This past summer has been all about the Greek salad for me – cukes, tomatoes, Kalamata olives and a homemade dressing consisting solely of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, oregano, dill and pepper. I also add garbanzos because I love them. Oh, and feta cheese – lots of it – because the best part of a salad is the cheese, unless you’re absolutely tasteless.
And when your bestie brings you an extra big box of feta from the newly-opened Costco, why skimp on the feta?
The amazing ginger rhubarb scone I had at Beacon Hill Books & Cafe insired me to get back into baking mode, which usually happens at right about this time. Fall brings cooler evenings and the ideal opportunity to practice some baking for the cozy season ahead. We didn’t have any ginger or rhubarb on hand, but this was mostly an explorative run-through of how to do a proper scone, as it’s been years – well, decades – since I’ve attempted a scone. Back then they came out well enough, but they were a bit messy, and I have a few more years of kitchen trials under my belt now. There was a container of candied orange in the cupboard from a planned panettone journey that never got off the ground earlier this year, so I decided to do a candied orange scone, which turned out better than expected.
I won’t get into the precise recipe I used (because to be honest I’ve already forgotten it – but look up any basic scone recipe and you have the same idea). I will offer a few pointers to what made this work for me. Use very cold butter (frozen for a few minutes before cutting) – and I’m told it’s even better to grate the butter like cheese to get smaller pieces into the flour and sugar. When it comes time to mix the wet and dry ingredients, the less mixing the better. That seems at odds with how we want things to go, but trust. Mine barely even came together in its bowl (hello shaggy dough!) and required some gentle kneading and shaping once I poured it out. But that’s definitely the way to go to avoid a tougher texture. Last tip is to brush the cut scones with heavy cream or buttermilk (whichever you used in the recipe) and sprinkle with coarse sugar for a better crust – this is more important than it seems, so don’t treat it like it’s optional.
The one thing we didn’t have for the glaze was orange juice, so I made the kooky/questionable/brilliant choice to use some orange soda – Fanta, from this Golden Shower – in place of the scant tablespoon or so needed to go with all the confectioner’s sugar. Suzie said it gave them a floral zing, and I am all about the sweet glaze. Au Bon Pain used to have this bright orange glaze on their orange scones and it was the reason I could handle the otherwise-dry nature of the things. This version maintained a delicate, flaky, crumbly texture, and Suzie gave it her approval, which is the highest praise for all things culinary. Consider scones the in-thing for this fall. Clotted cream here we come…
Fresh heirloom tomatoes, served with mozzarella and Balsamic vinegar, and topped with salt and pepper and some fresh basil from the garden, form the simple but potent lunch treat on the plate before you. This is how summer celebrates itself, whether we decide to pause for its joy or not; the ingredients are there at our fingertips, it’s up to us how and whether we will employ them to supplement the beauty of a day. That’s enough of a mid-day post for now.
While stopping by my brother’s home last weekend, I took some time in Amsterdam to peruse the old downtown area – a section somewhat split by the Amsterdam Mall many decades ago, but a Main Street stretch remains, and it is here where the new Cali Cantina recently opened up. A Mexican restaurant deliciously influenced by California vibes, they are best known for their incredible 14-inch burritos. I’ll be going back to try one of those, but on this late-morning/early-afternoon lunch, my friendly server suggested the Carne Asada tacos – and it was an excellent choice.
They arrived with a serving of fresh tortilla chips and a cup of their salsa verde – the meat seasoned perfectly and accented with fresh cilantro and onions. That such a place existed in my hometown’s downtown area gave me a little hope for Amsterdam, which hasn’t always had the greatest rep. I still have some Ram Pride in me, and a visit to Cali Cantina re-enforced my love for the city. (I’ll definitely be back to see if I can finish one of those burritos – my stomach has always risen to such a challenge.)
{Check out the FaceBook page for Cali Cantina here for their hours and menu.}
These glorious creations are from my favorite donut shop in the world: Bitchin’ Donuts.
