Crab hot pot

Crab hot pot

I went into work early on Monday and came out late. I didn't feel like making dinner and I really, really needed to do some laundry. My husband had just boarded a train home for his daily commute and asked if there was any food in the house. He figured I didn't want to cook and suggested getting Chinese takeout.

With my laundry in the washer, I was about to get Chinese food when I started looking at a Cuisine at Home magazine that was still open to a page showing crab recipes. I had made crab cakes the other day and I still had some crab leftover.

When I saw "30 minutes" and "bacon" for the crab soup recipe, I suddenly decided to make it.

The soup was perfect for the weather. It had been on the cooler side. M. slurped up the soup. I happily ate the crunchy bacon with the crab and spinach.

A hearty hot pot. A good ending to a long day.

Crab hot pot
Adapted from Cuisine at Home June 2005

Ingredients:
1/4 pound bacon, diced
2 cups tomatoes, chopped
1 cup onion, diced
1 cup potatoes (any kind), diced, peeled or unpeeled
1 tablespoon jalapeno, seeded, diced (optional)
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
3 cups chicken broth
4 cups fresh spinach, loosely packed, chopped
1 cup canned coconut milk
2 cups or 8 ounces canned crabmeat, drained
Fresh lime juice to taste
chopped scallions
reserved bacon

Saute bacon in a pot over medium heat until crisp. Remove and set aside. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the drippings.

Stir in tomatoes, onion, potato, jalapeno, garlic and seasonings. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until the onions are soft, about 5 minutes.

Add broth and bring to a boil. Simmer soup for 10 minutes.

Gently stir in spinach, coconut milk and crab. Simmer 3-4 minutes to heat through.

Finish soup with lime juice and garnish with scallions and bacon before serving.

Print recipe

Roasted beets

Roasted beets taste like sweet corn (at least to me they do). I started cooking beets after going to the farmers' market more often and finding a great recipe in How to Pick a Peach by Russ Parsons.

Roasted beets
Adapted from How to Pick a Peach by Russ Parsons

Ingredients:
1 bunch beets, washed
olive oil to taste
red wine vinegar to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Leave about an inch of the tops on each beet, as well as the bottom root. The beets will keep their color better.

Wrap beets in three layers of aluminum foil. Roast for about an hour or until you can pierce a beet with a knife. Take the beets out of the oven, open up the package and let the beets cool down a little. Wear gloves or cover your hands with plastic bags because the beets stain everything. Peel the beets and cut them in quarters. Drizzle with olive oil and red wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

Print recipe

My 100th post and crab cakes!

Crab cakes

For my 100th post, I thought I'd make something a little special: crab cakes!

My husband and I passed the plate of crab cakes back and forth between us as we ate them with our hands. We didn't even sit down at the table. We just sat on the couch and finished off the plate.

I had left one crab cake near the stove. M. left to deal with the laundry and I thought I could have the last one. When I walked into the kitchen, the crab cake was gone. M. had eaten it on his way out. Damn.

Crab cakes
Adapted from a Crab Po' boy recipe in Cuisine at Home June 2005
Time: 30 minutes plus chilling.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup mayonnaise (light or regular)
1 egg
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 cups (8 ounces) canned crab meat. Use lump or backfin crab.
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup mozzarella, grated
1/3 red bell pepper, diced
1/3 cup scallions, minced
More bread crumbs
2-4 tablespoons vegetable oil

Whisk mayonnaise, egg, Old Bay, pepper flakes, and lemon juice together in a large bowl. Gently stir in crab, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, mozzarella, bell pepper, and scallions. Form mixture into golf ball-size cakes.

Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet that has been sprinkled with a layer of bread crumbs. Roll crab cakes in bread crumbs. Press cakes to flatten. Then chill for 15-30 minutes to set.

Fry cakes in batches in 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat in a nonstick pan. Cook each side until golden. Serve warm.

Print recipe

Wrapped in bacon

Ever since M. and I had bacon-wrapped fingerling potatoes at Twist in Hyde Park, N.Y., I've been trying to replicate them.

Twist's potatoes were in a perfectly seared bacon cocoon.

