It May Be Hot Outside but Damn It We Want to Cook and Bake
It’s September 25th, two days into fall, and at 10 AM this morning it was 85 degrees. I think we hit a high of 91 degrees mid afternoon. It was at least 95 degrees, I remember hearing, actually~Rei. WTF. This is not normal. Zeke suggested we do something that didn’t require the stove or oven but I rejected his suggestion.
Rei was procrastinating on their homework and I kicked them off their phone and out of their room to get started on dessert. (Note: we still haven’t finished the cake from Sunday night…Rei will share the wealth with the neighbors. Update: it went to the chickens)
I am not a big chocolate fan so I opted for an apricot crumble from David Lebovitz’ cookbook My Paris Kitchen. Whole Foods was out of apricots so Zeke picked up some peaches. Should be fine. I like peaches better anyways~Rei.
Rei make quick work of the crust and popped it into the freezer before getting started on the filling.
I completed missed taking a pic of the crumble while I was working on the Provencal vegetables. I managed to grab a pic of the peaches with cornstarch before Rei added the sugar, almond extract, and vanilla extract.
I thinly sliced an onion and sauteed over medium heat in some olive oil. While those were cooking, I chopped the other veggies, garlic, and thyme from our garden.
This was supposed to be much prettier but everything was different sizes and shapes and wouldn’t form a concentric circle. There is eggplant under the zucchini and tomatoes. It’s quite possible that I am a bad judge of what 1/4 inch is too. Lmao they were supposed to be 1/4 inch? I had no idea, I thought the directions were just to slice nice chunky rounds of veggies~Rei.
I put the onions on top, drizzled with olive oil, added the last of the thyme (from our garden), sprinkled with shredded Parmesan, covered in foil and popped in the oven on the rack beneath the crumble crust that was being blind baked. One less oven creating heat in the kitchen.
After a bit of a squabble (Zeke and I) about trimming the ends of the green beans, Zeke finished the trimming and blanched them in preparation of the final saute. We are repeating this part of Friday’s dinner along with the sauteed shrimp.
Rei pulled the crumble out of the oven to cool as we got started on the green beans and shrimp. I love how easy both of these recipes are. Seriously, once the green beans are blanched, both the green beans and the shrimp take about six minutes.
We sauteed the green beans and then heated the butter and tossed in the shrimp. Next time we should use the other pan — it’s easier to toss the shrimp and green beans around in it because of its more shallowly sloped sides. But that might just be my tendency to toss whatever I can whenever I can~Rei.
And two minutes later, these delicious beauties were just about done.
Added some minced garlic and chopped parsley (the last of what was in our garden) and onto the platter they went. By the way, I do love beautiful and memorable dishes, platters, glasses, and linens. What’s with the bold? I mean, it’s cool that pretty dishes and stuff are a thing, but bold? Bold move, Mom~Rei.
This platter was made (yes, made) by a gal I play tennis with here in Redwood City. I have it in two sizes and they make me smile every time I use them because I think of her. Just like the French linens make me think of France and the candles on the table make me think of the lovely ladies at Pomegranate Seeds (Cuyler and Elizabeth). I have a secret: I like stuff like this too — not as much as Mom (that would be quite a feat), but I think a pretty (and tasty) dinner is hard to beat.~Rei
I almost forgot about the veggies Provencal that were still in the oven. I think we can definitely do something different and better with this recipe. It was ok. Rei doesn’t like eggplant so either I’ll have to make the pieces smaller so they don’t know they are in there — hey! I can read this, you know! ~Rei— or just not put them in. Zeke loved it but he pretty much eats anything and especially if he doesn’t have to cook.
Rei and Zeke tried the crumble right before bed. I’d already brushed my teeth and was still full from dinner. All I heard were ‘yums’ coming from them as they devoured their slices. I planned on having some for breakfast…then forgot the next morning. Oops.~Rei
These are the two cookbooks we cooked out of last night (I am finishing this post the next day).
Tonight we are making gazpacho which we made in Provence nearly every other day while we were there in 2015 using fresh vegetables from the garden. That was the year we did a home exchange in Paris for two weeks and another in Provence for three weeks. Oh the memories. Sigh.
For our main tonight, we are going to make salmon fillets cooked in parchment paper with Bearnaise sauce from the Williams Sonoma cookbook. It’s going to be another hot day today (forecast: 82 degrees) but Zeke is working tonight and Rei will most likely have some homework so we need to make it easy. Plus with Zeke working, we have to do the dishes.
Rei, want to wrap this up while I have some of the peach crumble for breakfast with my coffee?
No, but I shall as you put the dishes from tonight’s dinner away (whoa is this time travel? Just a moment ago you were eating breakfast, and now we just finished dinner? It’s almost like I was already at school when you wrote this, and couldn’t respond until now! Wow! Magic!).
Dinner was good (both nights) and Mom was right in one of her predictions: I did indeed have homework tonight, and the easy dinner was a blessing and a half.
Not much else to say, other than the reminder that hand whisked bearnaise sauce isn’t really worth the time and energy (and breaks multiple times while you try to make some semblance of the delicious creamy goodness that seems so effortless when someone else makes it for you) and that there is a really good recipe for it that uses a blender and is much less tiring.
Yeah. Our sauce broke twice, and broke again as we poured it onto the salmon. It looked kinda gross, but tasted delicious.
Anyways, I have another blog post to wrap up (we’re kinda behind, oops!) and some homework to do (ugh).
Okay! Until next time, have a shponchickulousent day, and ciao!
Rei and Terri