I love it for the name, I love it for the messages, and I love it for the delicious donuts.
At its heart, it’s all about the donut, which in this case is astoundingly good. With gluten-free options that taste as good as (and sometimes better) than their inspiration, they offer an amazing variety of new and intriguing spins on classic flavor combinations. My favorite is the Bitchin’ Creme – a brilliant take-off on the Boston Creme – and I’ve sampled a Neapolitan donut that was like a decadent cherry cordial, and a crazy-good orange-cardamom donut that had the epic message seen in these photos. (And I whole-heartedly support this message.)
After a devastating fire at their Lark Street location, they are now operating at 540 Delaware Ave and 2008 Central Ave in Colonie – both much more convenient for parking. The only warning I have is that these can quickly become a bit addictive – hence a recent pair of weekend trips – and they often sell-out, so get there early.
Check out their website here for more deliciousness.
This new variety of cherry tomato (whose specific name has been lost to my insistence on throwing out the label much too early in the season) has started ripening – and it’s delicious. I always forget how good homegrown tomatoes taste compared to the flavorless supermarket objects we find in the winter here. The tomato is the culinary embodiment of summer in these parts – a giddy taste and force of nature that reminds me of how lovely the sunny season can be, especially in the mouth.
Dad taught me how to grow tomatoes, and for the past several years I’ve put them in pots on the back patio and they’ve been delivering. The cherry tomatoes are the most reliable, so that’s what I’ve focused on lately. The two pots going now are beginning to mature and ripen and the bounty is just around the corner.
A beautiful sight to behold.
The promise of something to come…
When it gets to be this hot for this long, the best sort of cooking to do is that which requires no stove or oven or even microwave. Enter the icebox cake. A bit campy, a bit retro, and a whole lotta sugar adds up to a no-bake dessert that tastes like someone worked up a sweat when really it’s all about the assembly and some maneuvering of the stand mixer. When we invited Suzie and her family over for a Sunday dinner, I decided to make another attempt at perfecting this recipe after a questionable version I served to my niece and nephew (the best guinea pigs since Chester and Cookie).
The same concept that forms the base of this Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding recipe is at work for the icebox cake: a solid cookie is transformed into a soft cake-like consistency after several hours mingling with a pudding/cream concoction. This time around, I used a recipe for Biscoff cookies and Biscoff butter, which I ended up modifying because I wasn’t happy with an initial test run. (I replaced the cream cheese with mascarpone, and used homemade whipped cream rather than a store bought ‘whipped topping’ – both changes made for a vast improvement, as did some additional ‘soak’ time, which took away the crunchy edge that some of the cookies retained with just a few hours in the fridge.) If you need a solid summer dessert and don’t want to heat up the kitchen, try this one out.
(Upon further contemplation, I may save this one for the fall and holiday season, as the spicy ginger flavors of the Biscoff elements align better with the cozy comforts of that time.)
INGREDIENTS
2 8.8 oz packages Biscoff cookies
13.4 oz jar Biscoff cookie butter
5.1 oz box instant vanilla pudding mix
3 cups of 2% milk
½ cup butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened (I used 8 oz of mascarpone and this was so much better)
1 cup powdered sugar divided into two halves
3 cups heavy or whipping cream
METHOD
In a large bowl, add vanilla pudding mix and whisk in milk until combined. Put in fridge to set (can do the night before).
In another bowl, beat together butter, cream cheese or mascarpone, and ½ cup powdered sugar until combined – about 2 minutes.
In stand mixer, whip heavy cream and ½ cup powdered sugar until desired whopped cream consistency.
Blend vanilla pudding mix with mascarpone mix, then fold in whipped cream mix until well incorporated.
Drop 1/3 of pudding/cream mix into 9 x 13 casserole dish, then add one layer of Biscoff cookies in bottom of casserole dish in single layer.
Spoon cookie butter into a microwaveable glass measuring cup, heat in 20 second intervals until melted, stirring as you go. Drizzle 1/3 cookie butter over cookies.
