Last Night’s Dinner

Yesterday was so beautiful all I could think about was sitting outside, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine and marveling at how seemingly everything around us is in bloom. We had thawed a large Cornish game hen that made the trip from Brooklyn with us, and we had planned to roast it, but the weather all but demanded that we grill instead.

Mike rubbed the bird with a mixture of salt, pepper, lemon zest and olive oil and grilled it over hardwood. My contribution to the meal was a combination of barley, beluga lentils, asparagus and pea tendrils, dressed with a little good olive oil and a copious amount of fresh lemon juice - tasty, but it got a tiny bit overcooked, and I think I would have preferred the texture if I had cooked the components separately. The hen, however, was juicy and succulent, with crisp skin and a lovely light smokiness that whispered “summer’s coming.”

Lots of food and drink related activity this first weekend in our new home, as we embarked on our first Providence food safari to supplement the goodies we moved up from Brooklyn. We had beautiful weather, which made for more enjoyable wandering, and which also meant we were eager to unpack the grill and put it to use.

We kicked off Friday night with a round of cocktails and a delicious grilled chicken rubbed with lemon and herbs and loads of fresh garlic. While Mike took charge of the bird, I cleaned and steamed some artichokes and whipped up a garlicky lemon vinaigrette to serve on top. It was a simple meal, but it was light and tasty, and was made even better by the wine recommended to us by the guys at Eno downtown: Marc Kreydenweiss Partager Avec Toi Gewurtztraminer from Alsace.

A big priority on Saturday was to check out the wintertime farmers’ market at AS220, and were we ever glad we did. Though the space was small and the number of stalls was limited, we brought home something from just about everyone there, and have been happily eating our way through that bounty of local goodness.

The oysters we enjoyed pre-dinner from Matunuck Oyster Farm were fantastic, the greens for our salad and the fresh asparagus were delicious, but the star of Saturday dinner was this beautiful grass-fed ribeye from Simmons Farm. Bathed in a quick marinade and grilled to perfection, it was one of the most flavorful steaks we’ve had in a long time.

We want to get back into the habit of having seafood dinners on Sundays, so we took a trip to our nearby Whole Foods to see what they had to offer. Though I had never cooked with it before Sunday, the beautiful Arctic Char fillets that were on special caught my eye, so I picked one up. Arctic Char is a good choice as far as sustainability goes, and with salmon stocks in such peril, this seemed like a good opportunity to try an alternative.

I went fairly simple with the preparation, seasoning the fillets with sea salt and olive oil and searing them in a hot pan until they were just cooked through. I made a pesto of sorts with a big bunch of spring onions from the farmers’ market and a healthy amount of Meyer lemon juice, and served the fish on a bed of creme fraiche-enriched mashed new potatoes, finishing with a dollop of the spring onion pesto. The flesh of the char is very mild and buttery tasting, and the brightness of the pesto was a nice contrast.

This is about as simple as it gets - I rubbed a couple of tuna steaks down with a mixture of chopped fresh garlic and Herbes de Provence, seasoned them with salt and poured over a healthy amount of olive oil, then grilled them over hardwood for about five minutes per side. I served them with a dollop of homemade lemon pesto (sans cheese) and a salad of arugula, radish, fresh corn and tomatoes. Light, bright and delicious - this was everything I want in a late summer supper.

It seems fitting that I finished reading Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant (a quick and enjoyable read, by the way) this week. Though Mike has made it home in time for dinner every night despite his extended workdays (and an evening spent as part of a tasting panel), I’ve had to get used to going about dinner prep without him there to keep me company. I’ve been a bit off my mark this week as a result – I’ve tried a few new things and have been less than pleased with the results.

While my first solo attempt at grilling on Tuesday evening was fairly successful, last night’s eggplant and tomato gratin was disappointing. The eggplants I ordered from FreshDirect’s Local Farmstand were huge, and as such they were a little difficult to work with. I didn’t have time to grill the slices as I had intended, and I didn’t want to fry them, so I salted them and hoped for the best. I also made a last minute decision to skip making a béchamel and just add cheese and cream directly to the layers of eggplant and tomatoes, and that just made the whole thing soupy. The flavors were there, but this definitely needs work.

