cook: veggie pita sandwich

I still had leftover grilled vegetables, and so I decided to make fresh pita. Basically, mix a container of Trader Joe's plain whole milk Greek yogurt (5.3 ounces) and almost 2 cups of flour and then roll thin. Slap the flat dough onto a hot cast iron until speckled with enough brown spots to your liking.

 

I also had some of Trader Joe's crumbled feta cheese and iceberg lettuce to add to the veggie pita sandwich. 

  

The sandwich seemed too dry, and so I added more Salsa Verde. And the sandwich was perhaps a bit too acidic and would have benefitted from some tahini sauce...

  

...but instead of making tahini sauce, I made Samin Nosrat's house dressing with olive oil, sherry vinegar, Dijon mustard, whole grain mustard, honey, salt and pepper. Add chopped shallots and thyme. Mix. Done.

  

I dressed the spring greens and arugula and avocado with that New York Times dressing alongside leftover chicken salad.

I loved green salads as a kid, and why are they not as yummy as in my youth? As a girl I loved French dressing, which to my adult palate is kind of gross. And so I can't. I just can't.

cook: chicken salad

Husband bought a rotisserie chicken. What I should have done was just stick the plain roasted chicken into slices of bread slathered with mayo for a sandwich, which I'd enjoyed in the past. But for some reason, I felt compelled to zhush the chicken. I watched Ina Garten make a potato salad with a dressing of mayo, buttermilk and sour cream and thought to do the same.

   

Oh! Can't forget the Dijon mustard. For vegetables and herbs, I added chopped celery, scallions, and dill.

  

I added more chicken as the salad was looking too saucy. I also had brioche buns on hand as well as arugula and spring greens.

 

Looked promising. 

 

And my lunch was just meh. Needed salt, but because I was watching my sodium intake, I didn't add. All my meals have been health conscious oriented. Like fresh berries and French yogurt (Chardonnay in moderation; there are lots of days when I don't drink at all). And the next day, a California Niçoise.

  

The potato salad I made to go with leftover honey smoked salmon was excellent. Same ingredients as the chicken salad, but a lot more satisfying. Probably because I love me the carbs.

cook: chilaquiles

I had just run 4 miles and was ready for breakfast! During the school year, I only run and eat breakfast on Sunday. But if I'm on summer break, then I'll feel like I've the leisure to cook and break fast. On this summer morning though, I wasn't feeling the bodega sandwich for the pork and chipotle sausage in my freezer. It'd been a while since I cooked chilaquiles. And so I basically set out all the Mexican food items from fridge and pantry: the frozen patties of pork and chipotle, cilantro, Monterey Jack cheese, leftover arroz y frijoles, the fresh salsa I bought just after my run and a stop at Safeway, shrimp pipian, and lastly tortilla chips.

First thing, cook and crumble the Mexican breakfast sausage.

My shrimp pipian was too saucy, and so some of that sauce would go into breakfast. Into that pipian, I put the fresh salsa. This is my American cheat. Instead of grilling the onions, tomato and chilies and then pureeing all into a sauce, use the sauces on hand including store-bought salsa.

  

No frying up stale corn tortillas, just the chips from the bag. No queso fresco in the fridge, just what I had on hand: pepper jack.

On to a shallow bowl went the browned ground pork, sauce and chips, and then cheese to melt under a low broil. In the meantime, I was frying an egg until the white was crispy but still the yolk was runny.

And I had forgotten to add the refried beans, and so the frijoles went on top and then back into the oven to heat.

Place that fried egg on top of the whole shebang and breakfast is ready! But wait. I try to incorporate vegetables into every meal including breakfast, and so generous toppings of cilantro, avocado and jalapeno peppers are sprinkled on top.

Too lazy to chop a fresh tomato, I instead added drops of Valentina sauce for pops of red. On reflection, I'm missing my favorite Mexican salsa verde, and so am adding tomatillos and more avocados to the grocery list.

cook: from tuscan pork stew and apple hand pies to summer vegetables in all their simple glory

June Gloom done. I started the month of drab and dreary (for California that is) with cooler weather cooking of Tuscan pork stew. I hesitantly accepted the shank from a leftover pork roast from Cecilia. I boiled the bone with cannellini beans and then added fennel bulb, onions, garlic, and lots of herbs--parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. And then Cecilia gave me even more leftover roast pork. T'was delicious despite dubiousness over a large pork bone.

