Balayya Again!!

As when I get busy, I bring to you some more entertainment yet again.
I am shifting my home, and will shift city too in a week or two. Broadband has been disconnected.. Will blog now and then, but then I couldn't publish the curry mela this weekend.

But I am damn sure this Balayya Magic will more than make up for it. Very entertaining... Much Fun comes.....

Triple Lemon Grilled Arctic Char

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Everything is daisy-sunshine happiness these days. Summer rocks!

In other words...what's not to like?

Brilliance!

*grin*

And me, I'm taking the summer one day at a time. Lots of relaxing and lots of tooling around thinking about the wonder of it all.

And one great place to spend an hour or so is one of our lovely outdoor markets.

I'm sure you know (or have maybe read), the SoCal farmers markets are a bit of a dream in terms of edible options. A cornucopia if you will.

So if you are open minded, flexible with your menu and willing to try new things (and eat a lot of fruit) it really can be a guilt free and lovely day-time excursion.

Phew.

So here is my recipe for a grilled triple lemon fish - ingredients for which can usually be found year round at any good farm stand. Sustainable, delicious, delightful. Perky too. Zippy, really, if you must know. And except for the pepper, it all came from my local farmers market.

I only wish I had captured a better shot of this before we ate it on down...

Now try this my peaches, and taste the joy.


6 each lemons
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup black olives, diced, dry cured such as Gaeta
4 each Arctic Char, fish steaks, six ounces apiece
1/4 cup olive oil
1 each lemon, zested and juiced
1 teaspoon pink peppercorn, coarsely ground
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt

Combine the honey and lemon juice and set aside until ready to grill.

Marinate the fish in the lemon oil, olive oil, lemon juice and zest, pink pepper and salt at room temperature for no longer than 1 hour.

Using vegetable peeler, remove peel (yellow part only) from lemons in long strips. Squeeze 6 tablespoons juice from lemons. Blanch peel in small saucepan of boiling water 30 seconds; drain. Bring 6 tablespoons of the lemon juice, olive oil, canola oil, garlic, and pinch of salt to simmer in small saucepan. Add lemon peel and simmer over low heat until peel is soft, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the black olives.



Preheat your grill.

Grill the fish for 7 minutes per inch, basting once with the honey-lemon glaze. Remove and serve with lemon confit as garnish.

© 2008 Fresh Approach Cooking

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© 2008 Rachael at "Fresh Approach Cooking" www.freshcatering.blogspot.com This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, or at the aforementioned url, the site you are looking at is guilty of infringing upon terms of copyright. And generally cheesing me off.

The city of Beverly Hills gave final approval Tuesday night on a deal that will bring a local restaurant from Thomas Keller, the only American chef with two 3-star establishments.Keller will be opening one of his casual-dining Bouchon bistros in Beverly Hills by fall 2009.

Popcorn was $11 for 20 lbs in January of this year. It's now $17 for the same bag.

Taco Seasoning: Getting away from pre-made mixes.

Whew. It's been a long week. My son's All-Star team played 5 games and had 2 practices in the last 8 days. They played hard and did a great job, but ended up losing the district championship game today. The boys were very disappointed and had their moment of sadness and tears - my son cried in the car and his friend (who came over for a sleepover tonight) confessed to crying in the bathtub, but guess where those two are right now as I type? Yep. Outside playing baseball. It's hard to see them lose, but they've been playing since February and football starts in 2 weeks, so it's not necessarily such a bad thing either. And now maybe my stomach won't be in knots every other day! Anyway, they may still have energy, but I'm wiped out, so I'll be keeping this one simple.

Taco Seasoning

Taco seasoning. This is one thing I've been very lazy about - simply out of habit and pure laziness, I repeatedly reach for the pre-made taco seasoning at the store. I've been trying to get away from unwanted added ingredients, so I when I reached for it the other day, I forced myself to turn the package over and look at the ingredient list. Yep, there they were - stuff like MSG and partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Blech. So I put the seasoning back on the shelf. Surely it couldn't be THAT hard to make my own!

I did a little surfing and found this recipe over at AllRecipes. With over 900 reviews and a 5-star rating, I figured it was a pretty safe bet. And it was. Flavorful and with just the right amount of heat for us. This recipe ended up making about 3 tablespoons of seasoning which, for us, seasoned 1 pound of ground beef.

Next time I'll make up extra and keep it in the freezer. Very easy to throw together, but still that familiar taco flavoring we know and love. Our tacos were definitely a bit elevated that night.....we made our own seasoning and used grass-fed ground beef from a local farmer. Now if I had made my own taco shells............

Blogging By Mail - Fantastic Treats!!!

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First, before I start gushing and getting all over the top and grateful, I should explain that I took part in Blogging By Mail, an event that really is just the best thing ever.