I haven't been able to make the potatoes exactly like Twist does, but anything wrapped in bacon hits that deep spot in my stomach.

Bacon-wrapped fingerling potatoes
Ingredients:
fingerling potatoes
bacon

Boil as many potatoes as you want in a pot until soft. Take the potatoes out and they'll dry quickly by themselves. Wrap a potato in bacon. Cut the end with kitchen shears. Wrap the other potatoes. In a saute pan, fry potatoes on all sides to cook the bacon.

Print recipe

As my main dish, I had roast chicken in a parmesan garlic marinade.

Roast chicken in a parmesan garlic sauce

Candy of Soup Belly gave me some Saucy Mama parmesan garlic marinade. Thanks Candy! I basted four chicken thighs in the marinade and then roasted them. The chicken was juicy and very flavorful.

The Ungourmet's Outta this world cookie bars

After seeing these cookie bars with Nutella and chocolate chips on The Ungourmet, I had to make them. I brought them to work and my co-workers gobbled them up.

You bite into the sweetness of the Nutella and then you hit the semi-sweet chocolate chips. It's nummy.

Thanks, Kim for posting the recipe!

Click here for the recipe. I baked the bars in a square dish because I didn't have an 11 x 7 pan and 9 x 13 was too big. I added a couple teaspoons more of Nutella.

Bean burger from Poppy's

Bean burger with red cabbage slaw, avocado, aioli and cheese

See that cheese coming off that burger?

I had this hefty veggie burger at Poppy's in Beacon, N.Y. The bean burger was perfectly crispy on the outside. It went well with the red cabbage slaw, avocado, aioli and cheese. (You just can't go wrong with avocado.)

Normally, I would get beef. But that night after work, I just wanted something healthier I guess. I ate all of the veggie burger and felt very, very full.

I like going to Poppy's because it's my neighborhood burger joint. It's reliable, meaning I like the burgers and I like talking with the chef/owner. He's an amiable fellow dedicated to making quality burgers. He's very adamant about using local, grass-fed beef and buying organic ingredients.

I'm not so strict about buying only organic, but I admire the owner's commitment to putting the best product out there.

He's always trying to find out how customers feel about his burgers and he really wants to hear the truth. One time, he asked me how I thought his Sloppy Joe burger was. On the menu, he had described the tomato ragu as spicy. I liked the burger a lot, but I never tasted any heat.

After he pushed for more of an answer, I finally said I didn't taste any spiciness. He took the criticism very well and seemed pleased that I was so truthful.

This time around when I got up to pay for my veggie burger, the owner asked, "How was it?"

"Good," I said. It had been a long day and my tired face didn't feel like moving.

"You're a tough nut to crack," he said.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" I said jokingly. "Jump up and down?"

"Yeah, I do," the owner said. "But I only want you to do it if you want to, not in a fake way."

I smiled. "It made me very happy inside," I said.

He beamed.

Poppy's
184 Main St.
Beacon, NY 12508
845-765-2121

Trip to the east...of New York that is

Pork and chive dumplings

I had a day off, so I decided to head into New York's Lower East Side last week for some serious food.

I hadn't eaten lunch. With an empty stomach, I headed for Vanessa's Dumpling House. $1 for four dumplings. That's how much I spent.

The dumplings were crispy on the outside and filled with juicy pork and chives. Lovely fried things.

Vanessa's Dumpling House
118A Eldridge St.
(between Grand and Broome streets)
New York, NY 10002
212-625-8008
212-625-8118

Then I walked over to Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery for dessert.

Ooey Gooey cupcake

Imagine... Chocolate cupcake with chocolate almond buttercream.

Sugar Sweet Sunshine Bakery
126 Rivington Street
(between Essex and Norfolk streets)
New York, NY
(212) 995-1960

Essex Market

120 Essex Street
New York, NY 10002

I visited Essex Market just to see it. I love walking by open stalls of fruit, vegetables, seafood and meat.

I had a mango smoothie from Tra La La Juice Bar.

A magnet with attitude

I like the marketing ploy.

Fresh fish

I had dinner with my husband since he works in the City.

