Squash recipes for summer

 

Zucchini casserole, with a bite  out of it already

If you’ve ever had a vegetable garden, you know how prolific summer squash and zucchini vines can be. There’s an old joke about gardeners who wait til the dead of night to leave zucchini on friends’ doorsteps, because everyone has way too much of it come July. It’s time to take advantage of this abundance, whether it comes from your own garden, a farmers’ market, or the grocery store.

Squash is also something not everyone will eat. My local family will not, so when they went out of town recently, I took the opportunity to fix myself a squash casserole. I spent years trying to duplicate the way it was done at The Black-Eyed Pea restaurants and never quite got it right. Finally, I decided I should stop winging it and use a recipe. Here’s what I did:

Summer squash casserole

1 lb. yellow crookneck squash (about four small squash)

¼ c. water

¼ c. chopped sweet onion

½ tsp salt

1 egg. Beaten

¼ c. dry bread crumbs

2 Tbsp. melted butter

Pepper to taste

½ c. grated cheddar (more if you want)

Combine first four ingredients in a saucepan; bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for about 15 minutes. Let it cool a bit before adding egg mixture below.

Separately combine remaining ingredients. Stir into squash mixture and pour into one-quart casserole dish. Cover with cheddar cheese—I like a good amount of cheese and probably used a cup, grated. Bake 30 minutes at 300^o.

This recipe for zucchini is so much like the one above they could almost be interchangeable.

Zucchini side dish

3 c. sliced zucchini

¼ c. sour cream

1 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp. grated Parmesan or Pecorino

           (You could use cheddar if you prefer)

1/4 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. paprika

1 beaten egg yolk

1 Tbsp. finely diced green onion

Topping:

2 Tbsp. breadcrumbs

3 Tbsp. Parmesan (or whatever you used above)

½ Tbsp. butter

Crisp vegetables are the trend these days, have been for several years, and if you like your squash that way, use it crisp; to my mind, some vegetables ought to be mushy (green beans when eaten with fried chicken, for instance). Zucchini in a casserole ought to be on the mushy side, so I steamed this—doesn’t take long.

Separately melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in cheese, salt, and paprika. Heat until cheese melts. Remove pan from heat and let it cool a bit before stirring in the egg yolk and chives. Gently stir in the zucchini and put it all in a buttered casserole dish.

Mix crumbs and cheese for topping and spread evenly on top of squash mixture. Dot with butter. Bake at 375^o about 30 minutes, until topping is browned.

Happy summer, everyone!

Caesar salad--an experiment and a recipe

 

Caesar Cardini, the chef behind Caesar salad

This is part of my ongoing campaign to vary our salad menu. To my delight, Jacob, who is gradually broadening his list of acceptable foods, loves Caesar salad. Discovered that one night when Megan and I took cousins Jacob and Ford to Pacific Table. So when I recently came across a new recipe that included toasted bread crumbs instead of croutons, I set it aside to try. Jordan doesn’t much like croutons, and I thought this would be a good substitution. Then I read it again. The dressing called for a whole can of anchovies—enough to turn Jacob off Caesar salad forever. I had already committed to making it for supper, so I decided to revert to a standby—the Caesar recipe from The Joy of Cooking.

Either I don’t know where my copy is or I lost it in the downsizing (that excuse is now five years old and wearing thin). But I couldn’t put my hands on the book. And it appears that the Rombauer family does not put their recipes online. As one family member explained it, they are a small business and can’t afford to share their intellectual property. But I did find someone who put their own adaptation of the Rombauer recipe online, and I went with that.

Sort of a major mistake. Jacob said it burned the roof of this mouth, and I admit it was what I could call a “stout” salad dressing; the next day it was really stout. I think the flavors intensified overnight. To me, the problem was too much lemon and vinegar. But here’s the recipe as I followed it.

½ c. olive oil

1 egg, coddled

1-1.5 tsp Kosher salt

½ tsp. black pepper

Half 2 oz. can anchovy filets, well drained on paper towels

1 tsp Dijon mustard

3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

3 drops (hard to achieve) Worcestershire sauce.

