Shrimp Salad - On the Fly!

Usually there is nothing good about opening the freezer - while the sun is still struggling to raise itself from the other side of the planet - and seeing the ribs you were going to take out to thaw, already dripping. Come on, say it with me ‘ahhh sh**’. You know what follows. The crazy thought that somehow the plug came out of the wall....even though the light is on. Then the burst of strength as you pull the refrigerator out from its fridge cave so you can check the back - looking for...I don’t know what. When acceptance finally settles in, the real work begins. The mad dash to remove all the perishables...wait, that would mean everything, right? Yup. And so it goes. Bag after dripping bag of stuff either gets tossed in the trash or run down to the already stuffed basement freezer/refrigerator. I’m not looking for sympathy as I know there are plenty of worse things...waking up with a water heater that has kicked up its heels in the middle of the night (cold shower, anyone?); dishwasher that has regurgitated all of its liquid contents all over the hardwood kitchen floor while you slept; cat that has disemboweled a mouse during the night and left it as a gift at the foot of your daughter’s bed... I know. This is not a story of sadness, it’s a story of discovery! While I did discover some pretty interesting bits of Bosworth culinary history, I also found a bag of shrimp I had forgotten about. Yay! A new dinner plan was hatched! Not really hatched, more like fertilized. Ribs were quickly shoved out of the way and in their place a different kind of summer meal started to grow - mentally.

Because I have recently gotten a job and started taking a class (both of these are new endeavours for me), my always-scattered, manic mind is on mega overdrive right now. The shrimp (and dinner) were completely forgotten until about 20 minutes before I was due to leave for my evening class. Four kid faces and one adult husband face stared at me as I started packing up my stuff to leave. ‘What’s for dinner?’ Oh yeah, dinner. I had the shrimp....and nothing else. Quick scan of the refrigerator (complete with its new whatever-costs-$200-part) revealed a ‘not much’ scenario. Today’s blog entry is not so much a recipe as a survival lesson. Here goes...

-1 lb shrimp...into a frying pan with equal parts butter and olive oil. Saute until pink (maybe 3ish minutes). Couple of twists of the pepper grinder over the shrimp. Shrimp off the burner and into a bowl.

-Refrigerator reveals leftover iceburg lettuce (I know, I know...the kids like it on tacos though). Lettuce chopped and onto a large serving platter.

-Fruit bowl reveals two avocados. Peeled, sliced, onto the serving platter with the lettuce.

-Cantaloupe sitting on the counter. Peel, chop, add to serving platter.

-Add cooled shrimp.

-Quick run through the sauces, condiments, ‘stuff’ in the refrigerator door. A mango habanero dipping sauce is located. Pour a bunch into a bowl. Splash some soy sauce, water and lemon juice (or any kind of citrus) into the dipping sauce. Mix it all together. Taste. Pour sauce over entire contents of serving platter.

-Chop up some basil. Scatter over the top.

-Slide platter onto table with 5 plates and forks.

-Kiss family good-bye.

And that is how we sometimes have to roll at this house. Real food. No call to Dominos. Crisp, sweet, creamy, little spicy, crunchy and really delicious. While I don’t wish this scenario on you, it is always comforting to know that much can be made from little when in a pinch. That’s amore, eh?

Cantaloupe Caprese.....ahhhhhh!

Weeds deserve our respect....and loathing. Bi-polar? I know. The emotional swings have been annoying, even to me. The summer of ’10 has proven to be a hot, wet one in the Chicagoland area - perfect for growing weeds. My tomatoes are fairly tasteless, my peppers are not growing at all (except the serranos), the zucchini....well, I got one. My list of complaints over my lack of food production go on and on. But the weeds....they are thriving! Because the builder of my house liked to do whatever was quick and easy for him (she said bitterly), the foundation on one side spills out under the soil for a few feet. Nothing can grow there. Every year I put decorative flower pots, filled with flowers to disguise this wasteland. This year the flower pots are engulfed in a splendid display of one-foot high weeds. From a distance it doesn’t look bad...well, from a distance with one eye closed and the other one squinting... As I was getting up the courage to go and attack this weed patch, it got me thinking of another time in my life when the plants could not be controlled. If you’ve ever grown any kind of vining vegetable/fruit plant, you know that they can take over a place while you’ve got your back turned, pouring a glass of lemonade. In this previous case, however, I was not complaining...too much.

Cantaloupe. The word itself is beautiful. Roll it around in your mouth and tell me it doesn’t feel good. I can never spell it, but I love saying it. And eating it. Years ago when I still lived in Massachusetts, I planted a few beautiful little plants with barely four leaves on them. Little mounds with furry green sticking out. I couldn’t understand why the directions insisted on a few feet between mounds, so I simply ignored that point. As usual, I lived to regret it. Monster vs. Aliens. Have you guys seen that movie? It’s a kids movie that came out a couple of years ago. The pumpkins in the patch grow wild, sprout legs and chase little kids around. Yeah, my cantaloupe plants were something like that. As long as I could hack off a cantaloupe every now and then, I didn’t mind. It would take an act of God, some high-octane manure and hourly prayer/chanting to grow anything resembling a cantaloupe on the soil I now call home. I have to buy them. No mind, they’re still good. This summer, along with the weeds, my recipes for cantaloupe products has been abundant. I thought we had had it all when I came across a recipe in La Cucina Italiana magazine that was sort of an ‘aaahhhhhh’ moment for me. We eat a lot of caprese salad here - tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. La Cucina substituted the tomatoes with cantaloupe. Aaaaahhhhhh.... A sweet, comfortable, luxurious breathe of amazing! This is a ‘must try’...seriously. Couldn’t be easier and will leave you thinking about summer - warm breeze, flip-flop summer - for a long time to come.

