasoning or Herbs d' Provence if you like.

Minnesota Gumbo

So I get home from work today at the antique shop and I'm thinking of old food. Not really.

I'm asking the kids ( 12 yr old daughter, 8 yr old grandson) what they want for dinner. I look in the freezer. Kielbassa, crappies and a tomato basil marinated chicken from the best little meat market in the world( Thielen's in Pierz), and I say kids what would you like, kielbassa, crappies, or tomato basil marinated chicken and as they are thinking I decide on all three in a gumbo. How about gumbo I say and Nati says yes. It is great when you get to choose all of the possibilities. If multiple choice was like that in school we would all be A students. Which is just one of the reasons I like food.

Gumbo it is, a Mn Gumbo. I'll tell you more about after I cook it and we eat it.

Reincarnated as Food

If I was to die and come back as food I would come back as bacon. I would ask that you cook me slow and lay me down on a bed of toast( New England Brown Bread),garden greens, fresh, and ripe sliced tomatoes w/ a slathering of mayo.

Or if I was cremated to return as paprika, a little smokey and sweet w/ a little heat, the Hungarian kind. Be generous and cook me slow w/ bacon and chicken and onions and garlic.

A Sweet Little Tart

Luscious wild red raspberries have been ripening at the rate of a pint a day for the past wk; congregated on and around an old log and brush pile on these 13 acres of Platte Lake land. The recent rains have no doubt encouraged this profusion of bloom and sweetness. My young black lab/ spitz eats them too, off the low hanging shrubs.

I have eaten them w/ cereal, plain, and with cottage cheese and w/ yoghurt and juices blended in smoothies, and also made a galette of them - a rustic free form open faced tart( pie) w/ the addition of a few domestic blueberries.

Berries and sugar is all you need, plus a pie dough crust, which I experimented with by melting the butter in a microwave, adding it to the flour, salt, sugar dry ingredients along with cold water at the end to get the desired consistency. I am kind of a lazy cook and was looking for an easier way than cutting the butter into the flour. It worked, resulting in a flaky tender crust that had enough body and strength to support a cooled slice eaten by hand. Perfect. I am a pastry lover, and fussy, and it shouldn't be too sweet.

If you asked Mona Lisa Vito( the Marissa Tomei character) in the My Cousin Vinny movie if the pie was luscious and sweet but not too sweet she would say," It wuh."

Single sheet of pie dough:
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup( 1 stick) melted butter
1/2 cup cold(ice) water

Method:
Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl, add melted butter and ice water and stir with wooden spoon just enough so it is all moist - don't over miz - form into a ball, place on waxed paper, place another sheet of waxed paper on top of the dough, flatten somewhat w/ hand, and roll out w/ rolling pin so it is a couple of inches bigger than your pie pan or dish. Remove the top sheet of waxed paper and using the remaining bottom one carefully but in one motion flip the pie dough onto the surface pie pan or cookie sheet or cast iron pan or whatever you are using. Poke holes all over dough w/ a fork, add a pint of berries evenly
distributed over dough, leaving a 2" border of berry free edge, sprinkle a quarter cup sugar over berries, fold dough over berries around the perimeter, dot w/ cold butter pieces according to how much you love butter, sprinkle a little sugar on dough perimeter, and bake in a 400 degree oven for a half hour or until berries are bubbling and the crust is golden .

Eat hot right away w/ ice cream or whipped cream or sour cream, cool and then eat more until it is gone.
Method:

A Slow Change Curried Curve Ball

AWOL for a month - too busy at work - too much cooking.

A wk off, tho; and here I am.

Got some bass, sunnies, northern pike, and walleye in the freezer.

Thawed bass the other night and asked my 12 yr old daughter how we should have it and she suggested curried, which we then did. Its a nice change from the same old shore lunch style.

Curried Platte Lake Bass: 1/2 onion, 1/2 green pepper, 1/2 red pepper - 1/2/ inch chopped
4 fillets bass
cooking oil - 2 - 3 tablespoons
2 tablespoons curry powder
garlic - 2 cloves chopped
crushed red pepper to taste
coconut - 1/4 cup or to taste
milk - 2 cups
flour to thicken - 1 tablespoon

Method:
Saute' onions till translucent on med to med low heat, add peppers and continue cooking till onions are somewhat brown ( carmelized) and peppers are soft, add curry powder and continue cooking, stirring, for a couple of minutes. Low heat is important. You don't want to burn the curry or it will be very bitter. Add a tablespoon or two of flour, stir, add 1 cup of the milk, garlic and crushed red pepper, turn up the heat to med. The sauce will thicken as it heats. If it becomes to thick, keep adding milk until you have the desired consistency. Add coconut.
You may poach the fish filets in the curry sauce, or pan fry them separately. A little bit of chicken base or a bouillon cube will make the sauce richer. Serve w/ rice.

Exotic, simple and delicious.