I’m much happier with the two batches of salsa I made earlier in the week – they may have been my best yet. I grilled tomatillos, tomatoes and poblano chiles over hardwood until their skins were nice and charred, then took them inside until they were cool enough to handle. I removed the husks from the tomatillos and cut them into chunks, then threw them into the blender with two of the poblanos (which I had peeled, cored, and chopped). I added a bit of salt and the juice of half a lime and pureed it, then stirred in half a finely diced red onion and a minced garlic clove. For the tomato salsa, I cored the tomatoes, chunked them up and placed them in the blender along with the remaining poblano (again, peeled, cored and chopped), the juice of a lime, a teaspoon each of ground cumin and smoked chipotle powder, and a bit of salt. Once the mixture was pureed, I stirred in the onion and garlic (in the same amounts as for the tomatillo salsa). I ended up with a little over a pint of the green stuff, and a full quart of the red – Mike’s going to have a nice snack to share with his coworkers over the weekend.

Yes, folks, we are in the middle of yet another heatwave. There’s so much haze hanging over the city the air looks grey. This is no weather for heavy meals or for heating up the kitchen.

We still had an abundance of fresh veggies to work with from Mike’s previous trips to the Greenmarket, so I decided to do another meatless dinner - a sort of salad with grilled eggplant and summer squash, sliced raw heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and lots of fresh herbs in a light vinaigrette. I seasoned the vinaigrette with dried Herbes de Provence and fennel seeds, and used it as both a marinade for the squash and eggplant slices, and to drizzle over the tomatoes and mozzarella.

Mike grilled the veggies for just a couple of minutes per side on the cool part of the grill, just to give them a bit of color and smokiness. I sliced and salted the tomatoes and layered them with slices of mozzarella around the outside of our plates, then mounded the grilled veggies in the center of each. I sprinkled a generous amount of chopped herbs from the garden (green and opal basil, thyme and chives) on top, and finished by spooning the remainder of the dressing/marinade over each plate. The grilled vegetables still had a bit of crunch, and I loved how the tomatoes added their flavor to the whole dish as their juices combined with the vinaigrette – this was a delicious medley of colors, textures and flavors.

Though Mike and I have enjoyed bluefish the few times we’ve tried it, it’s another one of those foods we were reluctant to prepare at home. We had agreed that Mike would bring fish home from the Greenmarket for Wednesday night’s dinner, and as it turned out, the bluefish they had appealed to him so much he decided to take the plunge.

We turned to the internet for inspiration, and found great suggestions on how to prepare it from Beyond Salmon and foodandwine.com. Because I’m allergic to grapefruit (and oranges), I used a mixture of lemon and lime juice for the citrus component (about 1/4 cup each). I added salt, pepper, and a minced garlic clove, then whisked in about 1/4 cup of olive oil. I added the onion slices to the vinaigrette, stirred in an abundance of snipped fresh chives from our garden and a dollop of Wheelhouse’s excellent horseradish. I mixed it all together and let it sit while Mike got the grill going.

He cooked the bluefish fillets (which he had seasoned with salt and rubbed with olive oil) over high heat for 3 minutes on the skin side, then he moved them to the cooler part of the grill and cooked them on the flesh side for another 3 minutes. When the fish came off the grill, I plated the fillets and spooned a bit of the onion relish over each.

It’s safe to say our trepidation about cooking bluefish at home disappeared with the first bite we took - it was cooked perfectly, the skin crisp and the flesh rich and moist. The citrus, onion and horseradish provided just enough zest and bite to cut through the oiliness of the bluefish without overpowering it. When something this good (and good for you) is such a cinch to make, it would be a shame not to add it to heavy rotation, and we plan to do just that.

Things have been quiet around here for the last week, mostly because I’ve been too exhausted at the end of the day to write anything coherent about our meals. The air in the city has been thick and heavy, and it’s making me feel particularly lethargic.

Last Tuesday was so muggy I couldn’t bear the thought of cooking indoors, nor did I want Mike to spend time over a hot grill, so we did the indoor picnic thing. I tossed a couple of green salads and topped them with halves of burrata, serving them with slices of good rustic bread and cured meats.

