Creamy Cucumbers

Cool Kids by Echosmith
Who are the cool kids of the vegetable world?  Tomatoes are the star athletes.  I'm going to designate the various squash plants as the nerds.  All leafy plants like lettuce, chard, kale, etc. are the kids in the Drama Club.  Corn is class leadership.  So I think we can put cucumbers in the cool kids category.  I mean, after all, as the saying goes - cool as a cucumber - right?  Well, these are the coolest - and creamiest - cucumbers.

So remember last week when I was talking
about how I was having company for dinner and
I was making that Fall Harvest Pasta Salad
to go with Kalua Pork?
And I talked about veggies, veggies
EVERYWHERE?

Well, I also had accumulated quite a stash of cucumbers.
And cucumbers are one of the foods my
husband will not eat!
At all.

So I thought I'd fix them up and see if maybe my
friends could help me eat some of the bounty.

Cucumbers so often get overlooked.
Maybe because they're so easily prepared
or maybe because they're always the co-star of the meal
and never the headliner.
"Hey, why don't you and your wife come
over for a cucumber dinner!" said no-one ever.

But they were present at almost every picnic

in my childhood and frequently on the dinner table as well.

Sometimes they were simply dressed in vinegar

and sometimes in a creamy sauce.
I remember all the crocks on our back porch
filled with cucumbers on their way to
becoming pickles!

I loved them all!

I opted to use a creamy version for our company
and what made me super happy

was, when asked what was on them,

I was able to able to spout off only four ingredients!

I think short ingredient lists

are encouraging to people.

"I can do that!", they think to themselves.

And so can you!

Creamy Cucumbers 

serves 6

Printable Recipe

2 - 3 cucumbers, partially peeled, ends trimmed

1/2 c. plain yogurt, homemade if you like, or sour cream

1/4 c. rice vinegar, or fruity vinegar

1/2 t. kosher salt

pepper to taste

2 T. chopped chives

Trim ends off of cucumbers.  Using a vegetable peeler, take 1/2" strips of peel off in 1/2" intervals.  This is purely for eye appeal!  Then, using a mandolin or sharp knife, slice into 1/8" thin slices.  If the seeds are too big and woody, slice the cucumber in half lengthwise and use a spoon to scrape out the seeds.  Then slice each half crosswise.  Place all slices in a mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix together the yogurt, vinegar, salt, and pepper.  Taste and if it's too tart, stir in a little sugar or honey.  Pour the mixture over the cucumbers and stir to evenly coat.  Taste and adjust salt if needed.  Before you serve, top with chopped chives.

Fall Harvest Pasta Salad

Get Ya Party On by Baha Men
I was pretty much going around my kitchen and calling all the various fruits and vegetables to the counter for this salad.  So when I thought of a song to go with it, this one popped right into my head.  It's a pretty accurate description of the party going on in my kitchen that day!  If I were to make a music video of this song it would have me standing in the middle of my kitchen and pointing to the ingredients and saying, "Everybody over here!  Everybody over there!" and as I pointed, they'd magically hurl through the air, peeling and chopping as they fly, and land into the bowl.  Yeah - I still hold fast to some of that "Bewitched" magic from my childhood!

One of the things I've learned over the past couple years
is the importance of filling your diet with fruits and vegetables.
On this point, most camps agree.
But when I say filling your diet, I mean
REALLY making it the larger part.
Lean proteins and starches play a side dish
role in my new world.
At least it's what I'm aiming for.
I never realized what a carnivore I was before!
But now I'm looking for ways to get those fruits and vegetables in!
And I count myself very lucky that I happen to love them all!

Now, if you're like me,
this time of year has probably found you
 with a never-ending sea of fruits and vegetables.

Ones you've grown yourself or those you have 

received from friends and neighbors.

Some you've bought at the farmer's market

or produce delivery companies or the grocery store.

But for whatever reason,

they're there -

they're EVERYWHERE!

And, believe it or not, this is a good thing!

I realized the other day, though, that my situation

had gotten to the dangerous point.

The point when you have so much that it's going to spoil

before you get a chance to use it.

And that makes me sad.

So I start brainstorming.

What did I have?

Well, I had peaches - lots of beautiful peaches!

I had lots of bell peppers of different colors.

I had carrots as well as an ear of corn left over from dinner the day before.

I had some orange cherry tomatoes sitting there looking

so darned cute and perky.

And I had some bow-tie pasta!

I hadn't made a pasta salad for quite awhile and 

we were having company

for dinner that night so I decided right then and 

there that it was going to be the perfect side dish

for the Kalua Pork I was cooking up.
Per my new eating agenda, if I hadn't been
having company, I would have halved
the amount of pasta.  I'm never sure of how other people
will react to my new convictions.  But pasta salads
are always a great way to get in those vegetables!

