Watermelon Lemonade

Lemonade stands were my first hands-on introduction to food sales and marketing.  Parked at the end of my driveway or on the corner of a neighborhood street, I set up shop selling instant lemonade by the Dixie cup.  Crayon-colored signs were enough to entice cars and walkers to stop and buy my lemonade.  What a confidence booster – people wanted something that I could produce at 7!  But let’s be serious, it wasn’t because the lemonade was outstanding or that my marketing angle was unique.  I was subconsciously exploiting my youth and charm to sell a product.  Got to love that “aw, cute!” factor.  Unfortunately, I have outgrown such sales tactics (it’s a shame because I’m running out of ideas to pay off my school debt haha).  So now I make the lemonade just for me.  Except this time I use real lemons.     

Believe it or not, I don’t drink lemonade just for the sugar rush.  Vending machine lemonade lacks that bright yellow luster.  I want that burst of sour-citrus sunshine that convinces you that the lemon was freshly squeezed.   Most of the time, I want to taste the full lemon spectrum.  Today I had a different mission.  

Committed to getting my full money’s worth out of the 10 lb watermelon I had just bought, an idea came to mind: watermelon lemonade.  Sweet, juicy watermelon added to tart lemonade, perfect!  When buying a 10 lb watermelon, there are doubts as to whether you can ever eat it all.  But I was determined.  I ate it plain, mixed it with salad, froze it, and still there was a fair amount of it left in the fridge.  Watermelon lemonade was the key to using up the rest.  

If a drink was ever described as succulent, they were talking about this lemonade.  It was like nectar derived from the soul of both lemon and watermelon.  Spiked with liquor, this could become an exceptional barbeque bar drink.  Either way, this is lemonade that sells without the stand or the cute kid sitting behind it. 

Watermelon Lemonade

Ingredients:

4 cups watermelon, seedless and cubed

1 cup lemon juice, fresh

½ cup simple syrup (i.e. sugar water)

2-4 cups water (depending on how strong you want it)

Instructions:

1.       Make simple syrup by adding ½ cup sugar to ½ cup water and bringing to a boil.  Let cool.

2.       Place about 4 cups of cubed watermelon into a blender or food processor.  Blend until smooth.

3.       Strain watermelon through small wire-mesh strainer – you only want the juice, not the fleshy part of the fruit.

4.       Juice watermelons (No need for a juicer, I just used a fork).  Strain the juice to catch seeds or any lemon parts.

5.       Mix all ingredients in pitcher.  Serve cold. 

Makes about 4 glasses of lemonade.

Polynesian Chicken Salad

There are few things that say “quintessential American tea-time hor d’oeurve” like chicken salad.  Mayonnaise, grapes, walnuts, celery…you know the drill.  These dainty sandwiches and porcelain tea cups were what made 10-year-old life seem antique and classy.  But a decade later, I want something more original and exotic than that ol’ go-to recipe. 

 I settled on a Polynesian theme for my experimental chicken salad.  Polynesian flavors incorporate the sweetness of natural fruits like pineapple, mango, bananas, and coconut, into other ingredients like rice, beans, chicken, and sweet potatoes.  Sweet and sour sauces, made from soy sauce, sugar, and white vinegar, can also used.  This gives me a good amount of inspiration. 

The final product was tasty, and although it combined unexpected flavors, the chicken salad was overall quite good.  A few dollops of mayonnaise made up the base (as in most traditional chicken salads), but I sweetened it with pineapple juice and counter-balanced it with some lemon juice and soy sauce.  Orange peppers and pineapple tidbits varied the texture, while Sriracha spiced up the original mildness.

 My main gripes with the recipe I created were that the sauce was too thin and still tasted too much like mayonnaise.  Once the salad was added to cold rice, the problems were not as blatant.  However, I am still wondering how I could keep a similar flavor profile and make the entire sauce thicker.  I tried a little corn starch, but that made the sauce awkwardly starchy and more pasty than creamy.  Overall, perhaps there is a reason that you stick to the “good ol’ recipes”, but where can we grow from there?

Anyways, this recipe isn’t quite ready to impress guests, but it is sure to satisfy you when you cannot tolerate the traditional chicken salad anymore. 

