Lemony Zest :: Kim Lewandowski

Archive for July, 2008

We had a really delicious dinner last weekend – grilled romaine, tuna and peaches. Yum, yum and yum

It fits in perfectly with Joelen’s food blogging event Tasty Tools – the theme this month is Basting Brush, and of course, you need to oil up most foods before grilling them, so they don’t burn or stick to the grill grates. So here’s Dan ready to take the food out to the grill:

And, not my best photo, but here’s the tasty result:

This really doesn’t even require a recipe. For two servings, cut one romaine heart in half, keeping the root end intact, to prevent it from falling apart. Cut a ripe peach in half and remove the pit. Sprinkle the about 8 oz. of fresh tuna with Paul Prudhomme’s Blackening Seasoning (we didn’t really have enough – time to get some more), and brush it and the romaine and peaches with olive oil. Then, while Dan was grilling, I made a balsamic vinegar reduction – took about 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar, brought it to a boil in a small saucepan, and simmered till it was reduced by half.

Then we cut up the tuna, put it on top of the romaine and topped that with salad dressing – Italian for me and bleu cheese for Dan. We drizzled the balsamic reduction over the peaches and that was dinner. As I said – yum, yum and yum

We had a good crowd for the TNT dinner on July 17. We went to our favorite Mexican place – Tortilla West, on Orapax Avenue near Lamberts Point Docks. It’s more of an upscale Mexican restaurant – one of the waitresses told me they have trained chefs who like to do Mexican-inspired dishes rather than the typical Mexican. It seems to me that most of the Mexican restaurants around here use a version of the same menu – the same Speedy Gonzales Lunch #1 and so on – which are fine for what they are, but Tortilla West has their own delicious dishes.

So, to help us keep track of what we’ve tried and not tried, here’s what we all had that night:

• Barbara – Chicken Enchiladas Mole
• Kim – Fish Tacos
• Susan – Chicken Enchiladas Mole
• Martha – Chicken Fajitas – a very generous portion!
• Randy – Spinach and Goat Cheese Quesadilla
• Duane – Chicken Enchiladas

All declared their dinners delicious

A few days ago, I received the Thai ingredients I had ordered from A Taste of Thai. Most of them were in good shape; some of the Thai peppers were not as fresh as they could have been, but many are usable, and I have Kung Pao peppers in the garden, so that’s not a problem.

The really great part is getting the kaffir lime leaves and galangal, which I could not find in local grocery stores, even Asian stores. So soon I will make tom yum soup again, to see if it tastes as authentic as what I’ve had in restaurants.

Here’s a pic of the ingredients that came in the kit:

I cook mostly with olive oil, but we do use butter from time to time. Some time ago, I wrote about wanting to get a butter crock. Where we live, it gets quite hot during the summer, and if I leave butter out in the traditional butter dish, it gets much too soft. If I put it in the fridge, it gets too hard and tears the bread when you try to spread it.

Dan often likes to have cinnamon-raisin bread for breakfast, so this can be a problem. Then I saw the butter bell, which is supposed to keep butter spreadable, yet cool. You put the butter in the top, then put a few inches of cool water in the bottom. When you put the top into the bottom, the water forms a seal that protects the butter from the air, so it lasts longer and doesn’t absorb odors, and the water keeps the butter cool and spreadable. That’s it.

I wasn’t crazy about the butter bell I linked to above, because it’s French and my new kitchen is Tuscan-looking (that’s not a political statement, just an aesthetic one ). Then on Amazon, I found this – an Italian-looking butter bell with graphics of herbs around it. Bought it right away, it arrived earlier this week, and it works just as advertised. Love it and recommend it highly.

On Sunday, Dan and I took Pippen and a picnic lunch on a day trip. First we went to an outlet mall in Williamsburg, where I used my 35 percent off coupon at Le Creuset to buy a 5.5-quart Flame-colored enameled cast-iron Dutch oven (finally! yay!), a green pepper baking dish (I already have a yellow pepper, pumpkin and garlic), and a new spatula. All that for less than $150, because they had a Dutch oven in the size and color I wanted that had been a floor model, so the man at the store gave me the seconds price on it. The only flaw is that the bottom was scratched some. I promise, I won’t turn it over

After shopping, we drove along the James River where there are a lot of places to stop and enjoy the river. We found one place that was pretty private and quiet, right along the water. Dan and Pippen went to play in the water while I took pix.

Here’s a still:

I’ll have to upload the movie later – it’s too big and it’s too late now to start editing it. See ya.

Just wanted to show off my herb garden I did a quick-n-dirty blur on the background, to make it easier to see the herbs. The tree on the left is a Japanese maple and there’s another tree on the right, in the clay pot – can’t remember what it is. And the other tree in the middle right is bay laurel. Yup, it grows as a tree here.

This started off as a flower garden in the middle of the back yard. Then we moved my herbs into it, expanded it, and just keep adding more things to it. I think it needs to be expanded again And next year, I’m definitely moving the fennel somewhere else (that’s the tall, gray-green stuff to the right of and behind the birdbath). It just takes up too much space and shades some of the other herbs.

Off the top of my head, we have thyme, lemon thyme, rosemary, sage, tarragon, Italian parsley, bay, purple basil, sweet basil, Thai basil, Greek oregano, dill (still going, although I have to pick off flowers almost every day), cilantro (almost done) and mint in a strawberry jar on the patio, to keep it from taking over.