PLUM GOOD!

Plum Good!

            As the old saying goes: “Be careful what you wish for”! All of August we bemoaned the lack of that real summer warmth, that is necessary to  ripen this year’s garden bounty. By September mother nature relented, but in her whimsical way forgot to include enough moisture in form of rain to take care of the growth spurt in response to sudden heat and humidity. To quote Gilbert and Sullivan (Princess Ida): ”Oh, isn’t your life extremely flat, with nothing whatever to grumble at!”

            Anyway, fall and its fruit are upon us with all the myriad of choices of not only fresh fruit, but all those mouthwatering deserts that seem to get forgotten the rest of the seasons. Peaches and plums, our two most popular stone fruits, make an appearance before the long and popular season for visiting apple orchards.  Unfortunately local peaches have been scarce this year. Our peach tree had only 2 blossoms this spring demonstrating the reason for this year’s poor showing. On the other hand, plums seem to be plentiful and offer the opportunity to revisit some old and favorite recipes.

            Fresh red or black plums make a delicious and light desert when sliced, combined with orange sections and sprinkled with slightly sweetened coconut. Briefly grilled they present a pleasing accompaniment to chicken or pork, and work just as well as peaches in that capacity.  However, my favorite is a black plum (or prune plum) upside down cake.

                                                Plum upside down cake

            Cut 5 large black plums in half, remove the stone and slice each half in ¼ inch slices. Melt 1/3 cup butter in an 8 or 9 inch metal cake pan and stir in ½ cup packed brown sugar until melted. Stir in 1 Tblsp. maple syrup. Layer the plum slices in the butter mixture in concentric circles covering the entire bottom. If using prune plums, cut them in half only and set them in the mixture cut side up, again using enough plums to cover the entire bottom. Any spaces between the fruit can be filled with pecan halves (optional). To prepare the batter: In a small bowl whisk together 1 cup all-purpose flour with 1 ¼ tsp. baking powder and ¼ tsp. salt. In a medium bowl cream ¼ cup butter with ½ cup sugar and 2 eggs, one at a time. Beat in ½ tsp. almond extract. Then using a wooden spoon stir in the flour mixture alternatively in 2 or 3 portions with  ¼ cup milk, starting and ending with flour until batter is smooth.  Spread batter evenly over the plums. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean, showing that the cake is done. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then invert on a plate with a rim for some juice that will settle around the cake. Serve warm or cool with or without whipped cream.

            An even simpler baked plum desert can be made using a recipe similar to the traditional Apple Brown Betty, which is really a bread pudding. The juicier texture of plums makes this a simple and moist desert.

                                                Plum Brown Betty

            Toast and cube 6-7 slices of stale bread from a 1 lb loaf. Toss in a 3 qt. bowl with ¼ cup melted butter and ½ tsp. ground nutmeg. Butter a 11x6x2 inch glass baking dish or equivalent and spread ¼ of the crumbs in the pan. Toss the rest of the crumbs with 1 cup sugar. Wash and halve 8-10 red plums (~1 lb), remove the stones and slice each half in 5-6 slices. Spread ½ of the plum slices over the bread in the pan, cover with ½ of the bread and sugar mixture  Follow with the second layer of plums and another layer of bread and sugar mixture. Dot with additional butter if desired. Cover tightly with non-stick aluminum foil and bake the covered dish  in a pre-heated oven at 450 degrees for 20 minutes until fruit starts bubbling up. Remove the cover and continue baking for an additional 10 minutes. Remove to a cake rack and allow to cool. Serve warm with whipped topping or if served cool, a scoop of ice cream is also tasty

Plums may be less popular than peaches, but make some very delicious, satisfying and plumb good deserts. .

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

IMPROVISATIONAL LOBSTER BISQUE

Improvisational Lobster Bisque

            This column comes thanks to the generosity of our friend Dan, who inadvertently  handed me the challenge. Lobster bisque is that ultimate high end soup in restaurants that combines the delicate flavor of Maine lobster in a savory blend that pleases both eye and palate. Despite enjoying it on special occasions in Maine and occasionally elsewhere, I had actually never made the bisque, despite having a house here for almost twenty years..

