Kitchen Notes | June
This month I made some delicious dishes and I want to remember them - from sashimi crudo to garlic chive potatoes - sharing my notes with you.
Thank you for joining me On the Acre. As an Art Director, gardener and cook, I will be sharing the dishes I make, garden tableware and dinner party ideas, my own garden updates, and my adventures in natural dye. I would love to have you join me.
June was a spectacular month of meals. The garden is in full swing, and I find myself deeply inspired to cook again. The veil of winter has been lifted, and fresh flavors are making their way onto our plates.
I love to create dishes and write recipes, and saying that took me years to admit. I fought it for so long, telling myself that I don’t have the experience to make me a qualified cook or recipe creator. But I found I couldn’t tell myself no. The drive to create in the kitchen is an incessant urge that pushes me on to keep on playing and learning, honing and refining. Early on in my process of creating in the kitchen, a dear friend of mine told me this quote:
“If he writes her a few sonnets, he loves her. If he writes her a few hundred sonnets, he loves sonnets.¨
- My English Professor
This simple visual unlocked something in me–I love to cook. This is me. I love to write recipes, I love to cook. The denial lifted and I felt permission evolve into a passion.
The denial lifted and I felt permission evolve into a passion.
The very first dish I made was a beet green and goat cheese galette. It was a revelation to me that I could come up with something, cook it, and it could be good. It has been 10 years since that galette and I cannot get enough creating in the kitchen.
In that time, I have made some horrible meals. Truly, truly terrible. I made a cake recently that I took a bite of, gagged and promptly tossed the bite and the rest of the cake in the bin. Failure sometimes comes in multiples and those weeks make me feel like a deflated balloon. Then a good idea hits, I stew it and plate it, I take the first bite and the thrill rises again. Eyes closed I savor. I tentatively ask my husband “What you do think?” His steady nod, and side grin as he enjoys his bite is the simple assurance–the icing on the cake–that what I am doing is worth while.
So many of my riffs have gone un-noted or poorly noted. I cannot tell you how many notes documents I have in my phone that say the title of a recipe, and then the note is blank. I want to get better at documenting my creativity in the kitchen, so here it goes.
I am going to start this on going content series called Kitchen Notes. I may not do them monthly, maybe seasonally depending on the time of year. Recipes may also not be the best term for theses posts–they are more like the playground of food and ideas that lit that fire of cooking in me this month or season.
A successful creation in the kitchen is often linked with a moment with my family. I love the memories attached to delicious meals. The connection with my family, the incredible bite we exclaimed over while celebrating our anniversary, or getting home from work early this week, whatever it is, the memory is worth documenting too.
Food is woven into memories, and recounting the recipe and memories surrounding is like rewatching your favorite show–warm and comforting. If it fits, I will include small notes on the events surrounding the dish created.
Without further ramblings, here are my June Kitchen Notes.
Mango Cucumber Salad
This salad is made of cucumber, mango, Japanese parsley and avocado, dressed with lime, cilantro, olive oil, Aleppo and Maldon salt. It was perfectly acidic and spicy, with the balanced sweetness and freshness of the cucumber and mango. Japanese parsley is one of my favorite herbs to pair with fruit, it brings cucumber, herbaceous and green flavor to a dish. It’s like cilantro and basil in one and I love it.
We enjoyed this for dinner on the deck, my husband and I enjoying fork fulls from a shared plate. The next day I enjoyed it for lunch with grilled salmon sitting on a log in my garden, marking the first garden lunch of the year.
Sashimi Crudo
My husband and I had a sushi night to celebrate our 19 year dating anniversary. We ordered from one of our local favorites Momo and got the Sushi Bucket (you heard that right–it’s the best). The dish for two includes sashimi - which I enjoy a few bites of, but struggle with eating it all. I placed it in the fridge and the next day made this fresh and bright crudo–salmon, tuna, radish, Thai chili, Japanese parsley, lime, olive oil, & Maldon salt. It was so good and I will be doing this anytime I have takeout sashimi. I want to learn to make this more at home, I see people par-freezing the fish to make it easy to slice thin. If I am able to get my hands on fresh, sushi grade fish, I will do so.
We enjoyed bites of crudo while our kids played with bubbles. It was a lovely Sunday lunch.
