Chimichurri

We have written elsewhere about my dad's preparation of taco dip on Christmas Eve every year when I was growing up. Last year my family varied from the specific tradition but kept to its spirit by having Michael prepare dinner on Christmas Eve, and we had ribs and chicken wings. He did the lion's share of the Christmas shopping this time, though, so maybe he would preferred a break! 

This year, he decided on steak, which we were lucky to grab at a Costco that was as crowded as I have ever seen it. The line went from the front of the store all the way to the milk before snaking back on itself all the way to the rotisserie chicken. For Michael's birthday we make steak at home, and in recent years this has included chimichurri, a South American condiment. We have cobbled together various chimichurris, but this year I kept notes and we now have a standard.

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Chimichurri

2 garlic cloves, peeled and trimmed
2 T red wine vinegar
1/2 c olive oil
roughly 1 c cilantro, cut from the end of a bunch
roughly 1/2 c parsley, cut from the end of a bunch
3/4 teas dried oregano
1 teas kosher salt
pepper to taste

Process all ingredients in a food processor until smooth, about 30 seconds. 

Yogurt Saffron Sauce for Trout or Halibut (and probably others)

My favorite way to eat fresh trout is to panfry them and drizzle the cooked fish with a melted butter with a pinch of saffron. Saffron and trout are a match made in heaven but I am limiting how much butter I consume. I was happy to find an alternative sauce which may be somewhat healthier. 

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Yogurt Saffron Sauce

Source: NYTimes Cooking

Yield: about a cup, I usually half the recipe for the two of us

1 c plain yogurt, preferably full-fat but homemade low-fat works well, too

salt and pepper

1 large pinch Aleppo pepper or a small pinch cayenne

1/2 teas saffron threads

juice of 1/2 lemon, or more to taste

Place the yogurt into a small bowl and add salt, pepper, Aleppo or cayenne pepper, and the shallot. Stir. 

Crush the saffron with your fingers and stir it into the yogurt. Set aside while cooking your fish, or about 20 minutes. It can sit in the fridge for up to 2 hours. Add the lemon juice just before serving; stir and taste and add seasoning if you need to.

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Peach and Corn Salsa

It's time for peaches! This fruit keeps me happy for weeks and weeks during the summer. And corn on the cob helps, too. Even though this is a canning recipe you can easily half it and store in the fridge if you have left overs. You'd get about 3 cups of salsa.

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Peach and Corn Salsa

From: The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving 
Yield: about 6 half-pint jars (or 6 cups)

1/4 c malt vinegar (5% acidity)
1/4 c lime juice (about 4 small limes)
3 T chopped canned chipotle pepper in adobo sauce (optional) I used about one or a little more
2 T maple syrup
2 teas salt
1 teas fresh thyme or dried
3 1/2 c finely chopped peaches (about 1 1/2 pounds)
3 1/3 c fresh or frozen corn kernels (2 fairly large ears; more if small)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 c finely chopped red bell pepper

Heat clean canning jars in the canner as you prepare the ingredients.

Place all ingredients into a 5 or 6-quart stainless steel or enameled Dutch oven. Place on high heat and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and continue to cook about 5 minutes until heated through. Stir often.

While the salsa is cooking, clean lids and place them in a bowl of boiling water and allow to sit until you need them.

Use a ladle or measuring cup to place the salsa into each hot jar leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Use a chopstick or thin rubber spatula to remove bubbles. Wipe the jar rims with a clean paper towel to ensure no food adheres to the edge.  Place the lids on top. Top with clean bands on each jar and tighten with your finger tips. Place the jars into the simmering water in the canning pot. Measure to ensure you have at least one inch of water above the tops of the jars.

Cover the pot and return to a boil. Boil for 15 minutes but adjust for altitude by adding required boiling time according to this chart:

1,001-3,000 ft--5 additional minutes

3,001-6,000 ft--10 additional minutes

6,001-8,000 ft--15 additional minutes

8,001-10,000 ft--20 additional minutes

When the jars have boiled for the required time turn the heat off and allow them to sit in the water for 5-10 minutes to reduce the risk of siphoning (hot liquid escaping the jar in rapid temperature change). Using jar tongs, pull each jar from the water being careful not to tip the jars (also a siphoning risk) and place on a towel in a spot where it can remain for 24 hours as it completes its seal and cools down. If you must move them, place them on a towel on a baking sheet and as soon as all the jars are on the sheet carry them together to an area where they won't be disturbed for a day.

Note if you aren't canning this:

Cook the salsa longer 15 minutes or so. Test it and if it is too crunchy, cook it for another 5 minutes. 