Pork chop banh mi sandwich

I usually am the one who picks the restaurant because my husband knows I won't be happy until we go where we want. But my husband was looking forward to banh mi, too. We had dinner at Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches.

I had a pork chop banh mi sandwich and M. had the classic sandwich with pate, ground pork, and ham. Each sandwich had mayonnaise, pickled carrots, cilantro and chili pepper.

I bit into the baguette. The pork in my sandwich tasted wonderfully sweet. I could just eat that pork chop by itself. When I got to the pickled carrots, the inside of my mouth began burning and so did my lips. We had chosen "spicy."

As I took bites of my sandwich, I kept thinking I was a wimp. I'm Asian. I eat kimchi, but I can't handle a lot of heat. Finally, I took out the vegetables in my sandwich.

Next time, less heat.

Nicky's Vietnamese Sandwiches
150 E. 2nd St.
(between Avenue A and Avenue B)
New York, NY 10009
212-388-1088

Sun sugar tomatoes

I saw these orange cherry tomatoes at the Poughkeepsie Farmers' Market. They're called sun sugar tomatoes. They are sooo sweet! I've been popping them in my mouth like candy.

Visiting the CIA and it doesn't have to do with national security

Cold soup with shrimp fritters and coconut milk

I had time to have a quick dinner at the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe inside the Culinary Institute of America before I went to a meeting. The CIA is one of the best culinary schools in the world and there's plenty of famous chefs who went there.

Check out the list of famous alumni here.

Culinary students make everything at the cafe.

It was hot outside so I chose the cold soup with coconut milk. I really liked the shrimp fritters. The only problem was they just gave me two fritters!

Banana peanut butter krunch!!!

One of the culinary students suggested getting this dessert. Inside the package: liquid truffles with a filling of banana cake batter, oatmeal streusel clusters and peanut butter. Inside the canister: chocolate milk.

It was like having candy cereal. Each truffle oozed with cake batter. The dessert was too sweet for me. But I loved the packaging.

I love visiting the CIA, not only for its food, but its architecture.

Roth Hall where the Apple Pie Bakery Cafe is located

Outside Roth Hall

Pavilion outside Roth Hall

Fountain outside Roth Hall

Location:
Culinary Institute of America
1946 Campus Drive
Hyde Park, NY 12538-1499
1-800-CULINARY or 845-452-9430

Bethany Burchick's Peanut butter Nutella brownies

"I want the nutella!" said my pouting husband.

He acted like an impatient 2-year-old, waiting for me to finish making peanut butter Nutella brownies. I put them in the oven to bake for 30 minutes.

Impatient again, he did a little dance in front of the oven as if to speed up the process of baking. He pouted some more.

After the brownies were finally done, I gave him a brownie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. He ate it all and then went to go get another one.

"Did you like it?" I asked because he hadn't said anything.

"Yeah. I ate two," he replied.

A typical answer by my husband.

The brownies were oh so moist. I tasted more peanut butter than Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread), but the brownies stayed moist for a few days, more than the average.

Click here for Bethany Burchick's brownie recipe that is posted on the Food Network Web site.

Other links for the same recipe:

Leslie of The Hungry Housewife

Miranda of My Life and Food Encounters

Pineapple fried rice in a pineapple!

Click here to see the winners of the honey giveaway!

M. came home to have dinner in a pineapple.

"You went all out," M. said when he sat down to eat pineapple fried rice.

A few years ago, I gave my husband (then boyfriend) two cookbooks, one on Thai food and the other on Indian food. He lived in a town in central Illinois that wasn't very diverse. Even though there was an Asian grocery store, I don't think it was well-equipped enough for the complicated recipes in these cookbooks. M. never used them.

Now the cookbooks are mine!

Pineapple fried rice is one of my favorite dishes that I order at Thai restaurants. My new favorite Thai restaurant makes the dish so flavorful. I thought I'd try the recipe in my cookbook.

I was absolutely giddy about using pineapple halves as bowls!

I changed some things in the recipe because I made two cups of fried rice, not 1.5 cups. Here's the recipe first... Then I'll show you pictures.

