Coronado Concerts in the Park - The Pacific Northwest

It's been hard rounding up the group this summer for our culinary themed Concerts in the Park, with travel and kids' activities, but we were able to get it together this week for The Pacific Northwest.

I immediately thought of salmon, crab, oysters, trout, halibut, cherries, berries and Pinot Noir and have a couple of awesome cookbooks I go to first when I want something fabulous and unique. Cindy Pawleyn's Big Small Plates is one that never disappoints. It is packed full of small plates/appetizer recipes perfect for parties and grazing. "An enticing alternative to conventional main-course cooking, Big Small Plates delivers the inspiration and insight that make this new way of eating - and entertaining - practical at home."

When I turned the page and saw the photo of Salmon, Halibut and Scallop Ceviche, I knew I had a winner for this week's themed picnic. This ceviche's uniqueness comes from the combination of fish used, the addition of coconut milk, and its presentation  -- served in chunks of fresh coconut. The fish is marinated in lime juice for the first 2 hours. It is then drained, transferred to a clean bowl, and a small amount of lime juice and the coconut milk is added, along with the red onion, serrano chile, sea salt and freshly ground white pepper. This marinates for another hour, but not longer than 6 hours or the fish will become overdone and mushy. Using a slotted spoon to drain off some of the lime-coconut liquid, the ceviche is spooned onto coconut chunks and then garnished.  This was gone in a matter of minutes, with rave reviews.

Salmon, Halibut, and Scallop Ceviche with Coconut

You can find a printable, PDF of the recipe, here. Obviously, you want to use only fresh seafood. I adapted the recipe only slightly. I used a small red onion, an entire serrano chile (seeds removed), about 8 ounces of coconut milk, and parsley. The original recipe garnishes with fried plantains, but I went with fried won tons (John was frying won tons for his dish and offered to make some in different shapes for me). Tortilla chips would also work well. If coconut shells are too much trouble, serve the ceviche in small bowls or in sea scallop shells. 

Garnished with avocado slices, parsley or cilantro, a drizzle of olive oil and fried won tons

Men in hats - love it!

John was back at it with a Pacific Northwest version of deviled eggs -- a deconstructed smoked salmon deviled egg on a fried won ton.  The inspiration for these "eggs" came from a great party dish we've made several times -- Emeril Lagasse's savory Smoked Salmon Cheesecake. Emeril's original recipe can be found here. John halved the recipe, baked a smaller cheesecake, and used a small scoop of the baked cheesecake filling on each fried won ton. He sliced and fanned out the egg white and then garnished with crumbled egg yolk, micro basil, and drizzled on the Green Onion Coulis that accompanies the original recipe.

Deconstructed Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs with Green Onion Coulis, on Fried Won Tons

Kai prepared Mini Crab Cakes, and Hillari -- yes, Hillari, made a Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Ball rolled in pistachios.

Kai's Crab Cakes

Hillari's Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Ball

Carmen and John were in sync this week and we were able to enjoy Carmen's Smoked Salmon Cheesecake in its original glory. Carmen added a few more Pacific Northwest garnishes to her version - chopped cherries and sliced apples.

Carmen's Smoked Salmon Cheesecake

For dessert, the beautiful fresh blackberries and blueberries had been calling to me all week, so I decided to adapt Saveur's recipe for Huckleberry Crisps, double it, and make bunch of mini crisps topped with Grand Mariner whipped cream (recipe below).

Mary and Geoff surprised us, and added chocolate dipped strawberries and cookies to the dessert line up. Great to see you two a least a few times during the summer ;-)

Mary & Geoff

Mary's Chocolate Dipped Strawberries and Oatmeal, White Chocolate and Cranberry Cookies

Blackberry and blueberry filling for the crisps

Crumble topping

Blackberry-Blueberry Crisps
Adapted from Saveur's Huckleberry Crisps
Makes 4 servings

6 tablespoons plus 1⁄2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons flour
1⁄4 cup rolled oats
1⁄4 cup packed light brown sugar
1⁄4 cup chopped walnuts
1 teaspoon lemon zest plus 2 teaspoons lemon juice
3⁄4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1⁄2 teaspoon kosher salt
1⁄4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
4 cups huckleberries or blueberries (I used 2 cups blackberries and 2 cups blueberries)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoon brandy (I used Grand Mariner)
Crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream, for serving (I used Grand Mariner-spiked whipped cream)

1. Heat oven to 350°. Place four 6-ounce fluted ceramic ramekins on a parchment paper–lined baking sheet.

2. In a medium bowl, combine 6 tablespoons sugar, flour, oats, brown sugar, walnuts, lemon zest, 1⁄4 teaspoon vanilla, 1⁄4 teaspoon salt, and cinnamon. Using your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture until crumbly; transfer topping to freezer to let chill for 30 minutes.

3. In a large bowl, stir together the remaining sugar and salt, lemon juice, and remaining vanilla, along with the berries, cornstarch, and brandy; divide berry mixture between the ramekins. Mound some of the topping over each ramekin. Bake until the berries are bubbly and the topping is browned, 35–40 minutes. Top each crisp with a dollop of crème fraîche or whipped cream, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Baked and ready to go to the park

So, that was our Pacific Northwest themed picnic in the park! We'll be traveling next week and will miss Rockola, one of the most popular concerts of the summer season. However, the rest of the group has threatened to take photos and hijack the blog with a guest post. It could be interesting...