And fruits!

As I started gathering and chopping I noticed a theme.

Do you see it?

Everything was in gorgeous hues of yellow, orange, and red!

These are my favorite colors so my eyes opened right up and drank it all in!

You couldn't find anything that screamed more loudly "It's the end of summer!"

I had some green bell peppers and zucchini but I decided that I
wanted to stick with this palette.

My favorite are the peaches and I'm kind of sad that I chopped them so small.

If I were to do it again, I'd leave them in bigger pieces 

because they are so beautiful and juicy!

Look at the party going on in this bowl!

And my favorite bite?

When I got some sweet corn and peach on the fork at the same time!

Ah, yeah!

So what fruits and vegetables do you have lounging around 

in your kitchen (or on your doorstep)

that would like to hang out with some pasta?

Fall Harvest Pasta Salad 

serves 10

Printable Recipe Card

1 12 oz. pkg. of bow-tie pasta

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

3 peaches, peeled, pitted, and chopped

1 - 2 ears of cooked corn, taken off the cob

1 orange or red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped

10 cherry tomatoes

2 green onions, sliced thin

1/2 - 3/4 cup poppyseed dressing, I like Briana's brand

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup rice vinegar

2 T. chopped chives

kosher salt and pepper, to taste

Cook the pasta according to package directions, drain, and rinse immediately with cold water.  You can do this earlier in the day, but if you do, be sure to toss it with about 1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil before you store it in the refrigerator.  This will keep it from sticking together in one big gooey glob.

Place cooked and cooled pasta in a large bowl and add the chopped fruits and vegetables. 

In a separate bowl, combine the poppyseed dressing, buttermilk, and vinegar and stir to mix.  If you happen to have some nice fruity vinegars on hand - the fancy ones you pick up in the specialty boutiques - use that in place of the rice vinegar.  You will be so happy you did!  Pour the dressing mix over the ingredients in the bowl and add the chives on top.  Toss well until all ingredients are well-coated.  Taste and add salt and pepper accordingly!

Prosciutto & Melon

Chapters of My Heart by Nicole Sheahan

Full transparency up front here.  I know Nicole Sheahan and have since before she was born!  Her mother is one of my dearest and oldest friends and we met while she was pregnant with Nicole.  I kid you not, Nicole was every bit as beautiful as a newborn baby as she is today!  And her music is truly an extension of her lovely soul.  This song works perfectly today as this recipe carries a story of one of the chapters of my heart.  Please click through on the song title and watch and listen to her video of this song from her latest album.  You'll be so glad you did!

Today is my 38th wedding anniversary!
And this marriage or ours has written many chapters
 - some up and some down - but I wouldn't change a single one of them.

We learn from each chapter, don't we?

The hard times make the good ones even sweeter.

Some of the sweetest chapters have been written while we've
taken the opportunity to travel to distant places.
You learn a great deal by visiting different cultures.
I am really bad at journaling my every day life
but I'm a champ at keeping my travel journals!
I love rereading my thoughts and experiences and find that
I often forget some of the little things.

But today's dish is one I have never allowed myself to forget.
I don't think I could forget, even if I tried!
In 2010 we traveled to Italy and
every meal, save one, was a complete delight.

And almost every restaurant offered this Prosciutto e Melone dish.

It can be an appetizer or a light meal.

All I know is that I had it almost every single meal!!

It's the perfect sweet and salty combination.

You can also dress it up by adding some fresh tomatoes.

I love adding either fresh mozzarella or burrata as well.

This time of year, with all the scrumptious melons coming on, I make sure I always have some prosciutto on hand.  Prosciutto is an Italian cured ham and is ready to eat -
no cooking necessary.
Don't confuse it with pancetta - which does need to be cooked.
They're both found in the same place at your grocery store
usually in the deli area.

Prosciutto is salty and thinly sliced and partners so well with the melon!
It's also fun to say!
pro-SHOO-toe

 I eat the whole plate as my lunch and it is filling and satisfying.

I love cutting up the prosciutto and melon and making sure I get the perfect bite each time.
If it's a crazy idea to you to put salt on melon, all I can say is
this is how we ate melons growing up in Pennsylvania.
The salt enhances the sweetness with a surprising boost.
The salt also makes the fruit "sweat."
Fruit sweat is more commonly known as "juice."
So when you're done with the dish, you'll want to grab a hunk of bread
and use it to wipe up the "dressing" that's been made with the juices and oil
and salt and pepper.

Do yourself a favor and write a new chapter in your life by trying this.

You will title it "The Day A Melon Hammed It Up and Changed My Life!"

Prosciutto & Melon 

Printable Recipe

1 ripe cantaloupe

1 pkg. prosciutto

1/2 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 small handful of fresh parsley or arugula

salt and pepper, to taste

Cut and peel the cantaloupe.  I like to start by cutting off a bit of the top and bottom to give the cantaloupe a firm footing on the cutting board.