Roasted Peach Drizzle

It is barely still peach season but before our minds turn to winter squash and pumpkins, here's one more peach recipe--not quite a syrup and not a fruit butter, but a "drizzle". Although it is a canning recipe, the peaches can be roasted, refrigerated, and used within the week. You could freeze the sauce, too, if you don't want to spend time canning. This is fantastic on Sweet Zucchini Waffles with fresh peach slices and whipped cream. If you don't have fresh peaches, you could use raspberries instead and fashion a peach-melba topping for waffles or for ice cream. This is a great recipe for someone who suffers from peach peeling fatigue--the skin remains on the fruit while roasting and is blended with the peaches.

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Roasted Peach Drizzle

Adapted from foodinjars.com

Yield: 3-3 1/2 pints

This can be halved or quartered. 

8 c peach pieces, skin included

2 c sugar

2 vanilla pods, scraped
juice of 1 lemon

Place peaches, sugar, and vanilla in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Roast in the oven at 350Fwithout a lid for 2-2 1/2 hours. Let cool slightly and blend with blender or stick blender until smooth. Add lemon juice and stir. Return to burner and bring back to a simmer. When simmering, place sauce in hot half pint jars (or half cup) with 1/2-inch headspace, check for air bubbles, clean the jar rims. Place lids (that have been softened in boiling water) on top of clean jars and top with rings. Place in a water bath canner and process for 10 minutes at sea level (for added altitude timing, see below).

1,001-3,000 ft--5 additional minutes

3,001-6,000 ft--10 additional minutes

6,001-8,000 ft--15 additional minutes

8,001-10,000 ft--20 additional minutes

When the time has passed, turn off heat, remove lid and allow jars to rest in the water for 5-10 minutes. Remove jars from hot water and place on a towel in a spot where they can remain undisturbed for 24 hours. Store and use within a year. If the drizzle separates a bit give it a good stir before serving.

Peach Salsa

My home is at a high altitude but in a river bottom, where freezing air settles, so my peach tree has born only twice in its seven year life. This was one of those summers and we've relished this gift from Mother Nature. Our peach season has come and gone (well, there are a few peaches still in the fridge). I've bottled peach halves, jam, peach BBQ sauce, conserve, and this salsa which has proven to be my favorite method for preserving the fruit. Even if you don't want to can it, this is tasty enough you could divide the recipe and keep the salsa in the fridge for a week, if it lasts that long.

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Peach Salsa

Adapted from: Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-round by Marisa McClellan
Yield: The author claims the yield is 4 pints but I've made this three times and produced no more than 3 pints. 

6 cups peeled, pitted, and chopped peaches (about 4 pounds)
1 1/2 c distilled white vinegar
3/4 c granulated sugar

1 1/2 chopped onions (1 large onion) (red is very pretty, but not necessary)

1 c chopped red bell pepper (about 1 large pepper)

3 jalapeno peppers, minced (I'm a wimp and used 1- 1 1/2)

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 teas salt

1 teas ground cumin

1/4 teas cayenne pepper, you can leave out (which I do) or increase depending on heat tolerance

Prepare a boiling water bath and pint jars. When you start cooking the salsa, you can start bringing the water to a boil. Have your jars in the water so they will be hot when you ladle the salsa into them. Place the lids in a small saucepan and when closer to topping the jars, cover with boiling water.

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot. I like to mix the vinegar and the sugar together first and then add the peaches, stirring with additions. This kept the peaches from discoloring while I continue chopping. Bring all to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. The author allows it to simmer about 10 minutes but in high altitude that is too short a time for the juices to reduce. She instructs to simmer until the salsa no longer looks watery. Taste and adjust with additional jalapeno or vinegar, if needed.

Ladle the hot salsa into the jars, and leave 1/2-inch headspace. With a damp paper towel, wipe the rim and place the lids and rings on the jars. Tighten but only with your finger tips. Process for 15 minutes at sea level, add additional minutes for higher altitudes:

1,001-3,000 ft--5 additional minutes

3,001-6,000 ft--10 additional minutes

6,001-8,000 ft--15 additional minutes

8,001-10,000 ft--20 additional minutes

When finished, turn off the heat, remove the lid and allow jars to rest for 5 minutes to cool off slightly. Remove the jars and allow to sit for 24 hours before labeling and storing. Remember to test the seals and if any jar didn't seal keep the salsa in the refrigerator before use.

This is great for use as a fruit salsa but the author recommends it as a simmer sauce for chicken legs and thighs.

Note:

If you want this to be hotter, increase the cayenne, not the jalapeno. The canning recipe is balanced and safe as it stands. If you change ingredients you shouldn't process the salsa in bottles but refrigerate.

End-of-Summer Spaghetti Sauce

For some, the end of summer came several weeks ago, but in Albuquerque summer lingered this year, so here's one last "summer" recipe. This can be cooked anytime you find a good eggplant, however.