1 whole (small) lemon

Coddling an egg was a whole new experience. Back in the day I used a raw egg and didn’t think twice. To coddle one, you bring a cup of water to a boil (microwave or stove top) and remove from heat. Using a spoon, lower the egg into the water and let it sit five minutes. Once you remove it, with that spoon, it’s best to let it cool a bit. When you can handle it, crack the egg (carefully), spoon contents into other dressing ingredients, and give it a good whir in the food processor.

For the breadcrumbs that got me started on this, I sautéed 1 garlic clove in 3 Tbsp. butter until it softened. Then added 1 cup panko, stirring constantly because it goes from brown to burnt quickly. I let the crumbs cool and topped each serving of salad with crumbs and a generous sprinkle of Parmesan. I did not sprinkle with lemon zest which the original recipe called for.

Do you know the supposedly true history of Caesar salad? It is generally attributed to Caesar Cardini—and  you can still buy the Cardini brand of Caesar dressing in grocery stores--it is good but also a strong dressing. Caesar salad is not for the faint of appetite.

Cardini, Italian by birth, lived in San Diego but opened a hotel and restaurant in Tijuana during Prohibition to avoid the restrictions--and the law. One Fourth of July, the restaurant ran out of food. With limited ingredients, he added a dramatic twist to food service by tossing the salad at the table. To this day, Caesar salad should traditionally be tossed tableside, but it usually isn't. There have been other claims to the invention of this classic salad, principally by some of Cardini's employees, and there is the story of his brother's "aviator salad"--or did Caesar christen his salad "Aviator salad," and it came to be called Caesar in general use? History is once again not precise.

The original salad used lime juice, not lemon, and did not call for anchovies. That slight anchovy flavor supposedly came from Worcestershire sauce. Over time, as the salad became so popular, lemon juice took the place of lime, and anchovies were added--sometimes too many. Some recipes today call for anchovy paste rather than the fish. Another story is that original the romaine leaves were served whole, with a dab of dressing on the tip of each one. The dish was meant to be finger food, and I still eat it that way at Pacific Table in Fort Worth, where they serve a delicious Caesar on whole romaine leaves. But it's hard to reconcile the idea of finger food with the image of Caesar tossing the salad tableside.

You can find countless recipes online that are billed at the "original" Caesar Cardini recipe. Mostly they are variations of the above--some use vinegar, some use lemon, several use both. But basically it's lemon, olive oil, egg, and croutons. I'll stick with the Rombauer version but another time I’ll reduce the vinegar to 1 Tbsp., omit the Worcestershire and the mustard. Or eat my Caesar at Pacific Table. 

So there are some choices: modify the recipe to suit your taste, try Cardini's bottled dressing, or eat at Pacific Table.

Upgrading some childhood staples

 

When I was young two staples of my diet were both canned foods—tuna and spinach. IF my mom was going out for supper, she’d leave a friend and me with a can of Chef Boy-Ar-Dee spaghetti (I have since given that up) and a can of spinach—we were happy. Mom loved to tell the story of the time she had the two of us in a hotel lunchroom in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We each chose a small bowl of spinach as we went through the buffet line. After a while, Mom said to Eleanor Lee, “You’re not eating your spinach.” Eleanor Lee wrinkled her nose and said softly, “I think it’s fresh.”

Today I know a lot of people, particularly men, scorn canned tuna though they’ll eagerly order grilled ahi. Neither of my sons-in-law will touch canned tuna, although my oldest son likes the kind I order from a cannery so much it’s sometimes his birthday or Christmas gift. I can count the number of friends who are appalled at canned spinach. Truth is, I’m not fond of ahi, though I used to like a good ahi sandwich, and fresh spinach, as my neighbor says, makes your teeth feel funny. But those two staples, with their fond memories, go together to create one of my favorite “fancy” dishes—Tuna Florentine.

Basically, it is tuna in a cheesy sauce on a bed of seasoned spinach, topped with bread crumbs and cheese. This is not a quick and easy dish to make, so I save it for company. Recently, with one guest expected, I halved the recipe and still had bountiful leftovers for several days.

