Fare for the family table
What’s a guy to do when his garden runneth over with beautiful rainbow chard, and his kids are quite determined to never eat another leaf of the stuff as long as they live?
I wish I could tell you that I didn’t just toss some melted cheese on my beautiful bounty, but the fact is, that’s pretty much the story. I know…I know, it sounds like a cowards way out, please don’t hate me.
This is a great, seasonal and simple dish from a favorite chef of mine, and one of our “Chef’s Table” contributors, Peter McCarthy, the very talented chef / owner at EVOO restaurant in Cambridge.
Here in the Northeast it’s blueberry season, and while there are plenty of great things to do with all of our local flavor bombs, like make blueberry jam, blueberry cake, blueberry pie, or blueberry ice cream, I challenge you to find a recipe as good and simple as this blueberry crisp.
There is hardly anything more to this recipe than some simple measuring and mixing, a brief stint in a hot oven to burst the sweet berries and crisp the streusel topping, and then if you wish (and why wouldn’t you?), a reach into the freezer for a nice big scoop of vanilla ice cream. This dish is all about a lot of goodness for not a lot of work…..Amen.
Muppet helped me measure and mix the topping while I pulled together the simpler filling ingredient list (I’m no fool). We quickly combined our efforts in an 8″ round x 3 1/2″ deep ceramic baking dish and tossed it into a 350℉ oven for about a half hour, piece of cake…or crisp, as it were.
Support Local Farmers!
Buy Local Blueberries!
Make This Crisp!
Cheers – S
Fish can be a tricky thing to serve a family. There are some people, like my Mom, who likes fish as fishy as she can get it. Then there are people like me, who can tolerate only the mildest fish. Salmon is about the edge of my tolerance, and to be honest, I usually have to choke it down, the flavor is just too strong for me….I’m such a wimp.
Swordfish on the other hand is a fish that I love, it is meaty, flavorful (without being fishy), and as long as you don’t overcook it, is flaky and moist. I love swordfish all on its own, but we eat so much of it that I try to introduce different condiments to serve with it in order to keep things interesting, and to show the kids just how different it can taste when paired with different flavors.
Fruit salsas are delicious with swordfish, as are the more traditional tomato variety. A great sweet – salty combo can be found in one of my very favorite swordfish recipes (I’ll blog it before grilling season is over, I promise), Andrew Carmellini’s “Grilled Swordfish with Orange and Olives”…..it is fabulous.
Pierre Hermé…..Ladurée…..Gerard Mulot……Hugo & Victor……Hediard…….Fauchon……Eric Kayser.
This is but a sampling of the famous pastry chefs / shops that kept us giddily happy and full during our recent trip to Paris. This same group is also responsible for opening Muppet’s eyes to the heights that the very best pastry can achieve. These folks are the best of the best, the “Top Gun” pilots of the pastry world, and eating their confections has inspired Muppet to dream-up her very own original creation.
Aren’t we all lucky?
Prior to leaving for Paris, my boys and I had a few days away “just us guys”. It is a trip we do every year right at the end of school, and as luck would have it, we get to celebrate Father’s Day while we are off having a blast together….it is absolutely perfect. This year, the boys bought me a few books in celebration of the big day, one, written by Justin Halpern is called Sh*t My Dad Says and is riotously funny, I can highly recommend it. The other is entitled Guinness: Celebrating 250 Remarkable Years and is a wonderful history (complete with some scrumptious recipes) of one of my favorite libations. My boys always know just what to get me, thanks guys.
As we flipped through the pages of the Guinness book we found a number of recipes that were immediately deemed blog worthy, from Guinness Bread, to Shepard’s Pie, to Bangers and Mash with Guinness Sauce, but the one that stood-out above all others, the one we wanted to cook first, was this one, Guinness Burgers.
