Fourth of July cooking -- first break

So, the pink peppercorn meringues are finished -- they came out unexpectedly huge, and I will probably give many of them away.

The orange vanilla caramel cremes are finished, but I think I went past caramel into 'butterscotch hard candy', so the bottoms have a crust like a creme brulee. Ooops.

The strawberry-hibiscius ice cream is in the freezer setting up, and it tastedfabulous.

The white bean dip is half done -- the spices, oil and lemon juice are the only thing that needs to be added. The chard for the falefel is cooling now, after being blanched.

The meat is thawed, so after the parade, I'll get that started.

First course of the Fourth of July Cook-In

ellen_fremedon came over to watch the end of the local Independence Day parade -- two pipe-and-drum corps, two steel drum groups, 5 troops of Girl Scouts (represent! 1 troop of Juniors, 2 of Daisies, 2 of Brownies), lots of classic Thunderbirds, a Delorean, a Cadillac ambulance, a bunch of historic fire trucks, a basset-hound brigade, a Sons of the Desert Marching Club and a push-mower precision drill team.

Dip made from white beans, roasted garlic and goat feta pureed with olive oil, lemon juice and zest, and toasted cumin seed, topped with za'atar. ( Yum! )

Smashed cucumber salad with mint, toasted pistachio, greek yogurt, dill, black raspberries (because you can't actually buy mulberries), and homemade pomegranate molasses. ( Fabulous! )

The smashed cucumbers were kind of fun, but getting a seedless variety is going to be very important when I make it again.

Second Course of the Fourth of July Cook-In

ellen_fremedon and I wisely got together on Saturday and figured out our meal plan for today, so we could get the best ingredients and split cost.

Of course, we chose Jidi Bel Zet -- Veal Shanks with Saffron and Seven Spice -- before realizing that first, no one was selling veal shanks, and second, the goat shanks (the recipe is adapted from a recipe for goat) were two-and-a-half-dollars more per pound than osso bucco from the bison ranch. Otoh, there was no guarantee that the bison people had osso bucco availabe either, but their saleswoman promised she'd be able to sell us stew meat and a marrowbone if the osso bucco wasn't available. Which was why I bought a marrowbone on Sunday.

The first thing we had to do this morning was make Baharat -- the blend of sweet paprika, cumin, black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, hot paprika, and coriander -- which is the titular Seven Spice. Hand grinding 4 tsps of black pepper is a chore, especially with a mini-grinder, and I finally resorted to cracking the black pepper with my mortar and pestle. After dredging and browning the meat, we stuffed it in the oven and worked on prep work for other dishes, with just a timer to keep us going.

Cooking the shallots, garlic and saffron in one skillet and the sweet potatoes in another, and then dumping them all back in the dutch oven to cook on the stove top worked well. Once they were cooked through, ellen_fremedon showed me how to get the marrow out of a marrowbone with a butter knife, and put the blood and juices she saved when we opened the meat packages to enrich the dish. Adding a half a lemon's worth of juice, we set back and let the whole thing rest.

Instead of serving with saffron rice, we just ate it with the pita bread left from the first course... ( omgGOOD )

It doesn't look like much in the pot, but trust me, it smelled wonderful and tasted fabulous.

Third Course of the Fourth of July Cook-In

After we were able to contemplate food again -- at least an hour later -- ellen_fremedon and I fried up the falafel we made with red chard.

The recipe said to make falafels about the size of golfballs. I'd say smaller would be better, given the problems we had with falafels about that size. Bits of chards tended to float off into the frying oil, and sometimes the falafel just broke apart.

They were very tasty, though, because after we took them out of the frying oil ellen_fremedon sprinkled them with salt. Chard, especially the stalks, apparently gets a wonderfully sweet finish when fried, and who doesn't like crispy bits with salt? I liked mine with a healthy dash of tumeric as well, but your mileage may vary.

( Tasty balls of chard and chickpea )

ellen_fremedon suggests that shallow-fried chard might be a tasty thing indeed to sprinkle over popcorn some day. I've fried parsley, and seriously cruchy greens are kind of irresistible.

Intermezzo of the Fourth of July Cook-In

Bloated with all the food we made and consumed, ellen_fremedon and I scooped out cones of the Strawberry-Hibiscus ice cream I set to set this morning and went for a post-prandial walk.

( Sweet and purple )

The ice cream itself was somewhat soft, and I think I might modify the custard next time to use only yolks instead of whole eggs -- and use smaller bits of strawberries. I think on the verge strawberries gave the best flavor, considering I used both them and some bought from the co-op on Saturday.

Fourth Course of the Fourth of July Cook-In

After the ice cream and walk, ellen_fremedon and I came back and contemplated giving up...

but we had already grilled the sliced zucchini (and has to hastily save the ice cream, since we had both forgotten it on the countertop. Oops. It was soft and a bit melted, but should be okay by tomorrow evening).

Anyway, we retrieved the zucchini and decided to make only a half recipe, reserving the rest of the ingredients for later. Which is when we discovered the squash blossoms were still at ellen_fremedon's place. Oops again.

All that cleared up, I weighed out the feta cheese (Bulgarian, I believe, and wonderfully sharp) and ellen_fremedon whipped up the dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, and toasted seseme seeds (since we didn't have nigella seeds -- talk about a speciality item).

( Grilled zucchini are quite tasty! )

I don't know if the squash blossoms would have improved the salad or not, but it was pretty darned tasty anyway.

Final Course of the Fourth of July Cook-In

We had to set these in a skillet with water as a double boiler of a sort to loosen up the caramel bottoms of these, but these Orange-Vanilla Caramel Cremes turned out wonderfully when we upended them.

Basically, we made flan with a melting orange caramel top by flipping them out. Next time, I'd slice the orange peel into much thinner slivers, but ellen_fremedon pointed out that they really nicely countered the rich sweetness of the custard, so using the peel so aggressively worked out.

( So tasty! )

So the great Cook-In was a great success, though we both wished several times for a bigger, better laid-out kitchen. And more people to eat all the food, because seriously, it seemed that we Cooked All things.

And I seriously want to try more recipes from Purple Citrus and Sweet Perfume -- these are fabulously tasty recipes.