Tuna Florentine

2 Tbsp. butter, divided use

1 small onion, minced

2 10-oz. pkgs. frozen chopped spinach

2 tsp. salt, divided use

½ tsp. ground nutmeg

2 7-oz. cans tuna, packed in oil (I use water pack and add extra olive oil)

3 Tbsp. flour

Pinch of mace (if you don’t have it, don’t worry)

½ tsp. white pepper

Spinach cooking liquid plus enough milk to make 1½ cups

1 c. grated Swiss cheese

2 Tbsp. Parmesan

2 Tbsp. white wine

            Topping

1½ c. soft breadcrumbs

1 Tbsp. grated Parmesan

2 Tbsp. melted butter

Melt 1 Tbsp. butter; add onion and sauté until brown. Separately, cook the two packages of frozen spinach in less water than the directions call for, breaking the frozen spinach up with a wooden spoon. When tender, drain thoroughly, reserving the liquid (spinach should be very dry). Add butter and onion to spinach. Season with 1 tsp. salt and nutmeg. Simmer briefly to blend flavors.

Add milk to spinach liquid to make 1½ cups.

Drain tuna, reserving 2 Tbsp. oil; flake.

Put 2 Tbsp. tuna oil and remaining Tbsp. butter in saucepan and melt butter. Blend in flour, mace, remaining salt, and pepper. Add spinach liquid/milk mixture and stir over heat until thick and smooth. Remove from heat and add cheeses and wine. Heat until smooth again, and fold in tuna.

Layer spinach in bottom of shallow casserole. Top with tuna mixture. Mix topping ingredients together and spread over tuna layer. Bake, uncovered, at 350° until bubbly and lightly browned (35-40 minutes).

Leftovers will keep three or four days; should freeze well.

 

Breakfast for dinner

 

Eggs Benedict

We call it brinner. You know, there are those nights when nothing says “dinner” to you, and you just don’t know what to fix. Sometimes sausage and pancakes sound good, or scrambled eggs and bacon. Maybe stir a bit of chopped smoked salmon, or chopped tomato, and a sliced green onion into those eggs before scrambling.

Sometimes if I’m jut fixing supper for myself, a baked egg sounds good. Maybe line a greased ramekin with bread—I often choose a good rye—and top that with spinach and grated sharp cheddar. Crack your egg, carefully, on top of that. Salt, pepper, and a bit of milk to keep it from drying out, and you’re done. Bake until it’s as runny—or not—as you want. I like It runny.

Maybe do your own version of Eggs Benedict—my Colin replaces Canadian bacon with sliced Taylor’s pork roll—yummy. I sometimes do a simplified version—butterr a piee of that rye toast heavily, top with slices of sharp cheddar, and slide a poached egg on top. Again, I like it runny.

Breakfast casserole recipes abound on the internet and in food magazines. Classic stand-bys include a strata, what my mom used to call a sandwich souffle. Layers of bread, cheese, and sometimes ham, soaked overnight in a milk-and-egg mixture and then baked in the morning. And of course, there are casseroles with tortillas and others with potatoes. One with potatoes, cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, cheddar, corn flakes, and onion can legitimately be called ubiquitous—it’s rich, delicious, and so high in cholesterol you may not want to think about it.

The same may bee true of the pork sausage and potato casserole I recently fixed for the family and plan to fix again. Jacob loved it.

Pork sausage and hash brown casseerole

Serves 8

2 lbs. ground pork sausage (you choose the heat and flavoring if any)

1 30-oz. pkg frozen shredded hash browns

2 tsp. salt, divided

1 tsp. pepper, divided

6 oz. sharp cheddar, divided, or more according to taste

6 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 c. whole milk

1 tsp. fresh parsley, chopped

1 tsp. chives, chopped

           Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.

           Cook sausage in skillet until brown and crumbly; drain well.

Cook hash browns in batches, following pkg. directions. Sprinkle with 1 tsp. salt and ½ tsp. pepper.