The flat bottom will keep the melon still while you take the knife and make small slices around the outside, from top to bottom, to remove the rind.  It should look like this.

Next, you'll cut the melon in half and scoop out the seeds of one half with a spoon.

Keep the seeds in the remaining half and wrap in plastic wrap to save it for another time.  Turn the half you're using upside down and cut it into slices.

Next, you'll want to place the melon slices on a plate.  If using a round plate, I like to fan the slices around like a pinwheel.  It's not much effort and I look at it as a treat for myself to make it look nice.

Prosciutto usually comes in 3 oz packages.  It's very thinly sliced and comes with some sort of paper or plastic in between the slices because they like to stick together.  

I use about half of a package, so 1 1/2 oz.  I remove one strip and tear it into strips and lay them around on top of the melon slices.

Now you'll drizzle just a little bit of extra virgin olive oil over the top and sprinkle kosher salt and some black pepper around as well.

Almost done!  Now chop up the fresh parsley and sprinkle over the top.  Do not skip the parsley!  Arugula is also a divine option!  Done!  

Eat with a knife and fork.  And, please, take your time and savor each juicy sweet and salty bite.

Persian Jewels

Here It Goes Again by O.K. Go
I think I've been gone long enough!  And so I'm back but, like this song says, it doesn't mean everything is perfect - but that I'm finally in a place to get things going again!  Lots of life under my belt, lots learned, lots to share.  And, can I say, feeling better than I have in a long time!  It is a secret dream of mine that I could line up some treadmills and do what these guys do in one of the BEST music videos EVER!  However, since I'm not nearly as limber as these guys, what we'd end up with would be a heck of a blooper reel!  But enough about what I can't do.  Let's get to what I can do - and that's make food!

It's been a long time, folks!

I've missed you so much!  It's a good thing when you find something you love to do.

And I love writing this blog and all that goes with it.

As I mentioned when last we visited, I needed to focus on getting myself healthy.

And since then I have read and researched on all sorts of 

"movements" or "revolutions" in the "get healthy" scene.

There's a lot of info out there - some of it that's good and 

some of it that just sends a red flag up the crazy pole.  

I think that's why we're given an intuition - to know 

when we've gone over the line from being informed 

to inflamed.  And by inflamed I mean - that point when a good idea
gets taken past the point of common sense and
starts feeding into fears in order for it to survive.

Every camp I studied had some good nuggets and they 

likewise all hit a point where they went a little overboard.

I'll share my take on what they have to say over time but 

what I've learned the most is that 

not everybody's body works the same.  

HELLO!  

If they did, then treating our bodies would be a lot easier - not so much trial and error.  

I've had to learn to really pay attention to what MY body likes and what makes it sad/mad.

And what have I been doing while I've been gone?

You know, besides learning to be healthy?

I've been teaching other people how to cook!

And, guess what?

I love doing that!!

It's so rewarding to share skills that empower people!

Because when you have skills you have choices.

When you have choices you aren't at the mercy of others.

And that, people, is a grand feeling!

Basic cooking skills makes you the boss at the grocery store -

not the other way around.

I loved seeing the light come on in each of my students' eyes as they saw how

quickly and easily they could make a meal for their family, how much faster and more delicious a non-packaged alfredo sauce is, and how thrifty it is to make your own stocks.

I will be sharing some of the lessons from those cooking classes on here so stay tuned!

But to start out and welcome you all back, 

I wanted to share this beautiful cookie recipe.

It's inception started in Hawaii last winter.

My husband and I had wandered up to a town called Hawi 

in search of Tropical Dreams Ice Cream, 

which some friends had raved about.  We were also hungry so we sought out some lunch.

We wandered into a place called Local Dish that had a cool vibe to it -

tables made out of surf boards and all that beachy feel.

The menu is on a board over the ordering window and I was
studying it all - sweets and savory - when my
eye zoomed in on a cookie they called a Persian Slipper.

Hmmmm.  

"What would a cookie called Persian Slipper taste like, " I asked myself.

It would have to have some middle-eastern notes to it.
Possibly even cardamom.

And then I asked the guy behind the counter.

But what actually came out was

"So what's the flavor profile on that Persian Slipper?"

Apparently, non-culinary people don't talk about flavor profiles.

He said "You're a chef then."

I said, well, yes, that I was.

He then knew we could talk shop.

But basically, all it was was a chocolate chip cookie base that he amped up with

pistachios, coconut, chocolate, dried apricots, and cardamom.

CARDAMOM!

It's like, in the back of my mind I was chanting - 

please say cardamom, please say cardamom, please say cardamom!

And when he did I said "YES!  I'll take one of those!"