Add another 1/3 of pudding/cream mix on top of cookie, then repeat layer of cookies and drizzle another 1/3 cookie butter over them, and add last 1/3 of whipped mix. Drizzle with remaining cookie butter and sprinkle with crushed Biscoff cookies as desired.
Refrigerate at least overnight to ensure a soft consistency.
Chef, Emmy-nominated television host, and entrepreneur Edward Delling-Williams wears many hats, and all of them quite jauntily. His ‘Paris Bistro Cooking’ show on Recipe TV is what drew me into his charming world, and his ‘Taste of London’ programs have me itching to get back to that enchanted city sooner rather than later. He earns this Dazzler of the Day thanks to a storied career and continued inspiration for finding and making all that tastes good in this world. Check out his website here for further evidence of his brilliance.
…and by moment, I mean a three-hour meet-up with Suzie where we did just about everything but the intended task of learning mahjong. The lovely Qamaria Cafe in Latham provided the backdrop and the deliciousness seen here (hello again, honeycomb dessert with pistachio drizzle) for our fun get-together. Based on our initial examination of a small sampling of mahjong tiles, we realized we weren’t about to learn that while in the workforce, but we will slowly make a dent in acclimating ourselves to the game in preparation for when we exit the workforce. (Some sooner than others.) All in all, it was a good meeting.
When it comes to brownies, are you a center-lover or an edge-eater? I’m a corner fan myself… and it looks like this brownie baking tray is just for those of us who like all the edges we can get.
Offering a glimpse of a summer to possibly come, this Greek salad was enjoyed poolside on a day when the temperatures reach into the 90’s – because we can’t just go from winter to spring – we have to have winter, then fall, then winter again, then brutal fall, then winter again… well, you get the sad idea. By the time this gets posted, we may be back in the rainy doldrums, so I’m putting this up to remind myself that there are sunny days behind us, and sunny days ahead.
This salad is simple enough – it’s mostly about the chopping and finding the freshest ingredients. Comprised of garbanzo beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives, roasted chicken, and lettuce, it’s dressed in a lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, garlic and dijon mustard dressing. (A few sidetracks from a traditional Greek salad as there is no red onion, and I included lettuce for filler.) When it comes to salad, everyone should toss it their own way.
This blog post paraphrases its title from an obscure ‘Golden Girls’ reference – IYKYK.
More important is the combination of condiments at work, here we have some basic ketchup with a basic Peri Peri sauce, for a batch of fries we had with burgers the other night. I love the sort of reverse sunny-side-up egg effect accidentally occurred – the best art is sometimes entirely unintentional, and we have to be open to the whims of the universe.
Chris recently recommended this Peri Peri sauce to me, and he’s been surprisingly accurate in selecting good sauces lately. Just when you think you know a guy, after over thirty years of friendship he goes and surprises you with a flash of good taste. This is why you should never give up on people.
Now that Lent is officially over, I’m going to miss these Friday fried seafood platters from Frank’s.
According to the literature and folklore on the walls of the new Qamaria location in Latham, the first cup of coffee was brewed in Yemen, where’s been cultivated and traded for over five hundred years. My caffeine threshold would not stand for any sort of traditional Yemeni coffee, so I opted for their Iced Matcha Latte – about the most caffeine I can safely handle, tempered with a hefty amount of milk. That and the pistachio honeycomb dessert made for a delicate and not-overly-sweet sweet-treat on my first excursion out after a nasty sinus cold.
Both drink and dessert are subtle and refined (or maybe I still can’t quite taste everything) and the older I get the most I find myself enjoying the less bombastically sweet desserts of mile-high frostings and sundaes spilling over with hot fudge and caramel. On this early spring evening, one of the first without a discernible chill in the air, this green pairing is its own elegant celebration of the season.
The runny golden yolk of an egg oozing into the middle of an egg, cheese and tomato sandwich is just… there are no words.
