Gussied up Gazpacho: A Delicious Cold Soup, If Cold Soup Doesn't Weird You Out.

So, this isn't really a recipe, so much as it is an enhancement of a purchased product. Let me explain.  Cooking in the summer heat can be excruciatingly painful. Especially if you're like me and don't have that newfangled contraption they call "air conditioning". Hot times means cutting corners in the kitchen, sometimes...and this little ditty is definitely a corner-cutter.

(As I'm writing this I'm almost embarrassed that I'm putting it up here...)

Listen. Buy yourself a jar of pre-made gazpacho. I like Sunflower Kitchen. Pour it into a large bowl. Dice up a yellow pepper, half an english cucumber, a tomato (don't worry about seeding or peeling), and an avocado. Thinly slice a green onion. Chop up a whole whack of basil leaves. Add all these ingredients into your bowl with the gazpacho. Stir it all up well, and add salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste. Put it in the fridge, and really chill the shit out of it. Like, it will taste so much better super cold than it will taste medium cold. And if cold soup does indeed weird you out, feel free to wait patiently for the next delicious recipe I put up here.

Many corners were cut in the making of this soup.

If you are so inclined, before serving add in some cooled, cooked shrimp. You could also throw in some corn (fresh or canned). It is the ultimate thing to make when you decide to have people over for dinner on a blistering hot workday at the last minute. It's super refreshing and easy as pie. Although that saying never made sense to me. Pie is quite hard to make.

This "recipe" makes about four hearty servings.

Avocado and Chorizo Dip: This Dip Will Win You Friends.

That is, if you're in the business of winning friends.

This dip requires very little exposition:  it's just really good, everyone likes it, I make it constantly, and it's been on repeat on my playlist for years and years. It's rich but bright tasting, and the chorizo lends a wicked smoky kick to what is otherwise a riff on guacamole. It's the kind of thing that people take a bite of and then stop the conversation to figure out what in god's name (should I be capitalizing the 'G'?) the delicious dip is.

Just what in God's name is in this dip? See below.

Avocado and Chorizo Dip

one link of chorizo sausage, diced
2 avocadoes, diced
1 large tomato, seeded and diced       (seeding sounds more complicated than it is, and it's also necessary to do because otherwise the dip will get too liquidy...I just chop up the tomato into quarters, or eighths if it's quite big, and scoop out the seeds in the middle with my impeccably clean fingers, usually into the sink)
1/4 cup of chopped cilantro
1/4 cup of diced red onion
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 jalapeno pepper or green chile, minced, or add some dashes of hot sauce to taste
2 tbsp of red wine vinegar      (you can also use balsamic vinegar in place of the red wine if that's what's hanging around your place)
Juice of 1 big lime     (add more if you think the dip needs more zing)
A good glug of olive oil
Salt to taste

Dip being scooped by freckled hand, from bowl resting on wrinkled sarong
that I use for a tablecloth when I want to get fancy. Like, really fancy.

Preheat the oven to broil, and place the diced chorizo in a single layer on a sheet pan. Run it under the broiler for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, until it gets browned and crispy. Remove from the pan and place it on a plate lined with paper towels. Blot the chorizo with the paper towel to remove the excess grease.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the avocado, tomato, cilantro, red onion, garlic, jalapeno or chile pepper, vinegar, lime juice, olive oil, and salt to taste. Be gentle with the mixture, as you want to maintain the nice dice on the avocado without mushing it up.

Add in the blotted, crispy, delicious chorizo that you have already eaten a significant amount of, and mix that in. This is best after sitting at room temperature for about a half an hour, to give the flavours a chance to mingle. Serve with tortilla chips. Makes a bowl that will serve about 4 as a snack or hors d'oeuvres. And if you double the recipe, nothing bad will happen.

Ceviche: Stupid Easy. For Realsies.

This might be the easiest thing you will ever make in your whole life. Full stop. This recipe actually cannot be screwed up, try as one might. Guaranteed summer supper star. One of the nicest things about this dish is that you can make it with any kind of fish or shellfish (almost - don't use salmon), and with any kind of citrus - lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit even. Grapefruit is actually quite friggin' delicious in this dish.

I like to serve my ceviche with tortilla chips. But this is not required.

And it's weird science:  you don't have to cook the fish – the acid in the citrus breaks down the proteins so that the fish takes on the texture of having been cooked. It's a perfect light lunch or dinner on one of those blistering hot days when the thought of turning on the oven makes you want to jump off a bridge. It's also a great adaptable dish in terms of servings as well:  works just as well for one as it does for a crowd. The recipe below is a good amount for a shareable appetizer for between 4 and 6 people.

This doesn't suck.