Polynesian Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups cooked chicken (I used chicken thighs)

About 3 T mayonnaise

2 T apricot preserves

1 T lemon juice

1 T pineapple juice

2-3 t Sriracha (Asian hot sauce)

2 t soy sauce

1 tsp ginger, freshly grated

½ cup cilantro

Salt and pepper

½ cup pineapple tidbits

1/3 cup orange or yellow pepper, diced

Instructions:

1.       In a small bowl, combine mayo, apricot preserves, lemon juice, pineapple juice, Sriracha, soy sauce, ginger, and cilantro.  Whisk until smooth – taste test for appropriate flavoring.

2.       In a Tupperware container with a lid, add chicken, pineapple, orange pepper, and mayo sauce.

3.       Chill for 4-6 hours.  Serve over rice, garnish with cilantro.

Honey-Nut Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

 As a server working a 12 hour double, I usually get my satisfaction from a fat stack of cash.  Tips are supposed to balance out my measly wage, but tonight I left with a wimpy wallet.  Such situations encourage some to hit the bottle, but I would rather sneak into the kitchen cabinet for another substance: chocolate.  Salivating for the sweet cocoa taste, I reached for a bag of chocolate chips.  As I clutched my prize, I felt an unsettling squish.  Melted chocolate – of course.  Living in a un-air conditioned house had finally revealed its price.  

 Chocolate cravings were reaching urgent levels; I didn’t have much time.  I gripped and ripped the bag of liquefied chocolate, and squeezed it into a saucepot along with a few spoonfuls of creamy peanut butter.   Heating it at low, I stirred in several handfuls of the off-brand honey-nut cereal.  Once all the cereal was evenly coated, I plopped spoonfuls onto the top of a Tupperware lid covered in tinfoil.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, people.  Then I stuck the Tupperware tray into the freezer and let the bars chill for about 15-20 minutes (I recommend you let them go longer, but I don’t have that kind of self-control when I’m having a chocolate craving attack).  

So the next time the chocolate bug bites, know that you are only three ingredients and 20 minutes away from having a cold, crunchy, chocolaty, peanut butter bliss bar.  *Sigh of relief*, “That was easy”.

Honey-Nut Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Ingredients:

1 (12 oz) bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 T peanut butter

About 2-3 cups honey-nut cereal

Instructions:

1.       Mix chocolate chips and peanut butter in saucepan over low heat until melted.

2.       Add in cereal – make sure that all can be covered by chocolate sauce.

3.       Place large spoonfuls on cookie sheet covered in tinfoil/parchment paper/etc., let chill in freezer for about 15-20 minutes. 

4.       Store in bags or Tupperware in fridge/freezer for as long as you can keep them.

Makes about a dozen decent sized bars.

Pickles and Peas

What is the weirdest thing you have ever eaten?  Tonight, I ate pickles and peas for dinner.  Yes, sliced kosher dill pickles and frozen peas.

Lately, the combination of working at the restaurant and moving into a new place for the summer has forced me to take a temporary cooking hiatus.  My vintage Revereware pots and pans have been allocated to large liquor cases I procured for free from the ABC store; and without new groceries for 2 weeks, my fridge has turned into a chilled, barren box.  I was left with the dregs of my food supplies and one accessible pot.  This disorienting situation pushed my creative limits, and is probably what propelled me to reach for the pickles and peas.  I should switch my degree to Thrifty Ingenuity instead of Government – seems more apt for me.  

I love pickles, but I regularly throw the juice down the sink once I am finished eating them.  Saving the juice never seemed worth it - what a waste.  Some people claim that it works miracles on muscle cramps and hangovers, while others believe that it is relegated only to the weird cravings of pregnant women and the drunken dares of peers.  There must be a way to incorporate pickle juice into cooking.  After all, it's just water, vinegar (acetic acid), calcium chloride, salt, and some flavorings like dill and garlic. That’s it? I could work with that.  

Frustrated with my lack of food, I finally settled for frozen peas.   For a pre-dinner snack (if you can call peas ‘dinner’), I retrieved the pickle jar from the fridge.  Crunching on a kosher dill pickle, I wondered how pickles would taste with peas.   Peas are pretty good, pickles are way good, and I already had dill weed in the peas.   Peas and pickle juice, why not.  I hesitantly added the briny liquid to the peas as they were simmering.  The combination created a very green, grassy, and salty taste.  The great thing about peas is that they will pleasantly absorb any flavor they come into contact with. 

