Zucchini Fritters

(Beignets de Courgette)
It happens every summer. Like invaders from an alien planet, zucchini start appearing everywhere. At first they seem harmless vegetables, but soon as the summer draws on they grow until they become the size of an infant. Everyone seems to be trying to get rid of them. What to do? Eat. Adopt these green babies and fry them up.

Zucchini Fritters

2 small Zucchini shredded (about 1 pound)
2 large Eggs beaten
1/2 cup Flour 

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon Salt
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
2 pinch Cayenne
4 cloves Garlic minced

Shred zucchini in a bowl. Add other ingredients and mix well. The mixture should be mostly zucchini in small amount of loose batter. Heat about 1/2 inch of oil in a cast iron skillet. Drop batter by tablespoons into the oil and fry for a few minutes until the edges become brown. Flip fritter over with a spatula or slotted spoon and fry the other side until both sides are golden brown. Drain on paper towels and serve as they are or with marinara sauce.

Dill Weed Dip

This addictive recipe came to me from Audrey, who is blessed with a very large garden full of fresh vegetables during the summer months. No matter what the season, when dining at Audrey's, you will find mostly fresh vegetables served in salads and home baked bread. She claims to not like cooking, but is always a taste of the earth's abundance when I go there. This is adapted from one of her staples. 

Dill Weed Dip

8 ounces mayonnaise
8 ounces sour cream
1/2 teaspoon Accent (monosodium glutamate)
3 tablespoons dill weed
1 tablespoon garlic salt

Combine all ingredients and allow to sit for a few hours to blend the seasonings. You can also add less dill weed and an equal amount of other herbs, such as chives, onion flakes, parsley or whatever you wish. Most people I know are shocked that I would use MSG, but they seem to be unaware of what it actually is. Studies have shown that most people only have reactions when they think it is in the food. It's pretty neat stuff actually. It is derived from seaweed and makes the flavors bolder. But like all sodium products, one should use it sparingly - only enough to enhance the flavor and no more. Feel free to omit the ingredient if you wish.

Pineapple Teriyaki Steak Salad

Nothing beats a juicy steak. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. I am truly a carnivore and the beef beastie is my favorite along with the pork beastie. I grill steaks outside all year long, but in the summer I love it best with a cool crisp salad and some fresh fruit. This dish has all three together for the perfect hot weather meal.

Pineapple Teriyaki Steak Salad

Marinade:
1/2 cup pineapple juice

1/2 cup soy sauce
4 tablespoons cider vinegar
4 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 cloves garlic finely chopped 

Dressing:

1/3 cup pineapple juice

1/3 cup rice wine vinegar (cider or white vinegar work too)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

Marinate two pounds of steak (flank or skirt steak) in the marinade overnight. Grill until perfect (for me perfect is medium rare) and allow to sit for 5-10 minutes. Slice thinly and serve on a bed of fresh romaine with fresh pineapple and a splash of dressing. Enjoy!

Pickled Purple Eggs

To the uninitiated, they look like alien spores out of a cult 70s sci-fi film. Touch them and a creature conjured from the imagination of H.R. Giger will burst forth and implant in your viscera. Run! No, wait, they are only Pickled Purple Eggs! Harmless little eggs which are a fixture of Pennsylvania salad bars and farm markets, or anywhere there is a population of Amish or Mennonite cooks. Pickled eggs were first made as a way to preserve eggs using leftover pickle juices. The Pennsylvania Dutch brought this technique, and it continues today with the area's Amish, who still live as their ancestors did without electricity.  This recipe is in homage to my own Pennsylvania Dutch ancestor - Elizabeth Barth who was born in May, 1770 and lived in Lancaster PA.

Pickled Purple Eggs
1 dozen eggs
1 14.5-ounce can of sliced or small beets
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 stick cinnamon
4 whole cloves
4 whole allspice berries

Hard boil eggs and cool immediately in ice water.  Using eggs which are a few weeks old makes them easier to peel. Set aside and allow to cool.

Combine beets, vinegar, water, sugar and spices and simmer for 10 minutes. Cool.  Peel eggs and add to cooled liquid. You can keep the beets with the eggs to pickle, or use separately. Refrigerate for two days to a week before eating. The eggs can keep in the refrigerator for up to two months.