            My usual summer enjoyment of lobster comes at a lobster pound in summer, or when some of our friends cook it at their house. The only requirement is that I’m allowed to eat it completely in a place that will not offend the table setting by thorough dissection of everything: legs, flippers, any roe and even the back meat. Alas, I have only cooked two of them at home, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is some inability to quickly wrestle the suspecting lobster in the pot. The result has been a lack of basic ingredients to start lobster bisque at home, which is a couple of whole cooked lobsters for the preparation.

            This was unexpectedly remedied a couple of weeks ago. Our Philadelphia kids were visiting and Dan obligingly was willing to take grandson Cole with him in the boat for another view of  lobstering, since a couple of years before he had found the process with bait and all somewhat intimidating. The morning was most successful in more ways than one! This time we saw our grandson grinning from ear to ear and gloriously grimy from head to toe, as he relished the experience of coming ashore with Dan and the winning catch.

            It was a beautiful Maine day, with the sun shimmering on the bay at our friends Jean and Dan’s home, when it was decided to have an impromptu lobster cookout and picnic on their outdoor table.  We had already packed a basket to go on a picnic after the morning anyway and the location and the occasion could not have been more perfect in the shade with the island silhouetted against a cloudless sky and a small sailboat across the bay. We had a marvelous lunch and I was spared having to wrestle any lobsters in the pot.

AND,  I was given two cooked lobsters to take home, which led to my discovering how to make lobster bisque! After having the claws for lunch next day I clearly faced the challenge and immediately consulted a couple of recipes. Marjorie Moser’s “Good Maine Food” (the 1947 reprinted edition) made it clear and straightforward, but required 2 cups of oyster crackers for the thickening. Clairborne and Franey had a page of ingredients and complicated instructions, so I improvised with some hints from both recipes.

                        Improvisational lobster bisque

Remove the tail meat (and claws, if not already eaten) from 2 cooked lobsters and set aside. Break apart the remainder of each carcass in large chunks. In a 4 quart pot sauté a chopped onion in 1 Tblsp. olive oil for 5 minutes, add  1 large celery rib cut in 2 inch pieces and 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1 bay leaf and a sprig of thyme and sauté for an additional minute. Add in all the cracked lobster chunks, 1 large cleaned carrot cut in half, stir in 1 cup white wine and enough hot water to cover all the solids. Bring to boil and stir in 2 Tblsp. concentrated tomato paste. Cook on medium heat for 20 minutes, remove from heat, set aside the carrot pieces and strain and discard the rest of the solids. When liquid is somewhat cooled, puree it with the carrot and cut up lobster tails. In the cleaned pot melt 4 Tblsp. butter, make a roux with 1/3 cup flour and slowly add some of the lobster puree while stirring to make a smooth sauce. When sauce is thickened, stir in the remaining liquid and heat to just boiling. (This can be done a day ahead and the bisque refrigerated and reheated the following day).  To finish, add 1 Tblsp. Asian fish sauce, 3/2 cup dry sherry and 1 cup heavy cream. Heat to just before boiling and serve.

The soup looks elegant when served with part of a lobster claw as garnish, but since I had eaten mine for lunch the previous day, the garnish was a large crouton and a sprig of dill. It still looked elegant and tasted of the best flavors of Maine.

Inadvertent challenges certainly make life in the kitchen interesting.

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

THE BOUNTY OF COLORFUL BEANS

 The Bounty of Colorful Beans

            August is supposed to be our one chance at real summer in Maine as experience has taught us from past summers. But apparently mother Nature has other designs for us this year. There is actually a cricket chirping on our patio already, signifying that it thinks that fall has come.

            My relatively shady garden seems to be equally confused by the cool and dry weather. The cherry tomatoes are extremely reluctant to turn red, the pickling cucumbers seem to be stuck at the miniature stage, but beans are having a field day.  We started with a good crop of the tender wide Italian Roma II beans followed by some good and straight stringless beans destined for jars of dilly beans, but the amazing abundance of yellow wax and blue beans has me scrambling for a variety of new recipes for string beans.

            The blue beans have been particularly prolific this year. It is always fun to grow some, since they look so dramatic on a raw vegetable tray, especially when paired with the yellow wax beans.  It would be so nice to serve the same combination as well steamed, but alas the blue beans turn green when heated and the anthocyanin color is converted to regular chlorophyll green. Amazingly, this does not happen with blue potatoes, since they remain blue upon cooking.

