On Vacation

Grandpa is in Vail for a week so no new recipes for a while. I will see what I find in the restaurants here.

Tomato Napoleons

It is the time of year when you can get all kinds of fresh tomatoes. Since we live in a condo now, I can't really have  my own plants, so I rely on the downtown Kansas City farmer's market.  I have been getting great tomatoes there.  A large variety of types of tomato are offered, and I like to try them all. 

I think my fondness for tomatoes dates back to the days when my Grandpa Erickson had a large garden plot in the back of his home in Boone, Iowa.  I remember being about 5 or 6 years old and going out to "help"  Grandpa in the garden.  He had a big basket and I had a small one that we would fill with ripe tomatoes.  I always had to sample a fresh one, right out there in the garden.  I ate them just like an apple with the juice running down my arm, and have loved tomatoes ever since.

This is a recipe that will use up some of those terrific summer tomatoes and it tastes great.  It is a little different from the standard Caprese salad, in that it has a tomato based dressing that is poured over the stacks of tomato and mozzarella.  The dressing recipe makes about a quart of the dressing and you only need about 3/4 Cup to serve four people.  I keep the excess dressing in a mason jar in the fridge and it will keep for a week or so.  

Ingredients for Napoleons: (Serves Four)

8 Oz. fresh mozzarella, cut into 8 slices
3/4 Cup fresh tomato dressing (see recipe below)
3 Large tomatoes, each cut into four slices, after discarding the tops and bottoms
1 tsp.  salt
1 tsp. pepper
24 fresh basil leaves, shredded

Preparation:

Place cheese slices in a shallow non -reactive dish.  Pour the 3/4 cup of fresh tomato dressing over the cheese slices.  Cover and chill for one hour.  Remove cheese slices from dressing and set aside. Reserve the tomato dressing marinade.  Sprinkle the tomato slices evenly with the salt and pepper.  Place one tomato slice on each of four salad plates; top each with a slice of the cheese and about two leaves of the shredded basil leaves.  Repeat with tomato slice, cheese slice and the shredded basil leaves.  Top with the remaining tomato slices and basil.  Drizzle evenly with the reserved tomato dressing marinade and serve.

Ingredients for Tomato Dressing: (Makes about a quart)

1 Cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 Cup balsamic vinegar
3 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
1 TBSP sugar
1 TBSP salt ( I generally cut this back to about half and taste it )
1 tsp. pepper
4 large tomatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped (use different varieties for color and flavor)
2 TBSP chopped fresh thyme leaves

Preparation:

Whisk together first 6 ingredients in a large glass bowl.  Stir in tomatoes and fresh thyme.  Cover and let stand at room temperature 1 hour, stirring occasionally.  Cover and chill for 8 hours, prior to using.  

Buratta, prosciutto, and ciabatta crisps on a bed of baby arugula

Buratta seems to be all the rage recently, although it has been around commercially since at least the 1920's.  Buratta is fresh mozzarella, a cows or buffalo milk cheese, that is formed into a pouch and then filled with cream and small pieces of chopped up mozzarella (stracciatella).  It is really a way to use up the ends of mozzarella left after forming the traditional balls of mozzarella. This cheese, much like fresh mozzarella, does not keep well for long periods of time, so it is best used soon after you bring it home. 

This is a very simple appetizer to make, but I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't like it.  I cover a small platter with a layer of fresh baby arugula and then drizzle it with extra virgin olive oil.  I alternate pieces of rolled up prosciutto and ciabatta prepared as below, leaving a place in the middle of the platter to place the ball of Buratta.  When you serve the dish is the time to puncture the ball of Buratta and let the cream spill out over the arugula. Take a piece of the ciabatta, spread a little of the Buratta on it and top with a couple leaves of arugula and some prosciutto.  With a glass of crisp white wine, you have a great appetizer.

