Update on Slightly Gourmet Class

I really enjoy teaching the cooking courses at OLLI. Some of my current students are returnees, others are new faces who have no idea what we generally do in the course. They quickly learn that it is very informal, that everyone seems to want to pitch in and the camaraderie is almost as good as the food.  Which has been very good so far. We've not had too many failures and even if the shortcoming of a particular food is a concern, it is something like the pie not having time to cool off and firm up before the end of class or the kale wasn't fresh enough by the time I brought it to class.

Still, I think we get a lot done in a short time. With the Slightly Gourmet class, last meeting we had shrimp stuffed with crab, sauteed kale, grits, and coconut custard pie. The latter quite sweet even though I cut short on some of the sugar called for in the recipe We finished up just in time as a new group was coming into the cottage for a class or club meeting.

Next class: Rock Cornish Game hens glazed with orange marmalade, rice pilaf with mushrooms, minted peas, a lettuce salad with grapefruit, red onion, and feta cheese, and for dessert: scoops of pumpkin ice cream, blood orange sherbet and a pumpkin cookie. Sound good? We'll see.

Easy Cooking with a Salt Block

Katy gave me the greatest toy for my birthday and I've been playing with it for awhile now and can recommend it to others. It is a block of pink salt, about the size and shape of a brick and very heavy.  You cook on it. First, you heat it up in a 375 degree oven for 30 minites. It comes out very hot so one's hands must be well protected when removing it from the oven. I put down a folded tea towel on  my cooktop and work with it there.  We cooked chicken cutlets, fish filets, shrimp and that worked quite well. I have cooked tuna steak and a salmon steak on it also.

Once the salt brick is out of the oven you lay down the raw fish on top and then monitor it for a few minutes. It will cook on one side, then you flip the fish over and finish it off in a few more minutes. For filets, this takes about eight minutes altogether. I sprinkle a little lemon on top, maybe add a sprig of thyme for flavor and that is it. The salt permeates the product in that short time to give it a nice flavor. I suspect that if one were doing a quantity it would have to go back into the oven for another heat -up.

We tried the another option which is to chill it in the fridge or freezer, and then lay down ice cream scoops; salt gives a nice touch to ice cream.   Ever enjoy ice cream with salted pretzels? A wonderful pairing!

Salt blocks come in various sizes and shapes.  The blocks are pretty too, being pink.

Our Family Cooks

I've neglected the blog..but not without an excuse. I've been celebrating with my family, all of whom descended on Reston at once from Norway and Copenhagen lasst month. Priscilla and the Norwegians have returned home but Katy is still with me until the end of the week. Lovely.

So with so many people around, we were continually planning wonderful meals, either in or out. Since all of us are good cooks, the kitchen became the center of much activity, including a small boy with a bouncing ball and a tall five year old girl climbing over her teen aged boy cousins. Oh how they hated that, you bet.

But this is a foodie blog; so on to the fact that the week we spent together, my family and the family of Pete's Janice,  each night a different pair of us would make the meal for that evening. So we had seafood and risotto, burgers on the grill, ciabolli  and a wonderful banana cake for my birthday and lots of watermelon and fresh beautiful tomatoes. As an old shore vacationer, I insisted that they visit the candy store and get some fudge and salt water taffy. Several kinds emerged and we spent some time checking which was the best.

That part of summer over, I'm now organizing the food list for the Summerfest party at OLLI on August 23rd. That too will be a food lover's paradise and I hope many OLLI folks have signed up to attend.

The Second Installment on Herbs

Just to finish up on the open kitchen theme, we had our second herb event and the last for the summer on Wednesday and it too went quite well. We shall have to make it an annual thing. This time the salads included a beet salad, and a fresh green...romaine and endive... with lots of parsley and basil and a light lemony vinaigrette dressing; also a salad that uses the ingredients of gazpacho soup but in a layered form...quite beautiful actually, and then I cooked some green beans and added blackberries and oregano. Then for the sandwiches we had English muffin pizzas using ketchup, basil, mozzarella and oregano; also roasted deli pork (Wegman's), slices of red onion, horseradish,  mayo and fresh sage leaves on rye/pumpernickel swirl bread. Finally, I had made some herb biscuits that used rosemary and thyme  and had a bunch of condiments to spread on them like Trader Joe's pub cheese, hummus, gorgonzola cheese (left over from my cheese class the day before) and some lovely Italian bread when the muffins ran out. I had also made some herb butter with soft butter and basil and another with rosemary. We had plenty to eat and about sixteen persons showed up. 

