A Pleasant Evening

A rare treat -  my friend Eileen came for dinner and a  card game (klabberjass).  More often, we meet for lunch, so this was nicer, from my perspective anyway, because it lasted longer.  Plus, we can’t play cards in a restaurant – at least not the one we usually frequent. 

I served one of my favorite hot day dinners – gazpacho. Every time I make it I think of Woman on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown, a very funny movie, in which gazpacho plays a major role. 

Gazpacho – an excellent hot day dinner

Croutons

1 smallish loaf of crusty bread

2 cloves garlic, sliced

olive oil

Soup

2 large tomatoes, peeled

1 large cucumber, peeled and chopped

1 green and 1 red pepper, chopped

1 purple onion

one big clove of garlic

26 oz can of plum tomatoes

¼ cup olive oil

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1/8 tsp Tabasco sauce (oddly, I didn’t have any, and so used Vietnamese hot sauce)

salt, pepper

bunch of chopped chives

First, make the croutons by cutting the bread into one inch cubes.  Heat the oil in a skillet and sauté the garlic. When the garlic is translucent and just beginning to brown, remove it and set it aside.  Sauté the bread chunks until browned in all sides, adding more oil as necessary. Set them aside, with the garlic mixed in.

As you chop the vegetables, put half the tomatoes, half the cucumber, half the peppers, and half the onion in separate bowls.  Put the other half in the blender, along with the clove of garlic.  Add the can of tomatoes  and puree the whole thing. Transfer to a large bowl, and then add the vinegar, ¼ cup olive oil, Tabasco, salt and pepper.  You won’t need much salt, as the canned tomatoes are already salty. Garnish with the chopped chives. 

When you are ready to eat, set out out the chopped vegetables, (each in their separate dishes) and the croutons, to be dished up as accompaniments.  Very easy, and very yummy.

A Reminiscent Day

Madeleines!  Such exquisite, delightful little buttery scallops, yet I hadn’t made them for years.  As I was searching for my recipe, and then mixing them up, a flood of Madeleine memories arose – and not entirely lovely memories.  I recalled the first time I made them. It was many years ago, and Rebecca was quite little.  It was a stunning summer day, bright and vivid with searing blue skies. Dennis had a friend visiting, and I no doubt was making them for afternoon tea.  I am an inveterate licker of the mixing spoon, having, unlike many, no fear of raw eggs in the dough.  This day was no exception.  Yum!  In another respect, however, this day was the exception.  Minutes after I presented the dainty meal, I was in the bathroom suffering all sorts of misery.  I was trying to be subtle about things for which there can be no real subtlety.  I must have been reasonably subtle though, because I do not recall an outpouring of sympathy.  I am guessing that Rebecca was not at home, because she surely would have insisted on sharing the damp dough, and even more surely, if not in the bathroom suffering with me, would have been in the bathroom with me, offering aid, assistance, and loving comfort.

Years later, when Rebecca was big, Rachael was little, and I was in nursing school, I was making them for a psychology class event.  I have mentioned before I think, that when I am cooking and am nervous about the reception of my fare, everything I make tastes like sand.  This was no exception.  I tried one and it was a mouthful of grit.  I was talking to my friend Godmommy on the phone as I worked, and she assured me that it was just my nerves.  They had to be good. Reassuring, but not totally reassuring.  Then Rebecca arrived home and tried one.  “These are disgusting,” she said.  “Are you really going to take them to your class?”  Well, given that my class was in about a half an hour, I was.  As you can imagine, I was filled with horror and dread.  Once again, Godmommy, still on the line, was reassuring.  She pointed out that Rebecca had been irked at me about something or other earlier, and so she too, probably had an emotionally induced taste impairment.  I slunk off to my class, dreading the moment when everyone gagged on my presentation.  Mirabile dictu!  They were an enormous success and everyone wanted the recipe.  Incidentally, this was the class in which I met Samos.  Maybe my brilliant Madeleines were what made him want to be my friend. 

Madeleines

1 cup flour

½ cup sugar

2 eggs

½ c butter

Zest of one lemon

Pinch salt

½ tsp vanilla

½ tsp rum

Grease and flour the Madeleine pans very well.  Heat the oven to 400°. 

Beat the eggs with the salt until they are stiff.  Add in the sugar gradually, and beat some more.  Add the vanilla and rum if you are using it.  Fold in the flour, about a quarter a time.   Add a quarter of the butter at a time.  Mix it in well.  Fill the pans about  ¾ full and bake immediately.   They take about 10 minutes and are done when they are golden with crispy edges.  This will make about 18 medium sized madeleines.  

