Fourth of July Dinner

When one thinks of 4th of July food, images of barbequed ribs, potato salad, and cherry pie usually come to mind. You know, real down home, all-American stuff. But 4th of July was a bit different for me this year. It's the first time I had celebrated without my family, I certainly don't have a grill in my tiny apartment, and on top of that, Trevor and I were planning to go up to the top of the hill to eat and watch the fireworks all across the bay. So I had to think a bit more creatively about what to pack for dinner.

I landed on chicken caesar salad sandwiches that I saw Ina Garten make and they were a home run. As I've mentioned before, Trevor and I have very different tastes and I'm always looking for ways to reconcile them. I typically hate caesar salad while he loves it. But when I saw these sandwiches, I knew we would both enjoy them. The have chicken (which was incredibly moist and delicious the way Ina suggested to prepare it), pancetta, peppery arugula, sun dried tomatoes, and big shards of parmesean cheese, all pilled on big slices of toasty ciabatta bread. Instead of making the dressing, I just bought a nice brand (on sale!) from the grocery store. Really, this sandwich was absolutely fantastic. Here's the recipe. Except for the dressing, I followed it exactly.




For dessert, I thought it would be fun to play with some of the summer fruits that are finally falling into season. I made a peach and blackberry crostata, which I thought would be great for a picnic dinner. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I could hardly move it from the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool without destroying it, let alone get it into some travel proof storage system an actually go somewhere with it. Luckily, police blocked off the entrance to the top of the hill, the marina (where the fireworks were) didn't allow cars to come through after 7:00, and the rooftop of my apartment was closed off so we ended up curling up on the couch and watching fireworks on TV.



I served the crostata with fresh whipped cream. The fruit was sweet and juicy and the crust was light and flaky, an excellent way to celebrate the flavors of the season. I followed this recipe from Smitten Kitchen nearly exactly, except I used peaches instead of nectarines and apricot preserves instead of peach. I probably should have actually read her article and not ust looked at the picture, because while I had much more luck with the pate brisee than she, I did have an excess of berry juices in my crostata.



Nevertheless, the evening turned out to be a very delicious 4th of July picnic dinner in my living room and it couldn't have been more perfect.

Guacamole: Nothing like a big bowl of Mexican dip on the day of our country's independence

Admittedly, posting on the fourth of July makes me a huge loser. Googling the word "admittedly" because I didn't know how to spell it probably makes me an even bigger loser, but no matter. In my defense, I just got back from a barbeque (which was oddly filled with Mexican food and drinks for the 4th of July), have laundry going and pate brisee chilling in the fridge, and my boyfriend is driving up to spend the rest of the holiday with me. I have a few minutes before the rest of the food preparation begins, so here's my 4th of July food post.

Guacamole. Delicious under almost any circumstances but made about a gazillion different ways. Here's one of my favorite ways to prepare guacamole, which I learned from a cooking club demonstration my freshmen year.



Guacamole

4 ripe avocados
1/2 of a white onion (I rarely use white onions because I like red and yellows much better but the clean crispness of whites cuts through the richness of the avocados really nicely), finely chopped
2 tomatoes, cores and water removed and roughly chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
Juice of 1 lime
1 bunch (about a cup) of fresh cilantro, chopped
Lots of salt and pepper to taste

Mix together onion, tomatoes, and cilantro (reserve a small handful for garnish). If you were to add a jalapeno, this would make a fine salsa fresca on its own. Let the salt season the tomatoes and onions for a few minutes.

Slice avocados in half, then slice down and across the face of each avocado, making half inch squares. Scoop the avocado out of its skin with a spoon and add to the tomato onion mixture. DO NOT mash them. Gently incorporate the avocado pieces, they will begin to break down a bit. However, you're after actual chunks of avocado in the guacamole, not avocados that have been mashed up like baby food.

Add garlic, lime juice, and more salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped cilantro. Let sit for about 20 minutes, then serve with tortilla chips or with carne asada. This makes plenty of guacamole to feed a crowd.

Fruit and Nut Granola Bars

I'm not a snacker. When I eat, I prefer to eat a meal. It's silly to waste part of my daily caloric intake on snacks, which seem trivial and meaningless while a meal is thought out, prepared, and purposeful. I guess what I'm saying is I'd rather satisfy my hunger with a giant burrito or a big bowl of risotto rather than eating a granola bar, a bag of chips, and an apple throughout the day.

But my job has taught me that snack time indeed has its place. Working with kids for 10 hours a day is just about the most exhausting thing I've ever done and there is snack time worked into the schedule for a reason. Snack is literally refueling your body and by 10:45 in the morning, I'm just about running on empty.

Granola bars are the perfect solution. They're nutritious, full of protein and fiber, and pretty darn tasty. But I didn't really want to spend my money at the store on second rate granola bars that are loaded with high fructose corn syrup. Since I'd been interested in making my own granola bars for a while, I thought this would be a perfect excuse.

