Strawberry Shortcakes

Strawberry shortcakes are a quintessential early summer dessert. When my mother took my brother and I strawberry picking as kids, this was a much-anticipated and ill-deserved reward, since most of the strawberries we picked seemed to end up in our mouths or pelted at one another, rather than in the waxed-cardboard crates we were supposed to be filling. Those strawberries sang with sweetness and tangy flavor, and the sun heated them to a perfect temperature to melt in our mouths. Later that evening, quick batches of biscuit and whipped cream would make perfect companions to our pickings. My mother used to make one large biscuit and present the shortcake like a regular cake. I prefer to bake individual wedges, sprinkled with turbinado sugar for sparkle. Shortcakes will keep overnight in an airtight container. There's no hiding lousy fruit here. It's all about the berries. Make sure you get the freshest, farmiest, most juicy and deserving berries you can find, and serve them at room temperature.

For Strawberries:

4 cups strawberries, washed, hulled, and sliced. Reserve 6 of the smallest, prettiest strawberries for a garnish. If some have long stems, even better.
4 tbsp maple syrup

For Shortcake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons cane sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder

1 1/2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest

3/4 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into bits

1/4 cup milk

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 tbsp turbinado sugar

For Cream:

1 cup well-chilled heavy cream
1 to 2 tablespoons sugar, or to taste

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 425.

Combine sliced berries and maple syrup, and allow to sit at least ½ hour to meld flavors.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl. Add butter and blend with a fork until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in zest. In a small bowl, mix egg, milk, and vanilla. Stir into flour mixture until a dough forms. Turn out onto a hard surface and knead for a minute or two until dough is smooth. Form into a 6-inch disk, and cut into 6 wedges. Sprinkle the tops with turbinado sugar. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

Using a standing or handheld mixer, or a whisk and some elbow grease, whip cream until soft peaks form. Add sugar and vanilla, and whip until hard peaks form.

To assemble shortcakes, split each one in half with a knife, place the bottom half on a dessert plate, and spoon most of the strawberry mixture on top. Top strawberries with most of the whipped cream, and cover with the top halves of the shortcakes. Spoon remaining berries around the sides and top each shortcake with a small spoonful of whipped cream and one of the reserved whole berries.

Serves 6.

Tomato Sauce with Sausage and Kale

This is a home-y sauce which cooks quickly. Very easy, healthy and delicious for a weeknight dinner. The olive oil added as a garnish at the end gives it a sweet and fresh taste.

3 tbsp quality extra-virgin olive oil

1 sweet Italian sausage

1 spicy Italian sausage

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced or pressed

1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes (I like Muir Glen, and I don't really like anything else...)

1 small pinch dried thyme

1 small bunch of lacinato kale, cut into chiffonade

salt and pepper to taste

freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

1 lb pasta of your choice (fusilli or a similar shape would be good here but you can also use ravioli)

Start your pasta water to boil with plenty of salt. Heat a large, heavy-bottomed, lidded sauté pan over medium-high heat (without the lid for now). Add 1 tbsp of olive oil to the pan and swirl the pan to coat. When the oil has heated, squeeze the sausages from their casings into the pan. Sauté for four or five minutes while breaking up the sausages with a wooden spoon. Monitor the heat carefully so that the sausage doesn't form too much of a fond on the bottom of the pan. When the sausage is just beginning to brown in places, add the onions and cook, stirring, for about 5 more minutes. When the onion is wilted, add the garlic and cook for just about 30 seconds, until the pungent garlic smell mellows just slightly. Pour in the liquid from the whole peeled tomatoes, then squeeze each whole tomato in your hand to crush it before you drop it into the pan. (This squirt-prone operation can be mitigated somewhat by poking a hole with your thumb and one finger to de-pressurize the tomato before you really put the squeeze down. I rarely escape this operation without an errant squirt, so an apron would be a strong recommendation here. This might seem like a complicated process -- why not just use diced or puréed tomatoes? Well, somehow they just don't have the same delicate, slightly brothy-y texture and flavor.)

Now add the thyme and the kale and stir the sauce to combine the ingredients. Salt carefully to taste. Cover the sauce and simmer for about 7 minutes, until the kale is wilted and the sauce is bubbling. As soon as you cover your sauce, check the time you need to cook your pasta, and time it to be done just about the same time as the sauce.

