Tag: Summer

Rustic Summer Veggie Galette

On By lukephillaryhIn Veggie2 Comments
Vegetarian galette with tomato squash zucchini
Close up, to show off that crust

This summer Luke and I noticed a surge in galette popularity. Every food related Instagram account I follow posted at least one galette pic. Most posted two – a savory and a sweet. If anything, it’s a surprise galettes are not already more popular. Compared to a pie or tart, they’re way less intimidating and require no special equipment. No pie tin or tart ring necessary, all you need is a basic baking sheet. Galettes have a free form construction that allows for greater improvisation. They are also more forgiving. You don’t have to agonize over rolling the dough into a perfect circle. A little extra dough here and there can be easily remedied – just fold it over!

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Red Clay & Rosé

On By lukephillaryhIn Adventures1 Comment
New York City red clay tennis and glass of rose wine
Tenez + Apéritif

The ochre shade of a red clay tennis court beams especially bright on summer days. In New York City we’re surrounded by so much silver, blue, and black that other colors seem to pop out of nowhere – like the red chile oil in Chinese food or the green meadows in Prospect Park. The Riverside Clay tennis courts on Manhattan’s Upper Westside provide a burst of orange that catches every runner, driver, and cyclist by surprise.

Saturday, June 10th was one of those bright summer days, and we both had red clay fever.

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Bonne Maman Jar Gazpacho

On By lukephillaryhIn VeggieLeave a comment
gazpacho soup in Bonne Maman jam jar
Not tomato juice, but chilled, drinkable soup

I’ve always been wary of gazpacho. Bad batches can end up tasting like salsa or tomato juice. Often, you have an urge to over spice it. Tomatoes, some mild veggies, a little bit of salt and vinegar – how could these ingredients be enough for a flavorful, satisfying soup? But if you start adding a little bit of heat or some extra garlic you begin to veer dangerously close to Bloody Mary sans vodka territory. No one wants a virgin Blood Mary.  Lots of Americanized recipes list bread chunks or croutons in their ingredients, in order to add a little bit of thickness and texture. Or worse, they leave the soup chunky. This is called salsa. And while it’s better than a virgin Blood Mary, you don’t want to sip on salsa.

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Aperol Spritz

On By lukephillaryhIn Classico3 Comments
Aperol Spritz Brooklyn
Simple, refreshing, summery

When the temperature starts to rise in New York, I ditch red wine for chilled rosé and mix margaritas more merrily and frequently (I drink margaritas year round, but summer makes this behavior 100% acceptable). The summer beverage Luke and I especially love is the Aperol Spritz. Sipping on our spritzes, I like to imagine sitting at a little bar somewhere in Rome or in Florence along the Arno, enjoying an aperitivo as the sun sets. Our vermillion drinks matching the faded, orangey hues, of the surrounding ancient buildings. How lovely does that sound??

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Panzanella with Mozz + Herbs

On By lukephillaryhIn Ode to NYTLeave a comment
Panzanella mozzarella cheese Melissa Clark recipe
Panzanella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh

There’s still time – tomato season isn’t over yet! This is a perfect end of summer salad. It combines some of our favorite seasonal ingredients, tomato, cucumber, and basil, with year-round essentials, namely cheese (mozzarella) and bread. On self-respecting nights, when we manage not to finish off a whole baguette, we let a portion go stale and make this delicious Tuscan bread salad the next evening for dinner.  Traditional panzanella calls for stale bread, uber ripe tomatoes, a dressing of olive oil and red wine vinegar, and sometimes onions and basil. This oomph-ed up version comes from our favorite lady Melissa Clark. The cucumber adds freshness and crunch and the mozzarella makes it a heartier salad, worthy of eating as a main meal instead of a side. Make sure to enjoy this salad before summer is officially over!