"Oh, yeah, well, we don't have any of those right now."

"Sorry!"

(insert sound of a needle scratching across a vinyl record here)

And then I got a quick lesson on the difficulties and cost of 

acquiring certain ingredients when you're on an island 

out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  

DANG

So I ate my delicious sandwich while visions of these lovelies danced in my head

and vowed that, even if he didn't have the Persian Slippers,
I would make every effort to come visit his place again
if I ever found myself on the big island in the future.
We found the sought-for ice cream in a shop across the street and agreed that it was, in fact,
very, very, very, good!  Worth the trip!

So, if you're on the north shore of the big island in a town called Hawi,

eat at Local Dish and have Tropical Dreams Ice Cream - any flavor - at Kohala Coffee Mill

just across the street!

You can bet that as soon as I got home, I set about creating the elusive Persian Slipper.

It isn't difficult.  And they are absolutely delicious!

After several batches though, I started contemplating on how I could showcase the colors better.

That's when I decided to do the version I'm sharing today.

Basically a sugar cookie base.

I had to come up with my own name though.

Persian Jewels 

makes 40 cookies

Printable Recipe Card

1 cup granulated sugar (200 g)

1 cup powdered sugar (120 g)

1 cup unsalted butter, softened (227 g)

1 cup coconut oil

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or regular vanilla extract

4 cups all-purpose flour (500 g)

1/2 cup cornstarch (60 g)

1 1/2 teaspoon cardamom

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 c. shredded or flaked coconut, toasted

3/4 cup pistachios, chopped

1 cup dark chocolate chunks

1 cup dried apricots, chopped*

fine baker's sugar, for coating

In a large mixer bowl, cream together the sugars and the butter and coconut oil until well combined.  With using the coconut oil, this won't take as long as if you were using only the softened butter - a couple minutes should do it.

Add the egg and mix on low until combined.  Add the vanilla and mix just to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, cardamom, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until well blended.  Add all at once to the butter and sugar mixture and mix just a few passes around with the beater.  Then add the coconut, pistachios, chocolate, and dried apricots and continue to mix just until it all comes together.  Don't overmix!  

And, as usual, I like to scoop and freeze the cookies before I bake them.  I used a #24 scoop for these, which is equal to three tablespoons.  Scoop the dough, then toss in a bowl of extra fine baker's sugar, then place on parchment-lined sheet trays.  You can either leave them this way 

and they come out looking like this

or you can slightly flatten the tops.

  

Flattening the tops gives them a slightly smoother look when baked.

When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 14-15 minutes, turning the tray halfway through.  Cool and enjoy!

*A note about the dried apricots.  If your apricots are looking a little more dry, then rehydrate them before using.  I'd squeeze the juice from an orange and then add enough hot water to cover the apricots.  Let sit for at least 30 minutes and then drain and use.  While you have that orange, it would be a totally AWESOME idea to use the zest in the dough!  Just sayin'!

'Til We Meet Again

Corner Of Your Heart by Ingrid Michaelson
I have things to do which require me to take a leave of absence.  Will you please save a corner of your heart - just a tiny one - for when I hope to be back again - someday.

Nope -

that isn't a picture of some lovely

Valentine's treat for you to share with your 

loved ones this weekend.

It's my broken heart.

I had a scrumptious recipe ready to go and

was in the process of taking photos when

I got an answer to a question that's been

hounding me for quite some time.

Actually, I got a scary wake up call

yesterday morning - which led to the inevitable

answer to that question.

I stepped on the scale.

Terror.

I'm not talking "oh you could lose 

a couple pounds"stuff.  

I'm talking "no wonder your body is 

in so much pain and you can't even

get down on the floor - or beach - and play

with your grandkids" stuff.

I've been questioning for awhile now just

how smart it is to have a food blog

while I struggle so much with weight.

And yesterday I got a clear answer.

"Girl, you need to get yourself under control

if you want to continue doing this."

You see, to do a food blog,  you are

CONSTANTLY thinking about food

and how to make something even more 

delicious and appealing.

Then you have to make that dish over and over again.

I admit that much goes to friends and neighbors, but 

I have to taste it as well.

And I have a hard time stopping sometimes.

But the work behind a blog has also proved

detrimental.  

There are deadlines I have to meet.

And, often, if I'm in a pinch,

I will sacrifice my workout time so that I can

get the post out on time.

The few people I told about my decision asked if 

I would consider doing a blog of healthy food instead.

Right now, I think I just need the time to focus on 

my lifestyle in general.

So, it's with great sadness that I say 

"so long, for now, dear friends."

If, along my journey I come across something 

that is earth shatteringly healthy and good

I might just pop on to say hello.

If you'd like to know when that happens,

and you haven't already,

"like" the Tune 'n Fork Facebook page

or sign up here to receive a notice via email.