Beet Salad
Boiled and grilled spring beets, sorrel, tarragon, chervil, and pistachios on yogurt. I have found boiling veg first until just tender and then grilling them allows them to be beautifully cooked with a beautiful roasted flavor, without the incredibly long cook. I also prefer the taste of boiled beets over roasted, so I like this duo approach. I boiled the beets for 30 minutes, dressed them in olive oil, and grilled for 10-15 minutes to get a beautiful char. I spread a plate with greek yogurt, topped with skinned and quartered beets, fresh herbs, red wine vinegar, olive oil, chopped pistachios and Maldon salt. I loved the combo of the sorrel, tarragon and chervil–thinking I will change the nut to be walnuts and top with crispy sage in the fall.
Harissa Grilled Shrimp with Preserved Lemon
Harissa mayo grilled shrimp topped with preserved lemon. This was so good and will want to make this again and again all summer. Alexis deBoschnek does something similar with salmon, coating the fish with a mayo and harissa mixture and then baking it. I love the combo and thought it would be perfect on shrimp. I combined a couple tablespoons and kewpie mayo and harissa together, as well as two grated garlic cloves. I brushed it on the shrimp and grilled over high heat fast to get a bit of char and keep them tender. I topped them with finely chopped preserved lemon peel and it was so good. I may try mixing the preserved lemon into the mixture next time, I really enjoyed the punch it adds, it slid off the shrimp and made it a bit challenging to eat, so I think making it a part of the sauce would help with this.
Herby New Potatoes with Garlic Scape Butter
Um yum. This was beyond good. Finely diced garlic chives blended in a blender with softened butter and salt to taste. New potatoes are boiled until tender, topped with the garlic chive butter, Maldon salt, pepper, Italian parsley and chive blossoms. I paired this with the harissa shrimp and garden greens for a meal with my parents on the deck.
Savory Breakfast
Cream of wheat, fried egg, sautéed wine cap mushrooms, garlic chives, garden greens and chili oil. My kids are huge Cocowheat fans, and I wanted to try introducing cream of wheat with fresh berries and walnuts this summer. The combo is so good, perfectly sweet and inviting, but I found I craved something a bit more savory. With an abundance of wine cap mushrooms in the garden–I was harvesting 5-10 mushrooms a day–I started getting creative on how I used them. This was delicious, but I found the mushrooms were a tad overwhelming. I think if I were to crisp them up more and add some garlic it could help balance their flavor.
Chicken Pasta Salad
This was so delicious, excited to keep riffing on it. Sourdough pasta is a must here–really love it in pasta salads. Thinking about trying it with sautéed zucchini in the summer. This made a perfect in office lunch.
2 servings
1 can Chicken
3-4 stalks asparagus
Italian Parsley
1/2 tsp. Dried Oregano
Small Shallot, minced
Preserved Lemon, minced
2-3 Tbs. Feta
Salt
Lots of pepper
Olive oil
Red Wine Vinegar
Watermelon, Radish, Rhubarb and Shiso Salad
This salad breaks all of the rules, and I love it. It combines spring and summer in a completely chaotic way, and it is absolutely delicious. I dressed this with lime zest, lime juice, olive oil and Maldon salt. I sliced the rhubarb as thin as I could, it the future I think peeled ribbons or a mandoline would help get the right thickness.
Lamb Ragu
It has been a really cold June with alot of rain, and one Sunday was especially chilly. It had bee quite a while since we had done a Pasta Sunday, and knew I wanted to spend my time rolling out dough. I typically use beef when I make a quick ragu, but happened to have a pound of lamb - I was planning to make kabobs, but ragu sounded so good. I looked at a couple recipes and ended up creating my own from what I had on hand and I know would bring out the best in the lamb. I did have two containers of ovne roasted tomatoes and garlic to use up from last summer, and they built the base of this really delicious sauce. The flavor of lamb begs for mint, and I thought the crunch and nuttiness of walnuts would be a nice touch - it ended up being one of my favorite pasta dishes in quite some time. I am excited to bring this recipe back in the winter, play with it some more and land on a really strong dish. I am thinking a long simmer could be really good.
4c. Roasted Garlic, Tomatoes and Shallots from last summer
4 Sprigs Basil
6-8 Cloves of Garlic
Olive oil
1 lb. Ground Lamb
1 tsp. Oregano
2-3 Tbs. Tomato Paste
1/3-1/2 c. Red Wine, Merlot and Syrah blend
Salt and Pepper to taste
To Garnish
1/4 c. Chopped Walnuts
Handful of Fresh Mint Leaves
I hope you enjoyed the first installment of Kitchen Notes. I am excited to share more with you across the year.
Did I read that correctly—1 can of chicken? Whaaaa?? Explain please!