Ingredients:

  • 1/3 of a baguette or rustic loaf (preferably stale) cut into 1-inch cubes
  • 6 TBS olive oil
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tomatoes, use a mix of varieties and colors!
  • 6 oz mozzarella, cut or torn into bite-sized pieces
  • 2 shallots (or 1/2 red onion) thinly sliced
  • 2 garlic cloves, grated to a paste
  • 2 TBS red wine vinegar
  • 1 TBS chopped fresh oregano or thyme (or a combination)
  • pinch of red pepper flakes
  • 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/2 cup Persian or English cucumber, cut into thin quarter pieces
  • 1/2 cup torn basil
  • 1/4 cup roughly chopped parsley
  • 1 TBS of capers, drained

Directions:

  1. Heat oven to 425ºF. Spread bread pieces onto a baking sheet and toss with 2 TBS olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt. Bake until golden brown and dried out, about 7-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
  2. Cut tomatoes into pieces just a bit smaller than the bread cubes. Put them into a large bowl and then thinly slice the shallots lengthwise.
  3. Add the shallots into the bowl and use a microplane to grate 2 cloves of garlic into a paste. Along with the garlic paste, add 1 TBS vinegar, oregano or thyme, 1/4 tsp salt, and red pepper flakes.
  4. Cut up the mozzarella into bite-sized pieces and add to the bowl, toss everything together and set aside.
  5. In a medium bowl, combine 1 TBS vinegar, mustard, 1/2 tsp salt, and black pepper. While continuously whisking, add 4 TBS olive oil one-by-one to the dressing. Stir in cucumbers, basil, and parsley.
  6. Add bread pieces, dressing, and capers to the large bowl and mix well. Let it sit and soak for at least 30 minutes, up to 6 hours. You can keep chilled in the fridge. Add extra oil, vinegar or salt if needed!

Notes: Serves 3-4 as a main meal, 6 as a side.

French Tomato Tart

On By lukephillaryhIn VeggieLeave a comment
Tomato Tart David Lebovitz recipe
Tomatoes and the tart! Perfect for a picnic.

Luke’s dad Scott is a masterful tomato grower. In a small community garden plot in Philadelphia Scott has harvested many pounds of tomatoes, a combination of varieties he carefully selects – Speckled Peach, Amish Paste, Marmande, Golden Honey Bunch are a few of his favorite. He’s truly perfected the science of tomato growing, even conducting taste tests. In past summers, Luke and I have had the privilege of enjoying Scott’s tomato bounty, making oodles of bruschetta, homemade tomato sauce, Caprese salad – gustatorily transporting ourselves to Italy. This year, in accordance with fairness and good governance, Scott’s community plot has been ceded to another gardener. And sadly, without Scott’s crop, Luke and I have completely forgotten to enjoy any of summer’s tomatoes! Thankfully, that changed this weekend. We selected three beautiful farmer’s market tomatoes and journeyed from Italy to France. This fresh, bright tomato tart makes a perfect summer lunch or light dinner. Bring to the park for a Provençal picnic!

Recipe courtesy of David Lebovitz – a classic food blogger, but new favorite!

Ingredients  – Dough:

  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 9 TBS chilled butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 2-3 TBS ice water

Ingredients – Tart filling:

  • 2-3 TBS dijon mustard
  • 2-3 large ripe tomatoes, cut into slices
  • 2 TBS olive oil
  • 2 TBS minced fresh herbs (thyme, chives, tarragon)
  • 6 oz goat cheese, cut into rounds
  • salt & pepper, to taste

Directions – Dough:

  1. Tart dough: Mix flour in salt in a medium sized bowl. Add the butter and use your hands or pastry blender, to break in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.
  2. Mix the egg with 2 TBS of cold water. Make a well in the center of the dough and add the beaten egg mixture. Stir the mixture with your hands until the dough holds together. If it’s not coming together easily, add an additional TBS of water.
  3. Form dough into a ball and transfer onto a big sheet of plastic wrap. Wrap in plastic and flatten into a disc. Refrigerate for an hour (or up to 24 hours).
  4. Remove dough from fridge and let thaw out slightly. On a lightly floured service using a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough. Rotate the dough and add more flour to surface, as needed, to ensure dough doesn’t stick. Roll out dough so that is large enough to cover the bottom and sides of a 9-inch or 10-inch removable tart pan.
  5. Transfer the dough to your tart pan and press the dough into the bottom and up the sides of your pan.

Directions – Filling:

  1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
  2. Spread an even layer of mustard over the bottom of the tart pan and let sit for a minute or so to soak in.
  3. Arrange the sliced tomatoes in a single layer (a little overlap is ok). Sprinkle with 1 TBS of fresh herbs and drizzle with olive oil. Top with salt and a freshly ground black pepper.
  4. Arrange the goat cheese slices on top and sprinkling with remaining herbs.
  5. Bake the tart for 30 minutes, until the cheese is nicely browned around the edges. Let cool for ten minutes, then enjoy! Perfect for a summer lunch.