Ingredients: (serves 4-6)

2 Cups fresh baby arugula (or whatever it takes to cover your serving dish)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
6 Oz. Prosciutto Di Parma, sliced as thin as possible
1 Ciabatta, cut into 1"-11/2" cubes
3 TBSP butter
2 tsps. chopped garlic
Coarse Salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1 ball fresh Buratta

Preparation:

Cover a small serving platter with a layer of the arugula and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.  Trim excess fat off of each slice of prosciutto.  Fold the prosciutto slices in half along the length of the slice, so that you have a piece about 11/2" in width and 6" long.  Roll the prosciutto up like little bed rolls and set the rolls on edge on top of the arugula, leaving space for the ciabatta crisps between the rolls of prosciutto.  You should have about 12 rolls of prosciutto.  Cut the ciabatta into cubes that are about 1 to 11/2" square.  I like to have pieces that have crust on one side only. Over medium heat melt the butter in a skillet, add a little olive oil and the garlic.  Sauté the garlic until it is tender.  Add the bread cubes to the pan.  Sprinkle with the salt and pepper and stir the cubes until they are a nice golden color and crisp on all sides.  Remove from the pan and set on a paper towel to drain. 
Put the ciabatta crisps on the bed of arugula between the prosciutto rolls.  Leave a space in the middle of your tray for the Buratta.  Place the ball of Buratta in the middle of your serving dish.  Puncture the Buratta with a cheese knife and spread it open a little, allowing the cream in the middle to run onto the arugula.  Serve and enjoy !!

Sage Lemon Ricotta Fritters

Whenever I fly, I think that I am one of the few people who actually reads the airline magazine in the seat pocket in front of me.  I love some of the articles highlighting restaurants in the various cities that the particular airline serves.  This recipe came from a Southwest Airlines magazine in November of 2012.  The chef who created the recipe was Jenn Louis, the owner of a restaurant named Lincoln Restaurant in Portland, Oregon.  That got my attention, because when I was a kid in Boone, Iowa, we had a restaurant called the Lincoln Restaurant. 

Lincoln highway, U.S. thirty, ran right through my home town and the Lincoln restaurant was located on that highway.  They had great fried chicken, pies and the best cinnamon rolls ever. When the Interstate system came into play, U.S. thirty lost most of it's traffic to I-35 and like Radiator Springs in the movie Cars, Boone began to lose many of it's businesses.  Sadly, the Lincoln was one of the losses. 

Why and how would I have a recipe from a 2012 airline magazine you might ask.  As we travel, I am constantly on the lookout for new recipes or dishes that I can try in a restaurant.  If I see a recipe, that I think I might like, I write it down or tear it out of the magazine that I am reading.  If  I discover a new dish in a restaurant, I make a few notes and try to reproduce it when I get home.  If I like what I come up with, I write down the recipe. I have been keeping these recipes for at least the last thirty years, so in addition to a large number of cookbooks, we have a three inch thick binder that is full of all of the recipes we have collected.  I have an index on the computer and every few months I update it with the new things we have picked up.  That index gets printed out and then goes in the front of the binder.  At this point, the index is 8 single spaced pages long. a little over 400 recipes. 

Back to this recipe.  Zeppole are Italian dessert fritters.  They are sweet. This is a savory version that takes out the sugar and adds sage.  They are served with a garlic/lemon aioli, and make a great appetizer.  They are easy to make and I think you will like them.  Give it a try !!

Ingredients for fritters: (makes 40 fritters)

1 pound ricotta
4 eggs
1 cup, all purpose flour
1 TBSP baking powder
1 TBSP chopped fresh sage
1 tsps. kosher salt
zest of 2 lemons
vegetable oil
kosher salt
grated pecorino

Preparation:

With a mixer, cream ricotta and eggs.  Blend in flour, baking powder, sage, salt, and lemon zest.  Chill batter for thirty minutes.  Fill a pan with 11/2" of vegetable oil and heat to 350 degrees.  Fry tablespoon-sized balls of batter until cooked through, about four minutes.  Using a slotted spoon, lay on paper towels to dry and sprinkle with salt and grated pecorino.  Serve with aioli. (recipe below)

Ingredients for aioli:

2 TBSP fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 clove garlic, peeled and grated
1 tsps. coarse salt
1 egg yolk
1 cup + 2 TBSP canola oil

Preparation:

With a mixer combine lemon juice, garlic and salt,  Add egg yolk and blend.  While continuing to blend, with the mixer running slowly, add oil a little at a time until emulsified. 

