all I've got.

I've got nothing this week. I really like to post every week, but right now, I'm a little busy wondering if anyone has seen September? Because the only evidence I've seen that it even happened is the fact that underneath my desk the floor is littered with stems from Macintosh apples.

So I'm doing a total cop out post. A picture of a sunset. Imagine we are looking out at it together, talking about how bitchin' life is. Until then, it's all I've got.

very last few drops

Today is the first day of fall. Although the weather feels a little bit more like a damp August day right now. It will catch up. Last weekend we squeezed the very last few drops out of summer with baked stuffed lobsters at Michelle's house.



It was a total feast with three different, delicious appetizers including some fried green tomatoes that I will be thinking about until next summer comes. I made dessert and I knew since we were having such a rich meal that something with fruit- a little teensy, tiny bit lighter, would do the trick.





This wasn't all that light, but it was so simple and pretty, I thought I would share it. Next time I would use challah bread or a nice brioche. My grocery store didn't have either, so I bought this thick, sweet, cinnamon swirl toast that is perfect for French toast, but it turned out, a little dry for this particular recipe.



If you like the specifics, the original recipe can be found here. But it's one of those things that's very simple to explain. Simmer some ripe berries with sugar and a little water for 10 minutes, until saucy.




While that simmers, slice your brioche or challah into 1 inch thick slices; lightly butter each side and sprinkle with a little cinnamon/sugar. Once the sauce is done, spoon onto a springform pan that has been fully lined with saran wrap.



Squish the bread in, then layer more fruit, then more bread, then more fruit. Three layers get wrapped over with the saran wrap and weighed down so the bread stays saturated with one or two plates. Refrigerate for 2-24 hours and serve with lightly sweetened whipped cream.





It was a very, very, very good summer. We certainly got the most out of it. Now it's fall and time to excited about boots and pumpkin flavored anything and red wine and eating soup. Happy first day.

a certified hit

For a long time when I was little my older brother was determined to make me into an athlete. I was, to put it gently, a bit stocky, so I think that he hoped that underneath my dense build was the muscular core of a star athlete in training. Also, I think even though I had been born a girl he was optimistic he could partake in traditional little brother/big brother activities with me. As a result it was him, not my parents, that would wake up early on Saturday mornings and take me to my youth basketball games, blaring House of Pain to get me pumped up. And it was him, not my dad (who was more comfortable with an airbrush in his hand then a baseball mitt) who coached my youth softball team.



Unfortunately, all the Celtic rap and brotherly support in the world couldn’t help the fact that the only sports related move I had mastered by adolescence was getting the wind knocked out of me. I spent more time in the dugout sullenly nursing injuries and offering to go on runs to the snack bar for Freeze Pops then I did making victory laps around the bases. The religious fervor with which I would pray to not get any pop flies hit in my direction while tending right field, rivaled the most devout pilgrims.



So competitive in the athletic sense I’m not, but when it comes to bringing a dish to a party, there's part of me that wants, well, to win. “Win” in this sense means, see most, or all, of it devoured and garner at least 3 or more accolades from various party goers. Is that sick? Admit it, we all want to win in our small ways every once in a while.



I saw these little baby Nilla Banana sandwiches all over Pinterest a couple weeks back. Since, as a society, we are predestined to adore and covet all things miniature (see also: babies, puppies, minihorses, sliders, etc.) I oohed and aahed over them along with the general public. Saturday night as I was drifting off to sleep wondering what I should bring to my bestie, Erica’s housewarming party, I thought, “what if I made those tiny banana sandwiches and dipped them in chocolate?” Unathletic I may be, but I’ve always been pretty smart when it comes to snacks.



CHOCOLATE DIPPED NILLNANA SANDWICHES

One box Nilla wafers
About 4-5 ripe bananas
1 bag semi sweet chocolate chips

Parchment paper





Slice bananas and sandwich between two Nilla wafers. Gently squeeze, so they will stick to each side of your banana slice. You could stop there, but I went one step further and dipped them in chocolate. Once you have sandwiched all your banana slices set out two cookie sheets and line them with parchment paper. In a microwave safe bowl, heat the chocolate chips on high, for 30 seconds at a time, removing the bowl from the microwave between spurts and stirring well with a fork to distribute the heat; continue this process until the chocolate is smooth and dip-able. I think total I probably heated mine for almost 3 minutes, maybe 3 ½. One by one, dip the tiny sandwiches in the chocolate and set on the parchment paper to cool. Bring to a party, collect accolades.