Stir together sausage, potatoes, and cheese in large bowl. Spread evenly in greased 9x13 pan. Separately whisk together eggs, milk, and remaining salt and pepper. Pour evenly over eggs. Top with remaining cheese. (I’d use more and get a good cheese topping.)

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until set. To serve, sprinkle with parsley and chives (optional).

Get creative with tuna

 

One of the shortcomings of the tiny kitchen in my cottage is the lack of storage space. And one of the things I need to store is a case of tuna—that’s twenty-four cans. I order it from a mom-and-pop fishing vessel in Oregon. It’s canned the day it’s caught, in water, only heated once. Delicious. Storage is only a problem for a while, because we eat a lot of tuna. (I also buy canned salmon from the same source—love it!)

Jordan, the resident daughter, loves the tuna salad we make, but she won’t consider tuna served any other way. In contrast, I am happy with tuna casserole, creamed tuna on toast, tuna Florentine (a complicated dish I just made for company), and I’m willing to try new ways with tuna. I think two or three weeks ago I mentioned a tuna/bean salad that didn’t come out the way I wanted. Here’s a version that did turn out right and couldn’t be easier—Megan, the Austin daughter, and I had it last weekend and gave it high marks, after I fiddled with it a bit.

Tuna/bean salad

1 15-oz. can white beans (should be cannellini, but I had navy beans and they worked just fine)

1 7 oz. can tuna (original recipe called for oil-packed, but I prefer to use water-packed and compensate with extra olive oil)

1 lemon, including zest.

¼ c. pesto

2 Tbsp. olive oil, or more to make up for using water-packed tuna.

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

Salt and pepper to taste

Drain and rinse beans; drain tuna; grate the lemon zest and then squeeze the lemon, saving the juice. Stir everything together. Chill before serving.

Want to do a sandwich something with a can of tuna? A tuna sandwich that is not tuna salad? Make it into a composed salad on bread—at least that’s the best way I can describe it.

A different tuna salad

Four ciabatta rolls or one loaf of French or Italian bread

1 7 oz. can tuna

4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced

Salt and pepper

Watercress; if not available, arugula or romaine lettuce (watercress adds a nice, peppery taste)

Salsa Verde (recipe follows)

Directions

Split rolls or bread; some might use a baguette, but I find them too skinny. If using French or Italian bread, cut into four serving-size pieces and split. Arrange lettuce, tuna, eggs artfully on one side of bread. Salt and pepper to taste. Cover generously with salsa. Either top with the other half of the bread or serve the sandwich open-faced.

Salsa Verde

1 c. parsley

½ c. good olive oil, more if needed

2 garlic cloves, micro planed or minced.

3 or 4 anchovy filets

1 Tbsp. capers

Zest of a lemon

Salt and pepper

Mix parsley and olive oil thoroughly in food processor. Add remaining ingredients by hand. Taste for salt and pepper. Add more olive oil if needed for a spreadable consistency. You want it thin enough to generously top the sandwiches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t throw away those old recipes

 

Recently a search for a much-used crockpot pulled pork recipe sent me prowling through old files of recipes I’d clipped and served over the years. My great downsizing several years ago had involved heavy thinning of my appalling collection of recipes, but there were some I just couldn’t part with. They went in file folders to be tucked away in the filing cabinet in my closet—don’t ask! Looking for that barbecue recipe, I came across several treasures that were familiar down to the stains that indicated they had been well used.

One was a recipe for pork medallions with a tarragon sauce. It’s from a page in a September 1984 issue of Woman’s Day. It’s on a page titled, “30 Minute Meals.” The paper is yellowed and fragile, and I photocopied it for safety’s sake.

Food writer Mark Bittman has a version of this that calls for browning the entire tenderloin before cutting it into medallions. I tried his version a few days after the older one from my files, and while I agree with him about browning the whole piece of meat, I liked the original recipe best. I did substitute sour cream for heavy cream, mostly because that’s what I had on hand. It worked well. Here’s what I did.

Ingredients

Pork tenderloin, about 1-1/2 lbs.