Details: Makes 1 9-inch or 10-inch tart

Peach + Blackberry Crumble Pie

On By lukephillaryhIn Ode to NYT6 Comments
Peach blackberry crumble pie Melissa Clark recipe
Enjoy for dessert tonight and breakfast tomorrow

This past weekend, Luke and I celebrated the Fourth of July in Philly. With Luke’s parents away on vacation we had the whole house to ourselves. Comfy bed, lil’ backyard with a BBQ, washer and dryer, big screen TV – it was heavenly. The best part of all: the kitchen and all of it’s wonderful appliances, namely, the Cuisinart food processor. I’m always afraid that making pie crust in our tiny BK apartment will be a complete disaster. And currently we don’t have the space or the shekels for a proper food processor. So all last week I had been looking forward to making a pie, homemade crust and all. And it was delicious. We enjoyed for dessert, breakfast, late night and afternoon snacks all weekend long.

This recipe is adapted from one of our favorites, Melissa Clark. The original recipe includes a very helpful video if you’re a relatively novice pie crust maker like myself.

Ingredients – Crust (yields 2 9-inch crusts):

  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 2 1/2 sticks cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 6-8 TBS ice cold water

Ingredients – Filling:

  • 1 lb ripe peaches (about 3 medium peaches), cut into 1 1/2 inch chunks
  • 2-3 cups blackberries
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 TBS corn starch
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • 2 tsp lemon juice

Ingredients – Crumble:

  • 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 cup oats
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp cardamon
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • pinch of salt
  • 6-8 TBS unsalted butter, cubed

Directions – Crust:

  1. In a food processor, combine flour and salt and briefly pulse. Add butter and pulse until mixture forms chickpea/lima bean sized pieces (you don’t want it to be too grainy). Add ice water, 1 TBS at a time, and continue to pulse until mixture is just moist enough to hold together. You’ll know you’ve added enough water when you take some dough, pinch it, and it holds together. Dump contents onto a big sheet of plastic wrap and form dough into a large ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and flatten into a disk. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
  2. You’ll have enough pie crust for either a 9-x-13-inch baking dish or 2 9-inch round pie pans or an 8-x-8-inch baking dish and a 9-inch pie pan. For this recipe, we used half for an 8-x-8-inch baking dish to make a sort of slab pie and saved the other half. You can double the filling if you want to make a giant 9-x-13-inch slab pie. You’ll have lots of leftovers!
  3. Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out half of dough into a roughly 10-x-10-inch rectangle. Transfer to lightly greased 8-x-8-inch baking dish and press crust into bottom of the dish and up the edges so it’s flush with the top of the pan. Return crust to the fridge while you make the filling and crumble.

Directions – Filling:

  1. In a medium sized bowl, toss together peaches, blackberries, sugar, corn starch, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Let sit for 20-30 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425°F. Arrange one rack on the lowest position and the other in the center.

Directions – Crumble:

  1. Whisk together flour, oats, sugar, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, and salt. Mix in butter with fingertips until the mixture is uniformly moist and comes together in large clumps.

Directions – Assemble and Bake:

  1. Spoon filling into crust and create a mound. You want more filling in the middle, so aim to create a small, slopping hill. Top with crumble, which you’ll have to gently press into the filling to make sure it clumps together and is evenly distributed. Place on lowest rack and cook at 425°F for 15 minutes. Reduce temp to 375°F and move pie to center rack. Cook for 1 hour more, or until pie is golden brown and filling is bubbling. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before slicing and serving.

 

Summer Vegetable Soup

On By lukephillaryhIn VeggieLeave a comment
Vegetable soup Mimi Thorisson recipe
summa summa sixteen

It is finally officially summer! The farmers’ market is overflowing with luscious fruits and vegetables begging to be turned into a delicious seasonal feast. And there is no more archetypal summer meal than soup. Oh-kaaaay…so that’s a completely sarcastic statement, but Luke and I both feel this soup deserves serious summer status! 1) It requires no oven use whatsoever 2) It includes many of summer’s best bounty aaand 3) This soup manages to be light and healthy (entirely veggie!!) but also extremely flavorful and nuanced (especially when parm broth is used). Luke and I strongly advise that you blast “Summer Sixteen” while chopping up all of these veggies. Making this delicious soup is an ideal way to celebrate summer.