They were delicious! Packed with tons of fruit and nuts, sweet and chewy with a slightly salty bite. They're not the easiest to make, and mine look a bit rustic to prove it. The only problem is, they are ridiculously expensive. All those fruits, nuts, seeds, and grains are what make granola bars so delectable in the first place, but they add up. Unfortunately, I think I'll be reverting to whatever's on sale at Safeway next week.

Anyways, here's the recipe I used. They really were tasty and definitely worth giving them a try.



Fruit and Nut Granola Bars - Adapted from this recipe, which I found online

2 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 sunflower seeds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 cup almonds
1 tsp. salt
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 325. Combine the oats, coconut, seeds, and almonds in a large bowl and mix with oil and salt. Spread the mixture onto a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper such that the parchment paper hangs over the sides of the pan. Just before the oat mixture is done, heat cinnamon, vanilla, peanut butter, honey, and brown sugar in a saucepan until the sugar is dissolved. When oat mixture is finished, return it to the bowl and mix well with liquid ingredients. Press into the parchment lined baking sheet and create a smooth, even surface with the back to a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Bake for 30 minutes and allow to cool completely.

When cooled, remove granola by lifting it out with the parchment paper edges. With a sharp knife, cut into bars. Package individual bars in saran wrap if desired or store in an airtight container.

Project Sack Lunch: Pasta Salad

I debated whether or not to share this with you. I mean, how much more boring can you get than pasta salad? It's nothing special, nothing fancy, and it has no bells or whistles. But nothing says summer to me quite like a pasta salad does. It's cool, light refreshing - perfect for a hot summer day - and filled with tons of vegetables and goodies. I think best of all is it's great picnic (or sack lunch as the case may be) food.

I really don't have a recipe. I'll tell you what I put in it but the proportions are up to you. Enough to make it feel colorful and festive I'd say. I like a pasta salad packed with veggies but some people prefer a gentle scattering. Feel free to mix and match veggies (I personally don't like fresh tomatoes until late August when they're at their peak so I used sundried tomatoes instead, but if you do, go for it). Sometimes I'll throw in cooked chicken if I've got it. And pasta salad is one of the only things that I'll dress with premade stuff from the store. Use whatever dressing you like, there's a really nice Safeway brand Tuscan Herb one I use, but really, you make the call.

Pasta Salad - Serves a lot, maybe 8 as a meal, 12 as a side

One box of whole wheat or multigrain rotini, or any other twisty pasta
2 zucchinis, chopped
2-3 orange bell peppers, chopped
Marinated artichoke hearts, quartered
Sundried tomatoes in oil, julienne cut
Kalamata olives, pitted
Sheep's milk feta cheese, cut into small cubes or crumbled
Your choice of store bought or homemade salad dressing
Fresh basil (optional)

Cook the rotini according to the package instructions in well salted water. Drain well.

Gently saute the zucchini in a bit of olive oil. You're objective here is not to cook the zucchini, you want it to taste fresh and crunchy, but to remove the chalky taste that completely raw zucchini has. While this didn't work when I tried it with fennel in my whole wheat, feta, and olive salad, it works really well here. Saute for 2-3 minutes.

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Do not dress the pasta salad unless you plan to eat it right away (it keeps better without dressing). Dress individual servings as needed. Garnish servings with fresh basil if desired.

Ginger-Garlic Fish in Parchment

Cooking for one isn't easy. Many recipes, most in fact, are meant to serve a crowd. When I cook, even just for me, I generally like to make more than one serving and eat the left overs. That's why I love recipes that keep well. But sometimes cooking for one is inevitable, and that's why I like to have recipes like this under my sleeve.





Fish in parchment is simple, delicious, and quite healthy. Fish and vegetables steam perfectly in the parchment paper and the flavors intensify. Best of all, it's the perfect dinner for one recipe. Enjoy!

Fish in Parchment, adapted from Rachael Ray

1 wild Alaskan salmon filet
1/2 bunch of scallions, white and green parts are fine
About 6 shittake mushrooms, caps only
2 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1/2 tablespoon ginger, cut into matchsticks
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 tablespoon rice vinegar
Drizzle of sesame seed oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Parchment paper

Preheat oven to 425. Slice the mushrooms and scallions and set aside. Combine soy sauce, honey, and vinegar to make the sauce.

Place a roughly 12x14 piece of parchment paper over a shallow dish. Arrange the mushrooms at the center of the parchment then top them with scallions, garlic, and ginger. Lightly salt (there's a lot of salt in the soy sauce) and pepper the salmon filet and place it on top of the vegetables. Pour over the sauce.

Create a pouch for the fish and veggies by bringing up the longer edges of the parchment then rolling them down together, then folding in either side. Place on a baking sheet and cook for 15 minutes. Open the parchment and lightly drizzle the fish with sesame seed oil. The fish can be enjoyed straight from the parchment or served on a bed of brown rice.