Drain the pasta when it's cooked to your liking, and spoon it into 4 wide shallow bowls. Divide the sauce on top of the pasta between the 4 bowls. Drizzle 1/2 tbsp of olive oil over each bowl, and grate the Parmigiano on top.

Serves 4.

Steamed Lobster with Two Dipping Sauces

My husband and I recently had the pleasure of spending our Thanksgiving in Maine with my family and their neighbors. We had quite a few amazing food moments, few of which I can take credit for, including homemade pork sausage stuffing, homemade mozzarella cheese, oysters on the half-shell with homemade mignonette sauce, my mother's inspired day-after-Thanksgiving Turkey Tetrazini Casserole, and traditional Ecuadorean Day of the Dead Bread Babies. We did manage to leave the state with a few pinchy crustacean souvenirs and one of my favorite breads in the world, a fougasse from the Beach Pea Bakery in Kittery, ME, which was a perfect meal after some nasty Connecticut traffic.

Cooking lobsters is one of those things that seems intimidating, but it's actually barely more complicated than cooking pasta. The absolute most important step is the purchase of the lobsters.

The only truly delicious lobster is alive and has been caught within a day, preferably on the North American Atlantic coast. Supermarket lobsters have been stewing in their own waste digesting themselves for who knows how long (like, months), and it shows in the flavor and texture of the meat. Frozen lobster is so tough and stringy it's not worth the price. Lobsters are sold by weight and sometimes by shell-hardness. The hardness of the shell depends on where the lobster is in its molt-cycle. Since lobsters grow about 20% during each molt, a soft-shell lobster which has just molted will fill up substantially less of the shell than a hard-shell lobster. Soft shell lobsters are generally about $2/lb less than hard shell lobsters for this reason. I seem to injure myself quite a bit less eating soft-shell lobsters -- sometimes you'll barely need a cracker -- but some people feel gyped by finding space inside the shell. Either variety will taste amazing, so buy what you like.

Once you've purchased the lobsters, keep them in a wet, cool place until you cook them. Putting the lobsters in a paper bag inside a plastic bag covered with wet newspaper and ice is ideal. You should cook them the same day you buy them. I'm a fan of dumping them out in the sink to watch them flop around for a while, and/or "racing" them in the bathtub, or waving them around at squeamish guests, but maybe I'm not the nicest cook. In any case, you should remove the rubber bands from the claws. Use kitchen shears and watch out if you like your fingers!

To cook the lobsters, you will need a pot large enough to hold all the lobsters. A few small pots will work too. You'll need about 2 inches of water in the bottom of the pot, heavily salted. The water should be as salty as sea water. Bring the water to a rolling boil, and in they go! To pick the lobsters up, make sure they're right side up, and grab just behind the head. Again, watch out for claws. If you are a wuss, you can use tongs to pick them up. Place into the pot claws first, one atop the other, and cover tightly. Bring the water back to a boil, and boil about 12-20 minutes depending on the weight of the lobster. When the lobster is cooked, an antenna will pull off easily. When the lobsters are done, use tongs to grab them out of the pot and put them in a colander in the sink. Let them drain for a few minutes. If you like you can "start" the lobsters by snipping through the end of the claws and along the underside of the tail with kitchen shears.

Now is the fun part! I like to serve lobster with two dipping options -- classic lemon butter, and a very easy Saffron Chipotle Aiolli.

Lemon Butter

3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
juice of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt
optional: chopped tarragon or chives

Combine ingredients in a small warmed bowl.

Saffron Chipotle Aiolli

pinch of saffron threads
4 tbsp Hellman's mayonnaise
1 small clove of garlic, pressed
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 tsp chipotle powder

Toast saffron threads in a small sauté pan until fragrant. Combine remaining ingredients. Crush toasted saffron threads into mayonnaise and stir to combine. Taste and correct seasoning. Let sit for at least 1/2 hour (this allows the saffron to combine with the mayonnaise, turning it an awesome yellow color.)

I like to eat lobsters beginning with the small legs on either side, followed by the claws and then the tail, since the tail will stay warm the longest.

Chocolate Cake with Coconut Frosting

Dear 2 Readers,

I am sorry to be so lame, but with our wedding coming up, I have no time to blog. I just want to say:

Chimichurri

My sister, aka the Socially Responsible One, has a summer internship in Buenos Aires working as an HIV researcher, and she recently graffiti'd me a recipe for the regional sauce called "chimichurri."