Alec's Corvette

Don't forget the wine traveler!

Plum Sorbet Sandwiched Between Ginger Molasses Cookies

Summer has arrived, bringing along mobs of tourists, those who have escaped the heat in Arizona to enjoy their second homes here, and, specifically this past weekend, thousands of other San Diegans who simply love our village and beaches, Fourth of July Parade, and fireworks vantage points. If you live in Coronado this time of year, leave the car at home and walk or bike to your destination.

Trapper wasn't overly enthused when we adorned him with an extra bunting for his morning walk to Starbucks, but he amused those who were out at the crack of dawn snatching up the prime parade spots.

Following coffee, we deposited the pup back into the safety of his yard and set off to Pete and Julie's annual Pre-Parade Bloody Mary Breakfast. This year's parade theme was America's People. Here are a few photos...the full album is posted on Newf in My Soup's Facebook page.

The parade was followed by more cocktails, of course, and wonderful food at Jim and Carmen's Post-Parade Open House - pork chile verde, spicy beans and rice, guacamole and chips, and banana pudding. Then it was time for a long afternoon nap, in order to refresh for the evening festivities.

Over the weekend, I finally got around to making these Plum Sorbet Sandwiches with Molasses Cookies, a recipe that had called out to me every time I flipped through Sunday Suppers at Lucques. I have loved the few recipes I've tried from Suzanne Goin's, James Beard award-winning, cookbook and really do need to cook from it more often! It has about 130 recipes, arranged into 32, three-course menus (4 courses with dessert), and organized by season. This dessert is included in the summer chapter, menu 9, designed to be served following green goddess salad with romaine, cucumbers, and avocado; soft-shell crabs with lima bean salad, grilled bacon, and cornbread; and veal scaloppine with fresh corn polenta and salsa verde-brown butter.  If you enjoy throwing intimate, gourmet dinner parties, this should be one of your go-to cookbooks.

Plum Sorbet Sandwiches with Mary Jones from Cleveland's Molasses Cookies
From Suzanne Goin's Sunday Suppers at Lucques, Seasonal Recipes from Market to Table
(Makes 1 quart)

1 pound ripe plums
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 lemon, for juicing
Molasses cookies (recipe follows)

Cut the plums in half, remove the pits, and cut the halves in quarters.

Toss the plums with the sugar and honey, and let sit for 30 minutes. Transfer the fruit to a blender, and puree until very smooth. Season with lemon juice, to taste.

Chill at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.

Process the puree in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions (about 20 minutes).

To make each plum sorbet sandwich, scoop about 1/4 cup of the sorbet and place it on the bottom side of one of the cookies. Then place the bottom side of a second cookie over the ice cream and gently press to make a sandwich. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze.

Mary Jones from Cleveland's Molasses Cookies
(Makes about 24 cookies)

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
3/4 cup vegetable shortening, melted to equal 1/2 cup, cooled
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. Stir in the salt.

In a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the molasses, sugar, melted shortening, and egg at medium speed for 3 minutes.

Turn off the mixer and add half the dry ingredients to the bowl. Turn the mixer to medium-low and mix to incorporate, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix to combine. Chill the dough for about 15 minutes to make it easier to work with.

On a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough out to 1/8-inch thickness. Use a 3-inch round cutter to cut out the cookies. Place them on a parchment-lined or lightly buttered baking sheet, spaced about 1 inch apart. Sprinkle a little sugar over the tops of the cookies, and bake about 12 minutes, until they puff up slightly and are starting to crack in the middle. The cookies will be crisp on the outside and chewy in the center.

Newf Notes: Chef Goin uses Santa Rosa Plums which may be difficult to find outside of a few California Farmers' Markets. I substituted "Raspberry" pluots. I may have over-baked the cookies, waiting for them to start to "crack" in the middle. They were more like gingersnaps, and lost all chewiness. However, they did soften up a bit after the sandwiches were assembled and stored in the freezer. The sorbet was pretty soft just following churning, so you may want to allow it to firm up overnight in the freezer before assembling the cookies. 

You can also skip the sandwiching step and serve the sorbet in bowls with the cookies on the side.

"Few chefs in America have won more acclaim than Suzanne Goin, owner of Lucques restaurant. A chef of impeccable pedigree, she got her start cooking at some of the best restaurants in the world–L’Arpège. Olives, and Chez Panisse, to name a few–places where she acquired top-notch skills to match her already flawless culinary instincts. “A great many cooks have come through the kitchen at Chez Panisse,” observes the legendary Alice Waters, “But Suzanne Goin was a stand-out. We all knew immediately that one day she would have a restaurant of her own, and that other cooks would be coming to her for kitchen wisdom and a warm welcome.”

