Vegetable Garden June 1 (Week 11)

Everything is growing! I can't wait until we have some tomatoes. I planted some marigolds and zinnias this weekend, so now there's a little color. All of the tomatoes, especially those we plated first in the wall-o-waters are growing and are about 2 feet already. The peas are almost three feet high. The lettuce is huge. Everything just looks great, except for one pepper plant that was being eaten by bugs a little. I sprayed it so hopefully it will recover.

 Rhubarb

 Garden (the pie tin apparently scares the deer)

Pomegranate-Garlic Lamb

This is delicious and pretty easy and impressive for a dinner party. We had our very good friends, Stephen and Kara, over last night to test out the new china. It was all very grown up. Thank you to all of our great friends for getting us all of those amazing candlesticks, plates, platters, vases etc - they will all be well used!

I've been making lamb a lot lately, using pomegranate molasses. It's a great ingredient. It's tart and sweet. I got two racks or lamb from Trader Joe's (they actually have really nice, Frenched racks of lamb) and marinated them in a mixture of pomegranate molasses, lots of garlic, some fresh ginger, and some dried herbs. The lamb was juicy and so flavorful.

I served it with some sauteed asparagus and Israeli couscous.

Cornflake-Crusted Chicken

I've always heard good things about using cornflakes on chicken, so when I was in the grocery and looking for a cheap dinner, I decided to try it. It's really easy and has a great, flavorful crunch. Feel free to change the seasoning.

Serve 3-4
Ingredients:
4 skinless chicken thighs
1 cup crushed corn flakes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp freshly chopping basil
1 tsp freshly chopped parsley
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
big pinch of cayenne pepper
1 egg
1 tbsp water

Lobster Rolls

My favorite place to buy seafood is Cor-J seafood in Hampton Bays. It's the best. I walk in there and I want to buy everything. Last Saturday, we stopped there on the way out to Southampton to pick up supplies for a seafood feast. We got clams, oysters, squid, and lobster and I decided to make lobster rolls. I had googled looking for the recipe from Mary's Fish Camp and found someone saying that they never taste lobstery enough at home, so I decided to make lobster mayonnaise to up the lobster quotient. (Feel free to be a normal person here and just use Hellmann's.) They were great! So chunky and delicious.

Serves 2-3
Ingredients:
2 1.5 lb lobsters
2 sticks of celery, finely diced
2 scallions, only the green parts, finely sliced
2-3 Potato Roll Hot Dog Buns
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp butter

For Lobster Mayo:
Shells of two lobsters
1 egg, room temperature ideally
3/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
salt

Vegetable Garden-May 18 (Week 9)

The garden looks great! I planted the peas on March 16, planted most of the tomatoes, hot peppers, and eggplants (with Wall O Waters to keep them warm), the cucumbers and zucchinis form seeds, and the lettuce, transplanted, on April 20. I hadn't been out in a few weekends and everything is looking happy.

Even though there have been some cold nights, the Wall O Waters seem to have kept the tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers happy, the snap peas are almost 2 feet high, the zucchini and cucumbers have come up and look healthy, and the lettuce is already huge. My parsley also survived the winter from last summer and is enormous.

Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

I was lucky enough to visit the stunning One&Only Palmilla for work a few weeks ago. It's such a beautiful spot, and the food is really incredible. We peeked into the kitchen at Market one afternoon and saw Sean, the pastry chef, create this beautiful dessert that consisted of mint ice cream, made that morning with mint picked in the herb garden, topped with dehydrated chocolate mousse, these pretty flowers, and some chocolate shavings. Basically, the fanciest mint chocolate chip ice cream around. It was amazing.

I've been dreaming about it. It inspired me to make my own fresh mint chocolate chip ice cream. I used this recipe from Isaac Mizrahi on Epicurious. Yum! It has a completely different flavor than store bought mint chocolate chip ice cream, more akin to a mojito. It's such a treat, and if you have an ice cream maker, I highly recommend it. Also, the chocolate chunks can be as big and as good a brand of chocolate as you want.

Ingredients:

6 lark egg yolks

3/4 cups sugar

2 cups whole milk

2 cups fresh mint leaves, loosely packed

1 cup heavy cream

4 oz semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

4 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Cote d'Or 86% - I looove Cote d'Or)

Roasted Chicken Legs and Ramps

 

I, like the rest of New York, am totally into ramps. They're only around for a month or so in the spring, so I try to use them a lot. First ramp dish this year was roasted chicken and ramps. I usually love just tossing the ramps with some olive oil, salt, and pepper and grilling them, so this was similar. The leaves get crispy and the bulbs are sweet. Yum.

This is really simple for a weeknight dinner, and I served it with some peas at Jamie's request.

Serves 4
Ingredients:
4 chicken legs
2 bunches of ramps, roots removed
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 lemon, sliced

Directions:
Heat the oven to 500. Line a baking sheet with tin foil. Toss the chicken and ramps with salt and pepper and olive oil. Put in the oven for 10 minutes, then top the chicken with lemon slices, and put in for another 20 minutes, or until the chicken is nicely browned. Check on the ramps - you'll probably need to remove them 10 minutes before the chicken.