Summer

by

Friday Dance Party – Luck Be A Lady Tonight

It’s time for Friday Dance Party here on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

It’s time for a little vacation for us here on Glen Road.  We’ve decided to head out to Las Vegas.  Nothing is smarter than leaving Connecticut when it’s 99 degrees outside and heading to Las Vegas where it is 107 degrees!  Don’t worry that we will go up in flames and melt into the desert.  For the most part, we hardly go outside.  If you do, it is usually off to the pool where you can find a cabana to shield you from the sun or misters that blow water on you to keep you cool.  While we like to gamble, we also like a few days in Las Vegas to hit up a few restaurants, see some shows and just have fun.  But back to the gambling…..it would be nice to win a little bit of money.  I’m not talking millions (well, maybe I am), but at least enough to cover the cost of our trip.  It just never really seems to happen.  We must not have that much luck.  That’s where Frank Sinatra comes in.  I’ve decided if I listen to this week’s song “Luck Be A Lady Tonight” over and over and over, then I will get enough luck to win some money.  Either that or I’ll get so sick of listening to the song, I will never want to listen to it again.  So, turn your speakers up a little and go back in time with Frank on his wish for luck.  You’ll notice Frank does a little dancing and you should too.  You’ve made it through another week and deserve it.  If you don’t hear from us again, you’ll know that we hit it big and are looking for our new house in Beverly Hills.  Wouldn’t that be great!?!

by

Restaurant Field Trip – The Whelk

Last year at about this time, we visited Le Farm restaurant in Westport, CT.  The restaurant’s owner and head chef, Bill Taibe, is one of the leaders in the area for the farm to table movement, where fresh food is bought from local farmers, brought into his restaurant and served to his customers.  In January of this year, Bill Taibe opened up his latest restaurant, The Whelk, along the water in Westport.  This new restaurant is heavily concentrated on seafood.  Just like Le Farm, The Whelk shares the same artisanal philosophy, using as many fresh and locally grown ingredients as possible.  The Whelk is also focused on fresh and sustainable seafood.

Question:  So, you are asking, what is a whelk?  The answer is below.

While the Whelk is just above the Saugatuck River, the windows in the rectangular dining area face the street, not the water.  Yet the interior has the feel of an informal seafood shack with large harbor lights hung above the bar and slatted picnic chairs and benches, the kind you might find outdoors at a roadside spot.  During our visit, there were eight main course offerings, but it is the smaller plates and appetizers that were the draw for us.  The food that we ate was so good, we are planning to return for a second round next week.  Come see what we ate at our first visit to The Whelk:

We started off with appetizers and small plates.  As in a typical seafood shack, our first courses were served on plates covered in newspaper.  Here is one BBQ little neck clam left from a plate of eight.  These were fresh clams with a little bit of BBQ sauce and bacon placed on top before being placed under the broiler for a few minutes.  These clams went fast.

Another favorite was the hot smoked trout dip served with trout roe and crackers and bread.

We have a friend who says she has never met a potato that she doesn’t like.  Here are some french fries with ketchup and a delicious smoked mayo.

A good wine that was recommended to us by our server.  The Whelk has a large list of by-the-glass and by-the-bottle wines.  This French selection was a little more acidic than I would normally like, but that worked well with the seafood that we ate during our visit.

One of my favorites!  Gulf shrimp and grits with pickled jalapeno-ramp butter and country ham.  Reminds me of our trip to Charleston, SC.

One of the more unique offerings the night we were there.  This is squid ink cavatelli with red shrimp, mexican chorizo and preserved tomatoes.

Cornmeal fried catfish with early summer slaw and walnut-pepper romesco (partly devoured at time of photo).

Rare seared line caught tuna with bacon and black olive and green pea dressing.  An offering that was limited, but we were lucky enough to “snag” one.  Get the seafood joke here?!?

My vote for “Best Of Show”.  Norman’s (we don’t know who Norman is, but he is a man with good taste) lobster butter with leeks, peas and fingerling potatoes.  We were told this is a lobster that is slowly poached and then removed from its shell.  The poaching liquid is then reduced and the lobster meat is added back along with the potatoes, peas and leeks.

What’s dinner without some dessert?  The Whelk offered a small and homey dessert menu for us to choose from.