Charred Corn Salad

Almost every Saturday in the summer I go to the Farmer's Market.  I love fresh tomatoes, peaches, berries, and of course, the sweet corn. For the last couple of years I have been getting my corn from an Amish family who are at the market every week.  Their corn has been consistently good and they are pleasant and easy to deal with.  I love to just have corn on the cob, but a few years ago I found this recipe in a Williams Sonoma catalog, and it is very good and another way to use some of the sweet corn that I buy. 

P.S.  this is pretty spicy, so if you don't like that, add the chipotle and the adobo a little at a time, until you get the kick you want. 


Ingredients:

2 TBSP fresh lime juice
1 TBSP fresh orange juice
1 tsps. diced chipotle chili in adobo, plus 1 TBSP adobo sauce
2 tsps. salt
1 garlic clove - minced
1/2 tsps. honey
1/4 Cup plus 2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
6 ears of corn, husks and silks removed
1 15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 TBSP chopped fresh cilantro, plus cilantro leaves for garnish
2 Cups cherry or grape tomatoes, quartered
1/2 Cup diced jicama
1/4 Cup diced red onion

Preparation:

In bowl, whisk together lime juice, orange juice, chipotle chili, and adobo sauce, 1 tsps. salt, garlic, honey and 1/4 Cup olive oil until smooth. Set vinaigrette aside.

Prepare hot fire in grill or preheat grill pan over high heat.

Rub corn with 2 TBSP oil and 1 tsps. salt.  Grill corn, turning occasionally, until charred in spots.  10-15 minutes.  Transfer to a plate and allow to cool.

When corn is cool enough to handle, remove kernels from cobs and place in a large bowl.  Add black beans, chopped cilantro, tomatoes, jicama, onion and vinaigrette; stir until well combined.  Garnish with cilantro leaves and serve at room temperature.  Enjoy with almost any grilled meat or fish. 

Elna's Fried Oatmeal

My mother-in-law was one of the best "comfort food" cooks I have ever known.  She could fry chicken that was heavenly, or make a Sunday roast that was browned and fall apart tender, along with gravy that was so dark it was almost black.  When we went to visit, I always looked forward to at least one morning of fried oatmeal.  I had never heard of this dish before I met Elna, and I have never seen it since.  I am guessing that it was an old German recipe, as that was Elna's background.  Jan kept her mother's recipe file and we decided it was time to try to make this breakfast dish.  Jan wasn't sure she could reproduce what her Mom made so long ago,  but it turned out great.  Here is how it goes:

Ingredients:

6 Cups water
1/4 LB butter or margarine
11/2 tsps. salt
41/2 Cups rolled oats (old fashioned Quaker oatmeal)
2 TBSP sugar
1 tsps. Allspice
1/3 Cup raisins
Dark Karo Syrup
 
Preparation:

Combine the water, butter and salt in a large sauce pan and bring to a rolling boil over high heat.  Combine the sugar and the allspice and stir together.  Once the pot is boiling add the rolled oats, sugar/allspice combined, and the raisins.  Reduce heat to a low boil and stir occasionally.  Cook for ten minutes.  While oatmeal is cooking, line  a loaf pan with wax-paper.  When the oatmeal has cooked for ten minutes, remove it from the heat and spoon the mixture into the loaf pan.  It will look like this:

 

Allow to cool on the counter top for thirty minutes.  Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.  In the morning, when you are ready to serve breakfast, turn the loaf out onto a cutting board, by laying the board on top of the loaf pan and then inverting the pan while holding the board in place.  The loaf will slide out easily.  Remove the wax-paper from the loaf.  It will look like this:

 

 

Using a sharp knife, slice off as many 3/8" slices as you think you will want to cook.  Melt a couple of TBSP of butter into a skillet.  Preferably an old black cast iron skillet.  Fry the slices in the butter over high heat, until they get crispy around the edges.  Here is the first batch we cooked this morning:

 

Elna always served with crispy thick cut bacon and of course Karo dark syrup.  To get the original comfort food taste,  you have to go with the Karo.

 

 

Maybe it is just the memories this dish brought back for us, but we really enjoyed it this morning as part of a lazy Saturday morning breakfast.  I hope you enjoy it too.

What to do at the last minute.