Pineapple fried rice
Adapted from
The Food of Thailand
Text by Lulu Grimes; Recipes by Oi Cheepchaiissara; Photography by Alan Benson

Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 fresh pineapple, leaves attached
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg, beaten with a pinch of salt
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
8 ounces shrimp, peeled and deveined (or defrost frozen shrimp)
1/4 cup sweet corn
1/4 cup peas
1/2 red pepper, diced
1 tablespoon ginger, grated or minced
2 cups jasmine rice
2 tablespoons or more of soy sauce
1/4 cup salted cashew nuts, whole or chopped
1 long red chili or 1 serrano chili, seeded and finely sliced, for garnish
a few cilantro leaves, for garnish
Note: You can always adjust ingredient amounts to your liking.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Make your rice in your rice cooker or on the stove. Cut the pineapple in half, lengthways, with a cleaver. I usually take a mallet and tap on the cleaver to drive the knife through tough produce. Leave a 1/2 inch border in a pineapple half. Scoop out the contents with a spoon. Cut the fruit into cubes. Repeat with the other pineapple half.

Wrap the pineapple leaves in foil to prevent them from burning. Place the shells on a baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes. This will seal in the juice and prevent it from leaking into the fried rice when it is placed in the shells. (Maybe it was my oven, but I still found a lot of juice in the shells after baking them. I poured the juice into the bowl of cubed pineapple I already had.)

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Pour in the egg and and swirl the pan so that the egg coats it and forms a thin omelette. Cook for 2 minutes, or until the egg is set and slightly brown on the underside. Then flip it over. Remove from the pan and allow to cool slightly. Roll up and cut into thin strips. Set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a frying pan and stir-fry the garlic over medium heat until fragrant. Add the shrimp, ham, sweet corn, peas, red pepper and ginger. Stir-fry for 2 minutes or until the shrimp turn pink. (I threw in defrosted shrimp.) Add the cooked rice, soy sauce and three-quarters of the cubed pineapple. Add a little bit of the pineapple juice. Leave the rest of the fruit for eating. Toss together over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes. Taste, then adjust seasoning if necessary. Mix in cashews.

Spoon as much of the fried rice into the pineapple halves. Garnish with omelette strips, cilantro and chili pepper.

Print recipe

Now, the photos!


I was so proud of myself for cutting the pineapple with a meat cleaver! To recap, I tapped on my cleaver with a mallet to drive the knife through the fruit.






This is what my pineapple shells looked like.







Cool, huh?

Winners of the honey giveaway!

The winners of the honey giveaway are: (drumroll please...)

Tien and Duo Dishes!

My husband picked out the winners.

Please e-mail your full name and address to hummingbirdappetite@gmail.com.

There's one blueberry honey and one raspberry honey (both in one-pound jars). If you have a preference for either flavor, please let me know and I will try to accommodate. Both flavors are wonderful, so you can't go wrong.

A big thanks to all 22 who participated in my first giveaway!

Black garlic and peaches

Winners of the honey giveaway will be announced at 4 p.m. today!

Black garlic

I cut open the bag of black garlic and a whiff of my childhood enveloped my nostrils. I couldn't place the smell, but it was definitely Asian.

Black garlic is basically aged garlic. When the fermenting process is done, the cloves become black and very soft. It is common on the Korean peninsula, Japan and Thailand. In the United States, the food item has become the "it" ingredient.

Barbara from Dish 'n' that gave me some black garlic to try from Frieda's. Barbara has tasty vegetarian recipes on her blog. She and I both have posts today about cooking with black garlic, so check out her blog.

The smell of the aged garlic felt familiar to me. I grew up in a household of fermented ingredients, like kimchi (fermented, spicy vegetables), doenjang (fermented soybeans equivalent to Japanese miso), and kochujang (red pepper paste).

I waited until last weekend to taste the black garlic. It was sweet with a bit of depth. My husband thought it was too sweet.

When I held up the cloves for him to smell, he scrunched up his face and shook his head.

"It's pretty strong," he said.

M. didn't think it was a bad smell. It was just overwhelming.

Black garlic seems like an ingredient you add to dishes at the very end. If you like the taste, you could add it as a garnish on fried rice.

I decided to use black garlic as a glaze on peaches.

