Posts Tagged ‘food’

THE BEST BEEF JERKY IS THE ONE YOU MAKE AT HOME

Posted: October 25, 2012 in beef, Food, jerky, marinade, Recipes
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Like hot dogs and Slim Jims, jerky is one of those “mystery meats” we love but don’t really know how it’s made or what part of the animal it comes from.
Really excellent beef jerky is a rare treat, and once you have it, you will never go back to that rancid, preservative-filled dog meat you find in a bag at the supermarket. And the best part is: it’s quite easy to make.
First, the meat: I like to shop around for a really good cut of London broil for my beef jerky. You can use cheaper cuts, but a nice, lean slab of London broil, sliced into 1/4″ pieces on a diagonal, against the grain, works really well. Remove all gristle and fat that may be on the meat before slicing.
Once you’ve done that, all you need to do is make the marinade, marinate the beef overnight, and then dry it the next day. It really is that easy.
Your final product will be a flavorful beef jerky that is so good, you’ll find it very hard to stop eating it…or to share it.
Marinated beef strips on the dehydrator.
Alz Beef Jerky
1 Tablespoon salt
1 1/2 Tablespoons granulated garlic
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh minced peeled ginger
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup Teriyaki sauce
1 cup soy sauce
8 lbs raw, lean beef, like London broil, cut into 1/4″ thick diagonal slices, against the grain of the meat
Mix all ingredients except meat in a large bowl. Place meat in a large Ziploc bag, pour marinade inside, seal, and refrigerate overnight. Squish the bag around once in a while, to make sure all meat surfaces make contact with the marinade. Keep the bag in a bowl to prevent any accidental spillage in your fridge!
The next day, pour off the marinade and discard. Using a food dehydrator or simply an oven at 140 degrees, dry the meat by laying strips on cookie sheets in a single layer. Drying could take several hours to half a day, depending on how dry and chewy you like your jerky.
Best you ever had!
Jerky stores really well in the freezer. I put small amounts into individual freezer bags, then place all of them in one large freezer bag. Thaw as needed.

I HAVE DISCOVERED PIZZA GREATNESS, AND IT’S CALLED MONTANARA

Posted: October 14, 2012 in Food, Italian, montanara, pizza, Recipes, Rhode Island, Uncategorized
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Sad to say, but despite the large Italian community we have here in Rhode Island, there is no truly excellent pizza to speak of. I suppose you could say “them’s fightin’ words!” but if it’s here, I haven’t found it yet.
So where is the excellent pizza? New York City, of course. OK…maybe I’m a bit prejudiced because I grew up there and worked in a variety of pizzerias in my younger days, but there is no doubt in my mind that if you want the best pizza (or bagel, for that matter), you have got to go to the Big Apple. Everything else is simply a bad copy.
It can be confusing in New York City as there are many different varieties of pizza to choose from, some much better than others. Brick oven pizzas abound, but there are pizza lovers who won’t settle for anything less than a pizza baked in a coal-fired oven. The extremely high heat of a coal-fired oven cooks the pizza in just a minute, and imparts a crusty, charred flavor you can’t get any other way. There are only about a dozen coal-fired pizzerias in Manhattan, and many of them have been around for over 100 years, so it’s definitely a matter of making a special trip to enjoy this style of pizza. (No new coal-fired pizzerias can be built in the city, due to more recent strict pollution control laws.)
There’s the traditional thin, round Neopolitan pie, and the thicker, square Sicilian pie. Regular mozzarella or mozzarella di bufala. Domestic or imported cheese?
Many choices, but always the same answer: it’s a matter of personal taste.
But when I heard through the pizza lovers’ grapevine that there was a “new” pizza out there, one that was gaining a cult following, I needed to know about it. And more importantly, I needed to taste it!
It’s called Pizza Montanara, and there are only a few pizzerias in New York City that serve it. The one I went to is called Pizzarte, on West 55th St, and I have to say that I have now discovered the ultimate pizza.
What makes Pizza Montanara so spectacular, quite simply, is that the dough is fried in oil before they put the sauce and cheese on it, and then it is baked in a wood burning oven. It is not greasy. In fact, the frying process, which lasts only a minute, puffs the dough up and creates a beautiful pillow-like softness that I have never experienced in a pizza before.
Pillowy goodness! Its rectangular shape is probably due to the fact that they fry it in a restaurant deep fryer.
The pizza was so good that once my wife and I ate the first pie, we ordered another. Then when it was time for us to drive home from New York, we stopped at Pizzarte and ordered two to go, which we devoured by the time we got to the Connecticut border!
The Montanara is a simple pizza margherita: dough, super-fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella di bufala, topped with a fresh basil leaf. But the frying process creates a magical treat that has got me drooling all over this blog as I write it.
It’s so good, that just a few days after returning from the city, I made my first attempt at creating a montanara pizza at home. My result: pretty successful! A little crunchier than Pizzarte’s montanara, but with a little tweaking, I may just get the hang of this thing!
A little rounder (I fried it in a pan) and I sprinkled oregano on top instead of the fresh basil leaf. But not a bad first attempt!
I’m going to back to Manhattan for Thanksgiving weekend, and pizza montanara is the first food on my list!