To my surprise, I had no rum, so I used a little Grand Mariner instead.  Probably that made them better. 

I used a regular metal pan and a silicone pan which I borrowed from Rebecca.  As you can see, the ones baked in the metal pans turned out nicer – evenly browned and no bubbles.  Rebecca borrowed my metal pan when she made a vegan version and had the opposite experience.  Her vegan Madeleines  were delicious – maybe even better than my classic omnivore ones.

A Very Busy Couple of Days

There are two recurrent events in my life which I refer to as The Annual Ordeal.  They have nothing in common except that they both inevitably happen once a year.  The first is the yearly physical check-up.  Other than the fact that I like my doctor a lot, there is little positive that I can say about that one.  The other is my turn to prepare choir treats, i.e., a buffet breakfast for sixty people.  When Rebecca was in the choir, we did it together and it was fun.  She loves to cook, and so she happily engineered the whole thing.  I was the able assistant who did what she was told.  Then later, Tom helped me, and he did what he was told, frequently commenting, “I can’t believe you are going to this trouble.  I never would.”  But he helped me, and working with him was fun.  Now, I have to do it on my own and it is sort of fun and sort of terrible.   On Thursday, Becca came over and reviewed my menu.  “You have too much stuff.  You know how you can never get a bunch of things made on time.  Leave out the cake.”  Discouraging, but pretty accurate.   I did leave out the cake, but later added in cookies.   Rachael visited and helped me fold the spring rolls.  She too looked over my menu, and said, “What are people going to put on the bread?”  “Jam or cheese,”  I said.  “That won’t do at all.  You need hummus.  Bread is no good without hummus.”  A novel concept, but possibly true, so at the eleventh hour (actually more like the eighth hour,)  I added hummus to the list.  I cooked for much of two days, and at midnight the evening before, was in a state of panic.  Everything tasted awful.  The bread tasted metallic.  The fruit tasted like cardboard.  I was too anxious to even want to taste anything else.  The next morning, Noble Rebecca got up at the crack of dawn to come help me transport the food and set up the table.  I was in a state.  It was good to have her company, as well as her help. 

 

Well, it seemed to be a great success.  I was pleased that my choirmates professed to like everything.  And that Rachael --- she didn’t even taste the hummus!     

Here is a picture of the aftermess, and the few slices of bread which, along with a little hummus, was the only food left.    My appetite restored, I gobbled them up and then set to, washing all those dishes.

And here is my recipe for deviled eggs.  These are a success with everyone except my own family.  They think they are too mustardy, but I think that is what makes them good.  Of course, I am a major mustard fan, and occasionally make myself a mustard sandwich. 

Deviled Eggs

2 dozen eggs, hard boiled*

Mayonnaise, about 1/3 cup

Dijon Mustard, about 1/3 cup (this is the secret ingredient that makes the eggs so delicious)

Capers, a heaping teaspoon

Horseradish, about a level teaspoon

Cilantro or parsley, chopped, about 2 tablespoons

Pepper,  freshly ground, about 1/8 tsp

Sliced olives, cilantro leaves for décor

Halve the eggs and drop the yolks into the food processor bowl.  Arrange the whites on egg plates, or whatever you are going to serve them on. 

Start with about ¼ cup of mayonnaise and an equal amount of Dijon mustard added to the yolks in the food processor.   Process for a few seconds and check the results.  They will probably be lumpy and firm at this point.  Add a bit more mustard and mayo equally, and process for a few more seconds.  You want the yolks to be smooth, and soft enough to pipe onto the whites but firm enough to hold their shape.  Keep adding a little of both at a time until you have the right consistency. 

Add the pepper, capers, horseradish and parsley and/or cilantro.  Process a few more seconds until the yolk mixture is smooth. 

Transfer to an icing bag with a star tip, and pipe onto the whites.  Of course, you can do this with a spoon if you don’t have an icing bag.  But if you don’t have an icing bag, you should get one.  It will make your life much easier, and will make lovelier deviled eggs. 

*With this many eggs, it is a snap to cook them in the pressure cooker.  Cover them with cold water, bring the cooker to full pressure and cook for four minutes.  Quick release the pressure by immersing the cooker in a sink full of cold water, and then cool the eggs themselves in cold water.  The pressure cooked eggs are not only quick to fix, but they always peel very easily.