I played golf today and got home kind of late.  Jan volunteers at the Children's Mercy hospital on Friday afternoons, so she wasn't planning anything for dinner.  I knew I had a pound of fresh, wild caught shrimp in the fridge, so I thought I would do something with those, but I wasn't sure what.  I love to look in the fridge and around the counters and see what we have on hand and then go from there.  We had about half of a baguette left from yesterday, that was starting to get a little hard. We had some fresh herbs that needed to be used and I saw a few Campari tomatoes in the bowl on the counter that needed to be used in the next day or so.  What I created from the items on hand was thin spaghetti, with a garlic-butter sauce, topped with shrimp, tomatoes, and herbed croutons.  It tasted delicious and looked like this:

 

 

Here is what I did.

 

Ingredients:

 

1/2 of a day old baguette, cut into 1/2" cubes

1/4 Lb. butter

Extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

1 Lb. thin spaghetti ( I like DeCecco )

1 Lb. wild caught jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined

3-4 tsps. chopped garlic

1 tsps. chopped fresh tarragon

1 tsps. chopped fresh oregano

1 tsps. chopped fresh basil

6-8 Campari tomatoes, seeded and chopped into 1/2" dice

 

Preparation:

 

Toss the bread cubes in a couple TBSP of olive oil.  Salt and pepper and stir well.  Melt, 3 TBSP butter and a TBSP of olive oil in a skillet, over medium heat.  Add the bread cubes to the skillet and toast them, stirring frequently, until they are crisp and browned.  Remove from the skillet with a slotted spoon and let them rest on a paper towel.  Bring a pot of water to a rapid boil.  Add a TBSP of olive oil and a pinch of salt to the water and cook the pasta according to the package directions.  While the pasta is cooking, use the same skillet you used to make the croutons, and melt the remaining 5 TBSP of butter.  Add a couple of TBSP of olive oil and the 3-4 tsps. garlic.  Sauté the garlic until it is tender but not brown.  Add all of the herbs.  Stir well and add the shrimp.  Salt and pepper the shrimp and turn them when they have a lovely pink color.  Salt and pepper the other side.  When the pasta is done, drain it and return it to the pot.  Drizzle the pasta with olive oil and set it back on the warm burner, to hold.  About one or two minutes prior to serving, add the chopped tomatoes and the croutons to the garlic sauce and the shrimp in the skillet.  Stir well so that the tomatoes and croutons absorb some of the butter sauce and herbs.  Place a serving of pasta in a pasta bowl and top with the butter and shrimp sauce from the skillet.  I enjoyed this dish with a nice oaky California chardonnay. 

 

As an aside, notice I used wild caught shrimp.  Generally I only buy wild caught shrimp.  We lived in shrimp country for a number of years, and believe me there is a difference between farm raised and wild caught.  Most farm raised shrimp come from Viet Nam, and are raised in very unclean conditions. Growth is stimulated with growth hormones.  Do some research if you don't believe me.  Wild caught US shrimp, are just what they say they are.  They are caught in US waters by shrimpers and contain no hormones or additives.  Most shrimpers struggle to get by.  Especially when fuel costs are high.  I like to support them and use a clean natural product.  If I am forced into buying some frozen packaged shrimp, due to lack of availability of wild caught, I go to Costco.  I read an article, which tested a number of different brands of frozen shrimp and Costco came out on top, when it came to taste and purity.  I never buy precooked shrimp.  It is generally overcooked and rubbery.  It only take a few minutes to cook it yourself and believe me, it will be better. 

 

 

 

Sea Scallops on a Bed of Israeli Couscous and Arugula/ Fennel Salad

This is a nice light summer meal, that contains, protein, starch and green vegetable all served in one dish. Served with a glass of sauvignon blanc and a baguette it makes a beautiful presentation and a tasty treat. 

Israeli couscous is not couscous at all, but a form of toasted pasta that was created in Israel in the 1950's as a substitute for rice.  It is marketed in Israel as Ben-Gurion rice, but known as Israeli couscous in the west. Couscous, on the other hand, is a north African dish made from processed Durham wheat that is hand rolled into pellets.  It is very good but also very different from Israeli couscous.