A FOODIE DESTINATION FOR NEW ZEALAND CRAYFISH

Posted: October 5, 2012 in crayfish, Food, New Zealand, nin's bin, seafood, travel
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One of the true delicacies of New Zealand is their version of lobster they call crayfish. It’s similar in appearance to a Maine lobster, but it has no claws. And prices are very high. For example, a single crayfish that weighs about 1 1/2 pounds costs 54 New Zealand dollars. That’s about $38 US for what amounts to a 1/2 pound of actual meat.

On the South Island of New Zealand, on the Pacific (eastern) coast near the beach town of Kaikoura, there is a shack that has been serving up crayfish for years…and it’s earned a cult following among foodies that, like me, have traveled thousands of miles just to have a taste of this seafood delicacy.

The place is called Nins Bin, and it’s simply a little shack that sits on the rugged, windy coastline of the Pacific. You walk in, and a plastic container holds already-cooked crayfish, caught that day. The prices for each are marked right on the shell. You pick one, they cut it in half, and serve it with your choice of two sauces: one a sort of thousand island thing, and the other a garlic aioli. We took one of each, walked over to the only picnic table nearby, and quickly finished off this little treat, hungry seagulls buzzing all around us, waiting for any morsel we might accidentally drop. (Not a chance!)


The flesh of the crayfish was sweet…but not really sweet like Maine lobster can be. And although it was a beautiful white in color, its texture was almost meat-like, like chicken. But really good. We devoured the tail, sucked whatever meat we could out of the legs, and that was it…crayfish gone. Experience had. It totally lived up to the foodie hype I had read about.

 

We hung out around Nins Bin a little longer, taking in the atmosphere before we got back in the rental car and headed down the road to the town of Kaikoura, our next stop on our 3-week, 2000 mile journey through New Zealand.

JUVENILE’S WINE BAR IN PARIS…A MUST STOP

Posted: October 2, 2012 in Drinks, Food, Juvenile's, Paris, Saveur, Tim Johnston, travel, Uncategorized, wine, wine bar
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Paris has a special place in the hearts of my wife, myself, and even my 5-year-old daughter. It’s where my wife and I got engaged back in 2002. It’s where we celebrated my wife’s 40th birthday with family and friends in 2005. And it’s where my daughter has ridden on seven—count ‘em—seven—carousels…a record I’m sure she’ll want to break on her next trip.

One of the reasons why Paris is so special to us is a small, unpretentious wine bar called Juvenile’s, at 47 Rue de Richelieu. The owner is Tim Johnston, a sharp-tongued wise-cracking Scotsman who happens to know a helluva lot about wine and spirits, and is in fact a consulting editor to Saveur magazine. Tim takes no BS from his clients, and that adds to the entertainment value of every visit.

Hangin’ with Tim.

My wife met Tim back in 2001, just a few months before she had met me, when she and her Mom took a trip to France. The friendship with Tim was forged, and it has been going strong ever since. Tim, in typical fashion, tolerates me because he enjoys the company of my lovely wife…and I can’t say that I blame him!

The food at Juvenile’s is rustic…nothing fancy here. But it is all very good and satisfying. We’ve found what we consider the best foie gras in Paris here. The potatoes with raclette and bacon are fantastic. Sausage dishes, duck dishes…all the favorites, all wonderfully prepared in a very, very small kitchen in this wine bar that holds, perhaps, 30 people.

Paolo, Tim’s right-hand man, working the tiny kitchen at Juvenile’s.

Juvenile’s is one of Paris’ original wine bars, serving wine by the glass way before everyone else thought it was cool to do so. And even the locals will come in on a regular basis to ask Tim what the latest great wines are. The man has earned the respect of those who know.

