Monthly Archives: July 2015

SEARED HARICOTS VERTS WITH WHIPPED FETA AND PRESERVED LEMON

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Seared Green Beans with Whipped Feta-3531

 

This recipe is so simple I had trouble envisioning exactly what I was going to photograph, which was fine, because given the temperatures of the last couple of weeks, who wants to spend a lot of time in the kitchen?  Seared Haricots Verts with Whipped Feta and Preserved Lemon will have you in and out in no time and then you can devote yourself to doing what everyone does in hot weather – using the grill while quaffing enormous quantities of beer.  Or, you can simply do what Jody and I did: sit down, pour yourself a glass of dry rosé, add some sliced tomatoes and crusty bread and call it lunch.

GRILLED BLUEFISH AGRODOLCE

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Bluefish Agrodolce-1

 

Okay, I admit it–I love fishy fish.  You can keep catfish, but once that’s off the table, I’ll eat everything else.  Bring on the sea urchin roe, mackeral, fresh sardines and all swimming things smoked and pickled.  All grand.  But if I were Neptune, sitting at my right hand, way above the salt, would be bluefish.  This week we’re serving Bluefish Agrodolce, an easy easy easy dish.  And when you’ve gotten agrodolce, a quick sweet-sour sauce, well in hand you can serve it with just about any kind of seafood with a bit of gumption.  Welcome aboard.

STUFFED EGGPLANT WITH FARRO, GINGER AND POMEGRANATE

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Eggplant with Farro, Ginger and Pomegranate-0637

I returned from Istanbul a few weeks ago with an eggplant monkey on my back.  During those brief periods in Turkey when I wasn’t stuffing myself with baklava, I was slavering over Turkish eggplant.  The aubergine highlight of my travels was a braised veal shank wrapped in eggplant, a dish so meltingly tender than it was difficult to tell from texture alone where the eggplant ended and the meat began.  The ubiquity of cooked eggplant in Turkey isn’t duplicated in this country and an eggplant lover must sometime fall back on his own devices.  Stuffed Eggplant with Farro, Ginger and Pomegranate is not nearly so complicated as the veal shank I ate, but it is tender, and so deeply satisfying that the absence of meat in the recipe seems irrelevant.