In brief, participants names and addresses are added to the virtual pot, then names are drawn and voila, everyone gets a few little treats in the mail. All of this courtesy of Stephanie at uber-blog Dispensing Happiness. Is that a good time waiting to happen or what?

And now, on the the gushing...

Oh WOW. I feel like I won a prize package or something!

I got a simply lovely, and truly generous and kind package from that dear, sweet, love of a woman Brilynn of everyone's favorite site Jumbo Empanadas. She not only drew me a card (so sweet!) but she included a shot glass with the Canadian Maple leaf on it (it's as if the dear-heart just knew I love a good shot of Canadian Whiskey every here and again. And again.) then there were two sets of mini fluted tart molds (Oh the possibilities!) not one, but two Coffee Crisp bars (which have yet to be devoured) a giant bag of one of my all time favorite spices, paprika, from Toronto's House of Spice. (So nice! So nice!).

But wait, there's more!

She included a really fun peeler that actually does a julienne strip and a packet of Bali Breeze tea from The Language of the Leaf. (Canadian businesses sure do have excellent names, don't they! Love it!) That smells too good to be true. There was a Fair trade (yeah!), organic (yeah!) Cocoa Camino Matcha Green Tea candy bar that I ate in small nibbles, enjoying every moment of. And to tempt my sweet tooth even more, there are two pieces of candy that I am going to have to ask her about directly, since I cannot identify them.

My very mostest favorite thing was a bag of dried strawberry candies that were so sweet and juicy I almost wanted to pinch them! (What can I say, that's my reaction to sweet and juicy things.)

And last but not least, that gem of a woman included a copy of the film Waitress. Seriously folks, is she a peach or what.

I know its a bit strange to read me post about a few things I got in the mail, but I am so touched by Brilynn's spirit and the whole spirit of this event that I hope you are inspired and will sign up for the next round. My heart is so full of joy right now!

Of course, I was a bit of a slacker in mailing my gifty out, but there is a package on it's way to Little Spatula in Naperville, IL right now, so hopefully it will be there soon...(Update: It arrived!)

Thank you again to Brilynn for her wonderful package, and to Stephanie for organizing such a thing, and to you all for reading my silly little blog.

Kisses,
Rachael

© 2008 Fresh Approach Cooking

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© 2008 Rachael at "Fresh Approach Cooking" www.freshcatering.blogspot.com This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, or at the aforementioned url, the site you are looking at might be guilty of infringing upon terms of copyright. That means YOU, "Collection of Cooking Recipes"!!! Stop stealing!!!!

If only life were as easy as pie. - Tagline for the movie Waitress

All Cocoa Camino products are certified organic and Fair Trade Certified. This means that the ingredients have been produced in an environmentally sustainable manner and that Fair Trade prices and premiums have been paid to farmers for their cocoa and sugar. - Cocoa Camino

Food prices are affecting the bottom line at restaurants nationwide. Last year the $28 tuna au poivre entree at Boston's Chez Henri was eight ounces of fish. Now it's five. "I can't allow my food costs to go up because then I won't be in business," says chef and owner Paul O'Connell. - WSJ.com

More Strawberries....

Well, we ended up making good use of our 16 quarts of strawberries and except for the 2 bags I froze, they are gone. But I think I know where I could score some more........

Father's Day fell shortly after our strawberry picking so I decided that strawberries were definitely going to be on the menu. I made a special desert that I've never made before - strawberry shortcake. When I think of dessert, I tend to think in terms of chocolate, but as the years pass, I've begun to think beyond chocolate and embrace other kinds of dessert.........and with delicious results.

Strawberry Shortcake

This recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food sounded delicious and looked easy to make - my kind of recipe. I also loved that the recipe called for making shortcake biscuits, creating individual shortcake portions. Somehow desserts just seem more special when everyone gets their very own portion with no slicing or cutting.

Shortcake biscuits are somewhat scone-like. They are subtly sweet and a bit crumbly, so be sure to let them cool completely and cut them with a very sharp and/or serrated knife. The biscuits are topped with strawberries that have been steeped with sugar to bring out their juices, followed dollop of homemade whipped cream with just a touch of vanilla. Top it off with the other half of the biscuit and you have a beautiful little dessert portion that comes together in no time.

This dessert was extra special because not only did we make it with strawberries we picked ourselves, I also scored some cream from a local dairy at our local farmer's market and used eggs from a small organic farm in our county that sells to a natural foods store in our area.

For a different twist on strawberry shortcake, check out eggs on sunday's twist involving chocolate. Too bad I didn't see that post before I made these! But then again, I'm trying to branch out, right?

More on our Father's Day menu to come....including a delicious basil-stuffed scallop recipe....

Good old Meat and Potatoes!