We make Juvenile’s a mandatory stop with every visit to Paris we make, lingering sometimes for an entire day…eating, chatting, and sampling wine and even fine cognacs that Tim is willing to share with us. Often, we come back for a second and even third visit during the same trip. It’s a great place to unwind and get away from the hectic pace of the day, whether you’re a tourist or a local.

Yes, that says 1962!

The next time you’re in Paris, stop by Juvenile’s and tell Tim I sent you. He will promptly throw you out!

Tim and me. Great t-shirt!

FRESH TOMATO AND CORN RECIPES BEFORE THE SEASON FINALLY ENDS

Posted: September 27, 2012 in corn, Food, Recipes, tomatoes
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SUMMER ISN’T OVER YET!

OK…at least I refuse to think so.

It’s still not too late to enjoy the fresh fruits and veggies that our local farmers have to offer. Soon, we’ll be forced to go back to the supermarket to buy our produce. But until then, we can enjoy the bright, fresh flavors that only our local farmers can provide.

Oven roasted plum tomatoes

These are not sun dried tomatoes. These are seasoned and slow roasted, so that their sweet flavors concentrate, but the moist, chewy texture remains.

Ingredients:

12 to 18 halved, seeded plum tomatoes

Extra virgin olive oil

Sugar

Freshly ground pepper

Fleur de Sel, or other finishing salt

Pre-heat oven to 250.

Line a baking sheet with foil and rub it with olive oil.

Arrange halved and seeded tomatoes on the baking sheet in a single layer, cut side up. Drizzle evenly with ½ cup olive oil, sprinkle with 2 tablespoons sugar, and season with pepper to taste.

Baked the tomatoes until they are still juicy but slightly wrinkled, about 3 hours. Transfer to a platter and let cool slightly.

Just before serving, sprinkle tomatoes with Fleur de Sel, and garnish, if you like, with mint, parsley or basil.

 

BABY BELL PEPPERS WITH FRESH CORN STUFFING

Bags of these baby bell peppers are appearing everywhere on supermarket shelves this season. Recently, I had about 100 people over for a party, and I came up with this tasty bite to serve as an appetizer.

Ingredients:

Baby bell peppers

1 dozen ears fresh corn, boiled for just a couple of minutes, then removed from the cob…or organic frozen corn

1 Vidalia onion, peeled, quartered, grilled, chopped

Juice of 1 large lime

¾ cup mayonnaise

20 shots of Frank’s Red Hot or Tabasco

1 lb Queso Fresco, crumbled

Salt

Fresh cilantro or parsley, finely chopped

Cook the corn for just a couple of minutes to keep it crisp. If using corn on the cob, cut corn from ears and place in a bowl.

Peel and quarter the Vidalia onion, and throw it on a hot grill with a little olive oil to get some nice grill marks on it, leaving the onion still crispy, not soft. Remove, let cool, then place in a food processor and pulse until the onion is chopped into small bits, just smaller than the corn kernels. Add onions to corn.

In a separate small bowl, combine mayonnaise and Frank’s Red Hot. Pour in crumbled Queso Fresco and mix well. Pour into corn and onion bowl and mix well.

Add lime juice to the bowl and mix well again. Taste mixture and season with salt.

Cut the baby bell peppers in half lengthwise, and remove the seeds and membrane. Stuff the peppers with the corn mixture and garnish with cilantro or parsley.

If preparing ahead of time, refrigerate until ready to eat, but allow some time for them to warm up a little bit. You don’t want to serve them ice cold.