Bulgarian Salad

(Shopska Salata)
 I first discovered this delicious salad on one of my trips to the Pittsburgh Folk Festival.  After eating the small sample (I had been sampling everywhere!) I decided to try to replicate the recipe. Since then, it has been made in ample batches each week during the hot summer months. Actually, I am surprised at how quickly this salad is consumed! Now that the warm weather is here and the requests are for "light food", this salad will once again be part of the weekly menu. If only I could keep up with the demand...

Bulgarian Salad 
4 large Cucumbers
3 medium Tomatoes chopped
1 medium Green peppers chopped
2 tablespoon Sugar
1 tablespoon Kosher Salt
1/2 cup Vegetable oil
1/2 cup Red wine vinegar
8 ounces Feta cheese, crumbled

Peel cucumbers and slice in half. Remove seeds with a spoon and chop into 1/4 inch squares. Place into a large bowl. Add green peppers and tomatoes. Pour vinegar and oil on vegetables and sugar and salt. Mix vegetables and dressing mixture and refrigerate for one hour to allow the flavors to combine. Serve with crumbled feta cheese.

Saffron Rice and Corn

(Arroz Amarillo y Maiz)
I love to cook with rice, and this version of a Latin American dish is one of my favorites. I pair this bright flavored rice with pernil, tacos and rotisserie chicken. And sometimes I just toss chicken in the rice and use the combined mixture as a main dish.

As always, the better the ingredients, the better the dish. And this is sometimes hard for me as I do my best to keep a tight food budget. Unfortunately, I love cooking and trying new flavors. I try to keep to my philosophy of using inexpensive staples with one or two star ingredients. I think that the food traditions of nations who have been challenged throughout history to feed their people have the most to teach about this idea. It is these people who can produce food that is extraordinary using inexpensive staples such as rice or beans with amazing depth of flavor. They are my inspiration. My star ingredient today is saffron - the most costly seasoning in the world. My favorite is Penzeys Coupé Spanish Saffron. It is one of their best saffrons, packing the most flavor and color into those little pinches. A little goes a long way, and I can't resist it. The fresh cilantro is costly in the grocery, but I keep four large pots of it growing on my porch.

Saffron Rice and Corn
4 cups chicken broth
2 cups long grain white rice
2 cups sweet corn
1 cup chopped onion
1 bunch fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
2 pinches saffron threads
1 bay leaf

In a pot, bring chicken broth to a boil. Add rice, saffron, bay leaf and olive oil and boil for one minute before covering and turning to low. Simmer on low for about 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed into rice and rice is tender. While rice is cooking, saute onion in butter in a skillet until translucent and just barely golden in color. Set aside. When rice is finished, remove bay leaf and add onions and corn. Stir and warm until corn is heated through. Add cilantro and serve.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bacon Bars

Warning: this blog post contains pork which may not be suitable for all viewers. Oh yes, three sinful delights all combined into one treat - bacon, chocolate and peanut butter. After posting my favorite peanut butter bacon sandwich, it only seemed natural to add the chocolate. After all, to many devotees, bacon is indeed meat candy. The combination of smoke, sweet and salt are combined beautifully into one delicious treat. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bacon Bars
2 lbs lean smoked bacon
2 16-ounce bags semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips

Line a cookies sheet with aluminum foil and set aside. In a skillet, fry bacon strips until crispy, making sure that all of the bacon is cooked and evenly done. Crumble into pieces and set aside. In double boiler, melt semi-sweet chocolate chips until smooth. Microwave 1/2 cup of peanut butter chips until smooth. Add 2/3 of the bacon to the chocolate and pour into cookie sheet, spreading to a thin layer. Pour remaining bacon pieces along with the peanut butter chips on top and press gently into the chocolate. Chill in the refrigerator until set. Cut into small bars and serve.

Pasta with Uncooked Tomato Sauce

I was informed last week by cyber buddy Antonio that I had no recipes from Italy. His observation led me to much pondering. We are truly creatures of habit, even those of us who think we are experimental. Growing up and for the most part to the present, Italian food is pizza from a restaurant or Spaghetti with Ragu from the jar. Occasionally we might visit a restaurant and enjoy spaghetti or ravioli. But throughout my life, no Italian food was homemade. My sister Kathy was blessed with Italian in-laws who shared a few recipes, but still she and I tend to shy away from something we perceive as easier to cook from a jar. As my Mother's recipes were no help, I turned to my Grandmother and did find a good recipe to begin learning about this fabulous cuisine.