            Crisp steamed or cooked green colored beans pair well with small white beans or garbanzos in a filling and colorful summer salad.

                                    Two bean and chorizo salad

            Cook 1/3  to  ½ pound green or blue beans in salted water for 3 minutes, quickly chill in ice water and cut in pieces about an inch long. In a large bowl combine: One 15 oz can of drained small white beans, ½ small onion finely chopped, ½ cup chopped red bell pepper, ¼ cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley, 3 oz. finely diced ready to eat chorizo and the cut green beans. In a small bowl combine: ¼ cup exta-virgin olive oil, with 3 Tblsp. sherry or white wine vinegar, ¼ tsp. dried oregano and 1/4 tsp. cumin. Toss the salad with the vinaigrette and serve over lettuce leaves.  Garnish with 2 hardboiled eggs cut in quarters lengthwise and sliced radishes.

            A festive way to serve warm string beans to a group is toss them, after cooking for no more than 3 or 4 minutes, with melted butter, ½ a cup of slivered almonds and juice of half a lemon. A more elaborate dish can be made with green and yellow wax beans and an Oriental style topping. The dish can be made also with only green beans, but the contrasting color adds eye appeal.

                                    Oriental two color beans.

            For this you will need a long serving plate and about ¾ pounds  each of slender yellow and green (or purple) beans. Have beans cleaned and ready to cook in salted water for 3 to 4 minutes. To prepare the topping, heat 2 Tblsp. olive oil in a 10-12 inch frying pan over high heat and stir in 1 large chopped onion, ½ lb. sliced mushrooms, 1 large seeded red pepper cut in ¼ inch strips, 2 cloves chopped garlic and 1 Tblsp. chopped fresh ginger. Cook with stirring until liquid has evaporated and the mixture starts to brown. Then stir in ¼ cup water, loosening any brown bits from the pan and repeat the step once more. Then stir in ¼ cup water with 1 Tblsp. honey and 3 Tblsp. reduced salt soy sauce. Stir until liquid has evaporated, set aside to keep warm until the beans are ready. Cook the beans for 3 minutes, drain and arrange on the long platter with each color beans on different sides sideways.  Spoon the topping the center length of the platter, covering part of the beans. Garnish with ½ cup chopped salted peanuts.

 

            Gardens invariably lead you to discover new ways of cooking the summer bounty.

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

PEAS AND PODS

Peas and Pods

            Shelling a large quantity of fresh peas can become an almost zen like experience as I discovered recently. You push the pod at one end, hear a slight pop as it opens, your thumb pushes a row of fresh peas in the bowl, the pod gets discarded in a bucket and you repeat the process again and again until it develops a rhythm of it’s own. This time there were no visiting grandchildren to enlist for this fun activity. with full expectations of reduced yield as they discover how delicious a snack these peas make right out of the shell. They don’t even notice that it is a ‘healthy’ snack.

 Last week the garden decided to give me a bountiful crop of peas after all the rain -  all at once! There were shelling peas, snow peas and snap peas, all clamoring to be picked and utilized, since they had done their part so dutifully by being abundantly productive. Peas grow well in my garden and the cool spring this year was more favorable to them than the rest of the vegetables that still seem to be behind their annual schedule.

Once shelled, the peas require only five minutes of cooking in water with a dash of salt or chicken broth to be ready to serve for dinner. If you want to dress them up, add tiny onions or make a cream or cheese sauce, but fresh peas have delightful flavor of their own, possibly enhanced with a small dab of butter.  Like corn, peas will taste best soon after harvest.  They will keep in the shell in the refrigerator for a day or so, but once shelled should be cooked reasonably quickly. Snow and snap pea pods will keep refrigerated for a week in a closed container.

Fresh peas always remind me of the ‘spring soup’ my mother used to make with seasons first vegetables.

                        Spring creamy vegetable soup

Sautè a medium sized onion finely chopped with 1 Tblp. butter for 5 minutes. Add 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock and bring to boil. Add 1 cup sliced new carrots and 2 cups of scrubbed and cubed new potatoes. Cook vegetables for 8 minutes, then add 1 cup of freshly shelled peas and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Stir in 1 cup whole milk or half and half. Heat just to boil and serve in bowls garnished with chopped dill or parsley.