A quickly devoured set of Whoopie Pies.  These pies never disappoint.

Two at a time…a magic bar in the background with butterscotch and sea salt.  In the front is a meyer lemon posset with cornmeal cookies.  Yummy!

As in our visit to Le Farm, we all left full and happy.  Like I said, we’ll be back on Tuesday so that shows how good The Whelk is.  If you are around Westport, you need to give The Whelk a try.  If you are like us, one trip just won’t be enough.

Answer:  So what is a whelk?  A predatory marine mollusk (family Buccinidae) with a heavy, pointed spiral shell, some kinds of which are edible.  As Bill Taibe has said, calling his restaurant Le Mer would have been too easy.

by

A Plant I Like

Most people who have seen my garden this season have asked me what the giant thistle is.  Believe it or not, the plant is a giant thistle better known as a globe artichoke.  Each year, I try to plant one or two things that I have never grown before.  In the past, this has included kholrabi, fennel and broccoli raab.  After the Notorious B. I. G. (Brooklyn Italian Grandmother) made fried artichokes for us, I decided that the artichoke was going to be in my garden for the first time this season.

The globe artichoke (Cynara cardunculus var. scolymus) is a perennial thistle of the genus Cynara originating in Southern Europe around the Mediterranean. It grows tall, with arching, deeply lobed, silvery-green leaves 10–20 inches long.  The flowers develop in a large head from an edible bud about 3–5 inches in diameter with numerous triangular scales.  The individual florets are purple.  The edible portion of the buds consists primarily of the fleshy lower portions and the base, known as the “heart”; the mass of immature florets in the center of the bud is called the “choke” or beard.  These are inedible in older larger flowers.

I grew my plants from seeds under the grow light in the basement.  The seeds are a variety known as Imperial Star.  Specifically bred for annual production, Imperial Star produces artichokes the first season from seed.  Typically 6-8 mature buds, averaging 3-4 inches in diameter, are grown per plant.  Imperial Star plants grow 3-4 feet tall.

My artichoke plants in the garden have really flourished.  They seem to grow every hot and humid day that we have.  So far, they have required little, if any, special attention.  The next phase should be the flowering of the plants and then the formation of the artichoke that we know and can eat.  I’ll keep you posted on our fun new find as the plants continue to mature during this gardening season.

P. S. –  for those of you who read the cabbage murder mystery post, notice my sad cabbage plants in the back of this picture.  As well, notice the bowl of beer or as we call it in my garden, the slug’s swimming pool.  Not looking good for some home-grown cabbage this year!!

by

What’s Blooming – Another Virtual Garden Tour

This is one of my begonias that opened up a number of fiery hot blooms this week.  This begonia, ‘Bonfire,’ is a variety of tuberous B. boliviensis.  It wasn’t the only fiery hot thing going one here at Glen Road this week.  The weather actually decided to push up to 100 degrees for several days this week meaning lots of watering to keep the garden supple.  Come with me to see what else was braving the heat and blooming full and lush this week.  Besides begonia ‘Bonfire’, here’s what else was out there in full glory:

So tell me, what’s blooming in your neck of the woods?

by

Friday Dance Party – Kiss Me Again

It’s time for another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

So it is now officially Summer and, to properly bring the new season in, temperatures have soared to 100 degrees.  Needless to say, we have not gone out of the office or house much other than to get the mail or get into one of our air-conditioned cars.  100 degrees is just way too hot!!  Every year, the promise of Summer always makes me think of the same few things.  So from the official start of Summer that occurred on June 20, to the official end of Summer on September 21, here’s what I’ll be concentrating on:

  1. Vacation plans –  I mean, it is a shame not to go someplace and enjoy the warm Summer weather.
  2. How white my legs are – like Foster Farms chicken pieces laid beneath clear plastic wrap in the grocery store, my legs are that same yellowish-white color.  It is embarrassing.  Why is it that I only notice them well into official shorts weather?
  3. Sunglasses – I don’t really wear sunglasses at all, except in Summer.  So the new season always puts me into a panic until I have located my stash of prescription and non-prescription sunglasses.  I’m always scared that I have lost them.
  4. Hamburgers and hot dogs – both of these foods become my favorite when Summer hits.  Nothing like them hot off the grill.
  5. Garden hoses and nozzles – Summer means plant watering and so it is time to drag all our watering equipment out of the shed and install them into spigots in the front and back of the house.
  6. Weight – how I wish I would have stuck to my beginning-of-year diet so that I would be all thin and buff this year when I remove my shirt and jump into the swimming pool.