The recipe also calls for dry sea scallops.  In the seafood industry, scallops and other fish are often soaked in phosphates.  The phosphates cause the scallops to absorb water and increase their weight.  This kind of scallop will appear very white in color and will not caramelize when you try to sear them.  The moisture content is too high. Dry scallops are natural.  They have not been soaked in phosphates and water.  They will have a more tan or vanilla color and they will sear up nicely with a great caramelized crust on the outside.  Make sure to ask your seafood market for dry scallops and if they don't know what you are talking about go somewhere else. 

Ingredients:(Serves 4)

1- Ruby red grapefruit, peeled and sectioned
Extra virgin Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Cayenne Pepper
5 Oz. box of fresh arugula
1 Fennel bulb - slice thinly
1/2 Cup sliced black olives
Israeli couscous - Enough to serve 4, per package directions
16 Large Dry Sea Scallops
1 sprig fresh rosemary

Preparation:

To prepare dressing, peel the grapefruit and cut it into sections.  Squeeze all of the juice out of the sections and collect in glass measuring vessel. Add  Extra Virgin Olive Oil to the juice so that you have a total volume of three times the amount of juice. Said another way, use twice the amount of oil as you have juice.  Season to taste with sea salt and cayenne pepper.  Stir well and set aside.  Put enough of the arugula, sliced fennel and olives into a salad bowl to serve four.  Toss with the dressing. 

Prepare Israeli couscous per package directions and hold.

Using about 1 TBSP of olive oil, coat a skillet and heat it to high heat.  Add a sprig of rosemary to the skillet.  Sear scallops on each side.  Do not overcook.  This should only take a minute or two per side. When scallops are done, put about a cup of Israeli couscous on each of four plates.  Spread the couscous out so that you can set the other ingredients on top of it.  I like to use rectangular plates for this dish.  Top the Israeli couscous with the dressed arugula and fennel salad and then place four seared scallops on top of the salad.  This makes a beautiful presentation and the taste is fabulous. The citrus flavor of a good New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc blends very nicely with the dressing on the arugula salad.  Enjoy !! 

Grilled Quinoa-Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms

One of my sons became a vegetarian a few years back and that has caused me to find a whole new group of recipes.  This recipe was in the Kansas City Star about three years ago and we have made it several times.  It makes a great main course for a vegetarian or a really pretty and tasty side dish when served with grilled meats.  The recipe makes four servings. 

Ingredients:

1/4 Cup quinoa
2 TBSP canola or vegetable oil - divided
4 large Portobello mushrooms
1/2 Cup finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Cup fresh, trimmed baby spinach leaves - chopped
1 tsps. dried basil
Salt and pepper to taste
2/3 Cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
2 TBSP shredded Parmesan cheese
2 medium tomatoes, seeded and chopped
3 TBSP fresh minced basil leaves

Preparation:

Cook Quinoa according to package directions.  It will make about one cup cooked.  Preheat grill to medium, indirect heat.  Trim the stem from each mushroom and wipe mushrooms clean with a paper towel.  Using 1 TBSP of the oil, brush the outside top of each mushroom and set them aside, stem side up.  Heat the remaining TBSP of oil in a small skillet over medium heat.  Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, 3 or 4 minutes or until onion is tender.  Stir in spinach, dried basil and salt and pepper.  Cook, stirring frequently, 2 to 3 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Stir in quinoa and mozzarella.  Spoon 1/4 of the quinoa mixture into each mushroom cap. Place mushroom caps directly on the grill with the stuffing side up.  Cook covered for about 15 minutes or until tender.  Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and cook for another minute or two, until cheese is melted.  While mushrooms are cooking, stir together tomatoes, and fresh basil.  Season lightly with salt and pepper. To serve, spoon about 1/3 cup tomato basil mixture on top of each mushroom.  If you like more stuffing , double the recipe for the stuffing ingredients and use as much as you like for each mushroom.  If you don't like to grill you could also do these in the broiler. 

