Category Archives: summer

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.

Easy Antipasto – Peaches and Prosciutto with Fresh Mozzarella and Mint Pesto

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Peach prosciuto antipasto-9637

 

Local Massachusetts peaches seem increasingly old-fashioned to me, meaning that you make a mess when you eat one (unless a nearby vendor gives you slices) and while they taste sweet they also have a faint counterpoint of tartness.  This makes them the ideal companion for salty prosciutto.  I suppose we could have left it at that, but we also had a raft of mint and some pistachios, so Jody upped the ante with a pistachio-mint pesto that doesn’t require much more than a quick buzz in the food processor.  Fresh mozzarella makes it a sumptuous enough to stand in for lunch, if that’s where’s you want to go.  You’ll also be relieved to know that local cherry tomatoes, now at their spectacular peak, don’t require peeling. This is the easiest antipasto you’ll even encounter, especially on a hot day when instead of cooking all you want to do is savor the last days of summer.

Bluefish with Dukkah, Tomatoes and Garlic Yogurt

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Bluefish with Dukkah, Tomatoes and Garlic Yogurt-1

Three or four summers ago I was standing in water up to my knees on a sandbar known as Horseshoe Shoal in the middle of Barnstable Harbor, that long shark-shaped body of water that swims between the shores of Sandy Neck to the north and the town of Barnstable to the south on Cape Cod.  As I watched, a flock of seabirds raced down the channel that passes between the sandbar and Sandy Neck.  The birds swooped and cried, strafing a line across the water with their beaks as precise as a squadron of P-51 Mustangs.  Then I saw it, a deep slate discoloration below the channel surface, an undulating gray movement that fragmented into hundreds of individual fish as it flashed by me.  I wasn’t the only one to take notice.  Small boats stopped in the channel, people rising to stand, hands shading eyes.  “Blues!” a man cried, waving and pointing.  It was August and the bluefish were running.  For anglers and eaters on Cape Cod, only striped bass equal the pleasures of bluefish.  Stripers taste more delicate, but bluefish fight harder.  This week’s dish: Bluefish with Dukkah, Tomatoes and Garlic Yogurt.

Tomato Salad with Tuna Tapenade

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Tomato Salad with Tuna Tapenade-8639

I had to bite my tongue while Jody prepared this week’s Tomato Salad with Tuna Tapenade.  The photographer in me was dying to speak up: Don’t you want to sneak a little preserved lemon into that?  Some extra visual pop?   Truth be told, my wife has always been a member of the “flavor first ” camp, with visual appeal a distant second.  And we use preserved lemons in everything, so this week we’re giving tomatoes a turn, and tapenade.  Is anything more summery than the crazy quilt of tomatoes just ripening in New England, along with an herby tapenade, basil and olive oil?  If you’ve never sat down at a table with tapenade because you’re afraid it might once have dated an anchovy, then fear not.  As Jody explains in her notes, this tuna tapenade’s for you.