Gardening in the desert was a disappointment this summer but it has taught me just how hard plants try to do their life's work, in spite of strong hot winds, drought, insect attacks, and disease. Although we experienced all these traumas this summer, I got several eggplants, some tomatoes, onions, lots of garlic, and the herbs needed for this recipe. I'm glad since this mostly veggie sauce is great for pasta or polenta and I like to cook it at least once each summer. Skip the anchovies for a vegan dish.

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End-of-Summer Spaghetti Sauce

Source: Local Flavors:  Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets  by Deborah Madison

Yields sauce enough for 1 to 1 1/2 pounds of spaghetti

1 1/2 to 2 pds eggplant, peeled and sliced a scant 1/2-in thick

2 red, yellow, or orange bell peppers, quartered lengthwise

1/4 c oil, plus extra for the eggplant

1 onion, finely diced

1 garlic clove, minced

3 anchovies (optional)

1/3 c chopped parsley, plus extra for garnish

2 pds ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or canned equivalent (28-oz can)

1/4 c Kalamata or Gaeta olives, pitted and chopped

1/4 c green Sicilain olives, pitted and chopped

3 T capers, rinsed

1 T dried oregano

1/4 c water or juice from the tomatoes

salt and ground pepper

1 pd spaghetti

1 c Pecorino Romano cheese or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated

Preheat the broiler and place peppers on a baking sheet under the broiler, skin side up and cook until blistered. Stack the pepper quarters on top of each other and cover; allow to steam for 15 minutes and peel. Lightly brush a sheet pan with oil and place the eggplant slices on it. Brush the tops of the slices with oil and broil both sides until browned. Remove from oven and when cool enough to handle, dice the broiled eggplant slices and the peeled peppers. 

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven. Add the onion, garlic, anchovies, and the parsley. Saute until the onions are softened. Add the peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, olives, capers, oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer for 30 minutes. 

Cook the pasta. Stir in the sauce and top with more parsley. Pass the grated cheese among diners.

Note: I've frozen this sauce successfully.

Pan-seared Salmon with Sour Cream and Dill Sauce

I've had this recipe for cooking salmon since sometime in the 90s and I'm not sure where I got it. It is a good, basic recipe, simple and tasty. However, the recipe was annoyingly vague in ingredient amounts. I have included more precise measurements.

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Pan Seared Salmon with Sour Cream and Dill Sauce

Serves 4

4 salmon fillets 4-6 oz. each
2 T vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste

For the sauce:

1 c sour cream
1 bunch fresh dill, chopped (2 T minced)
juice of 1 lemon (3 T lemon juice; fresh is best, but bottled will do in a pinch)
1 small shallot, minced (or  1-2 T finely chopped scallion or chives)
small pinch of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

In a small bowl whisk together sour cream, dill, lemon juice, shallot, red pepper. Season with salt and pepper, roughly 1/4 teas each. Set in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Remove the pin bones from the salmon (see these instructions). Coat a large skillet with 2 T oil and place over medium heat. Season the salmon with salt and pepper. When hot, add the fillets to the pan flesh side down. Cook for 4-6 minutes until the surface is browned. Turn the fish over and cook for 2-5 minutes on the other side, depending on how thick the fillets are. You can use a knife to check that the fish is flaky and mostly opaque. Most experts recommending that salmon be a bit under cooked with a little rare meat in the center. But it is a matter of taste. Remove from pan and let rest for around 5 minutes.

Notes:

This sauce makes more than I can use with 4 servings of salmon; you may want to halve it since it doesn't really store well. Or you can plan on enjoying what is leftover as a vegetable dip or thin it with milk and use it as a creamy salad dressing.

I've substituted dill seed for fresh dill but I haven't done it for a long time, so I can only recommend that you use a half teaspoon and taste the result. Add more if you want more dill flavor. It will be a bit crunchier but will still taste of dill.

Check out these two sites for help (although when pan searing you may not want to brine):

brining

pan-searing

Basil Pesto

Basil is one of my favorite things about summer--it means sunshine and being outside in the garden, smelling my back porch herbs on the way out the back door. Pesto is a great way to preserve basil for enjoying in the winter; I usually eat it with pasta, but you can also use it as a sauce for fish, chicken, or vegetables.

Thanks to the generosity of a friend who planted large basil patches this year, I recently made and froze three pints of pesto. Three pints! That will evoke summer for quite some time.