I capped that foggy summer meal with apple hand pies

I also started reading a vintage cook book I got from Buy Nothing.

  

I couldn't help but notice the illustration on the back cover by Dora Maar, and how do I know about that surrealist painter? Why she was a mistress of Pablo Picasso, whose art I really enjoy though I detest how he treated the women in his life. Reading Toklas's cookbook was the start of turning actual pages in a book rather than scrolling through Facebook and Instagram reels or plunging into rabbit holes of Internet articles. Her tales of dining and cooking in post World War II Europe are very reminiscent of the kitchen meditations of Tamar Adler, who also has another book published last year that I now want to read. I'm doing a bit of a digital detox and have been reading more physical books, and am finally feeling like I'm leading the more beautiful (albeit) messy life I’ve always wanted. Yesterday I capped off the first month of summer by watching whales in Monterey. Truly glorious.

What truly captures summer for me is vegetable cookery. I recently bought this cookbook from Kitchen Arts & Letters because it's published in Europe and one I wouldn't find in a chain bookstore here in the U.S.

I inaugurated cooking from the Scottish chef's collection of recipe with this salsa verde, which I slathered on bell peppers I roasted in my new portable Smokey Joe charcoal grill. The 14" Weber is kind of too small for my grilling needs, but then again I used to grill on tiny hibachis. I also grilled sliced eggplant, which I slathered with leftover tahini sauce. I also grilled zucchini and yellow squash which along with feta cheese (didn't use the pickled cauliflower after all) went into the focaccia bread Cecilia baked for a sandwich picnic.

I didn't get a chance to photograph my vegetable sandwich before eating. I was busy constructing other people's focaccia sandwiches of Caprese and Italian salumeria with arugula.

I loved my sandwich so much that it's going on repeat for summer meals. I aim to bake focaccia too. But for today's leftover vegetables, I'll just pick some bread up at the supermarket.

cook: tuscan salmon dinner for midsummer

I've cooked Tuscan salmon for a winter dinner, but I don't think I've ever prepared it in midsummer when I usually just grill the salmon, boil ears of corn, and sauté summer squash. Mise en place first. I pan fried the salmon first, skin side down to get crispy for 4 minutes and then removed it from the cast iron and set aside. 

 

Rather than discard all the olive oil in the cast iron, I put it in my stainless steel for sautéing the summer squash. And into the cast iron with some of that frying oil went the chopped shallots and then minced garlic and julienned sundried tomato in its olive oil.

 

After the alliums were translucent, I added white wine, let it cook off, and then added the defrosted spinach (squeezed of all its water).

 

After I had broken up the spinach and let the cast iron heat back up and then set to low, I turned my attention to heating a smaller cast iron, where I placed the chopped zucchini and yellow crooked neck squashes, which I had also salted and let drain in a colander. My pan needed to be hotter for more browning to happen, but no matter, I added the chopped garlic and thyme afterward.

 

Squash done in and turned to low, I turned attention back to the larger cast iron to which I cranked the heat a little and then added heavy whipping cream and then the fish to simmer for 3 more minutes for medium rare protein.

It was now time to turn to the starch. I had for the mise en place already boiled the penne in salted boiling water until al dente. Into the stainless steel went a very good jarred Alfredo sauce (which honestly was so convenient) to heat until a low simmer and to which I then added the pasta and sprinkled with chopped parsley and chives. I had also forgotten to chop basil, which I hurriedly did as the pasta was heating up.

 

Atop the salmon went the chopped basil.

I had just called out, Dinner! Before I could plate and photograph the meal, husband was already serving himself. If I do this again, I'm gonna lighten up the dish. Instead of sundried tomatoes, use fresh. Less cream and add fresh squeezed lemon too. The acidity of the wine was not enough. And there was a lot of creamed spinach along with that one salmon filet. The plan is to cook more penne and add leftover vodka sauce and more sauteed squash to that spinach and add a side lettuce salad for a leftover more vegetable-forward lunch.