As the weather is turning warm, I prefer a lighter meal over one steaming on the oven. My lack of central air conditioning plays a big part here. Grandma's Pasta with Uncooked Tomato Sauce was just the ticket to learn about fresh Italian cooking. There isn't a lot of messing around here. The quality of your ingredients make or break this delicious sauce.

Pasta with Uncooked Tomato Sauce
1 to 1 1/2 pounds of fresh tomatoes
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup of fresh chopped basil
1 cup fresh mozzarella or fresh buffalo mozzarella, diced
1/2 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt to taste
generous pinch red pepper flakes
1 pound pasta

Blanch the tomatoes by dropping them into rapidly boiling water for one minute and then dropping them into a bowl of ice water. Peel skins from the tomatoes and gently squeeze to remove the seeds. Chop tomatoes and place in large bowl. Combine the tomatoes, garlic, basil, mozzarella, oil, vinegar and salt and pepper flakes, to taste, and let stand, covered at room temperature for at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours. To serve, cook pasta until it is al dente, drain well and add it to the sauce. Toss and serve immediately.

Salsa with Fresh Cilantro

Local Mexican restaurant Compadres serves up the most delicious salsa. Never before did I have a salsa that kept me dipping in the bowl and wanting more. I often went there begging for takeout salsa like a junkie looking for a fix and having it packaged with fresh cooked tortilla chips for munching at home. I began to search everywhere for an equally good jarred salsa. I opened jar after jar of flat tasting cooked tomato chunks that didn't make my tongue happy at all. So I started experimenting, and came up with this delicious salsa. Compadres is still a favorite, but this one makes my tongue cry for mama!

Salsa with Fresh Cilantro
2 14.5-ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes
1 14.5-ounce can of diced tomatoes with jalapeños
1 14.5-ounce can of diced tomatoes with green chilies
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon Goya hot sauce
1 bunch fresh cilantro
fresh ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients except onion and cilantro. Blend with hand blender until salsa is preferred consistency (I like mine to be on the smooth side). Add diced onions and chopped cilantro and chill for several hours to blend the flavors.

Bibimbap

(Korean Mixed Vegetables and Rice)
Rice is a glorious canvas to paint a delicious meal. Zoë found me this recipe, and I was all for trying something new, especially with rice. This is a Korean dish, basically a mixture of meat and leftover side-dish veggies known as banchan, beautifully arranged on a bed of rice and garnished with an egg before mixing and eating. There is no disguising leftovers here, the leftovers themselves are the star of the show. I am all for authentic food, but unfortunately I don't keep an assortment of banchan in my refrigerator. And as a busy working woman, I do my best to create the authentic flavor using what limited ingredients I can find in a dish that can be tossed in a container and eaten at work. But I did take the obligatory beauty shot...

...before I smooshed it all together for the weeks eating.

It's as close as I can get to Korean food in rural Pennsylvania, and it sure is delicious and keeps well.

Bibimbap

1 1/2 cups Long grain rice
1 pound Ground beef
4 tablespoon Soy sauce
1 tablespoon Sesame oil
2 medium Scallion
2 cloves Garlic
1 tablespoon Toasted sesame seeds crushed
1 1/2 teaspoon Sugar
2 cups Mung bean sprouts
1 cup Celery thinly sliced on the diagonal
2 medium Carrots shredded

2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

Sriracha (to taste)
Fresh ground black pepper
Kosher Salt 
additional peanut oil to stir fry veggies

Steam the rice, toss with rice wine vinegar and set aside. Mix beef, soy sauce, sesame oil, scallions, garlic, sesame seeds, salt and pepper and fry slowly in a skillet or wok until meat is done. Add bean sprouts (drained if using canned) and cook until heated through. Do not overcook. Remove from heat. Cut celery thin on the diagonal and sprinkle lightly with salt. Let celery stand for 15 minutes and then drain liquid squeeze excess liquid. Shred carrots.

In a second fry pan, saute celery in 2 teaspoons vegetable oil and add to meat mixture. Do the same with the carrots after the celery is done. Combine all into the meat and serve over hot cooked rice. Garnish with a nice dollop of Sriracha.