Valerie had extensive information written up on the chalk board telling about  herbs we used, a little history and usage, tips on keeping the herbs, etc. It tied everything together. She was really helpful with the whole project as was Bo-Kyung Kim, her sidekick who knows lots about herbs. I hope our lunchers will try some of these herbal ideas.

Open Kitchen Features Herbs

Yesterday we had our first drop-in kitchen event at OLLI where we had sandwiches and salads that incorporated a number of fresh herbs. This as a tribute to Valerie's Dirty Knee Club who have planted a variety of herbs outside the front door, handy to supply the dishes that we will be enjoying through  summers to come. We had 15 lunchers and I used maybe five different herbs, including basil, mint, chives, sage, parsley. Next week we will use different herbs for fresh new dishes.

So the salad menu included: cut-up watermelon, cherry tomatoes, chopped mint in a dressing of lemon juice, sugar, honey, tad of salt; French potato salad, an oil-based salad of small red and white  potatoes in an emulsion of olive oil, vinegar, dijon mustard, a little white wine, and a good quantity of chopped parsley, dill, and basil; cucumber and scallion salad; and storebought vinegar and oil cole slaw with sprinkled-on chopped dill.  For the sandwiches, we had chicken salad with chopped sage on white bread; cream cheese and smoked salmon on various bagels with chopped dill; and open faced tomato, mozzarella, pesto and fresh basil on ciabatta bread.  Iced tea was infused with mint because Valerie had made ice cubes with chopped mint frozen into them.

Comment and camaraderie were excellent and I think folks learned some new tricks and fresh ideas. Looking forward to next week's offerings.

Blood Kin and Fish

Mostly this is a family post, plus food. That's because I returned a few days ago from a long anticipated reunion with six of altogether 13 first cousins who came from various parts of the country. Sadly, four of those thirteen have passed and two couldn't make it, but it was a good lively group, full of funny stories, revealed information and tons of photos and home movies.

We gathered at Donna's house in Palm City, Florida, a beautiful home with lots of space to move about. Her gracious husband David vacated so as to leave us cousins alone with our memories and keep it "clean", I guess, of any interfering personalities. It wasn't necessary and he did return for an evening when we all went out to dinner. To add to the conversation was an elaborate genealogy David had worked up and bound for each to take home with us.

Well, dinner in Florida can be a fabulous experience. So much seafood, eaten beside the water with soft breezes blowing through our hair. Menus that offered so many choices made it difficult to settle but any choice was awesome. My new favorite is Conch Fritters. I love the seafood restaurants in Fairfax County and given an option will choose one of the best of those rather than a beefy grill. So of course I was in dining -out heaven because we always chose a seafood place wherein to hang out. Some of our favorite memories growing up were shared weeks in the summer at the New Jersey seashore, fish being a large part of that.

I've not seen these dear ones in a very long time and didn't realize how much I carried my love for them and theirs for me, into our mature adult years. To add to the fun, some of them look like me or my mother. Well they should, right?

Remembering the Sauce

I just finished a long chat with my grownup niece who lives in Michigan, the daughter of my late sister Deedy, the one who taught me so much about cooking. It was fun to rub memories with each other but what amused me was our discussion about spaghetti sauc. I learned how to make spaghetti sauce from my sister, the real stuff from scratch and I always thought it was wonderful. Remember, those were the days before jarred sauces so you began with browning the beef and adding tomatoes in the paste, sauce and whole forms. Lots of oregano and long cooking.  What my niece Sarah told me was a great surprise; she said that when she and her brothers were growing up, they literally hated that sauce. Imagine that.

As for my family, we were a two career family and so my husband was the cook and his spaghetti sauce was an adapted from scratch recipe so it wasn't my sister's sauce.   I think spaghetti sauce is a personal thing. I don't like any variety that is too sweet even if it is the best seller. If it is red and thick, I make it work.