VendrediFriday: Zucchini with Veal Meatballs

Mandy and Sté stopped by last night for the summer's first official VendrediFriday (yes, I know it's mid-July, but time flies, OK?). Before a record-breaking hand of UNO (note to self: don't buy knock-off card games at the dollar store, it's just asking for trouble), we concocted a mainly farm-to-table meal of summer bounty from the farmer's market, the garden upstate, my mom's garden, and my window.

We started with the perfectly-ripe melon Mandy scored at her local farmer's market, which she sliced and wrapped in bresaola (cured beef). Quick, easy, and delicious.

Next up was grilled zucchini (from my mom's garden in Pennsyltucky) with veal meatballs. Initially, we were going to stuff the zucchini, but decided to do some quick stove top cooking instead of turning on the oven on a relatively hot, humid summer's evening.

We were truly making it up as we went along, so into about a pound of ground veal we threw a minced shallot, two large handfuls of chopped fresh basil, a few minced sundried tomatoes, and a little cayenne, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. We sautéed the meatballs in a cast iron skillet, cooked the zucchini in the grill pan, and served it all topped with a little pimentón.

We rounded out the meal with some raw zucchini and a salad, both from the garden upstate (another note: don't mix mint with bitter greens...wow...is all I'm sayin'), and Zinfandel from Mandy and Sté's recent trip to California. Basically, it was all out of this world...and we were very happy.

Garden: Tomato Alert...Late Blight in the Northeast

Just received a call from Nancy alerting me to today's Times story on the serious outbreak of late blight in the Northeast. It's the disease responsible for the Irish Potato Famine, and is seriously affecting tomato crops this year. It is apparently extremely virulent and widespread because of the cold, damp June weather.

There are important steps one should take, because it spreads easily and spores can travel up to 20 km. Here are a few links:

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Potato_LateBlt.htm
http://blogs.cornell.edu/hort/?s=late+blight+disease
http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/cropprot/lateblighthg.htm
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/okgard/msg0521172224078.html

If you have any other suggestions/solutions, let me know!

More Ninth Avenue Food Wars?

At first, it looked like the new 2 Bros. Pizza (40th and Ninth) was opened merely to challenge 99¢ Fresh Pizza (41st and Ninth) for the favors of the Port Authority $1 pizza crowd (see my related post here). But as I passed by yesterday I noticed a new sign. Is 2 Bros. now taking on Piece of Chicken (45th, just east of Ninth)? As much as eating fried chicken from a cheap pizza joint scares me, I may have to risk it for a $1 Chicken Battle. More to come...

Garden: Dinner Time

A few more photos from this weekend's garden fest, but this time, it's dinner...

We grilled the pattypan with a little dill, olive oil, salt and pepper. It was incredibly flavorful--perhaps the tastiest squash to ever come from the garden. And it went well with the chicken marinated in lime zest and juice, soy sauce, chili garlic sauce, and lots of mint from the yard.

Salad from the garden. Italian mixed greens (it's a mystery as to what they are, but the frisée is the best!) with lots of nasturtiums. Yum...

OK, so we cheated a bit for this dessert...only the mint is homegrown. But it was really yummy. Ice cream and early summer fruit accented by faux Nutella: a scoop each of ginger and vanilla ice cream, peach slices, blueberries, mint, and faux Nutella. Really, really good.

Garden: A Sigh of Relief

After a three week battle with farmer's depression, I finally make it back to the garden at Stony Kill this past weekend. How do you spell relief? S-U-R-V-I-V-A-L.

Three weeks ago, the garden was sad, sad, sad. Days upon days of cold, rain, and clouds left the little plants shivering and turning purple in the mud. The various squash plants were OK, but everything else, not so much. I took some of Susanna's advice and tried to cover the roots, feed them, and keep them warm, but Farmer's depression set in nonetheless. All I could think about was that all of that work...gone...

But upon stepping out of the car Saturday, the clouds of sadness were swept away. The sun finally reappeared in the northeast about two weeks ago, and most of the plants had survived, and grown to boot. There were even things to harvest!

Baby alien pods...I mean maxixe. Looks like this Brazilian cucumber-like object ended up being very happy up north. I think we'll have a bountiful harvest of them...as long as the critters don't decide they like them.

The chili hots are very happy in the plot. They're bearing fruit much earlier than last year, so if they keep going all season, we'll be able to make vats and vats of our famous hot pepper jelly!