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

2 Tbsp. butter

½ c. beef broth

½ tsp. tarragon

½ c. sour cream

Directions

Brown the tenderloin on all sides in butter; you can curve it to fit the skillet. When it has a nice sear, remove from skillet and cool enough to handle. Slice into medallions, about 1-1/2 inch thick. Use meat tenderizer or other tool to flatten the medallions just a bit.

Spread thin layer of mustard on one side of each medallion. Brown the medallions, mustard-side down, in same skillet. You may want to add a bit more butter, but remember that pork makes it’s own fat. It should only take three or four minutes to get a nice brown in one side; turn and brown the other side. Remove medallions from pan and keep warm (I put them on a cookie sheet in a cold oven; if you heat the oven keep it low, like 200^o—pork dries out easily.)

Add beef broth and tarragon to skillet and scrape browned bits off bottom of pan. Cook gently until broth reduces by a third. At this point, you can put dinner on hold if necessary, if the meat is kept warm. When ready to serve, add sour cream to broth, stir to blend, and then put medallions back in the sauce. Do not let it boil or the cream will curdle.

Good with mashed potatoes or egg noodles for the gravy and a green vegetable such as beans or asparagus. This served four easily.

Would you believe I forgot to take a picture? The image above is close but not mine.

 

A twist on the hamburger

Today I’m breaking all my own guidelines for recipes for this weekly blog. The recipe I offer is neither easy nor quick; you cannot cook it on your hot plate and doing it in the toaster oven will require some adjustments. And no, it’s not something I just cooked. I haven’t fixed it for years but looking for a particular recipe—barbecue for Mother’s Day—I came across several old friends, recipes that I fixed for my kids, years ago, and now want to make again. This is one of them.

My sister-in-law, Amy Alter, sent me this. At the time she lived in an apartment in the Bronx and did not have a grill. So she cooked it in her oven. Now she has a lovely house and probably can grill outdoors. My copy of the recipe, a bit battered and stained, is in her handwriting on a 5x8 notecard which makes it a treasure. We call it Aunt Amy’s Giant Hamburger.

Just to point out how old it is: it calls for a small can of sliced mushrooms. I don’t know about you, but it’s been years since I bought mushrooms in any form except fresh. Here they are optional, and I will omit them—we have a non-mushroom person in the family. It’s that texture thing again. I have also omitted margarine as a possible substitute for butter.

Aunt Amy’s Stuffed Hamburger (six servings)

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. butter

1-1/4 c. herbed stuffing mix, crushed (3/4 cup)

1 egg, beaten

1 3-oz. can chopped mushrooms, drained (1/4 cup)

1/3 c. beef broth

¼ c. sliced green onions

¼ c. chopped almonds, optional

¼ c. snipped parsley, optional

1 tsp. lemon juice

2 lbs. ground beef

1 tsp. salt

Directions:

Melt butter in medium saucepan and remove from the heat. Add stuffing mix, egg, mushrooms, beef broth, onions, almonds, parsley, and lemon juice. Mix well.

Separately season beef with salt and divide in half. On sheets of waxed paper or aluminum foil, pat each half into an 8” circle.

Spoon stuffing mix over one circle of meat to within one inch of the edge. Top with second half of the meat. This is best done by keeping it on the paper or foil, flipping it into place, and then peeling off the covering. Use your fingers to seal the edges of the meat.

The easiest way to do this is to invert the patty, bottom sheet of covering still in place, and flip it into a grilling basket. Peel off the remaining paper or foil and grill over medium coals about 10 or 12 minutes on each side or until done. Let it sit to “collect” itself and then cut into wedges. (At least one member of this household will want ketchup, which is fine. Aunt Amy suggests warming it.)

No grill? The grilling basket will not fit in your toaster oven, but all is not lost. I hope you have a jellyroll pan for your oven—like a cookie sheet with a rim. Instead of a circle, make your two patties to fit your pan. (This may take a little figuring.) Broil each side until done. (You will have to watch it and cook longer, as I’ve found my toaster oven does not broil things very fast.)

A bit of trouble, yes, but this is so good. Serve it with a green salad, and you’ve got a meal. Enjoy, and drink a toast to Aunt Amy.