THERE'S A FUNGUS AMOUNG US

Alright I’ve had it with all this snooty white truffle oil and shaved truffles and morel consommé crap…There must be something wrong with me ‘cause I don’t like morel mushrooms and truffles (the pig excavated kind not the luscious chocolate kind) make me want to yak. I mean that “earthy” flavor that everyone loves so much – well I usually try to wash the dirt OFF my food, so ya lost me there. I mean I gotta ask you, who really would gleefully pay hundreds of dollars a pound for well, pig chow? The truffle is a fungi, now my mom was pretty adamant about foot washing so’s you didn’t get a fungus. Okay, not very scientific, so lets get scientific

Go to Wikipedia and check out truffles I dare you…

Truffle describes a group of edible mycorrhizal (subterranean) fungi (genus Tuber, class Ascomycetes, division Mycota)…Click on ascomycetes you get… Members of the Division Ascomycota are known as the Sac Fungi and are fungi that produce spores in a distinctive type of microscopic sporangium called an ascus (Greek for a "bag" or "wineskin").
SAC!?!? Nice very nice indeed.

Back to the pigs for a minute…Do you know WHY pigs are used to find truffles? Okay so dogs are too but they need to be TRAINED to find truffles – not so pigs…read on:

“Looking for truffles in open ground is almost always carried out with specially trained pigs or dogs. Pigs were the most used in the past, but nowadays farmers prefer to use dogs, which do not eat the truffles (Dogs won’t eat them?!?! But dogs lick their butts!). Both pigs and dogs have keen senses of smell, but while dogs must be trained to the scent of truffles, female pigs or sows need no training whatsoever. This is due to a compound within the truffle which has an uncanny resemblance to the sex pheromone of male pigs or boars to which the sow is keenly attracted. It may have been the strange attraction that pigs have to these fungi which prompted its discovery by early human populations.”

EEE-YUCK!!!!!! OH-MY-GAWD!

Enough already, I can’t stand it any more!!!! Does this not look like a giant poo?

CUTE FOOD REDUX

Okay, so I did decided on a use for the cutie pie zucchini. I went with the keep-it-simple-stupid method. Figuring that they would be rather delicate like a baby zucchini, I simply tossed them with some S&P, garlic and olive oil. I could not wait to pop them on the grill and get some itty bitty grill marks! Well, I got the grill marks (sorry no photo – it was late and we were hungry!) and yes they were really cute. We tasted them and well, what did they taste like?

Zip. Zero. Nada!

What a disappointment, they were totally lacking flavor, somehow even the garlic was diminished by the lack of - well – taste of any kind. So, next time, I’ll just take a pretty picture and leave it at that!

CUTE FOOD

Globe Zucchini

Okay so it's been eons since I last posted - no excuse just too darned busy. But today when I was in the grocery store I saw the cutest little zucchini and well, I just couldn't resist. They we so sweet looking and tiny I just had to bring them home - kinda like a kitten! These little guys aren't much bigger than golf balls - which we have zillions of hanging around. The fabulous M being a very good golfer.

Not sure what I plan to do with them, but stay tuned I'll figure out something - well - cute - to do with them!

Shrimp with Mango Sauce

SHRIMP WITH MANGO CITRUS SAUCE RECIPE

I love to cook as you might have guessed. But I really like to cook for guests. Life being what it is – busy and completely void of time…we don’t get to entertain as much as we would like. Of course the fact that I make a huge production out of most dinner parties could be the reason. I plan way ahead, I write menus, then change them, then change them again until I have what I think is the perfect meal.

The occasion? My brother and his wife are making the trip to my place for dinner. What’s the big deal? I live a cut lunch away from everyone in my family – far enough that you can’t just drop by, yet close enough that you have no excuse to not make the journey once in a while.

Now, I have several appetizers that I rotate, and this time I have decided on one of my favorites (did I mention that my menus only contain things that I love to eat?); Seared Shrimp with wilted bitter greens and Mango Citrus Sauce. The shrimp are simple and hot while the sauce is multi layered and cold (if all goes well in the plating!). The greens add a nice greenness (is that a word) to round out the whole plate.

I know I got the idea for this sauce from a magazine, but I scribbled it in a note book and have no idea what magazine it was. I can tell you that it was at least 10 year ago that I started making this. So to give credit where credit is due, this sauce is an inspiration, not an invention. Thank you to the unknown cooking magazine Gods for the help!

Cool and Refreshed!

HONEYDEW MELON SORBET

Yet another hot and humid evening here is New England - not that I am complaining it beats snow every time! The sticky heat gave me an excuse to bring out the Ice Cream Maker that M gave me a few weeks ago. I have to say this little gem has definitely earned it's keep!

Over the past few weeks we have luscious cool sorbet on hand at all times. I wowed the kids (okay so they are all grown up, but they are still kids to me!) on Father's Day with a selection of sweet sugar free sorbet for dessert instead of my usual cheesecake - still watching that waist line!

Last night I was too hot to bother with dinner, ya know how sometimes it's just too e-ooey to eat a heavy meal? Well, I happened to have some melon sorbet base already made so refreshment was just a moments away!

This base was adapted from Alton Brown's recipe, but I have used splenda and left out the alcohol as it seems to make the sorbet more granita-like. I also added a little fresh ginger juice - a fantastic combination!