I also think a lot about what Summer music I will be listening to in the car or around the pool and which of these songs will be the favorite hit of the Summer.  I already know my first Summer song choice for 2012.  It’s from ‘We Are The In Crowd”.  They are an American pop punk band from Poughkeepsie, New York, formed in 2009.  If you are like me, you are saying what is pop punk?  Pop punk is a music genre that combines elements of punk rock with pop music, to varying degrees.  The genre is a strand of alternative rock, which typically merges pop melodies with speedy punk tempos, chord changes and loud guitars.  Think Green Day.  Whatever it is, I’m a fan with ‘Kiss Me Again’.  It’s Summertime!!  Not only have we made it through another week, we’ve made it through another season.  Be happy and celebrate with some pop punk and, if you are really talented, bust out all of your old punk rock moves and astound your family and friends.  In other words, have fun dancing while you watch the horror on other people’s faces who are watching your hot dance moves.  Just don’t get too over-heated…remember, it’s 100 degrees outside.

by

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words – Twisted Sister

This is a tangled and twisted reminder that all of the clean up work from Hurricane Irene is not completed yet here in Connecticut.  This tree looks like it was pulled like a weed out of the garden….roots and all….and then tossed aside to wilt and die.  Maybe this is Medusa’s head with snakes growing from all sides?  Little by little, trees like this are getting cleared away in our community.  In time, the effects of the hurricane will be just a distant memory.  What does this mass of tree roots look like to you?

by

New Advances In Corn Bread Technology

This is fresh, hot corn bread being cut into six generous wedges for serving.  Corn bread seems to be a very sensitive topic for people in the South.  When we were on vacation, I saw more than a couple of restaurants that made claims to serving the best corn bread in Charleston.  One claim I saw said it was the best due to the use of white corn meal.  Another claim said that they had the best because they used local stone-ground yellow corn meal.  I didn’t know there were so many choices available in the art of corn bread making as I usually enjoyed the one and only Jiffy-boxed corn bread as a child and have rarely eaten corn bread as an adult.  Now that we are back in Connecticut and still cooking a lot of Southern classics, I decided to look around and determine what I would consider the best corn bread recipe on the market.  Here is the first contender, again from the ‘Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook‘.  Since they haven’t steered us wrong since our return, I figured I’d give their recipe the first shot.  What interested me in this recipe was the title, Crispy Corn Bread.  I was envisioning a soft center and a crispy and chewy crust on top and that is just what we got.  To achieve this crispy corn bread, all I needed was a 12 versus a 9 inch cast iron skillet.  The larger skillet is the trick to obtaining corn bread that has that delicious corn flavor and carmelized crust, but because the batter lies thinner in the pan and only gets up to about a half-inch thick, you double the crispiness of the bread while retaining its moistness.  Because the crust-to-crumb ratio is very high, this corn bread is like a moist flatbread with a big corn taste.

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups stone-ground cornmeal (yellow or white, the choice is yours)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons sugar (I added one more teaspoon than the recipe called for because I like it a little sweeter)
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 1/2 cups whole or low-fat buttermilk
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • Butter and honey (or whatever) for spreading

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Grease a 12-inch skillet with the butter, leaving any excess in the pan, and place it in the oven.

In a large bowl, sift the dry ingredients together.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg until frothy and then whisk in the buttermilk.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix thoroughly.  Melt the butter in a small pan over low heat and whisk the butter into the batter.

When the butter in the large skillet is smoking, carefully remove the skillet from the oven and swirl around the butter to coat the bottom and sides evenly.  Pour the batter into the skillet.  It should sizzle.  Bake for 15 minutes, or until the top of the bread is golden brown and the edge has pulled away from the side of the skillet.  Remove from the oven.  Cut the cornbread into 6 wedges in the skillet and serve hot, with the butter, honey or any other spread of your liking.