Snap peas make a delicious snack just raw with or without a dip. Both snow and snap peas can be sliced and added to salads for extra crunch.  They also are a great addition to any stir fry and like shrimp require only minimal cooking of 2 or 3 minutes. For a more spicy version, snap peas taste wonderfully in a curry and mint rendition as an accompaniment to grilled meat dishes.

                        Curried snap peas with mint

Stir together ¼ tsp. red Thai curry paste with 2 Tblsp. water and 1 Tblsp. soy sauce in a small dish. Heat 1 Tblsp. vegetable oil in a large pan and sauté ¼ cup sliced shallots or white part of scallions for 2 minutes until softened. Add 1 lb. snap peas trimmed and sliced crosswise in half.  Continue to stir fry for 2 minutes, then stir in curry paste mix and continue to cook for 3 minutes. Stir in 1 tsp. sesame oil, 1-2 Tblsp. lime juice and ¼ cup finely sliced fresh mint. Serve warm or at room temperature.

A hundred years or more ago, shelling peas was a social occasion for family members and sometimes even neighbors in the afternoon. It was a relaxing time where news and gossip were exchanged.  Fortunately the relaxing quality of this activity has remained even now, so one can contemplate with equanimity the ripening of another 6 ft. row of late peas for the future.

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

FISH - TALES

Fish-tales!

            Saturday morning, as I was planning my dinner menu and a trip to Delano’s Seafood in Waldoboro for some fish, the fish came to me! This is not to imply some fanciful scenario, where a fish hopped up our front steps and announced itself with a tap of a fin. Hallucinations do not manifest themselves on beautiful sunny June mornings. Rather our friend Alfred, who takes good care of our lawn and is an accomplished fisherman, arrived on our doorstep to generously share a fish from his bounty.

            It was a beautiful lake salmon, which unfortunately reminded of my own love-hate relationship with fishing. The problem is, I am seriously ‘challenged’ in this endeavor. I love to go fishing, with the fresh air, interesting scenery and the lack of guilty feeling for not doing something strenuous, since fishing is an active verb. But to be honest, I have only caught 3 things in my entire life.

            Years ago in Pennsylvania, fishing with my sons, I managed to catch a catfish so large, I was afraid to dislodge the hook from it’s mouth. Good to have sons that are not so squeamish. The second incident occurred near the mouth of a river in Oregon, I was standing on a large rock in the river, when with a mighty yank I pulled up next to me on the rock – a large Dungeness crab, which was waving his claws dangerously in my direction. While I contemplated wading or leaping ashore, the crab sensibly let go of the hook and went back home. Yes, I did catch a mountain lake trout in the Sierra’s once, but on closer inspection it turned out that I had hooked the leader of another line that the trout had managed to break. The salmon I caught in Katmai, Alaska don’t count. They were running so thick that if you snagged one with a cast hook anywhere above the gills, it was a legal keeper.

            When we moved to Maine many years ago and bought a house on tidal Medomak, I had high hopes for changing my fishing record. My husband obligingly would take out our small boat at high tide and I would fish. The typical results of a morning’s endeavor were 4 for the two ospreys fishing in the same area and 0 for me. At that point I gave up fishing and concentrated on recipes suited to what was available locally at the fish store, or on the kindness of good fishermen like Alfred.

                                    Baked or grilled whole fish

            This recipe can be used for 1- 1 ½ lb cleaned fish like lake salmon or trout or a smaller middle section of a large fish. If the fish is frozen, thaw it first in the refrigerator. Rinse the fish inside and out and dry with paper towels. Rub inside with salt and a little pepper. Line the cavity with: 1 thinly sliced lemon, and sprigs of thyme, parsley, chives, oregano and celery tops. Use skewers to pin the two halves partially closed. Place the fish on an oiled pan with sides and lay the fish on several pieces of celery as a rack. Baste the fish with 2-3 Tblsp. melted butter and bake at 400 degrees for about 12 - 15 minutes, or until the flesh is barely opaque. Remove from oven and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes before removing the herbs. Serve whole with lemon slices on top.

            The fish can also be baked at lower temperature, like 300 degrees for 25 minutes, but in that case carefully pour in the pan around the fish ¼ cup orange juice mixed with some chopped thyme, pepper and orange zest and cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil.

            The fish served with basmati rice and some grilled asparagus is bound to please even a person accomplished in fishing.