Here's what my mom has to say about basil: "I don't know if anyone younger than 40 realizes just how rare pesto or basil were in the American diet until the 80s and 90s. I never saw a fresh basil leaf, let alone a plant, as a child. I only knew of dried basil. When we visited the states from Bahrain I became aware that Grandpa Hayes grew lots of herbs in his St. George garden. Shortly after we arrived back in Virginia in 1991, I took a library class on herbs and started to grow herbs every year. I can hardly imagine how boring our food was before we had fresh herbs all the time."

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Basil Pesto

1 c basil leaves
1/4 c olive oil
1-2 garlic cloves, depending on size
1 T pine nuts or almonds
5 T Parmesan cheese, shredded
1-2 T melted butter (optional)

A good blender makes a difference here. Blend the basil and oil into a paste. Add garlic and nuts, then blend until smooth.

If using immediately, add cheese and butter and blend again.

If freezing, leave out the cheese and butter and stir it in when you are about to serve. You may have to estimate just how much to add since you'll only use a portion, but it won't hurt if you get too much of either ingredient.

Notes on freezing containers: We have frozen pesto in a number of containers, including ice cube trays, glass jars, and plastic bags. Bags are our favorite, because it's easy to break off the needed amount of pesto. Ice cube trays are a pain for a couple of reasons: the pesto cubes are hard to remove from the tray, and also one pesto cube is rarely enough. Jars work, but it's hard to remove the amount of pesto you need without defrosting the jar. So bags are best. Lay flat to freeze, and break off what you need.

Smooth and Smokey Barbecue Sauce

For flavor homemade barbecue sauce can't be beat but most recipes include instructions to cook chopped onions as the base for the sauce. This tastes great but leaves the sauce chunky, no matter how much I cook the onions down. In this recipe the cook makes "onion juice" for the onion flavor. It's quick and convenient, since the ingredients are already in my pantry. As far as I'm concerned it is just perfect.

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Smooth and Smokey Barbecue Sauce

Source: cooksillustrated.com
Yield: approximately 1 1/2 cups

1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
1/4 c water
1 c ketchup
5 T molasses
2 T cider vinegar
2 T Worcestershire sauce
2 T Dijon mustard
1 1/2 teas liquid smoke (optional, see note)
1 teas hot pepper sauce (or less)
1/4 teas ground black pepper
2 T vegetable oil
1 medium clove garlic, minced (about 1 teas)
1 teas chili powder
1/4 teas cayenne pepper (or less)

In a food processor or blender process the onion with the water until the mixture resembles slush. This will make you cry unless you wear onion goggles. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a liquid measuring cup, pressing on the solids to extract liquid until you have 1/2 c onion juice. Discard or compost the solids.

Whisk the onion juice, ketchup, molasses, vinegar, Worcestershire, mustard, liquid smoke, hot pepper sauce, and black pepper together in a medium bowl (or if your liquid measuring cup is big enough, mix it in there to save dish washing).

Heat the oil in a large saucepan (nonreactive) over medium heat until shimmering but not smoking. Add the garlic, chili powder, and cayenne and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Whisk in the ketchup mixture and bring to a boil; reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, until the flavors meld and the sauce thickens, about 20-30 minutes. Cool. The sauce can be refrigerated for up to a week or frozen. 

Note:
Cook's Illustrated did a test on liquid smoke and found that most are full of who-knows-what chemicals to approximate the flavor of smoke. I believe Wright's brand uses a kind of still to extract smoke flavor so buy that brand if you want smoky sauce.

Strawberry and Raspberry Coulis

Since we seem to be focusing on what our gardens are producing at the moment, here is a recipe that will use up some of my summer berries. We grow everbearing, or day neutral, strawberries and raspberries and both are bearing now. This is a sweet coulis which can be drizzled on yogurt, ice cream, cakes, waffles, fruits, cheesecake, pies, and other desserts. The liquid in this sauce comes only from the fruits themselves (and a little lemon juice) which keeps the sauce fully flavored and quite thick.

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Strawberry and Raspberry Coulis

Adapted from cooksillustrated.com

12 ounces berries, fresh or frozen (and thawed), any combination as long as it equals this amount. In this case: 6 ounces raspberries and 6 ounces strawberries, but blueberries and blackberries are good, too

5-7 T sugar
1/4 c water
1/8 teas salt
2 teas fresh lemon juice

Place all ingredients but lemon juice into a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a slight simmer, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved and berries are heated through.

Cool for 5 minutes and place in a blender or food processor. Blend until pureed. Add lemon juice and pulse once more to incorporate juice into the sauce. Taste and add a bit of sugar, if needed.

Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a small bowl stirring and pressing on pulp to extract as much liquid as possible. Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Stir just before serving. The puree may thicken while cooling; if it becomes too thick add one or two teaspoons water.

The coulis may be refrigerated for 4-5 days and frozen for 4 months. It is a lovely thing to find some coulis in your freezer in the dark months of winter.