August 26 – September 1, 2024

Monday:                    Leftover Chemuin Chicken with Tomato/Peach Caprese

Wednesday:          Mushroom Soup and Tomato Toast with Blue Cheese Butter

Friday:                      Crispy Salmon with Warm Zucchini Salad with Almonds

Saturday:                DiFara Pizza with Sausage / Salad

Sunday:                   Oysters, Lamb Chops, Salad, Crispy Potatoes

September 9 – September 15, 2024

Friday:                      Salade Niçoise

A Little of This and a Bit of That

In the last two weeks (yes, I am behind) we spent some time at a local golf resort, had a weekend focused on lunch and breakfast for Gail and Bill who stayed with us while attending their 60^th high-school reunions (don’t tell anyone that they’re that old), enjoyed a nerve-wracking, late Steelers game with neither the boys nor Uncle Rick over for dinner.  And reviewing those two weeks, there is nothing we cooked that stands out (but if you have a chance to try the She-crab soup at Nemacolin, jump on it.  [There was also Greg’s 305 yard drive landing on the green on the 16^th? hole on the Shepherd’s Rock course – but we’re mixing categories here.]  So what to share with you?

Well, there are little additions – salads, appetizers, sides – that appeal to us as regular go-to parts of our approach to food.  Among them are oysters on the half-shell (appetizer), oven-crisp potatoes and our newly-discovered warm zucchini salad with almonds as side-dishes.  These little things can make a dinner as bland as turkey burgers memorable.

And these dishes are so simple that the delight they offer doesn’t seem fair.  I mean, people slave over producing the perfect Hasselbach potato, while I parboil some new potatoes, cut them in half, toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper, spread them across a foil-lined sheet pan and pop them in a 425 F oven for 35 or so minutes and get a wonderfully savory, crisp-skinned potato with a creamy center.  If food cost-benefit can be defined as cravability/ effort+time+skill, our oven-crisp potatoes destroy Hasselbach’s on that scale.* Here are those potatoes, nestled beside some steaks:

*For nerds – Hasselbach potatoes take a lot of skill and technique to cut the potatoes not-quite through to produce an accordion effect which then allows flavor and some browning to creep toward its center.  I.e., in cooking terms, it costs a lot.  Par-boiling potatoes and cutting them in half and then tossing them with oil, salt and pepper costs almost nothing.  Both potatoes taste, say, 8 on a scale of 1 to ten.  But our oven-crisps cost 1 on the same scale, whereas the Hasselbachs cost 9.  Thus the Hasselbachs achieve an cost-benefit ration of (8/9) or 86.6%, while our oven-crisps achieve a ratio of 8/1 or 800%.

So, you already have one recipe – the potatoes – above.

As for oysters on the half-shell, all you need is a good hot-sauce (we like Ina Garten’s mixture of Heinz Chili Sauce, Heinz Ketchup, horseradish and lemon juice) and some practice in shucking oysters.  This requires a good oyster knife, a sort of leather blanket to hold the sharp-shelled oyster in one hand while the oyster knife in your other hand pushes into the hinge where the shell halves come together and a little practice.  The first 10 oysters I shucked – maybe 20 years ago – took me over 30 minutes.  The 9 I shucked two Sundays ago took me just over 10 minutes.  And – important note – you can get good oysters at Giant Eagle (your local supermarket).  If the oyster is open it’s bad and if it is one of those rare bad oysters that don’t open, you’ll know when you open – trust me.

So, there you have another recipe – or instruction manual, since raw oysters don’t require cooking.  [Although they are superb when roasted on the grill and dipped in a little garlic butter.  And this requires no shucking – the oysters naturally open as they cook.]

As for that warm zucchini salad – perfect for this time of year when zucchini squash are as prevalent as crickets, tree toads, tailgate parties and political advertisements – I’ve typed that up below.  Like the potatoes, it takes little effort and is quite delicious (great cost-benefit ratio).

Warm Zucchini Salad with Almonds

(adapted from Geoffrey Zakarian)

Timing:                                             20-25 minutes

Ingredients:                                       Serves 4

3 small zucchini, sliced into ¼ in.  matchsticks

1/3 cup sliced almonds

½ Fresno chile, seeded and minced (or substitute a jalapeño)

2 cloves garlic (we didn’t use the garlic)

1 small bunch mint, roughly chopped

1 small bunch fresh parsley, roughly chopped

¼ cup shaved (with a vegetable peeler) parmesan

2 tablespoons olive oil

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

Prep:

Slice the zucchini, seed and mince the chile, chop the mint and parsley.

Cook:

Heat a large skillet with the olive oil on medium-high.  When the oil begins to ripple (when it’s hot), add the zucchini and cook until lightly golden – 2-3 minutes.  Season with pepper.

Now add the almonds (garlic, if using) and chile and toss, season with salt and pepper, then cook another minute.

Plate and Serve:

Off the heat, add the wine vinegar and toss to combine.  Spoon onto a platter and garnish with the chopped herbs and add shaved parmesan on top.