The nasturtiums are extraordinarily happy this year. We threw a bunch in our Saturday evening salad, and they were off the hook. They're soooo much better than any I've ever had before: not just spicy, but amazingly packed with flower flavor. Almost like eating a peppery rose.

The Squash Forest. Check out the pattypan squash on the left. I think it's the UFO that brought the alien pods...

Mystery squash. There's a possibility it's something from Brazil, or perhaps an acorn squash seed jumped into the wrong package? Oh well, we'll eat it regardless...

A happy zucchini, of the Genovese variety. Lighter than the zukes we normally see. Incredibly creamy...Ahhhhh.... I want to eat all of them raw. Yum.

Garden 34th Street: Happy Peppers

As I spent the day sitting in the window writing and recovering from yesterday's whirlwind adventures with the distant German cousins, I noticed that the chili hots seem to be really, really happy. Grow, little guys, grow!

Off the List

A quick post, as I'm just off to give some distant cousins from Bremen my NYC in a day tour. But...I have to remove an establishment from my list of places to go. For a couple of years I've been hitting Epicerie Café Charbon on the Lower East Side for its great happy hour deal. I made arrangements to meet some people there yesterday, but we were informed that they no longer offered happy hour, because "it wasn't bringing in many people, and not much cheaper than our normal prices."

What? You're getting rid of happy hour? In the middle of a recession? Are you nuts?

We stayed, but the drinks were way more expensive than the old happy hour prices... I was NOT a happy camper.

Off the list!!!

Peachy Keen

Fresh, local fruits and veggies are finally bountiful in the city again (despite the wet, dreary summer so far), and it makes me wonderfully happy. So, as I pondered what to bring to Tony's 4th of July Hell's Kitchen fireworks-watching fete, I came up with something fresh, easy, and summery.

Peach Salsa

•4 peaches
•1 medium-sized cucumber
•3 scallions
•1 large bunch basil (approx. 1 cup loosely-packed leaves)
•juice of 2 limes
•hot sauce to taste

Mince the peaches (I'm lazy, so I didn't bother to peel them) and peel, seed, and chop the cucumber. Slice the scallions into 1mm rings and mince the basil. Combine all in a bowl, add lime juice, and then hot sauce to taste. Serve with tortilla chips, or with a main dish like chicken or fish.

It's Official, Summer's Really Here

I bought baby squash at the Greenmarket on 57th and Ninth today. Hooray!

Good Deals: Szechuan Gourmet (56th Street)

OK, why haven't I gone to Szechuan Gourmet? I remember reading the Times review of the 39th Street location (ridiculously close to where I live), but I magically forgot about its existence. Then last month, Midtown Lunch mentioned the opening of a new location further north, on 56th between Broadway and Eighth. Then this morning, as I was pondering a place for Jiminy Cricket and I to eat lunch, I suddenly remembered...so we checked it out.

We sat down upstairs in the window (the decor is fairly sleek and modern) and noted that it smelled wonderful (like spices, not the blend of food and scary cleaning fluid that sadly seems to be the aroma of many Chinese restaurants). We decided to go for a couple of the Times recommendations and ordered the Spicy Sesame Noodles and the lunch special size ($7.95) of the Double Cooked Sliced Pork Belly with chili leeks, which has become my go-to ratings dish for a Sichuan restaurant.

The lunch specials come with soup, so we began with Hot & Sour Soup, which was peppery instead of vinegary, and fairly fresh tasting, which rarely seems to be the case with H&S soup.

Then came the Spicy Sesame Noodles, which were bathed in a wonderfully flavorful sauce (not the usual sesame butter glop at all!) laced with a large amount of red chili--what a wonderful kick!

Finally, our huge portion of Double Sautéed Pork arrived (it was so gigantic, we worried that he had thought we'd ordered the regular size, which was $5 more). It was definitely its own version of the dish, very unlike any others I'd had. Flavorful yet subtle (it was less fiery than the sesame noodles), it was full of bright red chili paste, leeks, thin slices of pork belly, and some mild capsicums. I missed the presence of Sichuan Peppercorns and the crunchy slices of ginger and other things in the Grand Sichuan version, but Sichuan Gourmet's was still lovely, and as Jimmy noted, perfect for the beginner's palate.

We both agreed that Szechuan Gourmet was definitely a place to revisit, and there's no shortage of menu items that look like they're worth exploring. I also want to check out the 39th Street and Flushing locations...I think some comparison dining is called for!