Throughout the party on Sunday, I beamed silently with delight as I saw plates of my snacks get carried out of the kitchen and delivered to Erica’s grandmother and various other family members. You know it’s good when people are packing them away before the grill has even been sparked. I had a certified hit on my hands, no ice packs necessary. These are so easy it almost feels like a joke to share them as a “recipe” but trust: they are a huge crowd pleaser. Next time I’m adding peanut butter in between and also, maybe dipping them in coconut.

worth working for

I figured that cooking lobsters was about as difficult as cooking corn. Boil water, add food product, allow to cook, drench with butter, eat. Turns out, not so much. I had truly underestimated the amount of work that goes into a lobster dinner. Be prepared; have back up, plenty of wine and a sense of humor. I hosted the families for lobsters Monday night to celebrate Paul’s birthday and these are the nuggets of knowledge I picked up:



After you let the lobsters out of the bag to crawl around on your deck, you will feel acutely more like a murderer. I thought I was alone in my pre-murderous guilt when Paul came in the kitchen and said “jeez, after seeing them crawl around like that I feel kind of sad about eating them now.” I mean how often do you see your food live right before you eat it? We get it Michael Pollan. Don’t worry though; somewhere around the time you melt 2 pounds of butter to dip them in you will get your appetite back.



It might be slightly less work if you get normal sized lobsters. The guys we got were mammoth two pounders and wrangling them into and out of the giant lobster steamer I borrowed from my aunt took muscles. My muscles were out of shape because I spent the week lifting nothing but dark and stormies to my mouth and then eating and sunning myself at the beach and then eating, sunning myself at the beach and drinking dark and stormies. Lather, rinse, repeat. It was an excellent vacation.



Have some man power available. Getting these men into the steamer you need three people: two to hold the beasts at the ready and one to cut the rubber bands off their claws before they meet their maker. Put them into the steamer head down (the “humane” way), close the lid, wince with guilt, and then melt some butter (the guilt melts with the butter, see above), set out some cookie sheets and dish towels to transfer the steamed beasts to when they’re done.



So when are they done? I could not tell you for the life of me how long it takes to steam giant beasts like the lobsters we got, because my mother, the Fish Whisperer, kept saying “my nose will know when they’re done.” and I was like “er, are you sure your nose is working, because from my view it’s buried in a glass of Pinot Noir?” (said under my breath of course, because I wasn’t about to alienate my sous chef when I needed her most and man, did she come in handy).



Less is more when it comes to how much water you put in the bottom of your steamer. I stupidly thought that I would want to fill it up as much as possible because I was worried it would all evaporate. But it’s a steamer, not an open topped pot. Also, lobsters purge some liquid as they start to cook and the bottom of your steamer will start to bubble salt water all over your range if it’s overly filled. This minor crisis will result in a quick show of muscles as you wrangle the top of the steamer off (with the giant lobsters in it), place it to the side, take the water vessel- which is brimming with melt-your-skin-off-hot sea water- very carefully and quickly to your kitchen sink, and ditch more than half of it. Just a hint, if you can: avoid this. Only fill the bottom of your lobster pot about 1/3 of the way. I felt like I was on an episode of Family Double Dare, only instead of getting green Jello on me, I was risking melting the skin off my legs if I made one wrong move. And I worked really hard to get my legs tan, so I wasn’t about to cover them up with some stupid bandages.



Keep everything else as dead simple as possible. Chowder which is already made by chowder making experts is the perfect appetizer; boiled corn goes on the side, crispy roasted potatoes can be made far ahead of time and left in a warm oven as an additional side dish. Have everyone serve themselves buffet style from the kitchen table and then take their plates (btw, buy the thick Chinet oblong plates they are sturdy and soak up lobster juice well) out onto the deck. If you don’t have a deck, eat on your lawn, or heck, on the freaking driveway. Whatever you do, don’t serve a lobster dinner inside of your house. We all ate outside and as it was, my kitchen reeked like a Gloucester loading dock until I fired up enough Nag Champa to resurrect Jerry Garcia and boiled a bunch of lemons. I can only shudder to think of what the funk would have been if we had wrestled our lobsters out of the shells INSIDE the house. Set up tables real casual-like on the deck (or driveway/sidewalk/lawn) have a couple bowls of drawn butter at the ready, a couple big mixing bowls for discarded shells and bring the trash bucket right outside and leave it behind your table. That way, when everybody is done, you can huck the trash right into the bag, tie it up and never let that stank back into your kitchen again.



It’s work for sure, but most things worthwhile are worth working for and a lobster dinner for your boyfriend’s birthday is, in my book, totally one of those things. It’s also the perfect meal to end a summer in New England with. If you’re planning on undertaking this task, I would highly recommend having an experienced Fish Whisperer with you. I will rent my mom to you if you’d like. I’m not sure of her current fee, but I’d be willing to bet she’d do it for two bottles of Clos du Bois chardonnay and the rights to any and all leftover lobster meat.

no matter how simple

When fruit is ripe and in season, there’s really not much that needs to be done to it, since baking it with just a bit of sugar and some kind of topping, be it a crisp, crumble or cobbler, makes it sweet, gooey and delicious.



