Last night we had fresh coho salmon. My husband is the fish cook. It was melt-in-your-mouth perfection. Dressed with nothing more than the bare necessities - dill, butter, and lemon, and poached in foil over the BBQ, it couldn't have been more delightfully prepared by (insert popular chef name here). The green beans from my CSA were so fresh they needed nothing more than a toss in the pan with a splattering of olive oil and plenty of salt. For me, though, the highlight is always the carb. I gravitate toward bread like ( what I really want to write here is "like a crack whore towards crack" isn't that terrible?? But a flowery metaphor doesn't do my carb-addiction justice, so I will leave it at that.) The carb: Ina Garten's panzenella. I skipped the peppers and accidentally forgot the basil, but I read an online suggestion about mixing half of the bread and vegetables a few hours before serving, then mixing in the remaining bread maybe 20 minutes before. You do get the best of both worlds - garlicky, saturated bread, and crunchy chunks as well. Molly, the author, (we're on a first name basis, since most assuredly we would be friends) has a recipe as well, and it was what prompted my memory to last summer when panzenella graced the table at many a party I attended, but why step out when what you already have perfectly fits the bill?
As I was leaving the house this morning for my Sunday yoga class, Shawn was making the girls Dutch Baby. Quite symbiotically I might add, as Molly also writes about it in her book. Shawn of course had no idea , but maybe he is picking up through osmosis my re-dedication to food. Sadly, I missed it, but since I ate almost a 1/2 loaf of bread in the bread salad last night, I needed to skip the carb/oil combo. My mom made this ALL THE TIME, and I might have actually taught it to Shawn. For those of you who don't have a recipe, I liked hers for its simplicity:
preheat oven to 425. Melt 2 Tb butter in a 8 or 9 in. ovenproof pan. In blender mix 4 eggs, 1/2 c. flour, 1/2 c. 1/2 and 1/2, 1/4 tsp salt. Pour egg mixture into melted butter and bake for 18-25 minutes. Don't forget to call the kids over to the oven to see it puff. Serve promptly with lots of lemon and powdered sugar.
Which brings me to my counter (and cup for that matter) running over. I went whole-hog at the market. The energy was electrical and maybe everyone is reading my good friend Molly's book and blog, because it was THE place to be (after yoga of course) on a Sunday morning. it was the market I have been waiting for. Everything is present: the soft fruit so perfectly ripe, it begs for sinking your teeth into it right then and there, (I recommend Johnson Orchards. The owners Eric and Jill are wonderful people and I so admire their dedication to sharing, literally, the fruit of their labor) the vegetables abundant and colorful, and of course who can resist Essencia bordelais for the carb-lovers out there.
The garden tended to, the yard perfectly coiffed by my very own Edward Scissorhands, the provisions from Safeway procured, the local produce overflowing, it has been a perfectly productive weekend.