GUANCIALE: A LOVE STORY

Posted: September 24, 2012 in carbonara, curing, guanciale, Italian, pork jowl, Uncategorized
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Pork is magical. And though I’ve loved bacon and pork chops all my life, it’s only recently that I’ve started to appreciate other cuts of pork and how they’ve been prepared.
No store-bought bacon for me. I have a favorite website where I’ve bought the best quality bacon on line from Missouri for years: http://www.smokehouse.com/.
My Italian pork sausages and larger cuts of pork (like shoulders, bellies, and big fat pork chops) come from Caw Caw Creek, the only certified humane heritage breed pork farm in North Carolina. http://www.cawcawcreek.com/.
My pork ribs and liverwurst come from my friends at Simmons Farm in Middletown, RI, a certified organic farm. http://www.simmonsorganicfarmri.com/
And sometimes, my pork can come from surprising places, like my rafting guide friend Rob, whose family runs Crabapple Whitewater in the Forks, Maine, where I raft on the kennebec and Dead Rivers every year. Rob decided to raise two pigs this past year, and he’s willing to trade pork jowls for a few bottles of my homemade Lithuanian honey liqueur called Krupnikas.
Pork jowls?
Weighing the jowl pieces
It all started when I wanted to make an authentic spaghetti carbonara. Since I worship at the Italian food altar of chef Mario Batali, I went to his website to look up his recipe. It said that although many people use bacon or pancetta (both from the belly of the pig—the bacon is smoked, pancetta is not)…authentic carbonara is made with guanciale (pronounced gwan-chee-ah-lay).
Guanciale is cured (but not smoked) and made from pork jowls…that would be the cheeks of the pig. According to Batali, you take raw jowls, cure them for about a week in sugar, salt, peppercorns and fresh thyme, then hang the meat to dry. The result is a delicious pork product that you slice and fry and use in carbonara or any other recipe that calls for a tasty addition of porky goodness.
The flavor of pork jowls is subtly different than that of pancetta. There is a very special mouth-feel to the fat that makes guanciale so good. And once I made my first batch, there was no turning back!
But finding raw pork jowls was not easy. Many websites offered smoked jowls. But raw jowls were almost impossible to find, and I just about gave up until I visited my friends Sal and chef Aaron at the Back Eddy in Westport, Massachusetts. I told them of my dilemma and they said: “Pork jowls? Oh, we can order them for you!” I was psyched!
About a week later, I picked up my jowls, individually wrapped in hermetically sealed ¼ pound packages, and my curing began, following Batali’s recipe.
Getting the curing ingredients together: picking thyme leaves.
Finding room in my spare fridge to cure the meat was easy…everything fit snugly in a Ziploc bag. But once it was time to dry the jowls (all 24 of them since I bought 6 pounds,) I had to rig up a special hanging system that used bungy cords, vinyl cable ties, and beer cans…don’t ask. But it worked! And three weeks later, I was frying up my guanciale in a sautee pan and adding it to vegetables, potatoes, and pizza. I even gave guanciale gifts to my foodie friends. And before long, it was time to make more.
Since that first curing effort, some things had changed. My source for heritage pork, Caw Caw Creek, now carried pork jowls, too. And I was able to buy a couple of 3-pound jowls at a time. They were big, thick, and what I originally envisioned when I dreamed of the jowl of a pig that weighed 300 pounds or more. I cut the two big jowls into 1/2–pound, 3-inch thick slabs, and cured them using the same recipe.
A big, beautiful jowl in its native habitat.
Jowls with curing spices.
All was fine until one time, I went away on vacation, and a hurricane hit our neighborhood, knocking the power out. Fortunately, my good neighbors came to my rescue and started up my generator, plugged in the fridge, and saved the guanciale! I was back in business.
Curing and hanging completed (I now used a far more sophisticated system of stereo wire instead of bungy cords and beer cans, as seen in the photo,) I’ve been sharing the goodness of this incredible and little-known pork product with anyone who would listen—and taste.
A year ago, I had never heard of guanciale. Now, I can’t imagine not having a slab at the ready in my fridge. I use it just about anywhere I would use bacon, short of a BLT.
And by the way…I’ve yet to make the spaghetti carbonara recipe!

LAMB: AN EXCELLENT ALTERNATIVE ON THE GRILL

Posted: September 20, 2012 in barbecue, Food, grilling, lamb, marinade, Recipes
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So many people are afraid to try lamb, and I don’t understand why. On the grill, lamb is absolutely delicious.

I think that most people are turned off by lamb because somewhere in their past, they had a horribly cooked piece of it, and that event ruined it for the rest of their lives.

I’m here to tell you that you need to “man up” and try lamb again! And the two recipes below will make it one of your go-to grill ingredients…

I love the baby lamb chops that look like miniature porterhouse steaks. You can find them in any supermarket. If you think lamb has a strong taste, a good marinade will get rid of any of those flavors you don’t want. Here’s an easy recipe that I served at a party in my home for 40 people, many of whom claimed they didn’t like lamb or never had it before. By the end of dinner, the chops were gone!

 

½ cup olive oil

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped

1 Tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Salt and pepper

 

Place lamb meat in a plastic bag or glass container with a lid. Combine all ingredients for marinade and pour over lamb. Toss lamb to coat. Seal container and place in refrigerator for at least an hour. Pre-heat your barbecue grill. Grill lamb until done. That means cooked no more than medium. Don’t cook it to death!