Since my family has been so tolerant of my recent run on vegetarian recipes, I decided to "reward" them with a good old comfort food meal of meat and potatoes.

I read good reviews of a pot roast recipe on the CLBB, so I gave it a try. I used my Le Creuset Dutch oven - it's not oval, but the chuck roast (2.5-3 pounds) fit in it just fine. I followed the recipe pretty much exactly, but I used little white creamer potatoes instead of Yukon gold.

Classic Beef Pot Roast

Once everything was finished cooking I had DH shred the meat while I dealt with the potatoes. Instead of eating the potatoes as is, I decided to mash them - along with a bit of light sour cream, a bit of cream cheese and a bit of butter. This was a great way to make mashed potatoes - cooking the potatoes right along with the roast allowed them to soak up a little more flavor and saved an extra cooking pot to wash later. They were delicious.

Overall, the recipe was very good, but I think we might prefer the Merlot Pot Roast. However, I'm glad we tried this recipe - I definitely will cook the potatoes like this again.

Two Toned Melon Gazpacho

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Now mind you, I am not the only woman vying for The Ombudsman’s time. Sure, his quality time is spent with me, (or so I like to think. Being that kind of friend) but he also spends some hours with The Historical Babe, doing all sorts of bendy yoga maneuvers and dining on raw foods.

Seriously, it seems as if they're always getting massages and doing all sorts of calming activities. It's sexy stuff.

So when I ran in to them outside of the very chic and delightful Akasha restaurant in when-did-this-place-become-cool Culver City the other night, I wasn't the slightest bit surprised. Having just eaten there myself in the company of everybody's favorite Texan, Pace, I was able to vouch for it's excellence and tranquil vibe.

The ideal spot for the health and environment conscious who still want a super star meal.

What is so darn-tastic loveroo about it is that they are all about the whole grains and locally sourced biz-nizz. Makes a girl happy. Plus, the food is just dreamy fabulocity. All earthy and groovy without getting too darned granola. (Not that I don't love my granola-eatin' peeps mind you, but this restaurant is just not that vibe) In other words, it gets my kudos rating.

Having split a roasted artichoke, tomato tart (so delish!), short ribs and a summertime trio of desserts (yum. rhubarb. yum.) I did think I may have gone a bit on the heavy side for such a postcard perfect evening. So the next day, with my farmers market bounty calling, I made this fun soup duo to balance things out. Light for heavy. Vegetable for animal.

Easy as can be to zip together and a visual delight to present. It's light and refreshing and just what a girl needs on a lazy summer day. Especially after sampling Akasha's key lime and hibiscus cocktails...

So do try this my peaches and taste the joy.

4 each tomatoes, 2 red, 2 yellow
4 cups melon, 1/2 watermelon, 1/2 cantaloupe
2 each bell pepper, 1 red, 1 yellow
2 each jalapeno chile pepper, one red, one green
2 each cucumber, peeled and seeded
2 cloves garlic
3/4 cup olive oil
4 teaspoons sherry vinegar
2 cups white bread , crusts removed
2 tablespoons sugar, as needed
2 tablespoons tomato paste
salt and pepper
3 bunches chervil , optional, for garnish


In a food processor, combine all of the red ingredients (including all of the tomato paste) and half the garlic, olive oil , vinegar and bread. Taste and adjust seasoning, adding sugar only if needed.

Clean out the food processor bowl and do the same with the yellow ingredients, (excluding the tomato paste) taste and adjust seasoning (salt, sugar, vinegar) as needed.

Refrigerate each batch until chilled.

To serve, you can either pour the two colors into a bowl simultaneously (side by side) or use chef rings (round cookie cutters) to make a bulls-eye pattern. You can also use a toothpick, drawing out from the center to create a pattern.

Garnish with chervil and serve.

© 2008 Fresh Approach Cooking
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© 2008 Rachael at "Fresh Approach Cooking" www.freshcatering.blogspot.com This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, or at the aforementioned url, the site you are looking at is guilty of infringing upon terms of copyright. And generally cheesing me off.

Stellar Organics Wine from South Africa is the top selling organic wine brand in the UK. Organic wine is now the largest sector in the organic alcohol category, and accounts for 56% of its sales; which with an extra 267,000 shoppers buying organic wine this year compared to last year, is an increase of 42% year on year. Stellar's wines are organic and Fairtrade, the only wine to gain both labels. – Harpers.co.uk

It costs farmers £1.45 to produce a kilo of pork, according to BPEX (the British Pig Executive), which represents the pork industry. At the beginning of 2008 supermarkets sold pork for £1.05 a kilo, and by May - eight months after farmers had started bearing the increased cost of feed - it had still only gone up to £1.20 a kilo. 78 per cent of the British public said they were prepared to pay more for pork to help farmers who have been campaigning for a better price. - BBC