The black garlic added another layer of flavor to the peaches. Maybe I tasted a little more bitterness. I'm not quite sure. I tasted something that was a little deeper than the honey. It was an interesting taste I have to say.

Peaches with black garlic honey glaze
Ingredients:
2 medium peaches, peeled
2 teaspoons honey
1 clove black garlic

Cut peeled peaches into wedges. In a bowl, mash the black garlic into the honey to mix it all together. Add the glaze to a sauce pan to melt it just a little over low heat. Add peaches to the pot and coat them with the glaze. You don't really need to cook the peaches at all. Serve warm.

Print recipe

Here's a Web site about black garlic with more recipes:
http://blackgarlic.com

Discovering the wonders of Flickr

The deadline to enter into the honey giveaway is today. Click here to enter.

I've figured out the advantages of using flickr for your blog. It's an online management and photo sharing Web site. I've used flickr before to share photos with my family, but not for my own blog. Today, I uploaded photos to flickr. I clicked on an individual photo and then clicked on the "Share" icon. Then I copied and pasted html code of the photo into a blog post. The photo came out bigger and sharper on my blog.

I think it's pretty cool that anyone can click on the photo and see the stats of the photo i.e. what camera I used, what size etc.

The account is free until you hit a limit. Then you'll have to pay for an upgrade to upload more photos.

Enjoy the new look of my photos.

Note: If you use Wordpress, you don't have a problem with photos looking small on your blog. My Google Blogger template tends to set photos at a certain width and height. For whatever reason, if I upload photos from flickr, the photos are bigger.

Ratatouille by Tartelette's mom

Don't forget to add your name to my giveaway for blueberry honey and raspberry honey! Click here to enter! The deadline is Sunday.

Ratatouille

In the crisper drawer of my refrigerator, I had a super huge zucchini from my friend Barbara of Dish 'n' That. She also gave me some garlic from her garden.



I wanted to make ratatouille. I was looking for a home recipe, something passed down. I found one from Helen of Tartelette. She's a French expatriate in South Carolina. When I saw that she posted a recipe for her mom's ratatouille, I knew I had to make it.

The dish was hearty and filling. The next day, it was even better because the vegetables were saturated with the flavor of the herbs.

Ratatouille
Adapted from Tartelette's mom
1 medium onion, diced
1 eggplant, peeled every other strip, cut into cubes
3-4 zucchini (or one gigantic zucchini), peeled every other strip, cut into cubes
1 red bell pepper
4 tomatoes (I didn't have any at the time)
1 (14-ounce) can diced tomatoes
5 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
herbs de provence to taste (or a combination of thyme, parsley, oregano, lavender, all spice and a pinch of basil)
salt and pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil

Heat a large saute pan or dutch oven over medium. Saute the onion in olive oil until translucent. Add the eggplant and saute until it becomes golden in color. Add a little bit more olive oil and add the zucchini. Then add the peppers, fresh tomatoes and canned tomatoes.

Add the garlic cloves. Season vegetables with herbs de provence, one tablespoon at a time. Season with salt and pepper. Do not stir. Cover with a lid and leave alone for about 15 minutes. The vegetables will shrink in volume and you'll have an easier time mixing the herbs with the vegetables. Add more herbs, salt and pepper to your liking.

Lower the heat to medium low. Simmer for about 30 to 40 minutes. Take off the lid, turn down the heat to low and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Print recipe

Dreaming of wedding cake

Don't forget to add your name to my giveaway for blueberry honey and raspberry honey! Click here to enter!

Courtesy Cameron Gillie Photography

Sometimes I regret I didn't eat more of my wedding cake. It was chocolate with chocolate ganache. I had a few of the most lovely bites. The cake was moist and had the perfect balance of chocolate. Then M. and I decided to get up to visit each table.

Even though M. and I were married almost a year ago, I still think about that cake. Why didn't I finish it? Why did we start making table rounds so soon?

I remember being so excited about the cake design. I had printed out an image of a cherry blossom branch climbing up the side of a cake. I showed the printout to Margaret Jerome of Wedding Cakes Plus by Margaret Ann in Sparta, Wis. I liked the simplicity of a single branch, but I wanted blue flowers to go with the color scheme of the wedding.