This is the perfect dessert to make if you’re having friends over for dinner and you don’t want to try anything too fussy. Just double the amounts here. You can make it before you even start your dinner prep and have it ready to go after you eat. Toss it in the oven while you relax with the rest of your wine on the back porch. A homemade dessert no matter how simple is guaranteed to impress.



EASIEST STONE FRUIT CRISP/CRUMBLE
(yields: 3 servings)

2 ripe peaches, peeled and cut into chunks
1 ripe nectarine, peeled and cut into chunks
Equal parts brown sugar and wheat germ
(I wager I used a scant ¼ cup of each)
About ¼ cup Quaker oats
Butter (about 2 tablespoons and more for the baking dish)

Sugar
Cinnamon



Slice and peel your fruit over a cutting board or bowl, so that you can add any accumulated juices to your baking dish. Butter a small oven safe baking dish. Toss the sliced fruit with a sprinkle of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon right in the buttered dish. In a small bowl combine equal parts wheat germ and brown sugar with some oats, add another pinch of cinnamon; mix together and spoon on top of the fruit. Cut your butter into small cubes and dot the top with it. Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 30-40 minutes, or until the butter is completely melted, the top slightly browned and you can see the fruit juices bubbling. Serve with ice cream to balance out the fact that you included something as crunchy granola as wheat germ in a dessert; save leftovers to heat up and spoon over Greek yogurt in the morning. SO yum.



I’m off for vacation! Our plans for this weekend have been slightly derailed by the incoming hurricane. Damn you Irene! But we have a whole TEN days off through Labor Day. I am so excited to disconnect myself from both of my jobs and the internet/computer/facebook. I’m going to hopefully catch a few more rays of summer sun, read a couple books, spend some QT with the Squeeze and eat a lot of fried sea creatures and clam chowder, because that’s what you do when you’re down the Cape. Have a great Labor Day and I’ll see you in September!

banner days

I'm terrible at conveying big news sometimes. I totally space out and forget and then I'll be like {GIANT GASP} "oh my god I FORGOT to tell you!" and whomever I'm talking to will think I just injured myself severely. So last Friday was like, the biggest bit of blog news in a while and I totally failed and neglected to share it here. If you're friends with me on facebook or a blood relative though, I trust you got my WAAAAAAAA!!!! WEEEEEEEE!!! posts and emails related to this.



A few months back I submitted my kitchen for a kitchen tour over on thekitchn.com. Which is, let me just say, probably my very favorite recipe source and online community for home cooks. After some delays, because they were doing their annual Small Cool Kitchens contest and posting contributor's kitchens, they ran my full Kitchen Tour on Friday! See it HERE.



So the Porky kitchen, in its full glory, as photographed by myself and my bosomest bud, Aja Amontea, was full blown featured on my very favorite blog. I'm not going to lie, I cried a little bit. Faith's write up about why I love my kitchen was so poignant and right on and because being in that space, cooking for myself and the people I love is so very important to me, it seriously made me ferclempt.



So check out our tour. I hope you enjoy it 1/100th as much as I did!



Also, speaking of people I love and good news on Fridays, two Fridays ago, actually for the whole length of the weekend, was the EP release celebration of Paul's band's second EP, Something Evil Something Something Bananas (I know. They are a stone cold pack of weirdos and I love them so much).



This music was something I heard from the beginning as Paul would come home from the practice space on Saturday afternoons and share with me an edit of the latest track and then when I heard it in full, I was so so proud of him, of them and what they had produced.



The boys came up with an insanely clever marketing plan for the release of their EP. They knew they didn't want to press a bunch of CDs because these days, who really buys CDs anymore? Tom, the guitarist, works at this really cool tavern up in Charlestown and as a result has become pretty tight with the two guys that run Fisherman's Brewery, which is in Gloucester.



Together with the Tavern, and the fellows from the brewery, Paul and the boys decided that they would release the EP as a special brew and put a download code on the side of each bottle. So in other words, this latest release is drinkable. You can drink your beer and then use your smartphone or computer to go to band camp and enter the code to download the album. Rock and roll in the digital age. What WILL they think of next?! I thought the whole thing was pretty rad, myself. Here is the link, if you're so inclined.



It's a very special thing to watch the person you love do the thing that they love and watching the shows to celebrate last Friday and Saturday night was the most fun I've had in a long time.



