Summer is a Tomato

Good news, I took my first swim in Lake Michigan! While some residents may look down on the polluted waters (what large body of water isn't polluted?) I took a risk and made the plunge. It's been scorching hot here in Chicago, like most of the country, so taking a dip in the chilly waters was exactly what was called for. The calm waters at Hollywood Beach were perfect for swimming, and since it was Monday, not too crowded either. Afterward, all I could think about was eating a ripe tomato sprinkled with salt but knowing me, I couldn't stop there. I was on a mission to make the BEST tomato salad EVER.

If you're lucky enough to possess a green thumb and have a sunny spot in your yard you're probably eating fresh home grown tomatoes right now, and if so, good for you! Nothing smells or tastes better than an earthy homegrown tomato. For those of us who are less fortunate we'll have to settle for buying our tomatoes, but hopefully in doing so also supporting local farmers. Buying your tomatoes locally will ensure that they are picked at just the right time so that it's at the peak of its flavor and ripeness. Tomatoes that are grown in high-yield production farms are less tasty because the tomato is often picked too soon and they also lack the compounds necessary to give them great flavor because of the strain put on plants in large commercial farming.

Heirloom tomatoes are my favorite because of their haphazard shapes, dents, and beautiful colors. Heirloom tomatoes have been naturally pollinated, therefore they are not hybrids, unlike most commercial varieties. These tomatoes really stand out because of their flavor, there's nothing quite like a ripe heirloom tomato in the height of summer. They also tend to be a bit pricey, but are well worth the extra cost. Since you've paid so much for these beauties it helps to know how to keep them fresh and flavorful until you're ready to use them. When storing tomatoes try placing unwashed tomatoes stem side down at room temperature, it keeps moisture in and prolongs shelf life. Do not under any circumstances refrigerate any tomato, ever. If you ever have then you know it comes out mealy and tasteless, that's because the cold damages the flavor compounds and ruptures cell walls. Even cut tomatoes can be stored at room temperature when tightly wrapped with plastic. Now that you know how to store a tomato, here is how you should eat it.

Cutting the tomatoes into different shapes and sizes gives your salad more dimension and creates a stunning presentation. These directions call for salting your tomatoes liberally and letting them drain, don't skip this step. Salting the tomatoes will concentrate the flavors and draw out moisture, most of the salt will drain off. By adding toasted bread cubes you'll basically turn this recipe into panzanella (Italian bread salad). You can also omit the bread, but adding the bread makes it hearty and more of a meal rather than a side dish. Either way, this stuff won't last long. 


Heirloom Tomato Salad
Serves 6 to 8 as a side

4 Heirloom tomatoes, cut in slices, wedges, and chunks
1/2 cup red onion, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons balsamic or red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons and 1/3 cup olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 red chili, diced
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon thyme
2 tablespoons fresh basil, torn
1 cup mozzarella balls
1/2 Italian bread loaf, cubed (optional)
sea salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix 1/3 cup olive oil with 2 garlic cloves and salt & pepper to taste. Toss oil mixture with bread cubes and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown, set aside.

Place diced tomatoes in a colander and sprinkle generously with sea salt, toss. Generously salt again, tossing again until well coated. Place colander in a bowl and let drain for at least 15 minutes. Discard tomato juice.

Place tomatoes in a large bowl and sprinkle with thyme. Add red onions and stir gently.

In a small bowl mix 2 tablespoons vinegar, 3 tablespoons olive oil, red chili, sugar, and salt & pepper to taste. Drizzle dressing over tomatoes, add basil and mozzarella, stirring gently until combined. Flavors will concentrate over time, serve chilled or at room temperature. Add bread cubes just before serving.

 

Eat Some Figs

Isn't summertime magical? I complain about the heat along with the rest of the city dwellers, but the truth is, I love it. I love eating cold fresh salads, drinking beer with ice, and taking Nico for long walks at midnight when she can actually tolerate being outside for more than 10 minutes. I love walking along the lake shore and seeing families having barbecues, kids building sandcastles, and teenagers applying coconut oil and soaking up the suns rays. It brings back memories of my own childhood weekends spent at all the different lakes in Oklahoma and it makes me smile. Summertime is magical that way.

