Jersey Tomatoes!!

Its rough when you have a pile of fresh produce from your CSA and you need to use it up before it goes bad. You have to think fast on your feet. We had lots of potatoes and tomatoes this week. On the left is sliced yellow and red tomatoes with mozzarella dressed in a really fantastic basil pesto vinagrette. The dish on the right is a simple potato salad with a shallot, white wine vinegar and mustard dressing. Below I've just listed the dressing for each. For the potato salad just chop up some potatoes, whatever kind you like and boil them until done, then add the dressing. Sometimes the simplest recipes are the best.

Basil Pesto Vinagrette

1 cup tightly packed basil leaves

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp minced garlic

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1 tbsp pine nuts toasted

In a food processor roughly chop the basil, garlic, nuts, salt and pepper for a few seconds. Next add 1/2 cup olive oil and blend for a minute or so. Pour the pesto mixture into a bowl and add 1/2 cup olive oil and the vinegar.

Mustard Shallot Vinagrette(adapted from epicurious.com).

1 large shallot minced

1 tbsp whole grain mustard

1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

3 tbsp olive oil

handful of parsley

whisk all ingredients together and add to cooked potatoes.

grilled whole fish with herbs

I saw this recipe recently in Mark Bittman's column in the Times. Actually, after searching for a while online, I found that its a very popular recipe and really a quite easy way to have a good meal and impress your friends as well! This is another situation where cooking with fresh herbs really makes food shine.

1 or 2 whole fishes cleaned, with or without the head on. Ideal fish are Branzina, sea bass or rainbow trout

a few lemon slices seeded
large garlic clove sliced
about 5 sprigs of fresh thyme per fish
olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat grill or broiler
Open the fish and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place about 4 slices garlic spread out in each fish. Place 2-3 lemon slices in fish along with 4-5 sprigs of thyme, drizzle generously with olive oil inside and outside the fish. Grill fish until done. Branzina takes about 7-8 minutes per side, smaller fish like rainbow trout really only need 4 minutes per side.

Crunchy Quinoa Salad

Made this yesterday and cannot stop eating it. For those not aware of quinoa, its a wonderful low fat, low carb source of protein. Most grocery stores carry it in the bulk section. Its becoming easier to find every day. To cook quinoa, first you need to rinse it in cold water to remove the outer covering which otherwise gives it a bitter taste. Then basically boil one cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water and 1/2 tsp kosher salt for about 20 minutes in a covered saucepan. Remove from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes, you're done!

Always toast almonds before using in a salad(or any nuts for that matter, brings out the flavor and aroma). Also in this recipe use pecorino romano cheese. It has a higher salt content and more of a bite than parmesan which this salad needs to make it pop! Enjoy!

Recipe:

Cook 1 cup of quinoa as above

Salad:

1 cucumber chopped
1/2 fennell bulb chopped fine
1 small shallot chopped
1 bunch parsley chopped
2 celery stalks chopped
handful of toasted almonds
handful of grated pecorino cheese
drizzle with extra virgin olive oil
a few splashes of sherry or champagne vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Mix quinoa with salad and you're done.

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