I promise next time we have two banner weeks, twice in a row, that I won't sleep on sharing the details here.

take advantage

I think I’m pretty sure every meal I’ve eaten in the past two weeks has had corn or tomatoes in it, or both. Except for those meals where I’ve forsaken vegetables all together (like the mountain of fried seafood I had on Friday night). It’s my most favorite time of year to be eating. When "cooking" adds up to just assembling delicious things together and adding a little bit of seasoning. When I feel like I owe it to myself to eat as many tomatoes and kernels of fresh local corn as I can possibly take before they, and the summer, leave me for another year. You should do it too. Take advantage.



PESTO CHICKEN and HEIRLOOM TOMATO SALAD
with PESTO VINAIGRETTE

1 head Boston lettuce
2 tomatoes, chopped (heirloom or beefsteak)
3 slices thick cut pancetta or bacon, cooked and crumbled
2-3 tbs. toasted pine nuts
Fresh mozzarella torn or chopped into bite sized pieces
Grilled pesto chicken breasts, or boneless thighs

One container pesto, homemade or store bought
Salt, pepper
Olive oil
Juice from half a lemon



I made this for dinner last night. When I told my squeeze I was making salad for dinner he was kinda like “really, just a salad?” and then he saw me dumping crumbled pancetta and chunks of fresh mozzarella in the bowl and he was like “oh it's like a GOOD kind of salad.” I kept thinking of Manwich, the “sandwich that eats like a meal.” This is a salad that eats like a meal. Just add a slice of crusty bread on the side for sopping up tomato juice and dressing at the bottom of the bowl.

This, by the way, is how I feel about heirloom tomatoes:



Salt and pepper each side of your chicken and pound out to an even width. Rub with just a bit of olive oil and set over a grill on medium heat. Cook chicken through, spooning pesto on each side as you get closer to the end of the cooking process. Set chicken aside until you’re ready to eat. Feel free to add a little more pesto to the chicken when it’s all done.



Combine lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, pancetta, pine nuts and chicken in a salad bowl. In a separate bowl whisk together a few heaping tablespoons of pesto with some olive oil and the juice from half a lemon. Add salt and pepper to the dressing and the salad. Toss together; remembering to just use just a little dressing to start, you can always add more. Serve. Eat seconds, maybe thirds, definitely dessert. This salad would also be delicious if you omitted the chicken and added sliced avocado; or if you don’t have mozzarella, it would be great with gorgonzola or feta cheese.



SUMMER SQUASH and FIRE ROASTED CORN FLATBREAD

Thin crust pizza shell or flatbread
1 small summer squash
1 ear of corn on the cob
1 4 oz. package goat cheese
Juice from one lemon

Shredded or grated parmesan
Salt, pepper
Basil leaves, torn
Olive oil



You could surely make your own pizza dough here, but I must be honest, I used a Top This!* shell that I purchased at the store. It was totally overpriced, but I had a lot of things to do before getting dinner ready and sometimes the idea of saving money and being a stellar homemaker gets bulldozed by the idea of actually just doing the easiest thing possible when it comes to dinner.



The inspiration for this particular pizza comes two fold from one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen. Last year (I think, wait maybe two years ago) she made this delicious, light, summery goat cheese-based pizza, which I promptly recreated. Last week, or say two weeks ago, she made these charred corn tacos which inspired me to make like a South American street vendor and drop my corn directly onto a flame. Preparation is so simple and the end result is light, tangy and so summery. This is the perfect topping for a super thin crust pizza, because you don’t want to over-top these particular pizza shells, or they end result will be a crispy edge and a very soggy center.



Peel your ear of corn and set it directly over the flame of a gas burner on medium high heat. Using heat-safe tongs turn and move the cob often, getting a nice char in spots, shifting it around periodically to cook all sides (Warning: it will spit and sizzle a little, but it’s not really that scary. Also, make sure your windows are open, since you will just be letting a gas burner burn in an open kitchen for upwards of a couple minutes). Let cool and then slice the kernels off the cob and set aside. While your corn cools, using a knife or (preferably) a mandolin slicer on the thinnest setting, slice your squash into whisper thin rounds.



In a small to medium bowl, mash your entire package of goat cheese with the lemon juice (a fork works perfect) and spread this as your base onto the pizza shell. Arrange the squash slices in a thin layer, overlapping the edges slightly until the pizza is completely covered. Scatter the corn over, and then a light layer of grated parmesan and some salt and pepper. Cook in a 450 degree oven for about 8-9 minutes. Or, if you are making your own pizza crust, maybe longer, at least until the crust is brown and the parmesan has melted. Scatter torn basil over, and serve immediately.



I made this variation and a standard margarita pizza for my friend when she came over for dinner. The pizza shells are so thin that this ends up being a fairly light dinner perfect for two people. Yes, that works out to a pizza each. Judge not.



*which I always want to call Top That! I can’t even type those words without thinking of this classic gem. You’re welcome.