Potato Dumplings

(Kartoffel Klösse)
Of the four recipe books I have of my Great Grandmother Sophia Kraft, only one contains a small amount of main course foods. The others are filled with pickles and jams and every dessert imaginable.  The recipe is one of three dumpling recipes I inherited - the other two being the dreaded liver dumpling and the farina dumpling. These are all foods that originate in Germany, so by making these, I felt I was reuniting a bit with my German ancestors. Sophia's mother was from Tiergarten in Baden, and her father was from Ensfeld, Bavaria. So maybe I am cooking a family recipe that is much much older.

Serve this with a warm roast on a chilly day.


Potato Dumplings
4 medium potatoes, riced
1 1/2 tablespoons fat drippings
1 medium onion, grated
1/2 cup dry unseasoned bread crumbs
1/2 cup flour, sifted
1 large egg
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon celery salt

Rice four medium cold boiled potatoes. Add fat drippings, grated onion, egg, bread crumbs, flour, and seasonings and form into 8 large or 12 small balls. Dredge lightly with flour. Chill balls. Drop into boiling salted water (1/2 tablespoon salt). Boil until firm. In small skillet, brown a few bread crumbs with butter and pour over hot dumplings. Serve with any roasted meat.

Pineapple Kielbasa

This recipe comes from my sister Kathy, who made it once for a dinner party. It is a great addition to any gathering from holiday feast to tailgate party. I like to take it in to work on snack days because it is easy and delicious. It is a celebration of Pittsburgh flavors.

The pineapple juice acts as a tenderizer for the kielbasa, making it fork tender and sweet. Use as an entree or appetizer.

Pineapple Kielbasa
1 pound lowfat Polska kielbasa
1 bottle Heinz Chili Sauce
1 can crushed pineapple
1 cup brown sugar

Put chili sauce, pineapple (with juice), and brown sugar into a crock pot and mix well. Slice kielbasa into 1/2 inch pieces and add to crock pot. Cook on high for four hours, and turn to low to keep heated throughout the day.

Beef with Peanuts

This recipe comes from my Grandma Harvey. My aunt Ellen tells me that her recipes came from both her mother Sophia Kraft and my grandfather's mother Ella Harvey. My Grandpa Harvey also went to gourmet cooking school. According to Ellen, she would cook "Japanese, Chinese, Greek, field game,  you name it she cooked it."

Beef with Peanuts
1 pound top round steak, sliced
1/2 cup onions, sliced
4 cups bok choy, shredded
2 cups mung bean sprouts
1 cup raw peanuts
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 teaspoons peanut oil
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Combine broth, soy sauce and cornstarch in a small bowl and set aside.  In a skillet or wok, fry peanuts in peanut oil until golden. Remove peanuts from wok and set aside. Stir fry vegetables briefly until crisp tender and then remove from the wok and set aside. Put beef into wok and stir fry until just cooked through. Add broth and soy sauce mixture and heat until thick. Return vegetables and peanuts to the wok and stir until heated through. Serve over hot rice.

Hummus

Who would have thought? The world's pickiest eater who never so much as touched a vegetable would like something with beans! I grew up thinking that beans were an alien life form spawned from deep space. Oh what anxiety I caused my poor Mother!  I can easily say that my pet dog Buttons was the very specimen of a healthy diet full of vegetables. I can recall the day I tried hummus. It was poetry on a pita. I can't stop eating this stuff.

One of my favorites is the hummus you can buy homemade at Labad's Middle Eastern Grocery in the Strip District of Pittsburgh. When hard up I might even buy a national brand from a supermarket but it doesn't come close to my recipe. Dunk veggies, pretzels and of course - pita.

Hummus
2 15-ounce cans of chickpeas (Garbanzo beans)
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
6 tablespoons tahini
4 cloves of garlic, crushed and peeled
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt
paprika
extra virgin olive oil

Drain the canned chickpeas, reserving about 3/4 of a cup of the liquid in the can. Put the reserved liquid, water and chickpeas into a blender and blend until a smooth paste. Add lemon juice, garlic, tahini, cumin, salt and cayenne and continue to blend. Garnish with paprika and drizzle of olive oil.