Mike did fire up the grill on Wednesday, grilling fillets of wild striped bass, summer squash, bell peppers and eggplant which I served with a lemony basil and parsley pesto. We dined out on Thursday, and on Friday Mike grilled a 3 lb. piece of pork shoulder that he had been brining all week (which was delicious, but sadly not very photogenic).

We skipped our usual food safari and made a long-overdue trip down to Red Hook on Saturday to visit our favorite booze boutique. When we returned home, Mike mixed up a couple of rounds of drinks for us while we put together a pretty classic summer meal of grilled chicken, potato salad and sliced tomatoes for dinner that evening.

I got my first batch of pickles of the year going on Sunday after a quick trip out for groceries, dumplings and pork buns. Since the rain was coming down pretty heavily most of the day, we planned to cook dinner indoors.

Mike and I both love Thai food, but we don’t often cook with those flavors and ingredients at home. I decided to give it a shot, though, and make a seafood soup loaded with shrimp, clams and mussels in a hot-sour-salty broth.

I started by sauteeing some thinly sliced shallots in a bit of oil, then adding coconut milk, water, fish sauce, Sriracha, and a sachet of kaffir lime leaves, garlic, ginger and lemongrass. I added plenty of fresh lime juice to that, as well as a thinly sliced fresh chile, and let it come to a boil.

I added the clams and mussels first, covered the pan and let them steam open, then added peeled shrimp, diced tomato, chopped scallion and fresh cilantro. When the shrimp were just cooked through I added additional fresh lime juice and cilantro, and ladled the soup into bowls over scoops of steamed rice. The flavors weren’t quite as intense as I was hoping they’d be, but I the soup turned out really well - well enough that I’m eager to try my hand at working with these flavors again.

I keep telling myself I’m going to slow down and relax when the weekend rolls around, but I just can’t seem to make it happen. There’s too much to do this time of year, too many opportunities to pass up – summer is fleeting, and I don’t want to regret not taking advantage of the things it has to offer. Our weekend began on a low-key note at home, with our traditional Friday night fizzy and a grilled clambake, but Saturday and Sunday were a whirl of fun, food and new friends.

We woke early on Saturday, and while Mike took care of a side project for work, I put together a batch of guacamole and a big green salad with two homemade dressings to take to the barbecue we went to later that day. Our bellies full of too much beer and smoky meats, we made it a relatively early night but were up early again on Sunday – we had a very full day ahead of us. I whipped up a couple of omelettes before we got ready to head out again, this time to the Brooklyn blogger meet-up in Greenpoint arranged by the lovely and charming Miss Heather. We had a great time chatting with everyone there, and particularly enjoyed the yummy spread of Dominican food provided by Casa Mon Amour.

We did an abbreviated version of our weekend food safari, stopping off at Bedford Cheese Shop, Uva Wines and Marlow and Sons to stock up on a few things before heading home. We had hoped to pick up a steak or two at Marlow, but when we got there they only had ground meats available. I decided to get a package each of ground beef and ground lamb and make burgers to go with the Syrah wine guy Dan from Uva had recommended to us.

As you may recall, I felt that my last batch of burgers was good, but not quite where I wanted them to be. Last night’s burgers, on the other hand, turned out darn near perfect – juicy and flavorful, grilled perfectly by my husband. Though the wine we had was recommended to go with steaks, it turned out to be a great match for the burgers, too – big and peppery and really delicious. We may have had to fall back and punt when our original plan for dinner didn’t work out, but I couldn’t have been happier with the meal we ended up with.

Okay, I know I said I was going to take it easy this weekend, but I didn’t stay out of the kitchen completely. I did leave the heavy lifting to my husband, and kept my contributions simple: a tossed green salad with homemade buttermilk blue cheese dressing to go with Friday night’s grilled corn and country pork ribs; a grilled lemon and heirloom tomato salsa to top tuna steaks on Saturday, and a big bowl of tabboule salad to accompany grilled lamb skewers on Sunday. This may not have been the most restful weekend ever, but it was certainly restorative.