Hungarian Cucumber Salad

Last week I had six large cucumbers in my refrigerator and few ideas of what to make other than soup. The recipe below was really tasty, and I was surprised how quickly the cucumbers were used up by this simple recipe. My mom suggested adding onions to the salad next time. It was really refreshing.


HUNGARIAN CUCUMBER SALAD
Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook, 2004
By Joan Nathan
found at Epicurious

Rosemary Ratatouille

My mom tipped me off to the good ratatouille recipe on the Cooking for Engineers blog. I substituted rosemary for basil, and it was delicious. Be sure to add plenty of rosemary early in the cooking process. I think it would also be good with a handful of cannellini beans.

Yummy Ratatouille Recipe via Cooking for Engineers

Cucumber Mint soup

I have bagged four cucumbers since I came back to DC on Wednesday. My one plant is spreading its vines and sprouting blossoms at a very rapid pace, so I am expecting more soon. Given the plethora of cucumbers coming my way, I was pleasantly surprised to learn how many variations on cucumber soup were flittering out there in the foodie sphere. My first cool cucumber soup of the year comes from the Epicurious recipe below. My neighbor offered some fresh mint to mix as well. I would not have thought to add an egg, ever, to cucumber soup, but it was simply lovely

COLD CUCUMBER SOUP WITH MINT
Gourmet, July 1996 (found with Epicurious)

Some of the comments indicate that the soup needed peppers to add a bit of heat. With homegrown cukes, I think it is best to just keep the recipe as is.

Recipe: Cream of Chard and Beet Greens

With the arrival of fresh garlic in my garden, I find myself sauteing garlic, onions, olive oil and the vegetable du jour every night. Although I could continue this pattern until the garlic runs out, I thought I should try something different. I decided to make a cream of chard and beet green recipe from the common ingredients found in a cream of spinach recipe. It was heavenly.

Recipe
2 Tbsp of butter
2 Tbsp of flour
2 small shallots (courtesy of my garden)
1 cup of skim milk

a big bunch of Swiss chard stemmed
a good handful of baby beet greens
1/8 cup of grated fresh Parmesan cheese

salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste

I simply melted the butter over medium heat and then sauteed the shallots for a minute or two. I then sprinkled in the flour while stirring vigorously with a silicon spatula. Once the mixture was smooth and bubbling, I added the milk and greens. The greens begin to wilt as the milk heats up. I grated the cheese and nutmeg directly onto the mixture when greens the had cooked down and the sauce was thickening.

Recipe: Tilapia with cherry tomatoes, olives, and parsley

The recipe below will be even better when cherry tomatoes are in season, but fresh parsley and fresh garlic made it taste heavenly tonight. I think this is a nice simple dish to cook on a weeknight with a glass of pinot grigio. It is also a nice way to end the weekend without making too much of a mess in the kitchen.

SPICY SAUTEED FISH WITH OLIVES AND CHERRY TOMATOES
Via Epicurious and Bon Appétit, May 2002, Candida Sportiello, Ventotene, Italy

I made this with a half pound of tilapia, two hand full of grape tomatoes, fresh parsley, and cracked green olives from Trader Joe's. I usually coat the fish in flour per the suggestion of others on the Epicurious website and deglaze the pan with a little white wine. I tried coating the tilapia in almond meal rather than flour with favourable results. To avoid smoking the olive oil, I needed to keep the heat at medium rather than medium high.

Easy Chard and Pasta Recipe

After an unfortunate squirrel incident, I only have a few chard plants producing leaves. I supplemented my supply with pickings from my local farmer's market last Saturday and tried the following recipe from PBS's Victory Garen website on Tuesday night with moderal success.

Fettuccine with Swiss Chard, Walnuts and Lemon

The recipe has a good balance of ingredients, but the temperature settings for cooking the chard seemed way off. I think that the recipe asks one to cook the chard on high heat to soften up the chard stems more quickly. I have found it easier to cut out the stems and steam them seperately for 5-10 minutes (depending on the toughness of the stems) and then simply add the softened stems and leaves together in a sautee of olive oil and garlic over medium heat. The greens will wilt quickly event at this lower temperature.

I also added a bit of white wine in place of some of the chicken stock to deglaze the pan. Given the ample nutrients provide by the chard s(see University of Illinois extension), I decided that I had earned it :)

The radishes are coming

I stopped by my garden after work last night and noticed blooms on my spinach and cilantro. I must say that these veggies have a graceful way of closing the curtain on their life as a veggie. My poor eggplants are being eating alive by beetles, and I am thinking of replacing them this weekend.

I picked a few radishes as well, and they are almost at full size. I neglected the advice of the "sow a small bit at a time" school of thought and am thus expecting a large supply of radishes in the very near future. With a little help from Google, I learned of some more unique way to showcase the radishes. The most delicious sounding options are listed below. I sauteed some radishes in butter last night as directed by the good folks at the Splendid Table, and it is indeed as good as the rave reviews say.

Radish Cabbage Coleslaw via Epicurious

Sauteed Radishes via Splendid Table

Radish Spread via Beyond Salmon