Ah well. I can always bake chocolate cake for myself.

Peach and blackberry crostata with help from Ina

Don't forget to add your name to my giveaway for blueberry honey and raspberry honey! Click here to enter!



I've always been a little bit afraid of making pastry dough. I was scared I'd overwork the dough and the pastry wouldn't come out right. But this time, I dove right in with the help of Ina Garten's pastry recipe for a fruit crostata.

I had seen galettes on other people's blogs, like Working Lunch and Soup Belly, and I wanted to make one for me and my husband.

The first time I made a crostata, I used nectarines and blueberries. The nectarines weren't soft enough. But even if I baked the crostata on the longer side, the pastry part of the crostata would still taste delicious.

Garten adds sugar to her dough and that's want makes it tastes so good. Plus, you can make the dough all in a food processor. It's quick and easy!

With this latest try, I used peaches and blackberries. I had just bought the blackberries that day.



Aren't they beautiful? I ate one and it was like a burst of red wine in my mouth.

Garten adds a pastry topping to her peach, plum and blueberry crostata, but I made mine without one. I wanted to see the fruit.

M. can't stop eating the crostata if I place it in front of him. He can eat a half pretty easily.

I heated raspberry honey in the microwave and glazed the crostatas with the honey. Mmmm...

Peach and blackberry crostata
Adapted from Barefoot Contessa at Home by Ina Garten

For the pastry: Click here for the recipe at FoodNetwork.com

For the filling: (makes 2 crostatas)
(Fruit amounts are rough estimates. Use any fruit you like and adjust amounts to your preference.)

4 peaches, peeled and sliced
1/2 pint blackberries, halved
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice or lemon juice

honey for glazing

For the pastry: Follow directions as posted on FoodNetwork.com

For the filling, cut peaches in wedges and cut blackberries in half. Place the fruit in a bowl with the blackberries. Toss them with 1 tablespoon flour, 1 tablespoon of the sugar and orange juice.

Place mixed fruit on the dough circle, leaving a 1.5-inch border. Gently fold the border of the pastry over the fruit, pleating it to make an edge. Repeat with the second crostata.

Heat a couple spoonfuls of honey in the microwave and glaze the fruit of each crostata with honey.

Bake the crostata for 20 to 25 minutes, until the crust is golden and the fruit is tender. Let the crostata cool for 5 minutes. Serve warm.

Blueberry and Raspberry Honey Giveaway!

I know I talk about blueberry and raspberry honey all the time, so I am giving away two jars of honey from White Oak Apiary! One jar is filled with blueberry honey and the other jar is filled with raspberry honey. Each jar is one pound.

These types of honeys have unique flavor. I can taste the essence of blueberries in one honey. Raspberry honey tastes fragrant with a little bit of a stronger oomph.

I buy the honey at Cold Spring Farmers Market in New York. On Saturday, the woman at the White Oak Apiary stand told me beekeeper Mike Bruen takes his bees to farms to pollinate blueberry and raspberry flowers. That's how he makes fruit flower honey. It's a mutually beneficial relationship between the farmer and the beekeeper, especially when honeybees are mysteriously disappearing.

Lately, I've used the honey as a glaze on a fruit crostata. Even if there's a little bit of honey left on the spoon, I lick it off, not letting it go to waste.

Every day I drizzle blueberry or raspberry honey on yogurt and eat it for breakfast.

I've become addicted and I want others to become addicted, too.

The rules:

1. Let me know in the comments section if you want your name added to the drawing. I'll pick two names out of a hat and announce the winners!

2. Please submit your name by 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16.

3. This giveaway is open to anyone in the world. However, family members are excluded because they know my number and can pester me into mailing them the coveted honey.

To find out more about the food item, read my previous post. If you have any questions, e-mail hummingbirdappetite@gmail.com.

How would you use the honey?

Zucchini and eggplant with herbed goat cheese

Zucchini and eggplant with herbed goat cheese is a dish made of leftovers. I had part of a zucchini and part of an eggplant I wanted to use. I sauteed the vegetables and added crumbles of herbed goat cheese that I had stuffed my squash blossoms with. (I had a lot of cheese remaining.)