Make Ahead Beef Brisket

Sometimes in the summer, I like to serve a simple buffet meal for guests.  A typical menu might be beef brisket sandwiches on hard rolls, shrimp rolls (recipe previously on Grandpa Cooks), fresh tomato salad, sweet corn, and apple pie with ice cream.  This beef brisket recipe calls for most of the cooking the day prior to serving, so on the day you are having guests, all you have to do is warm it up.  The shrimp salad for the shrimp rolls can be made a day ahead too, so on the day of your party all you have to do is make a tomato salad and boil up some sweet corn, assuming you have a household baker for the pie, like I do.  Costco apple pie isn't bad either, but it's not as good as Jan's. This makes for simple entertaining and you can devote your time to your guests instead of being in the kitchen.  Here is the brisket recipe:

Ingredients:(serves about 8)

5 LB beef brisket flat
merlot wine
liquid smoke
celery salt
garlic salt
onion salt
Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

Two days prior to serving, begin to marinade the brisket, by lightly coating a broiler pan with pam.  Place the brisket fat side up in the broiler pan.  Pour 1/2 cup of merlot over the brisket, and then top it with a small ribbon of liquid smoke.  Sprinkle with celery salt, garlic salt and onion salt.  Cover the pan with foil and place in the refrigerator for 24 hours. 

The next day(one day prior to serving), preheat oven to 275 degrees. Remove brisket from the frig. and pour another 1/2 cup of merlot over the brisket.  Top it with a ribbon of Worcestershire sauce and then some salt and pepper.  Cover with foil and bake covered for 4-5 hours.  I generally let it go the full five hours, but check it after four.  The meat should be fork tender and tear apart when you twist the fork.  When the meat is done, let it cool on the counter.  Once the meat has cooled use an electric knife and slice the layer of fat off of the top of the brisket.  Next slice the meat into the thinnest slices that you can.  Return the sliced meat to the juices in the pan that you roasted the meat in.  Cover with foil and refrigerate. 

On the day you want to serve the brisket, take it out of the refrigerator three hours prior to serving.  Uncover and let the meat warm to room temperature.  This will take a couple of hours. One hour prior to serving, reheat the uncovered brisket, in it's juices, in a three hundred degree oven for about an hour.  I like to serve as sandwiches on hard rolls with the cooking juices as a side gravy.  Or you can serve the brisket as a main course with some good mashed potatoes and a green salad. 

Wes Roeder's Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

When I was a kid, the fourth of July often meant that we would have some sort of family picnic.  Usually it was with my Mom's side of the family.  Her brothers would man the grill.  There would be a couple of galvanized tubs that were filled with ice and water.  One had cold drinks in it and the other a watermelon.  The watermelon floating in the icy water would get so cold and crisp that when we cut it open it would pop and crack.  There was always a big crock of iced tea too.  I loved all of it, but the best part of any family picnic was that my Dad always made homemade ice cream.  When I was very young, we had the sort of ice cream freezer that you had to hand crank.  We would take turns and work for hours to turn out that delicious stuff.  Later, when I was a teenager we moved up to an electric ice cream freezer.  It wasn't as much work, but still produced a really great ice cream. 

In the old machines, there was an outer wooden bucket.  A metal container sat in the middle of the wooden bucket.  A Paddle fit into the center of the metal container.  The metal container was pre-cooled in the refrigerator.  It was then filled with the ice cream mixture and inserted into the wooden bucket.  The paddle was inserted into the metal container and the top sealed with a lid. The space between the wooden bucket and the metal container was filled with ice and rock salt. Through heat transfer, the ice melted and cooled the ice cream mixture. The crank, or the motor on newer machines, turned the metal bucket.  The paddle remained stationary.  This kept the hardening ice cream off of the outer walls of the metal container.  The turning motion aerated the ice cream and kept it from getting ice crystals in the mixture.  The first ice cream maker was patented in the United States in 1843, and the principles haven't changed much since.  In some modern machines, the hollow space between the ice cream container and the outer walls are filled with a liquid which is pre-frozen by putting the machine in the freezer.  This eliminates the need for the ice and salt, but the process is still very similar to the old fashioned method. 

I still have my Dad's recipe for ice cream and it seems to me to be the best I have ever had. Try the vanilla first and if you like it, don't be afraid to add some cut up fruit like peaches or raspberries on your next try. 

