Tomatoes coming soon, but until then... (Black Bean Salad)

It is the very beginning of tomato season in southeastern Pennsylvania.  They haven’t turned up on most of the farm stands, however the mid size folks, those with a greenhouse to start the plants around March, will have beautiful, large tomatoes for you to enjoy.  Since the large volume, the mother lode of tomatoes isn’t here yet, try using them mixed in with other things, for example as a flavor component in a salad. 

Black Bean Salad is a good example of this.  Fresh tomatoes combine well with the other vegetables, while their juice, mixed in with lime, avocado and olive oil makes a fine dressing.  While I don’t always encourage this kind of thing, canned Goya Black Beans are a good product and will save the hassle of cooking dried.  After all, it is summer, we don’t want to spend these glorious days in the kitchen.  Serve the salad over romaine or with grilled chicken that has been marinated in lime, garlic, chilies and olive oil.

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Mexican Black Bean Salad (serves 6 as a main course)

2 15.5 ounce cans of black beans

2 large tomatoes, peeled and diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 red onion, diced

1 bunch scallions, sliced

1 avocado, scooped and roughly chopped

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

4 tbs. olive oil

the juice of 2 limes

2 chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, chopped (La Costeña is a good brand)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Open the cans of black beans, place them in a colander and rinse them with cold water to wash off all the juice.  Allow them to drain completely while you assemble the salad.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the tomatoes, red and green peppers, onions, scallions and avocado.  Season them with salt and pepper.   Make the dressing in the same bowl by adding the olive oil, lime juice and chipotle chilies.  Again adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.  Allow the salad to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes so that the flavors of the vegetables and dressing will marry.

Stir in the black beans.  Mix to combine everything, check the seasoning and make any final adjustments, then cover the salad and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

Patience (Cucumber Salad)

Last Friday morning I did the shopping for our camping trip in the Catskills.  Since we would be buying up most of our food at the Kingston Farmer’s Market, there was a short list.  I got in and out, but as I was driving home, I realized that I had forgotten to pick up some extra batteries for the lantern.  After a quick u-turn, I was back at the Giant, searching for the battery display.  Since everything has a charger these days, batteries are no longer stocked with the impulse items at checkout.  I had to ask two stockers before I found what I needed and hurried to pay. 

It seems that there are never enough checkers at Giant.  They run everything off of metrics or matrices, nothing gets done without a stat to support the decision, however they can never seem to get the right number of folks to the registers to take care of the people who want to get going.  The self checkout lines were jammed and only three registers were open at a time when double that would have been about right.

I thought I had lucked out.  There was one register with a single person in line.  Too bad, because the woman in front of me had a cart filled to the brim up top and fully stocked on the bottom with cases of water and mixers.  I knew that this would take some time.

The clerk eyed up the situation and asked the woman with the $300 order whether she would let me slip by to pay for my single pack of batteries.  The woman rolled her eyes, groaned, then plainly stated, “Then I would have to wait!”  She wasn’t gonna budge, in spite of the clerk’s reasonable suggestion and the absolute stone cold fact that I would have been gone and out of her life in under a minute.  So I waited and tried to pull something zen out of waiting for her to go through her accordion file of coupons and try two credit cards before the good one worked.

I did get something out of this experience, a bit of calm, a meditative moment and a recipe for those who don’t like to wait.

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Cucumber Salad

1 large cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced 

           (preferably bought from Migliorelli’s at the Kingston Farmer’s Market)

1/4 red onion, thinly sliced 

           (once again, preferably bought from Migliorelli’s at the Kingston Farmer’s Market)

1 tbs. fresh mint 

           (the best is out of Cathy Farrell’s garden)

2 tbs. olive oil

the juice of 1/2 lemon

salt and fresh black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. 

Stir. 

Serve, eat.

‘nuf said.

 ___________

Some shots from the Kingston Farmer's Market.  Give me a call, we'll meet in front of the stand where the guy sells blue potato chips, buy the place out, then go down to Fleisher's for Denver steaks to grill.

Tony Williams Tribute, Sunday night at St. John's

I'll be part of the group doing the food for the big concert on Sunday evening honoring Tony Williams at St. John's Lutheran Church in Ambler, PA.  The music will be great, a choir loft filled with jazz legends.  And it is our 29th wedding anniversary, a big day all around.

 

Here's the hors 'd oeuvre menu for the reception.   Everything will be made from scratch.  Check the flyer below for all the info.  See you there!  