With the changing of the season of course we get new fruit and what better way to say hello to summer than to eat a fresh fig! I hope that your only knowledge of figs isn't fig newtons, although delicious, they are nothing like the real thing. But if you do only know of figs via a cookie, don't worry, there is no time like the present. I didn't taste a fresh fig until I moved to Seattle and on one of my hundreds of expeditions to a farmer's market I sampled the tender flesh of a fig one summer and chastised myself for waiting so long.

There is nothing quite like the taste and texture of a fresh fig. They are perfectly sweet with a chewy skin and soft center combined with the crunch of seeds in the center. They pair well with all sorts of delicious things like pork, basil, balsamic vinegar, cheese, and strawberries just to name a few. You might think of figs as only a dessert but do not let its sweetness limit what you can eat them with. Not only are they delicious as an entree or dessert but figs are also high in dietary fiber and potassium, so eat away!

I got the idea of doing a blog post featuring fig pizza after I saw it on the menu at a local restaurant. It looked amazing and I had never thought of putting figs on pizza but after doing some online research I discovered that loads of people have already had this idea and there are tons of great recipes out there. I got discouraged because, why reinvent the wheel? Then I had a brilliant idea after coming across a Fig Salsa recipe. Why not put fig salsa on a pizza that's baked with goat cheese and caramelized onions? Of course if you don't want to put fig salsa on top of your pizza you don't have to, tortilla chips or a baguette are also great options.

Using your favorite pizza dough recipe (I bought mine) add some chopped rosemary into your dough, it also pairs nicely with figs. I formed my dough into two small pizzas and topped one with goat cheese and the other with blue cheese and topped both with caramelized onions. It had been a long time since I worked with dough, it all came back to me quickly, I forgot I haven't exactly mastered this art form. Unfortunately my professional dough tosser was at work so my pizzas came out misshapen and funny, but very edible! I baked them for about 25 minutes at 400 degrees, until the crust was golden brown.

 

The pizza with blue cheese was a clear winner in my book. The sharp tang of the blue cheese was a perfect accompaniment to the sweet and spicy fig salsa. I've never tasted anything quite like this dish before but I thought it was great. The flavors were complex and complimented each other nicely. Now just get over the fact that your spooning salsa on your pizza, I promise it was good! If you're not in the mood to bake a pizza try smearing goat cheese on a halved fig and drizzling peppered honey over it. It's an easy and delicious way to eat figs and an impressive appetizer if you happen to be hosting.


Fig Salsa
Makes 3 cups

2 1/2 cups figs, diced
1/2 small red onion, diced
1 jalapeno pepper, diced (remove seeds if you prefer)
2 tablespoons cilantro, minced
1 ripe tomato, diced
Juice from 1 lime
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together and let marinate in the refrigerator at least 1 hour before serving.

Now you're thirsty! And you should be, it's hot outside and you deserve something tasty and refreshing to go along with your meal. This is my favorite Vinho Verde, in my opinion the best wine to drink during the summer. It's light and delicious and goes with any dish.

Here's a toast to summertime! Hope you're enjoying yours as much as I am mine.

How to Properly Say Thank You

Living in a big city can sometimes desensitize you to common courtesy and basic manners. We hustle around always in a hurry and sometimes forget that the elderly gentleman weary from a day in the city would probably love to sit down on the crowded train, but we bury our face in a book and pretend we don't see because it's just so easy. That's why when people go above and beyond the call of duty and make us realize that we are ALL in this together, this crazy, chaotic and sometimes cruel world, well... they deserve cookies.

When Joel and I planned our trip to New York City for a week we struggled with what to do with our 10 year old beagle-mix, Nico. We didn't know anyone who Nico could stay with while we were away, unlike when we lived in Seattle, where we seeming had a endless supply of trustworthy friends ready and willing to help us out. We ended up relying on our apartment manager, Juanita, who in addition to making sure a building of 170 units is taken care of, walked our dog twice a day in the morning and afternoon. Another friend, Adam, who lives close by was responsible for walking Nico in the evenings after he spent a full day at work and got home from his play My First Time that he's currently performing in at the Greenhouse Theater here in Chicago. 