This corn bread was very good served in a big wedge beside our chicken-fried steak with vidalia cream gravy.  This was some good Southern eating.  Are you getting the point that I am in love with the Lee Bros. cookbook?  So far, no disappointments and some great food.  I’m giving this corn bread a score of 8 because I thought it needed to be a little sweeter (again, this is why I increased the sugar content in the recipe above).  Give this quick and easy corn bread recipe a try and enjoy the crispy crust the next time you are cooking up your favorite Southern dish.  Do you have any tricks for making good, old-fashioned corn bread?

by

Still Southern In Connecticut – Chicken Fried Steak

This is some more good Southern eating.  If you couldn’t tell, we have remained Southern ever since our return from our Charleston, South Carolina vacation.  We have continued to research and read about the South Carolina low country and cook from our Southern cookbooks.  Did you notice that I said cookbook(s)?  Yes, we started with one and are now up to three Southern cookbooks.  With the kind of food we’ve been eating, what could be bad with more cookbooks?  Our latest dish was Chicken-Fried Steak With Vidalia Cream Gravy.  The pros of the dish:  it was delicious with a crispy, fried batter covering a thin layer of steak and was seasoned perfectly thanks to a special dredge that utilizes corn meal, flour, bread crumbs and salt and pepper.  The cons:  it is a little messy to make because any time you have to dredge steak through a corn meal coating, egg and buttermilk and then more corn meal coating, you are going to have some mess.  The other con:  not all people are comfortable frying in front of a big pan of super hot oil.  If you can get over these two cons, then you will be in for some delicious Southern comfort food that was a big hit at our dinner table the other night.

Again, this recipe comes from the favorite of our new Southern cookbooks, ‘The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook’.  Chicken fried steak is a great example of where leaner, tougher and cheaper cuts of beef actually perform better than the fattier, tenderer rib eyes and strips.  The steak cooks really fast in the heated oil.  I started our dinner with some slices of super fresh heirloom tomatoes and mozzarella cheese drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette and some sea salt.

A big slab of cornbread was right beside the chicken fried steak and gravy.  Dessert was the remainder of our red velvet cake from the other day, since it kept very well in the refrigerator.  This meal made us proud to be Southern (ok, I know we are not, but I thought I’d slip that in).

Ingredients:

For the All-Purpose Fry Dredge:

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 6 tablespoons stone-ground cornmeal
  • 4 teaspoons salt
  • 3 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
  • A large sprinkling of bread crumbs for quick browning

A couple of notes:  this is a double batch from the original recipe in the cookbook.  I found that I needed more dredge than originally specified.  Also, it is important to find stone-ground cornmeal, which is much lighter and less coarse in consistency than non stone-ground.

Directions:

In a medium bowl, sift the flour, cornmeal, salt and pepper together twice.  Stir in the bread crumbs and turn out onto a flat surface and dredge according to recipe instructions making sure to shake off any excess.

Ingredients:

For the Chicken-Fried Steak and Vidalia Cream Gravy:

  • Peanut oil for frying
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • 1/2 cup whole or low-fat buttermilk
  • Four 6-ounce beef top round steaks, about 1/2 inch thick (look for meat labeled top round bracciole meat)
  • 1 jumbo Vidalia onion (about 12 ounces), trimmed, peeled and thinly sliced
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • Kosher salt to taste
  • 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth
  • 1/4 cup whole milk
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
  • All-purpose dredge

Directions:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.  Place an ovenproof platter on the top rack.  In a 12-inch skillet or saute pan with a candy thermometer clipped to it, place enough peanut oil into the pan to fill it to half way and heat the oil over medium-high heat to 350 degrees.

  Be careful…very hot!

Whisk the egg with the buttermilk and pour into a shallow bowl.  Place the fry dredge on a wide plate.  Working with 1 steak at a time, envelop the steak in a single sheet of plastic wrap and pound several times with a mallet to tenderize.  Coat the steak in the dredge and shake off any excess.  Dip in the egg wash to coat both sides.  Allow the excess to drip off and then coat again in the dredge.

  See, a little messy!!

Shake off the excess and place the steak immediately into the hot oil.  Fry, checking the temperature of the oil and adjusting the heat as necessary to maintain the temperature at 350 degrees, until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side.  Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels to drain off any excess oil and then transfer to the platter in the oven.  Repeat with each steak.

When all the steaks have been fried and are warming in the oven, discard the used oil in the skillet and return the skillet to the burner.  Add the onion, the butter and a pinch of salt and saute over medium-high heat until the onion is soft and translucent, about 4 minutes.