 

 

Here’s another recipe that doesn’t require marinating ahead of time:

 

2/3 cup Dijon mustard

3 Tablespoons orange zest

3 Tablespoons fresh thyme leaves

4 teaspoons packed light brown sugar

salt and pepper, to taste

 

Mix orange zest and thyme into a paste. Add mustard and brown sugar. Mix together. Pre-heat grill. Brush the mixture onto each side of the lamb chops and place on a hot grill for about 2 minutes per side. Turn the chops and brush again. Continue until done. Season with salt and pepper.

Try either of these recipes, and I guarantee you’ll be cooking lamb more often!

SAN MARZANO TOMATOES: REAL OR FAKE?

Posted: September 17, 2012 in Food, Italian, san marzano, tomatoes
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If you do your share of Italian recipes, a common product that you can find in just about any store has many people confused: San Marzano tomatoes. Most good cooks agree that San Marzano tomatoes are some of the best canned tomatoes you can buy.

But unfortunately,  the label can say “San Marzano tomatoes” even if they are not real San Marzano tomatoes.

 

San Marzano is a region in Italy near Naples and Mt. Vesuvius, and the special combination of climate and volcanic soil make these plum tomatoes world famous. They have less water, fewer seeds and are picked off the vine when perfectly ripe and processed the same day.

 

But San Marzano is a variety of tomato, too…and so you can have a can of San Marzano tomatoes that are not from San Marzano. And to add to the confusion, there’s actually a brand of tomatoes called San Marzano, with tomatoes grown in the United States. You can bet that the sellers of these tomatoes are counting on us not to know the difference!

Sold everywhere, but not the real deal. Grown in the USA.

 

Real San Marzano Tomatoes are a very old variety, extremely limited in quantity, grown and produced exclusively in the San Marzano region of Italy. Because production is so very limited, the Italian Government and the European Union have formed a way of protecting consumers from fraud by having San Marzano tomatoes tightly controlled. DOP, or denomination of protected origin, is the mechanism that the government is using to tightly control the production and marketing of genuine San Marzano tomatoes. Labels for DOP products must be individually numbered and manually applied to each and every can in specific lots and government officials must oversee this application. So here’s the deal: unless you see “DOP” on the label with a hand-stamped number on the can, it’s not a San Marzano tomato.

 

Real San Marzano tomatoes. Cento also sells non-certified San Marzano’s, so always look for the DOP on the can.

Another way to tell when you’re in the market is simple. Check the price. Your average can of tomatoes will be in the $2 range. Real DOP San Marzano tomatoes: about $4–$5 a can. It’s all about quality.

 

OUR QUEST FOR FLEUR DE SEL: GUERANDE AND BEYOND

Posted: September 13, 2012 in fleur de sel, Food, guerande, ile de re, salt, travel, Uncategorized
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It’s all about the salt.

I fell in love with Fleur de Sel, the rare hand-raked salt, several years ago. I’ve got high blood pressure, and unfortunately, I need to limit my intake of salt. So my discovery of “finishing salts” allows me to cook completely without salt until the very end, where I can then sprinkle just a few crystals of this moist, hand-harvested miracle on my plate, enjoying every tiny burst of salty ocean flavor without a lot of guilt.

Inspired by an episode of “No Reservations” where Anthony Bourdain journeyed to Brittany, my wife and I dreamed of traveling to what is arguably the epicenter of Fleur de Sel production, the small town of Guerande, France. Located on the Atlantic coast in the Pays de La Loire region just south of Brittany, it’s about a 5-hour drive from Charles de Gaulle airport outside of Paris.

A salt flat in Guerande

 

Some of the comments we read about the medieval town of Guerande said it was too touristy, but we found that it had a lot of charm: the perfect combination of old and new, with many interesting shops and eateries inside the ancient walls of this small town. Built in the 15th century and fortified in the 19th century, the surrounding wall around Guerande is one of the best preserved in all of France.

The salt marshes outside the city walls have been around a long time…the last of them built around 1800. Salt production here declined soon after, because salt was available more cheaply from salt mines. But you gotta love foodies…the influence of chefs and food lovers around the world have brought back the demand for this very special product. Salt workers now harvest about 15,000 tons of cooking salt a year, and about 300 tons of the very precious Fleur de Sel.

Worth its weight in gold!

The process is simple: the ocean tides bring the salt water in and channel it into shallow pools where the water then evaporates, leaving behind the beautiful sea salt Guerande is known for. When just a few inches of water remain, a salty crystalized film floats on the surface of the water. This is very gently hand-raked and produces the much sought after Fleur de Sel. Traditionally only women were allowed to rake this salt because it was believed they had a gentler touch.