Chicken Curry

My memories of my mother's cooking always make me smile. She wasn't the most creative cook, and during my younger years, she tended to fall into a pattern with our weekly meals. Each week followed roughly the same menu - baked chicken, spaghetti, hamburgers, steak every week. I swear Tuesday was spaghetti day. These were easy meals, using convenience foods. In the early days, they were budget meals - and were punctuated by the occasional casserole. When I was growing up, Mom was a college student and artist, and later became an art teacher. She worked for the satisfaction of doing what she loved more than the necessity of a paycheck. But still we followed a tight budget. We never ate out until I was in college. Birthday dinners were at home. Weekends we had dinner at my grandmother's house.

My mother made this recipe as one of those occasional casseroles I mentioned above. She didn't cook it often, but I became so smitten with it that it was always my requested meal on my birthday. This recipe is slightly modified from the original, but in essence it is the same. I wish I could take credit for inventing it. It first appeared in the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook in the 1930s. It is well loved in my home.

Chicken Curry

1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup tomato juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon curry powder
4 cups cooked chicken, cubed
4 cups cooked rice
4 tablespoons butter or ghee
6 tablespoons flour

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the vegetables in the butter until onions are translucent. Add flour and curry powder and mix well.  Add broth, tomato juice, seasonings and allow to simmer and thicken. Add chicken and heat through. Serve over rice.  I like to mix the curry powder up a bit - a couple teaspoons of Penzey's Maharajah Curry Powder with one teaspoon of hot or Madras curry powder. The Maharajah curry has lots of whole saffron threads and has an amazing flavor.  

Barbeque Sauce for Beef

One year a long time ago, my father took one month off work and hauled my family across country in a station wagon. We made a loop around the United States, visiting national parks, kitsch tourist spots and the best of the cities. It was the trip of a lifetime. Our breakfast was instant oatmeal or cold cereal with milk from our cooler, and our lunch was always a sandwich at the side of the road somewhere. The only meal we ate out was dinner. It was the way people traveled back then, we were always in good company at the picnic stops. Now when you travel, the picnic tables are empty and the fast food joints at the rest stops are full. You eventually got tired of ham or peanut butter sandwiches, but in observing this little economy, we were able to see the country.

This recipe is my mother's. One of our dinners out was at Jackson Lake Lodge at Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. My mother ordered a beef dish with a barbeque sauce. I remember her asking for the recipe, but I don't know if she got the recipe from the chef or developed this sauce on her own. But when we returned home, this easy sauce was always served with her roast eye of the round.


Barbeque Sauce for Beef

1 cup ketchup
1 cup water
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
garlic salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and heat until thick. Serve over roasted eye of the round or any other roasted beef.

Persian Chicken and Rice Pilav

(Morgh Polo)
My daughter Zoë has been known to pack some strange things for lunch. On our trips to the Strip District in Pittsburgh she has been known to purchase Crickettes - cheese and bacon flavored crickets and dried mackerel snack packs and take them to school in her lunch for their shock value. Grove City is a small town and things like that are pretty shocking. She also loves to pack rice and noodle dishes to school each day. The more exotic and spicy the better. This recipe was my response to her request for more rice dishes. I have been informed that when Zoë is away at school next term, I must bring some of this dish each time I visit. Even Mira, who is much pickier likes this dish.

I have used two sources in the creation of this dish. I have always used a steamer to make rice, so I turned to Recipes and Remembrances from an Eastern Mediterranean Kitchen: A Culinary Journey Through Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan by Sonia Uvezian for her detailed information on the proportions and mechanics of cooking rice and vermicelli. The book Extending the Table: A World Community Cookbook also provided inspiration.  

Morgh Polo

1 medium sweet onion, chopped
1/2 cup vermicelli, broken into 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup long grain rice
6 tablespoon butter
1 cup almonds, blanched and slivered
2 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup dried currants
2 teaspoons baharat
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups cooked chicken, chunked 

In large pot, saute onions in 4 tablespoons of the butter until translucent and moisture from the onion has evaporated. Add uncooked vermicelli and saute until golden brown. Add rice and broth and simmer covered for approximately 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and rice is cooked.

In a skillet, melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and gently brown almonds until golden, making sure not to overcook them. When done, add almonds to the pot with the rice. Add baharat, currants and chicken and serve.

You can purchase Baharat from Amazon, Zamouri Spices and from DedeMed. You can also make your own. 

Baharat (Seven Spices)

Equal parts of:

Cinnamon

Paprika

Ground cumin

Ground cloves

Ground cardamom

Ground coriander

Nutmeg