In a small bowl, vigorously whisk the flour into the broth until no lumps are left.  Pour the broth and the milk into the skillet and add the pepper.  Bring to a simmer and simmer gently, stirring, until the gravy has thickened to the consistency of melted ice cream.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

To serve, place the steaks on a dinner plate and ladle a generous amount of gravy over each.

Whoever came up with putting the crispy part of fried chicken onto a steak should be considered a genius.  The mellow cream gravy with the onions combined with the well-seasoned coating and the steak made for a delicious main course.  So we figure if we continue cooking like this for at least another week, we should get our honorary Southern citizenship papers or at least be allowed to speak with a slight Southern accent.  Change it up for your family and try this chicken fried steak and gravy recipe.  It is a delicious change of pace.  Have any of your vacations inspired you to change it up in your kitchen?

by

Friday Dance Party – Cobra Starship You Make Me Feel

This is another edition of Friday Dance Party on Acorns On Glen.  It’s the time where we give thanks for making it through another week and for being alive and present here on Earth.  How do we celebrate another week of living?  We dance.  So, are you alive this Friday?  Are you and your family safe and sound?  Take a few seconds now to be in the moment and realize what a great life you truly have.  Did you give thanks for that?

Good, now let’s dance.

I’ve decided that the chorus to this week’s song by Cobra Starship is how I’m going to start talking to people when I feel I am having a problem with them either at work or in a personal relationship.  Think about it, if every time you thought you had an issue with someone, you just brought them in and said “You make me feel so _____” and then “You make me feel that _____”, then wouldn’t the world would be a much happier place?  I’m the type of person that really bottles up my feelings when I am having a problem with someone.  Instead of clearing the air, I’ll walk around for days and not say a word or, at the very least, not say a word about how I’m really feeling.  This type of behavior usually manifests itself in an explosion of angry feelings directed toward the person weeks later when they do something unrelated to why I was having problems with them in the first place.  Not such a great plan from a relationship management perspective.  In fact, I’ve even caught myself writing somebody off for good for doing something to me versus sitting down and talking it out with them.  My new Cobra Starship method for issue resolution is going to change all that…starting now.  As you are dancing this week and celebrating another week of living, call someone over if you are having an issue with them and try our new technique.  Just hope that they don’t answer you back with “la la la la la” like in the song.  Have a great dance–you deserve it!  How are you at relationship management?

by

Good Eating – Hot Pepper Jelly

This is the easiest appetizer in the world to make.  For as easy and low-key as it was to make, it was the hit of the night.  It is some hot pepper jelly spooned over cream cheese.  When everyone took a cracker and dipped it into the jelly and cream cheese, there was not a person at our house that didn’t declare that this was delicious.  Why is this always the case?  The food you spend hours preparing is o.k., but the simplest fare, like our hot pepper jelly, is the rage of the evening.

To add insult to injury, I didn’t even make the jelly.  No, it was in a jar and comes from a company named Mrs. Sassard’s in South Carolina, a family run business that has been selling its home-made Southern specialties since 1917.  Now operated out of the family home, the company hopes to expand into larger space and add new equipment, products and a Web site over the next few years.  In addition to the jelly, Mrs. Sassard’s also makes and sells a number of other relishes and preserves, like artichoke relish and pumpkin chip preserves.

For the purists out there, I also have a recipe if you would prefer some homemade hot pepper jelly.

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh hot green pepper, such as jalapeno
  • 1 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
  • 6 cups sugar
  • 4 ounces pectin
  • 4 drops green food coloring
  • 6 (1/2-pint) canning jars with lids

Directions:

Process bell pepper and hot pepper in a food processor until finely minced.  Combine pepper mixture, vinegar and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil.  Remove from heat and add pectin and food coloring.  Pour into sterilized jars and seal according to USDA guidelines for sterilizing jars/lids and canning.

I know this doesn’t look like it would taste so good, but as they say, looks can really deceive.  Whether you track down a bottle of this jelly like I did or make your own, give this hot pepper jelly a chance at your next get together.  The peppery taste with a hint of heat mixed with the creamy texture of the cream cheese on a cracker can’t be beat.  Again, it is also so easy!  Have you ever eaten hot pepper jelly?