Everything should have gone off without a hitch.... Should have....

Here is Nico in happier times

When we arrived home on Saturday morning we were exhausted from travel delays (we should have arrived home Friday evening) and we wanted nothing more than to curl up in our own bed and sleep until we couldn't sleep anymore. But instead we were greeted with a scene from a horror flick, only you could smell this stench coming off the elevator, and at least watching gory movies saves you from smelling the gore.... anyway, the 20 or so brown stains all over the carpet told a story we didn't want to hear. Unfortunately Juanita, the office manager, was out of the office and Joel's phone had died somewhere in the mayhem of the previous evening so we couldn't call Adam to find out what had happened.

It was apparent Nico wasn't in good health and I was sure she had been neglected the entire week we had been gone. I had a good cry then got myself together and called around to find a vet that would take us on short notice. After she received some subcutaneous fluids and got some medicine we rented a carpet shampooer on the way home and got ready to do some deep cleaning. The smell was not something we could live with even momentarily. Shortly after arriving home, Adam, breathless and nervous, burst through our front door and we listened with rapt attention as he related the story of coming into our apartment Friday evening to find Nico lying on the floor panting at him listlessly with piles and piles of vomit and diarrhea all around her.  (I bet you didn't click on a link to a food blog and expect to see the words vomit and diarrhea... I apologize).

But I'm getting close to my point. Adam came to our apartment Friday evening expecting to take Nico out for a walk as he had the previous evenings and came in, not to stains on the carpet, but to the actual bad stuff that I won't name from here on out because you know what I'm talking about. Adam, God bless his soul, actually picked it up as best as he could with a sponge and paper towels and tried frantically to reach Joel on his dead cell phone to give him a warning of what was to come.

Now don't you think his heroics deserve some chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of Jameson at the very least? I do. I'm so thankful to Adam that I'll turn on my oven in 104 degree heat and bake him the best cookies he's ever had! 

After cracking open every cook book I own in search of a worthy cookie for Adam and Juanita, I reflected back on my own simple tastes... whenever I'm at a bakery and I'm in need of a sugar fix I always rely on good old fashioned chocolate chip. It hits the spot every time; no need for anything fancy or elaborate! Now that I had it narrowed down the search began for the best recipe for chewy and delicious chocolate chip cookies. I found it, of course, in The Best Recipe which I cook from a lot. I just subscribed to Cook's Illustrated (from America's Test Kitchen) and it's the best food magazine I've read in a long time. I used top notch ingredients since this was a gift, but feel free to use the cheaper stuff, it'll still taste really good. At the end of this recipe there are weird instructions about how to form the dough into balls and tearing them apart to form a textured surface while the cookie bakes and it sounds like rubbish at first, but following this step will help you create professional looking cookies that you see in bakery windows.
Now, without further ado...

Big & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Adapted from The Best Recipe

Makes 18 large cookies

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 salt

12 tablespoons unsalted high-fat European butter, melted and cooled

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/2 granulated cane sugar

1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups Ghirardelli Premium Baking Chips Semi-sweet Chocolate

Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower middle positions and pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl, set aside. 

With an electric or stand mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Fold in chips with a wooden spoon. Dough should be very think and requires some strength to stir. 

Roll 1/4 cup of dough into a ball. holding ball in fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, join halves together at their base, again forming a single ball, taking care not to smooth the dough's uneven top surface. Placed formed dough onto cookie sheet, leaving 2 1/2 inches between each ball. 

Bake, reversing position of cookie sheets halfway through baking (from top to bottom and front to back), until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets. Best served warm.

Eating New York

Wow, it's been quite awhile since I posted any new recipes! The month of June was filled with trips to New Mexico, Oklahoma, and New York in addition to having family visit us in Chicago and between that and work there just didn't seem to be any time. But don't worry, I still ate. In fact this blog will be dedicated to all the great food that was consumed in the great city of New York. I'll apologize in advance for the quality of the photos. It's hard to take good pictures when you're on the go..