This recipe is adapted from Mimi Thorisson’s soupe au pistou, which can be found in her cookbook A Kitchen in France.

Ingredients – Soup:

  • 3 TBS olive oil
  • 2 onions, thinly sliced
  • 2-3 medium carrots, minced
  • 1 leek, white and light green parts, thinly sliced
  • 2 zucchini, minced
  • 8 oz green beans, cut in half lengthwise
  • 4-5 tomatoes, peeled, deseeded, and chopped (or 1 15-oz can chopped tomatoes, with juices partially drained)
  • 5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
  • 1 bunch basil, roughly chopped
  • 1 TBS herbs de provence
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 5-6 cups water or preferred broth (chicken, vegetable, parm)
  • 8 oz kidney beans (pre-soaked or from a can)
  • 8 oz white beans (pre-soaked or from a can)
  • 1 cup elbow macaroni

Luke and I topped our bowls with a simple mix of basil, garlic, olive oil, and a touch of salt, mashed with a mortal & pestle:

  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • handful of basil leaves, finely chopped
  • 1 TBS olive oil
  • pinch of salt

Directions:

  1. In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots, leek, zucchini, green beans, tomatoes,  and garlic. Saute for 5-8 minutes, stirring to make sure the vegetables cook evenly. Add the basil, herbs de provence, and salt and pepper. Saute for 2 minutes more.
  2. Add your chosen liquid and bring to a boil. Once boiling, simmer for 15-20 minutes, uncovered.
  3. Add the uncooked macaroni and cook until al dente, 8-10 minutes, and then stir in the beans.

Serve immediately! If you like, top with basil mix and shaved parm.

Details: Makes lots of soup! Six hearty servings.

Eggplant Bruschetta

On By lukephillaryhIn VeggieLeave a comment
Eggplant Bruschetta Deb Perelman recipe
Explore beyond the classic bruschetta

In the summer months, when our lil’ AC window unit is bumping, Luke and I love making bruschetta. Nothing tastes better on a hot summer’s day, especially when we use farmer’s market heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil. And most importantly, bruschetta requires no oven use. Which is a requirement for almost all of our summer meals. Our tiny apartment can’t handle any oven heat! Disclaimer: this bruschetta recipe does require oven use. But, it’s an excellent and simple way to use summer’s eggplant bounty. Luke and I are enjoying these eggplant toasts a little early in the season because they are so delicious. And because I’m already dreading NYC’s looming heat and humidity.

Shout out to one of our favorite ladies Deb Perelman for the original recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
  • 2 TBS olive oil + additional for oiling baking sheet
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • freshly cracked black pepper
  • 1 tsp red wine vinegar
  • 1/4 cup crumbled feta
  • 1 scallion, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
  • 2 TBS parsley *optional
  • 8 slices of bread, 1/2-1 inch thick (a baguette works nicely, we go for a more rustic bread for slices with more surface area)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 425º F. Lightly oil a baking sheet.
  2. Toss eggplant with olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread on baking sheet. Place in oven and roast for about 25 minutes. Check the eggplant a couple times while it roasts and give em a good shake to prevent sticking. This will also ensure even browning.
  3. Remove eggplant from the oven and let cool slightly.* In a small bowl, mix the eggplant cubes with red wine vinegar, feta, scallions, and parsley. Add additional salt and pepper to taste.
  4. To make toasts, raise oven temperature to 450ºF. Place bread slices on a baking sheet and place in oven. Let bake for about 5 minutes, or until just brown around the edges. We find, for this dish, it’s best to not let the toast get too toasty. Makes bruschetta eating a bit more difficult.
  5. Assemble the toasts! Spoon the eggplant bruschetta onto the toasts. You can rub the toasts with a garlic clove before piling on the eggplant if you like.

Details: Makes about 8 toasts

*Note 1: This salad is also very delicious at room temp or even cold! So you can let the eggplant cool longer if you like before mixing with the other ingredients.