Ceviche

1 1/2 - 2 pounds of fish or shellfish (When I made this for my friend Jason's birthday dinner yesterday, I used scallops, shrimp, and a filet of cod; calamari is also great, as are haddock, halibut, red snapper, even octopus!  Get crazy. It's important that you use fresh fish, but frozen – defrosted, raw – shellfish is okay.)
Juice of two limes
Juice of one lemon (you could replace this with the juice of one grapefruit)
1 jalapeno pepper or other chile, minced (you can add more or less, based on how spicy you like it)
a big handful of chopped cilantro
Half a red onion, sliced as thin as possible
Salt (start with a half-teaspoon or so, but taste before serving to see if you need more)
1 avocado diced
Tortilla chips, for serving

Cut up all the fish and shellfish into a size that will make it land nicely on a tortilla chip. Basically, dice it up. Add all of your citrus, jalapeno, cilantro, red onion, and salt. Mix it up well, and put it in the fridge. The total time it will need to sit is about one to two hours, or a shorter time if you're making it for one. Stir it a few times during its stay in the fridge. You'll actually be able to see the fish cooking in the acid – it will start to turn white and opaque, and take on the appearance of having been cooked.

Once it looks (and tastes) to be 'cooked', stir in your diced avocado and taste to see if it needs more salt, adding if necessary. Serve with the tortilla chips.

This is really delicious, light and fresh and punchy and the perfect summer food, in my opinion.

Square One. And Frozen Grapes.

Hello my legions of followers! Or just Mom and Dad, or whatever! Welcome to my blog, to my blog about food.

The goals of this blog are twofold:  one, to share information about the kind of food that I cook, and perhaps some of the places I eat, in the hopes that that information might be useful and/or helpful to someone somewhere out there. I want this place to be a resource for ideas for people that like to cook already or for those that would like to cook more. My other goal is really just creating a place for me to practice becoming a food writer, with some semblance of public exposure (public exposure = Mom and Dad, see above re legions).

And I can't think of a better, more special, fancier way of inaugurating this l'il blog than to tell you about a potato salad I made yesterday. How's that for aiming for the stars, hmmm? Honestly though, it was crazy delicious. I hit on a recipe from a wicked website called Smitten Kitchen (written by a sassy, thoughtful, extremely knowledgeable food blogger in NYC). It was a potato salad of the vinaigrette variety, not of the heavy, mayo-laden, gloopy salad in a giant tub variety. It called for new garlic (garlic that's picked while it still looks like a fatter green onion, before the end fattens into a bulb and becomes the garlic you see around), and I had some!  Also asparagus, snap peas, and potatoes, obviously (which oddly, I had all of - this was clearly a sign).

Here's the thing though – recipes are made for adapting. I had some of the key ingredients, but I also had some other stuff that wasn't in the recipe that I thought might be a good addition (things like feta, and anchovy paste in the dressing, and later, for round two of the salad, I added some shrimp and avocado). And if you didn't have a key ingredient, like say all you had lying around was some regular old garlic, or snow peas not snap peas, no matter – just use what you have. All this to say that I started with a basic premise and then worked with what I had. And I made lots, hence 'round two' for dinner.

Oh! And it's hot now, yes? Buy a bag of grapes. Place them in the freezer. Remove when frozen. Eat. I've been eating frozen grapes every summer since I could eat solid foods.  Can't imagine summer without 'em.

Here's the recipe for the salad:

Spring Potato Salad
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen:  www.smittenkitchen.com

about 2 pounds of new potatoes (white or red) - if they're bigger, chop them into chunks
1 pound of asparagus, cut into one-inch lengths (a bunch)
a handful of snap peas
1 shoot of new garlic, sliced very finely (or use regular garlic, or even just a green onion)
1 big sour pickle, diced - this added a whole lot of deliciousness, don't leave it out if you're into pickles
pea shoots (or watercress, or sprouts would be nice too)
a medium-sized chunk of feta, crumbled
about ten medium-sized cooked shrimp (optional)
half an avocado, diced (optional)

for the dressing:

2 tbsp of olive oil
1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar (I like Bragg's the best)
1 tbsp of smooth dijon
1 tsp of anchovy paste
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper

Place chunked potatoes in a pot with salted cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, and let 'em go for around 10 to 15 minutes (test with a sharp knife for doneness - you want them to be cooked, but not overcooked, meaning the potato should yield easily to the knife but not be all smushy). Remove the potatoes to a bowl and throw in the asparagus lengths and the snap peas. Cook them for about two minutes. Seriously, that's it. Take them out and run cold water over them so they stop cooking immediately. You could also prepare an ice bath - a bowl with cold water and ice cubes, and plunge the veggies in there after their two minute boil. For some reason that always seems like a lot of work to me, so I just run super cold water to shock them into stopping with the cooking.

Add the crumbled feta, diced pickle, new garlic, and pea shoots into another big bowl. Once the potatoes have cooled a little (but it's better when they're still a bit warm), add them to the bowl, along with the asparagus and snap peas. In a small empty jar (like an old mustard jar, or one that had capers in it) add all the dressing ingredients and give it a good shake. Pour it over the whole shooting match in the bowl, and toss thoroughly.

If you want to make this salad even heartier, add the cooked shrimp and avocado along with the other veggies and toss them all up together. This is an awesome salad for a barbecue, a picnic, or just any old meal. Leftovers also make a great bag-lunch for work the next day.

Note:  I will be posting photos of dishes to accompany the posts imminently. I need to get a camera, basically, as I'm told you need one of those to take photos.