And come they have, in droves. Since opening her L.A. restaurant, Lucques, in 1998, Goin’s cooking has garnered extraordinary accolades. Lucques is now recognized as one of the best restaurants in the country, and she is widely acknowledged as one of the most talented chefs around. Goin’s gospel is her commitment to the freshest ingredients available; her way of combining those ingredients in novel but impeccably appropriate ways continues to awe those who dine at her restaurant. 

Her Sunday Supper menus at Lucques–ever changing and always tied to the produce of the season–have drawn raves from all quarters: critics, fellow chefs, and Lucques’s devoted clientele. Now, in her long-awaited cookbook, Sunday Suppers at Lucques, Goin offers the general public, for the first time, the menus that have made her famous." 

Strawberry Fields Forever

"We are bound by a small, sometimes magical fruit called the strawberry. This fruit has the power to make tears dry up, make friends with enemies, make sick people feel better, make the elderly feel younger by bringing back pleasant memories of days gone by, make acquaintances of strangers, and above all make little children smile. What other fruit has that power?"

-Marvin Brown

We spent the morning at Suzie's Farm last Saturday for the annual Strawberry Jam, a family friendly, pick-your-own strawberry festival. A visit to the farm has been on our list for quite some time, and we knew it would be a great photography opportunity!

The strawberry fields were picked clean in just a few hours, but Suzie's Farm promised to plant at least five acres for next year's event. The Green Truck was also on site with a special strawberry-infused menu for the day. My Strawberry Jam Burger featured a 1/3 lb. grass-fed beef patty, smoked gouda, strawberry jam (made with Suzie's Farm strawberries, of course), Suzie's Farm arugula, and house bun. John had the Roasted Broccoli Grilled Cheese Sandwich, with Suzie's Farm broccoli, aged cheddar, goat's milk feta, garlic spread, and local multigrain bread. We shared an order of Sweet Potato Fries, made with hand-cut California garnet yams.

With the strawberries that made it home, we sliced up a few, drizzled them with a touch of thick, syrupy balsamic vinegar, and spooned them over strawberry cheesecake ice cream.  I also used some in the salad below, which I created with baby arugula, fregola, toasted almonds, fresh basil, and lavender honey goat cheese, all lightly tossed in a balsamic, olive oil and tangerine juice vinaigrette. Fregola, a type of pasta from Sardinia, and similar to Israeli couscous, added a nice flavor and texture to the salad.

***

Here are a few more strawberry recipes you might like....

Burrata, Tomato and Roasted Strawberry Salad

Strawberry Summer Cake

Bouchon's Almond Cake with Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote

Strawberry Shortcake on a Stick

French Fridays with Dorie: Orange-Cranberry Crepes with Nutella Drizzle

I know, I've gone astray again. This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe is supposed to be Nutella Tartine...a fancy French open-faced sandwich topped with spreadable ingredients. Dorie borrows Pierre Herme's chic rendition of the after-school treat pain au chocolat - a slice of buttered and lightly toasted Brioche or challah, spread with bitter orange marmalade, generously drizzled with warm Nutella, and finished with a pinch of fleur de sel and chopped hazelnuts. Sounds amazing as is, but I just couldn't leave it alone.

My brain was churning with ideas on how to create my own chic version, without turning it into a several hour project. I contemplated using a Liege waffle as the base...or a piece of French Toast...or a crepe. Yes, a crepe!

This is probably the second jar of Nutella I've purchased in my entire life, and I don't even recall the reason I needed the first. I think John likes it. After a couple of these crepes, I think I love it.

In place of bitter orange marmalade, which I've never seen in a store, I chose Stonewall Kitchen's Orange Cranberry Marmalade. I figured the tartness of the cranberries would do the trick. I had a container of hazelnuts still hanging around from Thanksgiving, but had to refresh my recollection on the best way to toast and remove the skins. The preferred method seems to be a quick blanch in boiling water, followed by an ice water plunge, and then a vigorous toweling dry in a kitchen towel, thereby removing the skins. Worked like a charm, and then I lightly toasted them in a dry skillet.

For the crepes, I followed Alton Brown's video and recipe exactly (5 stars based on almost 200 reviews), including throwing the first screwed up crepe to the dog. Oh, and there was also a blender disaster. Apparently, I didn't properly screw the blade and bottom parts back on after washing. After measuring my eggs, flour, milk, water, and melted butter into the blender jar, I lifted the jar off the counter to set in into the base, the pieces came off, and everything poured out the bottom. Nice. All over the counter, underneath everything on the counter, down the cabinets, and all over the floor. Good thing Dooley wasn't under my feet in his usual fashion. Other than that drama, the crepes turned out marvelous.

After messing around making crepes, and photographing before and after hazelnuts for an hour, this actually did turn into a several hour project and ended being dinner. Works for me.  If you're interested in trying this with brioche rather than crepes, Dorie posted the recipe on her site, here.

French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group, dedicated to Dorie Greenspan‘s book Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. As members of the group, we have purchased the cookbook and cook along as much as we can. There is a new recipe each week, and we post about that recipe on Friday. We are asked to refrain from posting the actual recipes on our blog. The book is filled with stunning photography, and personal stories about each recipe, which makes it that much more intriguing. I highly recommend adding it to your cookbook collection if you haven't already!