The internet tells me that the ingredients and preparation are open to some interpretation, but knowing my sister for a fabulous palate and a great cook, I decided to make only the barest irresistable adjustment of adding the zest and juice of a lemon.

This recipe makes more than a cup -- good for a few days' use on pretty much anything, but especially grilled steak rubbed with spices, and scrambled eggs. It has a zesty bright flavor that tastes great with some hot July weather.

Chimichurri

All quantities are up to personal taste and can and should be eyeballed:

1 cup parsley leaves, washed and dried
1 cup cilantro leaves, washed and dried
zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp chili flakes
4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt

Add cilantro, parsley, lemon juice and zest, chili and garlic to blender. Pulse on (my blender only does on/off) a few times to start chopping, then gradually add olive oil and salt and continue to pulse until mostly puréed.

Chicken, Bok Choy, and Shitake Mushroom Stirfry with Brown Rice

Growing up in Woodstock NY in the '70s, I ate my fair share of tempeh, homemade yogurt, and stirfries heavily seasoned with any old spices or condiments that happened to be hanging around, particularly large doses of tamari (Japanese wheat-free soy sauce). In general, I'm not a huge fan of the whole Moosewood school of cooking, but every so often, I get a craving for something inauthentically Asian, by way of the health food store. My version here contains chicken (so there, vegetarians!) as well as bok choy, shitake mushrooms, and toasted almonds. You can be very creative with stirfries, but there are some key principles to follow:

• Remember that each of the ingredients has its own optimal cooking time. After you've finished your prep, come up with a game plan for adding (and in some cases, temporarily removing) ingredients so that nothing is over- or under-cooked.
• Just because it's in your fridge doesn't mean it belongs in your dish. Try to use ingredients that complement one another in flavor, sweetness, color, and texture.
• Watch how much soy sauce/tamari etc. you use! Rather than indiscriminately dumping in more of any condiment when you need to add moisture to the pan, I like to mix up a batch of sauce that tastes balanced to me, which I usually make somewhat diluted with either water or broth. Then I add that instead of a squirt of soy sauce. That way you don't wind up with any one flavor dominating.

I like it with a sprinkle of nutritional yeast on top, proving that you can be nostalgic for anything.

For the rice:

Start the rice first, since it takes a while to cook.

1 cup brown rice
2 1/4 cups water
pinch of salt

Combine in a small saucepan with a tight-fitting lid (don't cover just yet though.) Bring to a boil over high heat, cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer gently for 45 minutes.

For the stirfry:

2 boneless chicken breast, cut into 1/8 inch slices
1 lb baby bok choy, washed, ends removed, and sliced into 1/4 inch pieces
20 large shitake mushrooms, sliced
1 bunch scallions, washed and sliced into wedgy-julienne (long diagonal slices, turning the scallion after each cut so that the layers of each slice will separate )
1 small red jalapeno, cut into fine dice
1 tsp vegetable oil

1/2 cup toasted almond slivers

For sauce:

2 tbsp soy sauce or tamari
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp agave syrup
1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/3 cup chicken broth

Combine all sauce ingredients except chicken broth, and taste. Should taste balanced, a little sweet, a little sour, a little salty. Add half the sauce to a bowl with the sliced raw chicken to marinate, and then add the chicken broth to the remaining sauce to use during cooking.

Heat a large saute pan or a wok over high heat. Add vegetable oil, then the chicken, and brown lightly on all sides until chicken is cooked through. Remove from the pan and reserve. Add mushrooms and bok choy and saute for several minutes, until bok choy leaves wilt and their stems turn bright green and soften. Add sauce as needed to prevent sticking or the bottom of the pan getting brown & crusty. Add jalapeno and scallions, and saute for two more minutes, until the scallions soften. Add toasted almonds and serve with brown rice.

Serves 4.

If you have leftovers, combine the stirfry and rice, and saute in a little extra vegetable oil with an egg for some tasty fried rice.

Let Me See Your Tongs...

The next best thing to an opposable thumb. Tongs cost around $3 in a restaurant supply store, and they're indispensable for turning scallops or chicken or sausages or anything relatively sturdy you happen to be sauteing, for tossing salads, for extracting bay leaves, etc, etc etc. When I'm cooking in someone else's kitchen, tongs are usually the utensil I'm most jonesing for (unless the knives are dull and there's no sharpener.) Get yourself some tongs, friends, you'll be super psyched!