It was a nice little side dish to go with our steaks and stuffed squash blossoms.

Zucchini and eggplant with herbed goat cheese
Ingredients:
zucchini, cut into cubes
eggplant, cut into cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to season

Cut as much of each vegetable as you like. Set aside. Make herbed goat cheese.

Ingredients for herbed goat cheese:
6 ounces plain goat cheese
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, minced
1/2 tablespoon rosemary, minced
3 leaves of sage, minced

Combine all ingredients by using a hand mixer or stand mixer.

Saute vegetables in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until tender. Lay vegetables in a serving dish. Add crumbles of goat cheese.

If there is a lot of goat cheese left, use as a spread for crackers or put it on anything you like.

Print recipe

A meal of steak, zucchini and eggplant, and stuffed squash blossoms

Stuffed squash blossoms

Fresh squash blossoms

Before I saw the movie Julie & Julia with a friend on Friday, I went to the farmers market and got squash blossoms again.

I didn't have time to head home and drop off the blossoms. I parked under the shade in the mall parking lot. I tucked away the squash blossoms in the front seat of my car, away from the sunlight. I also kept my windows open a smidge and ran off to the theater.

I LOVED THE MOVIE!

But I will say no more because some people may not have seen it yet.

The blossoms had shriveled a little, but otherwise they fared OK in the car.

After the movie, it felt so natural to head to a supermarket. I know. Two markets in one day. But you can't get everything at a farmers market.

I bought goat cheese and herbs.

I wish I could say I was inspired by the film, but I had planned on making stuffed squash blossoms for a while.

I had surfed the Internet for recipes and they're all pretty similar. I decided to just do my own thing.



My husband really liked the stuffed squash blossoms with herbed goat cheese. (He loves anything with goat cheese.) I had a lot leftover, so we put the cheese on our steaks and the sauteed zucchini and eggplant I made.

It was definitely the theme for our Friday night meal.



Stuffed Squash Blossoms
Ingredients:
10 squash blossoms
6 ounces goat cheese
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, minced
1/2 tablespoon rosemary, minced
3 sage leaves, minced
1 cup tempura batter powder
3/4 cup ice cold water
salt and pepper to season

Gently open the squash blossoms and take out the pistil. Detach the female blossom from the squash. Or, if you have male blossoms, cut stem to about one inch. Season with salt and pepper.

To make the filling, use a hand mixer or stand mixer to combine the herbs and goat cheese.

Delicately open each blossom again and push a tiny spoonful of the goat cheese into the blossom. Fill every flower.

Pour canola or peanut oil in a saute pan, about a half inch to an inch high. Heat the oil.

Mix tempura batter powder and ice water together. Coat blossoms with batter. Let excess drip off. Lay in the oil. After blossoms harden a little on the bottom, flip them over. Do this in batches.

Lay flowers on a paper towel to soak up extra oil. Serve.

Use leftover herbed goat cheese as a dip or condiment for other dishes.

Print recipe

Crab cake sandwich anyone?

When I'm hungry and I don't feel like cooking, I get a crab cake sandwich from Cibo in Fishkill, N.Y. Their crab cakes are delicious, a nice balance of crab to bread crumb. When they're put in between homemade bread and slathered in chive and caper mayonnaise, they're even better.

An employee told me "cibo" means food in Italian and the deli has a whole lot of food. They have bean salad, chickpea salad, shrimp cakes, dumplings, fried goat cheese, vegetarian burgers, pasta, potato pancakes and more in a display case.

I decided to get fried goat cheese just to try it.

Fried goat cheese

Goat cheese is one of those things I've had to get used to. I liked the cheese fried and the tomato sauce it came with. It was very rich.

Then I had part of a chocolate banana cake. Bananas and chocolate are a favorite combo of mine. I didn't taste as much banana as I expected, but the cake was moist and mouthwatering.

Don't worry. I didn't eat everything. I usually only eat half of the crab cake sandwich and leave the rest for later. And there's still some goat cheese and cake in the refrigerator.

Cibo
1126 Main St., Suite 1E
Fishkill, NY