It all started last Monday night, our first night on the Upper East Side. We had just returned from a Yankee's game after scoring tickets from a nice fellow on the plane who happened to have connections in the Yankee realm. We couldn't very well pass up that opportunity. It's a good thing we didn't have to pay for our tickets, because after $14 a beer we were sure to go broke on our first night in New York City. After the game we met up with some old friends for some good old fashioned pizza. If you want a delicious pizza no matter where you go just get it topped with anchovies and capers.  The salty combination on top of a thin crust pizza is amazing; the other half of the pizza was less memorable, a trusty combination of mozzarella, basil, and tomatoes. At this point I had no clue where we were, between travel delays, figuring out NYC's subway system, and the ballgame I didn't have the energy to inquire. Also, I had consumed more than one cocktail at the game and I think that may have had a little something to do with it...at least I had the wherewithal to remember to take a picture!

The following morning found us at this corner of the Upper West Side . Fruit stands now inhabit hundreds of corners in Manhattan following Mayor Bloomburg's initiative to get New Yorkers eating healthier. The fresh fruit for breakfast was cheap and gave us the energy to tackle the city.We wish Chicago would adopt this idea!

Months ago when we were planning our trip to New York I requested tickets to attend the David Letterman show the week we would be in town. I had forgotten all about it until a week before our departure date I received a phone call saying we had scored tickets! Joel had just seen Conan O'Brien perform in Chicago and I had seen Jay Leno several years ago in Los Angeles. This seemed like a perfect trio for late night comedy hosts for us to have seen.Walking around Times Square before the show was surreal. It's strange to be in a place you've seen portrayed so many times on television and movies. It's a magical place!

 


Of course getting a tasty treat before the show was a necessity, the falafel sandwich wasn't the best I've had, in fact it doesn't even come close, but we devoured it nonetheless.

After a tip from a friend at work who is passionate about food and used to live in Jersey, we vistied Poseidon Bakery on 9th between 54th & 55th. The apricot & cheese strudel is the best! Thanks, Jenny!

Walking around Manhattan in 90 degree heat can really give you an appetite, with street food being so cheap, why not? This pretzel with salt and yellow mustard hit the spot.  

After tooling around the city on Monday we decided to travel outside the concrete jungle and into Connecticut.  Arguably, the best thing about New York City is the public transportation. They make it a breeze to travel in the city and beyond. After a 1 hour train ride east we arrived at our destination and were treated to a feast by relatives we had come to visit. These fresh Connecticut lobsters tasted unlike anything I've ever had. Fresh lobster tastes chewy and is substantially more flavorful than the previously frozen lobster tails I had always encountered before.

 What feast would be complete without oysters on the half shell? They're easy to shuck once you know what you're doing. We even discovered baby crabs inside the oysters, it was just a bit disconcerting... but we got over it. After whipping up a homemade dip of ketchup, horseradish, and hot sauce, it was time to reward ourselves for our labor.

 

I know your mouth is watering right now and I'm sorry. This was easily the best meal of the trip.

 

Saying our goodbyes to family was hard, but it was time to head back to the energy of the city. There was still a lot of sights we wanted to see and food we wanted to try. We started off at The Met and then wandered our way through Central Park taking it all in. Eventually we needed some nourishment to keep us on our feet. A hot dog in Central Park is a must. It will be the best hot dog you've ever eaten simply because of your geographical location.

Later we made our way to the High Line Park, an old converted elevated railway that starts in Chelsea and extends for about a mile south. It's incredibly beautiful and the views of the city are pretty amazing. There are even food trucks and a beer garden down below!

 



 It was a hot summer day and we knew we needed to keep up our energy so it wasn't long before we stumbled onto this place, The Bus Stop Cafe.

The cold blast of AC was a welcome relief and after guzzling 3 glasses of water I was ready to eat. We started off with grape leaves stuffed with rice accompanied with a cucumber yogurt sauce for dipping. It was refreshing and delicious!

The next course was a roasted vegetable panini with a chickpea salad. It was great as far as panini's go, I'm sure I've never had a bad one. The chickpea salad was a pleasant surprise and something I'd like to try at home. It was tossed with red onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, dill, and a vinaigrette that resulted in a clean refreshing side dish. 

All in all this was hands down the best vacation I've ever had (SE Asia doesn't count, that was more life experience than vacation). Everyday was filled with something unexpected and amazing and we can't wait to go back.