 

Tony Williams Tribute

St. John’s Lutheran Church, Ambler, Pa.

June 1, 2014

Fresh fruit, cream cheese dip

Crudité, spinach vegetable dip

Chopped egg with garlic pickles

Grilled lamb, curried onion confit

Chicken liver mousse and caper berries

Black bean, corn and cilantro salsa nachos

Goat cheese, dried cherry and orange coulis

Szechuan salted chicken canapés with ginger and scallions

Asparagus in preserved lemon mayonnaise

Corn fritters, buttermilk and thyme sauce

Shrimp in phyllo

Summer Is Here? (Smoked NY Strip Steaks)

I’m going with summer as a fact.  Until this weekend there were still many doubts in my mind, but with clear skies and temperatures that are pushing 90° I think it is safe to believe that there is little chance that we’ll slip back into that February Ice Age we just emerged from.  We are now in that in-between time, rhubarb is up, all the lettuce in Cathy’s garden is just about ready to eat, but the corn still has a few more weeks, unless you count that stuff out of Florida, which is a poor substitute for the real corn biding its time in Lancaster County.  Florida sweet corn is like when you have a long ride in the car and your brother grabbed your 8 track of Toys in the Attic when you specifically told him Exile on Main Street.  It’ll get you there, although the ride won’t have any depth or finesse.

So…it is time to crank up the smoker.  Mine is an abomination built out of an old 50’s, Cleaver style, BBQ.  I can almost picture Ward grilling Flintstones steaks while June mixes up highballs for the ladies and manly rock and ryes.  The smoking cabinet was trash picked from Abacus about 20 years ago.  The chef told me that it was easier for him to install a new one than to scrape out the inch of flammable duck fat coating the inside.  He may have been correct, because I ended up cleaning it with lye and swears.  

 The remainder of the thing is a jumble of fieldstone, fire brick and mortar that seems specifically designed to keep me out of the mason’s union.

You don’t need a purpose-built smoker in your back yard to smoke meats.  Gas grills do a nice job and provide an even heat.  Smoke meats indirectly in a gas grill.  All you need to do is soak wood chips (apple, cherry, oak or hickory) in a bowl for 30 minutes, then put a cup of them in a tin foil platter above a burner on low.  Add more chips as the others burn up.  If your gas grill has three burners, as most do, only turn on the one on the far right, which leaves 2/3 of the grill available for low temperature smoking.  With a little playing around, you should be able to figure out how to maintain a temperature between 140° to 160°, what you are looking for to do low temp smoking.  This is a great technique to have under your belt to prepare vegetables and fish.  I particularly like shrimp smoked on a grill and, as odd as it might seem, mussels.

Here's a step by step tutorial on making smoked NY strip steaks.  I usually try to stay away from anything connected with New York, since I have this unyielding hatred for the Yankees and their entitled fans, but their steaks are good.  

 

Choose steaks that are well-marbled and at least 3/4 inch thick.  That way, they'll take the smoke without cooking through.

Oil the steaks and season them with salt and fresh black pepper.

The temperature in your smoker should be about 140.  Try to keep it stable during the time the meat is in the smoker.

Lay the steaks on the grill, making sure that they are away from direct heat.  The objective is to flavor the steaks, not cook them.  Close the door and smoke for 20 minutes.

 

  

After 20 minutes, the steaks will have picked up a bit of color, but will not be cooked through.  Turn them and smoke for another 20 minutes on low heat.  If the temperature has risen above 160, your steaks may be done at this point.  That ugly thing hiding in the back is a 12 pound pork shoulder that is getting 18 hours of smoke.  You don't see the sausage and long hot peppers above.  I figure that if I'm doing all this work, I should not waste the smoke.

 

You'll know that the steaks are ready to take out of the smoker when they are just beginning to brown and they are sweating.  Remember, with this process you are looking to make a flavor adjustment, not cook the meat.  They should still feel raw.

 

 

Remove the steaks from the smoker.  If they are not going directly on the grill,  put them in the refrigerator.  I prefer to cool mine off until it is time to cook the steaks.  

Check out the red color on these!  That is the result of the low temperature smoking.  I rather like pan frying the smoked steaks in a little butter.  It may seem counter intuitive, but if you grill the steaks, a little of that smoked character that you have worked so hard to get is masked by the charring.  Serve simply with some mushrooms that have been sautéed in the pan while the steaks are resting.