Ingredients:

4 Eggs
21/4 Cups Sugar
5 Cups Whole Milk
4 Cups Heavy Cream
41/2 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 tsp. Salt

Preparation:

Beat eggs well and add sugar slowly, while continuing to beat the mixture.  Add the rest of the ingredients and pour into the cooled inner portion of your ice cream maker.  Proceed with the directions that come with your machine and enjoy when done.  (This recipe contains raw eggs, which can cause salmonella, but I never knew a single person who got sick from ice cream.)

Shrimp Rolls

If you want a nice light meal for a summer evening, here is a good alternative.  This is a Martha Stewart recipe, but if you have ever traveled the Maine Coast, you know that every few miles you will see a roadside restaurant called a lobster pound.  These places sell whole Maine lobsters, and lobster rolls.  A lobster roll is a sandwich on a hard roll with chopped lobster in a mayo based dressing.  They are really delicious.  This recipe substitutes shrimp for the lobster and is equally delicious.  I like to serve it with a crisp Chenin Blanc, Viognier blend, preferably Pine Ridge. This couldn't be easier to make.  The recipe serves 4.

Ingredients:

1 Lb. large shrimp, peeled, deveined and boiled.  Cooled and chopped into 
          a  1/2 inch dice. 
1 TBSP Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 Cup Mayonnaise
1/2 tsp. Dried Tarragon
2-4 TBSP Fresh Lemon Juice
Coarse Ground Salt and Pepper
4 Hard Rolls or Bakery Hot Dog Rolls
4 Large, washed romaine leaves

Preparation:

Peel and devein the shrimp.  Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil.  Add the Old Bay Seasoning to the water.  Once the water is at the rolling boil add the shrimp and watch the pot. As soon as the water returns to a boil, boil the shrimp for two minutes.  Dump shrimp into a strainer and cool them immediately with cold running water.  This will stop the shrimp from continuing to cook.  The most common mistake with shrimp is overcooking.
Dry the shrimp on paper towels and put in a covered container in the fridge for an hour or so.  When shrimp is cool, chop into pieces about 1/2 inch long. In a bowl mix shrimp with mayonnaise and tarragon.  Season to taste with the lemon juice and salt and pepper.  Line each roll with a lettuce leaf and fill each roll with 1/4 of the shrimp salad.  Some fresh sweet corn and one of these shrimp rolls and you have a very tasty summer treat. 

Beef Wellington

If you want something a little fancy for the holiday weekend, here is a good recipe for beef wellington.  This recipe uses fillets and wraps them in individual pieces of puff pastry.  It is a little easier to deal with than the traditional version where you wrap the whole tenderloin in pastry.  I have had this recipe for over 30 years.  It originally came from a gourmet group that we belonged to in New Fairfield, Connecticut.  Have this with a big California Cabernet or an Australian Shiraz and you are in for a treat.

Ingredients:

8   5OZ. fillets of beef, well trimmed
vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. salt
dash pepper
12 Oz. Fresh Mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 TBSP butter - melted
1 1/4 Cup soft bread crumbs
1 1/2 cloves garlic - crushed
1 1/2 TBSP parsley - chopped
1/2 tsp. thyme
8 frozen puff pastry shells or 4 full sheets
2 egg whites slightly beaten

Preparation:

Put fillets in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill them.  Remove from freezer and brush them well with the vegetable oil.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Sear in skillet for about 5 minutes on each side.  Chill seared steaks in refrigerator.  Process mushrooms in a food processor until they have a pate consistency.  Sauté onion in butter until soft and translucent.  Add mushrooms, bread crumbs, garlic, parsley and the thyme to the onions.  Remove from heat and divide into 8 portions.  Roll out each pastry shell to about 9 x 5 inches and 1/8 inch thick.  If using puff pastry sheets, each sheet should do two steaks.  Place one portion of mushroom mixture in the center of each pastry rectangle.  Top with a chilled fillet.  Fold in the sides and end of the pastry, encasing the fillet.  Place the fillets in a shallow baking dish, with the seamed side down.  At this point you can hold in the refrigerator for up to several hours.  When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450 degrees.   Brush each pastry shell with the egg white.  Bake 10 minutes for rare, 12 minutes for medium rare, or 15 minutes for medium.  I like to serve with twice baked potatoes and a green vegetable.  It makes a pretty plate and is delicious.