Project Sack Lunch: Whole Wheat, Feta, and Olive Salad

When you were little, did you ever notice that the cool kids had perfect lunches? It's not just that the cool kids had neat stuff in their lunches. In fact, it was typically pretty bland and boring - a sandwich, some chips, a juice box. Cliche at best. It was the weird, ostracized kids that had cottage cheese with fresh fruit, leftover potstickers or sushi rolls, and organic soy milk boxes (all of which I donned in my lunch pail at some point) things that I'm sure any adult would find intriguing and delicious. I think the crux of it all was that somehow, their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches always looked so much better than mine. The bread was a crisp white and visibly fluffy, like something out of a Wonderbread commercial while my bread was brown, grainy, usually smashed, and always soggy with the sandwiches contents. Their peanut butter was smooth, creamy and spreadable while mine looked like melted sandpaper, all textury and odd. And their jelly always managed to stay neat and tidy, perfectly separated from the peanut butter as though divided by some invisible shield, but mine was full of seeds and glopped all over the outside of the sandwich an all over my fingers. I'll never really know what those cool kids did to keep their PB&Js so pristine, but I'll always remember how different they were from my own.

I'm aiming to rewrite the school lunch social class divide, starting by throwing those perfect PB&Js out the window. It's time for those with legitimately cool lunches to be recognized. For my summer job as a day camp counselor, we have to bring a sack lunch. Now obviously I've lived most of my life eating sack lunches (albeit my mother making a lot of them) but I think it's safe to say that I haven't had to make a sack lunch in years, and I'm a bit rusty. I thought I'd reinvent my sack lunch skills and add some great sack lunch and picnic recipes to my repertoire, which is why I'm embarking on what I'm calling "Proect Sack Lunch."

I immediately thought of all those delicious grain salads I've been making. I can make a huge batch on a Sunday evening at eat it all week. I had been wanting to give this recipe for whole wheat, feta, and olive salad a shot for a while and thought that the first week of camp would be a perfect opportunity.



All in all, it was okay. It kept well, which I really liked. I'm not too fond of raw fennel so I lightly sauteed it before putting it in, which I do not recommend at all. If I were to make it again I'd just find a substitution, maybe celery or some fresh spinach leaves. I also replaced the pistachios with cashews since that's all I could find and I replaced the red wine vinegar with lemon juice. It was certainly better than PB&J.

Bacon, Fig, Carmelized Onion, and Gorgonzola Cheese Pizza

I'll be honest. This pizza was a near culinary disaster. And I didn't even really make my own dough (I threw some flour, water, and yeast into my bread machine and pressed the dough button. Challenging, I know).

I came home after a terrible long day at work. I wasn't feeling well at all and had been gone for around 12 hours, but I had been planning on making this pizza all week and was really looking forward to it. Plus, I figured, you roll out some dough, sprinkle toppings on it, and toss it in the oven. Piece of cake, right?

Wrong, completely. I started but setting my oven to the highest temperature possible. Pizza ovens are around 900 degrees, but I was only able to get me little apartment oven to 550. Then I started rolling out the dough, which, as it turns out, is pretty arduous work. In some places the dough kept springing back after I rolled it and in others the dough got too thin and little holes would appear. After some wrestling, I finally got it.

Since I didn't have a pizza stone, I thought I'd just preheat my baking pan and and it would be a fine substitute, so I popped the sheet into the oven. Then I set to work on the onions. After dicing them I put them in a skillet with butter on high, just to get the carmelization started and began cutting my bacon. Next thing I know the fire alarms are going off. I raced over to one of them, fanning frantically, then raced back to the onions, which are starting to burn at this point, and take them off the heat, then quickly opened the windows an went back to my fire alarm fanning. Despite my efforts, the fire alarms screamed. My phone started ringing. I raced to the oven, which had preheated at this point, and was met by a plume of smoke when I opened it. I grabbed a hot pad and took out the baking sheet. I ran it under cold water, which warped the pan. I turned off the oven and went back to fanning. Finally, fire alarms subdued, I set back to work on my pizza.

As I took the pan out of the sink it splashed water all over my pizza dough. I did my best to dry the dough, only to find that it did not fit on the baking sheet. I then had to re roll it, on the baking sheet, into some deformed rectangle. I guess things started getting better after that.

Anyways, here's the recipe. I got it off the NY Times. Chances are, this terrible series of events won't happen to you, and the pizza was delicious, so I encourage you to give it a try. I think I would use a bit less gorgonzola if I dared to make it again.



Bacon, Fig, Carmelized Onion, and Gorgonzola Cheese Pizza

Pizza dough (you're on your own on this one!)
1 yellow onion
2 tbsp. butter
2 tsp. thyme leaves
2 bay leaves
4 slices thick cut bacon
8 black mission figs
3/4 cup gorgonzola (again, maybe less, just scatter it lightly)

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Roll out dough in a rectangular shape and place on a greased baking sheet (I just sprayed it lightly with cooking spray).

Cut the onions into slices. Heat butter in a large skillet over high heat and add onions, thyme, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. Cook onions over high heat for 3-5 minutes then continue to cook on low heat for about 20 more minutes.

Cut the bacon into small pieces and cook on medium low heat in a large skillet. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon when finished. Meanwhile, slice figs into fourths and crumble gorgonzola.

Sprinkle toppings on the pizza dough (remember to remove the bay leaves from the onions). Cook for 15 minutes until the crust starts to become golden brown. Remove from the oven, cool, and enjoy.