Melon & Mint Salad
While growing up, I could always count on seeing a bright yellow plastic melon baller nestled in the back corner of my mom's kitchen utensil drawer. It stood out among countless wine openers, toothpicks, random metal skewers and an egg slicer. That melon baller couldn't help but look pitiful & needy from lack of use. Whenever we bought a melon (which was almost never) that melon baller would come out and I'd be overly excited to use it. Precursor to my adulthood? A month ago I was helping my mom clean out some of her kitchen drawers and she offered up the infamous yellow melon baller. It was almost as if she was daring me to use it. I gladly accepted the challenge and when I flipped through the Heart of the Artichoke cookbook, low and behold I found a recipe that required melon balling action!
I'd like to say that my melon balling went swimmingly; it did not. I was under the impression that a melon baller will give you perfectly round spheres of fruit. I was mistaken. After I hacked up half of the cantaloupe, I walked up to my computer and immediately started watching melon balling videos on youtube (they totally exist!). What I gathered is that you can't make a perfect melon ball; one edge is almost always slightly messed up, flat or has shreds of melon meat hanging off of it. If you have enough melon balls to cover a dish and present the nice round sides up to the world, no one will be the wiser. Top the half perfect melon balls with with cut mint leaves and generously squeeze lime juice on top and you have a fancy salad. After you take your first bite of juicy sweet melon with the lime & mint, you'll forget about imperfections. You'll marvel at how perfectly balanced the salad is and you'll feel like you've satisfied your sweet tooth while cleansing your palette. This salad is the perfect end to a delicious meal.
What have we learned here today? A melon baller that doesn't get used is a very sad melon baller indeed. Bust out your melon baller, it needs you!
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Tomatoes with Coriander Vinaigrette
Tomato & Basil=Caprese Salad. Tomato & Cilantro= Salsa. Right? Here's a salad that's sort of a hybrid of the two. Which means you can now eat salsa with a fork and knife! Chips are not invited to this party.
What you'll find here is a surprisingly delicious/refreshing/light sliced tomato salad with a little sharp kick of red onions, a toasty coriander undertone and a nice tang of red wine vinegar. Talk about tomato enhancing! A salad that is slightly reminiscent of salsa but then totally not. If you happen to have leftover Scalloped Corn & this tomato salad, do yourself a favor and grill a piece of bread, top it with a little leftover corn and a few slabs of tomato. You'll love it. I know this. What are you waiting for? Put those tomatoes to good use. Time's a tickin'!
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Scalloped Corn
You know how homemade macaroni & cheese has a bread crumb topping that's buttery and crunchy with edges that make you wanna scream Hallelujah? Take a look at this skillet. Now imagine that Hallelujah crust but substitute the mac & cheese for CORN. Out of all of the things I made for dinner on Sunday night, this corn is still lingering in my head. I thought I had found the best corn dish this summer with Thomas Keller's Creamed Summer Corn. Psshaw. This Scalloped Corn just knocked the creamed corn into the #2 slot. I didn't think that was even possible.
Make it. Rejoice. Hallelujah! You found a dish that reminds you of macaroni & cheese, corn pudding and creamed corn! Let me just remind you that we only have a few weeks left of corn season. You'd better get on this.
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In the kitchen all weekend long
I was in the kitchen all weekend long. It felt good to be productive, but boy did I make a mess! It was seriously insane. The dishwasher ran twice, the compost container was filled to the brim & every single surface in my kitchen was covered with stuff! Inspiration was sparked after I took Cooper to the library on Friday and picked up the Heart of the Artichoke by David Tanis. That book will be mine one day; I'm totally smitten.
This is what I made:
- Coconut Butter
- Breakfast Pizza
- Sesame Peanut Candy*
- Scalloped Corn*
- Tomato Salad with a Cilantro Vinaigrette*
- Peppered Chicken Wings*
- Melon Salad w/ Mint and Lime*
- Moscow Mules
Which one are you most interested in?
*= recipes from Heart of the Artichoke Cookbook
365- Week 33
A food related photo everyday until 2012. Here's week 33:
237/365 Moscow Mules with Whitney!!! (my new favorite drink!)
236/365 Tomato loot from the backyard. SCORE.
235/365 Super quick dinner= baked potato, non-fat Greek yogurt & butter.
234/365 Corn Zucchini Pizza in progress.
233/365 Arugula salad with leftover grilled corn, tomatoes, arugula, grilled mushrooms & onions.
232/365 Epitome of SUMMER.
231/365 Mushrooms, spinach, fried egg with toast and coffee. Cooper got a pancake.
Corn Zucchini Lime Pizza
For a good year, Casey worked close to the amazing/prolific Arizmendi Bakery. Not only are their pastries, muffins & cookies TO DIE FOR, they make the most fabulous/unconventional pizza with the craziest, most exotic toppings; it's fancy pizza! We created a tradition where every other Thursday, he'd call me and tell me what the pizza of the day was and nine times out of ten, he'd bring one home. I'd fire up the oven after hanging up and eagerly anticipated heating up the pizza and slicing into it.
One of the best pizzas he came home with was a wonderful corn, feta, lime & cilantro pizza that had slices of jalapeno scattered throughout. It tasted just like summer. Casey changed jobs, and sadly Arizmendi pizza has been out of our rotation. That hasn't prevented me from thinking about their pizza constantly. Before bed the other night, this pizza popped into my head and I seriously lost sleep over it. I woke up the next morning plagued with the NEED to make it. I fulfilled that need and if given the chance, I would have eaten the entire pizza myself. Thank heavens for husbands who come home early from work and neighbors who will try anything I make.
The corn is sweet and crunchy, the feta is salty and slightly creamy, the cilantro adds a nice herbal greenness to the pizza and the slices of jalapeno add great heat. Squeeze lime on top and all of the flavors step up a notch! This pizza is truly addictive, earth shattering and seriously the best way to exploit fresh corn right now. I can honestly say this is a pizza worth losing sleep over.
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Zucchini Banana Flaxseed Muffins
Hey! Guess what? As of last week, I have a preschooler. That's right! A PRESCHOOLER! Dang! Where does the time go? In preparation for this monumental event, I let Cooper pick out his very own lunchbox and backpack. He went with a nice robot theme and I'm glad for that because the construction themed set was not my favorite color. I know it's not MY lunchbox, but I'm the one who has to keep tabs on it, clean it out & fill it up every other day. I'm also left with the task of having to figure out what to put in said lunchbox and I need to get him excited about lunch time at school! It's a tall order.
At the beginning of the week, I made these Zucchini Banana Flaxseed Muffins with the idea of putting one in his lunch box as a treat for all three days of preschool. Little did I know they would disappear in less than two days. Cooper loved them so much that I actually caught him standing on a chair at the kitchen counter reaching into the container of muffins I put aside for the week! And just when I thought my new hiding place was legit, I walked downstairs to see him eating another muffin behind the couch. SNEAKY kid! If these muffins were loaded with sugar, butter or oil, I'd be upset. But the fact that there's both zucchini and banana mixed in with a little flaxseed makes his sneaky behavior totally OK. I can't really blame him; they taste great! They're moist, tender, full of flavor and the flaxseed gives the muffins a nutty flavor without nuts. You would never really know that there's no oil in this recipe. I have now welcomed these healthy muffins into his lunchbox rotation. Victory!
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365- Week 32
A food related photo everyday until 2012. Here's week 32:
230/365 I split a cheeseburger with my dad for lunch.