Like my other sugar free sorbets, this sorbet does not benefit from too long a stay in the deep freeze. Make sure you don't over process in the machine, you want a soft serve texture not a granita (scraped ice). A good idea if you want to make this more than an hour ahead is to put the sorbet on the door, not deep inside your freezer.

Okay, so it's not food...

Bearded Iris - up close and personal!

Too hot to cook but not too hot to walk the property and reap the rewards of many hours of digging in the dirt!

Dinner Interrupted - First Course

Cream of Watercress & Zucchini Soup


So, you plan you buy you create and what happens? Your guest gets sick. Of course you show the appropriate amount of concern for the ailing party, I mean they must be at death’s door if they have to miss one of my fabulous dinners right? But, now what do you do, you have a fridge full of food that you normally would not have around – who keeps a 3 pound filet mignon hanging around the fridge.

Do you freeze and have franks and beans instead? Nope – you have a beautiful dinner for two.

First course; a pale green zucchini and watercress soup adapted from Emeril Live on the Food Network. This soup is smooth, tasty and a great starter - almost all veggie but still thick and creamy. I cut the cream down to half, but you can skip the cream altogether for a healthier soup without loosing the silky texture. It has become a standard in my entertaining repertoire.

Dog Blogging Weekend

Doin' the Happy Dance!

This is my reward for a particularly nice breakfast! We call it the happy dance - he calls it just plain fun!

Polenta for Lunch

Who says impulse buying is bad!

Every once in a while you pick up something totally new when you go to the store, with no idea of what you plan to do with it. It kind of hangs around waiting for an inspiration that causes you to bring it out of the fridge and make it fantastic. Well such was the case with a roll of ready basil polenta. I have always liked the idea of polenta – I've just never gotten around to making it.

The day started on a completely different note - with tomatoes. Last week while I was at the bulk food store I came across a huge package of roma tomatoes. Their bright red color immediately made me think of slow roasting. It was rainy cold and yucky so what better day to turn the oven on and fill the house with warmth and yummy smells. Besides, they are a good thing to have in the fridge for a quick sauce or just on a cracker with some nice wine. Now everyone has their own recipe for slow roasting or oven drying, what ever you want to call it. I go for roasting because I don't dry the tomatoes out completely. I like them still moist and a bit soft, but not fresh tasting.

I had popped the tomatoes in the oven early in the morning and gone about my house work. It wasn’t long before the smell of garlic and oregano started to fill the place. Every time M or I passed through the kitchen it was an occasion to say “Wow that smells great!”

When noon time rolled around we went through the usual laundry list of what to have for lunch. Sandwich? No. Soup? No. Gee that smells good. Take out? No. Then - I swear a light bulb actually popped up over my head – the polenta jumped into my mind. An idea!

I grilled up medallions of the polenta topped them with a fresh basil leaf (who doesn’t always have fresh basil on hand, right?), a fragrant tomato right from the oven and some cheese. Whip the whole thing under the broiler to brown the cheese and you’ve got yourself something pretty special. Wow. Needless to say M and I were quite pleased with this little inspiration. It’s nice to have a special lunch once in a while were you actually eat something nice on a pretty plate, instead of something you just grab and eat with your hands.

In a larger portion, I liked this as a lunch, but it would hold its own quite well as a first course – or cut the polenta into bit size pieces and serve as an hors d'oeuvre.

GRILLED POLENTA WITH ROASTED TOMATO RECIPE

Guilt Free Strawberry Sorbet - Almost

Summer in a bowl!

It was very warm this past weekend and I had a real hankering for some ice cream. I have to admit to a significant amount of whining. Now for this reason and that, we try to keep sugar out of the house. Lately fatty food has been fooda-non-grata too. Yeah, yeah, I know; what is a chocolate lover doing banishing sugar and fat?!?! Well, that’s just the way it is – most of the time - of course I fall off the wagon a lot, but I try. Then, the fabulous M had a brilliant idea – let’s have some sugar free, low fat ice cream – he’d even buy me a present - an ice cream maker.

Well, just the thought of a present made me take notice, but sugar free AND fat free ice cream? What’s the point? Never one to turn down a present, especially a kitchen power tool – I hopped in the car and away we went shopping.

Luckily I haven’t gotten over my need for strawberries yet…and since I have a new toy why not use both! I carefully read the instructions while depositing my tank in the freezer for an unbearable 6 hrs! I tweaked the provided Strawberry Sorbet recipe and replaced the sugar with Splenda. I left the corn syrup in though as I was concerned about crystallization, so there is still a bit of "sugar" left in the recipe. I chopped, I whirred, I chilled and then it was time to deposit my creation into my new toy!

In a surprisingly short amount of time I had a beautiful soft serve textured sorbet that was an explosion of strawberries and sweetness in the mouth. I diligently followed the instructions to "ripen" the sorbet in the freezer for 2 hours…kind of a mistake! Because I hadn’t used a true sugar syrup, my sorbet turned a bit hard due to crystallization. Next time I will cut the curing to about 45 minutes before eating. A little time to melt on the counter helped, but the texture was not as “creamy” as it could have been. It is definitely a sacrifice I am willing to make though, for something I can eat with wild abandon and zero guilt! The flavor was still great, it was low sugar (not sugar free, bummer) and completely FAT FREE. I’ll make this again…and again…and again.

STRAWBERRY SORBET RECIPE