Driving through the salt field was a wonderful experience. The roads are narrow, and wind almost endlessly through these flat marshes where salt workers spend their days raking, gathering and then bagging their precious harvest. You can stop anywhere along the way to buy your salt directly from these salt workers, which we did. It was easy to get carried away…we brought home over 20 lbs of salt! Of course, we shared it with friends. Otherwise, not only would my blood pressure have gone through the roof, but I’d probably be dealing with kidney stones as well!

Harvesting and selling salt in Guerande is a family affair.

One taste of Fleur de Sel, letting it gently melt on your tongue, and you’ll know what the big fuss is all about.

Our Fleur de Sel journey did not end in Guerande, however. After a couple of nights in that region, we headed south to the island of Ile de Re, just off the coast of La Rochelle, France. Connected by a 3km bridge, Ile de Re is a beautiful world unto itself, with an intricate network of bicycle paths that allow you to travel safely from one end of this flat island to the other, enjoying beautiful views as you ride through vineyards, salt marshes, beaches and small port towns.

As in Guerande, not only can you sample the local salt, but also the abundant supply of incredibly fresh seafood, especially their famous oysters. The salt flats seem somewhat newer in Ile de Re, but still very much a large part of the local economy. The salt itself differs in only the most subtle of ways from its Guerande counterpart and I would find it difficult to say which I liked better.

Ile de Re is long and flat, so many of the salt pools are larger than those in Guerande.

It may seem a bit silly to travel all this way for something is simple as salt. But it’s a journey I’m very happy I made…and will gladly make again in the near future.

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THOSE CUCUMBERS BEFORE THE SEASON ENDS

Posted: September 5, 2012 in Cocktails, Cucumbers, Drinks, Food, Recipes, Rhode Island, Soups, Southern New England, Uncategorized
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Cucumber season is winding down here in Southern New England. If you think these veggies are nothing special, it’s probably because you bought them from a supermarket, where they’ve been grown on the other side of the planet, covered in wax to prevent bruising, and then shipped to your local store where they place them under artificial lighting.

Go to your local farmer now. Buy some amazing fresh cukes. Then try any or all of these suggestions…

CRISPY CUCUMBER SOUP

3 medium-sized cucumbers, peeled and seeded

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 cup vegetable broth

4 cups plain yogurt (I like the full fat yogurt)

1/2 cup mint leaves

juice of 1 lemon

salt and pepper

Peel and seed 2 1/2 of the cucumbers and place in a blender with garlic, broth, 3 cups of the yogurt, mint leaves, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

Mix well. Add remaining yogurt and wisk in.

Finely dice the leftover 1/2 cucumber and place in soup bowl. Add soup on top.

Garnish with a pinch of SEA salt, preferably Fleur de Sel.

REFRESHING CUCUMBER DRINK

This is a recipe I found last summer, and it’s one of the most refreshing summer drinks you can make for yourself. But it also requires a lot of preparation. It’s worth it. I made a pitcher this past weekend, and I can’t even begin to tell you how good it was!

Ingredients per pitcher:

8 English cucumbers, peeled and seeded

4 cups lightly packed fresh mint leaves

12 Tablepsoons fresh lime juice

8 teaspoons sugar

16 ounces vodka

4 ounces Cointreau

Peel cucumbers and quarter lengthwise. Remove any seeds. Cut a couple of quarters into thin stalks for garnish. Rough chop the rest of the cukes and put them in a food processor. Blend until totally liquefied. Strain cuke juice through a fine sieve, squeezing out as much liquid as you can from the solids. Throw the solids in your compost bin.

In a pitcher, combine mint, sugar and lime juice. Muddle the mint leaves, then add 1 cup crushed ice to the pitcher and stir well.

Add 3 cups cucumber juice, the vodka and Cointreau to the pitcher and stir well again.

Strain liquid into tall glasses filled with ice. Garnish with cucumber stalks.

PIMM’S CUP

Pimm’s No. 1 is a gin-based liqueur made in England. There are many variations of this drink, but my favorite is this simple:

Pimm’s No. 1

Ginger ale

1 smaller cucumber, peeled and quartered lengthwise

In a tall glass filled with ice, pour 2 oz of the Pimm’s No. 1. Fill to top of glass with ginger ale, leaving enough room to place a stalk of cucumber in the glass.

And nothing comforts me more than a bowl of chopped cukes with sour cream, some finely chopped fresh dill and a pinch of salt. Something my Mom gave us as kids that I still love today.

Read more: http://www.94hjy.com/pages/alz_food_blog.html#ixzz25algwxHE

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