SENSORI

Cobb Salad Hosts the Final Summer Tomatoes

Swept up by the trend to grow our own food, I planted my first vegetable garden this year late in the spring season.  I had very low yield but the flavor and texture of the fruit that the garden bore was excellent.  I harvested Asian eggplant (a few of which were stuffed and others were factored into mixed grills or curries), jalapeno peppers, hungarian peppers and tomatoes.  The tomatoes, along with the jalapeno peppers, helped to make mouth-watering salsa.  And on hot summer afternoons, the tomatoes made the perfect lunch sliced, placed on white bread or a lightly toasted pita with a drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper.  Yum!

I pulled the last three Celebrity tomatoes off the vine a few days ago (pictured left are slices from one of the tomatoes) and used them in a deconstructed cobb salad (pictured above).  My version of this salad is a tribute to the deconstructed cobb on the menu of DC Coast, a restaurant in Washington, D.C. known as a go-to  power meal spot for the tasseled Gucci-loafered lobbyists in town.  A detailed history of the Cobb salad (which dates back to 1930s Hollywood), including its original ingredients, can be found on Wikipedia.  I haven't dined at DC Coast for a while, so I prepared my salad from a foggy recollection and gut instinct.  The preparation of the ingredients is so simple that I'm not addressing preparation steps.  Appearing left to right on the salad plate pictured at the top of this page are the following ingredients:

•     crumbled blue cheese
•     diced tomatoes
•     chopped spinach
•     chopped bacon
•     diced cucumber
•     chopped grilled chicken (or you can use chopped chicken from roaster leftovers)
  
•     chopped egg

And across the top of the plate is diced, ripened avocado.  The dressing I used for this salad is a honey mustard and grapefruit champagne vinaigrette that is spicy and bright and a delicious contrast to the rich ingredients of the salad.  The ingredients for the dressing are:

• 1/3 cup of Honeycup Uniquely Sharp Mustard
• 1/4 cup of mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon of white, refined sugar
  
• 1/2 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 1/2 tablespoon of finely minced fresh garlic
  
• 1/8 cup of champagne
• 1/8 cup of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
  
• Pinch of dry oregano
• Salt and pepper to taste

NOTE: the Honeycup brand of mustard is central to this dressing.  No other honey mustard will do.  Add all the ingredients to a mixing bowl and whisk until fully combined and the dressing is emulsified.  If you don't have champagne at the ready, a splash of dry white wine is a good substitute.  You also may add a little water to the dressing to tone down the flavor or thin out the consistency or you may add sparkling water if you'd like the effervescence of champagne but don't have any handy.  Remember, the key to improvising is tasting your product along the way.  Whisk the dressing after every adjustment, dab a drop of dressing on your forefinger and taste to determine whether you are satisfied or more adjustments are needed.  If you can't pluck the last of this season's tomatoes fresh from your garden for this salad, consider buying from your local farmers market.  But, hurry -- grab them while supplies last!

Knocked out by knock-out roses

After being on the road for a few days, I came home to find the knock-out rose bushes in our front yard e-x-p-l-o-d-i-n-g with blooms.  I couldn't get my bags in the house fast enough.  I rushed to get my pruning tools and started clipping stems of roses.  Look at the splendor! I've made a few arrangements for our neighbors and one for our house, but these roses looked their absolute best when first cut.  You might be able to see dew on the petals in the photo (you can click on the photo to enlarge it).  And they smell soft and powdery - just delightful!

Hoodblooms

 
Finally, I'm posting about something other than food.  Look at this beautiful, crisp white bloom on a shrub in my neighbor's yard.  More photos of flowers, bunnies, ducks and other natural delights found within a two block radius of our home are on my Picasa site.

An Imprecise Cook's Cold Weather Menu

This past week, Norfolk was blanketed with six to eight inches of snow, which is a lot snow for a town this far south on the Atlantic coast.  I worked up an appetite shoveling the driveway and trudging through the snow on a walk with my dog.

  

The view from our street and my pup romping in the snow.

The weather and my hunger were the perfect prompt for making a pot of steaming hot soup.  So, I prepared pasta e fagioli (in Italian, “pasta and bean”) soup and served it with a gooey, grilled cheese sandwich.  I didn’t follow a recipe for the soup.  I just gathered, chopped and threw in ingredients.  Here’s an approximation of what I used:

• 1 pound of browned, ground Italian sausage
• 1 16 oz can of diced tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato paste
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 2 cups of chicken broth
• 1 cup of water
• 1 lemon, juiced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 4 small to medium-sized white potatoes, diced
• 1 16 oz can of dark red kidney beans
• 1 lb of kale, cleaned and chopped
• 1 cup of orzo pasta

Brown the sausage in your stockpot.  Add the cup of water and scrape off the sausage reduction on the bottom the pot.  Throw in all the other ingredients, save for the pasta.  Simmer until all the ingredients are cooked and tender (about 20-25 minutes).  Add the orzo and extra water if needed to thin out the broth (remember: the pasta will soak up a lot of your liquid).  If you'd like a pasta e fagioli recipe with accurate ingredient measurements and preparation instructions, try Giada De Laurentis' recipe or this traditional vegetarian recipe that calls for ditalini pasta.

 

I used a half-slice each of muenster and cheddar cheese for the grilled cheese sandwich.  The combination of the buttery, soft muenster and sharp cheddar cheeses was perfect.  When grilling a cheese sandwich, cover your pan with a lid so the internal heat will melt the cheese, but remove the lid soon after the cheese begins to melt to prevent your bread from getting soggy.  Mmm mmm good!

SuperSonic Shrooms

I stumbled across these mushrooms during my morning walk with my dog in our neighborhood.  They definitely aren't edible (they are hard as wood) but their colors are eye-catching.  The photo doesn't quite convey how iridescent they are.