Caprese di melone con pesto leggero

(melon caprese with a light pesto)

1 packed cup fresh basil leaves

1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

2 tbsp pin nuts

fine sea salt

1 small (about 2 lb) cantaloupe, halved crosswise, seeded, sliced

3/4 pound fresh mozzarella

Combine basil, oil, pine nuts and generous pinch salt in a food processor (they recommend blender...I couldn’t get it to come together in a blender, but you may be able to); puree until smooth. Adjust salt to taste.

Arrange cantaloupe on a plate, inserting slices of mozzarella in between. Drizzle pesto over entire plate. Serve. It’s really that easy!

Although my kids have always loved (and continue to love) the original caprese salad, they have begged for this version since first trying it. My husband, who is a purist, also loves this! Indulge your senses....it’s so worth it!

From Mad Men to Marmalade

'I'm going out to get a bucket of chicken.' states the glamorous, beautiful and very pregnant Mrs. Draper (who normally makes home-cooked meals for her family). For those of you who follow Mad Men, you know who she is. I am currently watching season three in an attempt to catch up with season four. As I watched the DVD this morning, it got me thinking... Although the 50’s and 60’s were an amazing period of time in our country’s history, I believe it was a space of years that messed with our food in unforgivable ways. The frozen, canned, plastic-encased stuff that replaced real food lowered the bar to such a level that we are still recovering from it today. How could someone go from cooking a homemade pot roast one day to pulling a previously-frozen slab of pseudo-meat on a piece of aluminum out of the oven and call it good? Preachy and judgmental of me - yes. Shortly after learning that if you can read, you can cook, I discovered the secret. The secret of real food. All (or most) of the food you can buy in containers from the store, can be created for real in your very own kitchen. And, most importantly, it tastes better! Oh yes, and no chemical additives means it’s better for you. Revelation!!

My son Owen is six. He loves food. He loves learning about food. He loves experimenting with food. He loves cooking food. And, at a young age he learned that anything he can pick up in the store that is enclosed in a container, he can probably make at home. Even if it doesn’t work out to be better tasting, it’s fun to try. He’s a sauce guy. Loves sauces of every kind. Jams and jellies fall into that sauce category for him, so when he went to eat his beloved orange marmalade on his muffin one day, and all of the sudden shouted out ‘Mom, can we make orange marmalade?’! I knew we had moved into a new area of food prep. ‘Sure!’ We gathered ingredients, researched recipes, labored over getting the orange slices out of the membranes and ..... it was pretty bad. ‘Too much lemon.’ He stated. ‘Why did they have us put lemon in there?’ I was much more concerned with the 5 cups of sugar we had just introduced to our beautiful orange mixture. The marmalade hit the trash. But we were undeterred. Peach season is upon us now. The boy loves his peach jam. And so, we tried again. SUCCESS! Great flavor! Really easy and quick. I can see you smirking right now. I am not losing my mind. Yes, you can get really good single-batch specialty jams. Is mine better than that? Maybe better, maybe worse. We have messed around with the original recipe now to include serrano chilis and (drum roll) BACON with the peach (completely awesome!) and made it in small batches so as to avoid all that canning stuff. It’s fun and easy and can be done in the time it takes to make any sauce you normally make for your food. Did you think those jelly guys did some magic stuff that we lay people couldn’t do? I did. Now I know that’s not true.

Bacon and Serrano Peach Jam

2 lbs fully ripened fresh peaches, washed, peeled, and pitted

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2 serrano chilis (I’m sure you can use any kind of chili here, I just happened to be growing these in my garden right now), chopped, seeded, membranes removed

5ish pieces of bacon- chopped and cooked

1 pkg powdered fruit pectin

1 cup mild-flavor honey

Chop or coarsely grind peaches and serranos, blending with lemon juice (I threw the whole thing in the food processor and let it do the work). Measure prepared fruit, packing down in cup. You should have 2 full cups. Place fruit and lemon juice in a 6-quart stainless steel or enamel saucepan. Add pectin and mix well.

Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. When fruit is boiling, stir while slowly pouring in honey, blending well. Continue stirring and return to a full rolling boil. When boiling cannot be stirred down, boil for 4 more minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in bacon. Alternately stir and skim (taking the white foamy stuff off the top) for 5 minutes to cool slightly.

At this point the authors of the original recipe tell you to can it or freeze it. This makes a batch small enough to eat in a week (or a couple of days at my house), so there is no need to go through the whole canning process.

EASY! FAST! INTERESTING! I encourage you to keep experimenting with added flavors or just eliminate the chilis and bacon and stick with the original. You can take this recipe as far as your imagination will allow. The original recipe, btw, was created by Carol Hupping and the staff of the Rodale Food Center in their book ‘Stocking Up’. Enjoy!

P.S. The jam pictured above was the first batch we made so it doesn't have the serranos or the bacon in it. Technical difficulties prevented me from downloading the pictures of the 'fully-loaded' jam.