Some might think that making a dish with pickles, peas, dill weed, pickle juice, garlic, and unsalted butter sounds desperate.  I found it an amusing and unique side dish.  I would pair it with fish or chicken – some sort of light meat – or perhaps incorporate some navy beans and make it a stew or soup.  I did not use a recipe, or measure anything out.  But here is a rough estimate:

Pickles and Peas

Ingredients:

1 cup peas, frozen

1 T butter, unsalted

¼ cup pickle juice

1 tsp dried dill weed

½ clove garlic, finely diced

4-5 pickles, sliced  

Instructions:

1.       Place everything but the pickles into small saucepan.  Bring to boil, then reduce to a simmer.

2.       Continue to simmer about 5-7 minutes.  (Let most of the liquid simmer off)

3.       Add sliced pickles right before serving. 

Makes about 1 cup.

The Jalapeno, Lime, and CilanTrio: 3 Different Dips Using the Same Three Ingredients

I love a bargain as much as the next guy, but some cheap things must be bought on principle.  Take, for example, an $8 deep fryer we found at a thrift store.  Sure, it’s not going to produce anything overtly healthy (so far we have fried tortillas, pickles, saltines, and beignets – no regrets so far); but at least by the end of exams, your brain won’t be the only thing breaded and fried.  

Our deep fryer was full of possibility, easily outdoing any dorm’s vending machine as the best junk food machine around.  Some were skeptical – “What are you going to do with it?” Better question, what were we NOT going to do with it.  Visions of sugarplum fairies have nothing on beer-battered shrimp, crispy fried chicken, or fried dough.  Soft corn tortillas, the precursor to a perfect dipping vessel, were on sale for about $3 a package of 30, so we picked one up.  When we returned home, and cut each individual tortilla into 4 slices, we realized we had way more than a lot of chips. 

A ritual was born: finish an exam or paper, and then start up the deep fryer.  The reserve brain power we had left was enough to absently plop soft tortillas into our cauldron of scalding oil and watch them emerge as hot, honey-golden crisps.  After a quick sprinkle of salt, they offered the perfect salty crunch to kick started our fading minds.  But we weren’t finished yet.  We wanted something to go with it… Chips + dips=bliss. (Unfortunately, I saw none of these equations on my finals)

The fridge revealed a Mexican powerhouse trio: jalapeno, lime and cilantro.  Initially, we had planned on having guacamole and salsa on separate nights.  But with the copious chip count, we wanted both.  We upped the ante, added hummus to the dip list, and made all three for dinner.  Each incorporated the three fresh ingredients, but had a uniquely defined character.  Arranged elegantly on a long plate, we treated ourselves to velvety guacamole, vibrant salsa, and creamy hummus.  Served cold, it was the kind of meal you could enjoy when it’s too hot for anything heavy.   Although we had it as a dinner, it would also be an excellent appetizer before a meal of grilled chicken or flank steak. 

Guacamole 

Ingredients:

2 avocados, mashed

1 lime, juiced

¾ cup cilantro, finely diced 

½ small onion, diced

1 tomato, seeded and diced

1 jalapeño, seeded and diced

1 tsp salt (to taste)

¼ tsp cumin

Instructions:

1.       Mash avocados into a paste. 

2.       Mix in the rest of the ingredients, and chill.  Place plastic wrap over the guacamole (even when in a sealed container) to preserve freshness and color.

Makes about 2 cups. 

Fresh Salsa

Ingredients:

1 (14.5 oz) can organic tomatoes, diced

1 large tomato, seeded and diced

½ red onion, finely diced

½ cup corn, frozen but brought to room temperature

1 (14.5 oz) can black beans

½ cup cilantro, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely minced

1 jalapeno, seeded and diced

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1.       Mix together all ingredients.  Serve chilled. 

Makes about 4 cups.

Cilantro Jalapeno Hummus

Ingredients:

1 (14.5 oz) can garbanzo beans, reserve drained liquid

1 T tahini

1 clove garlic, finely minced

1 jalapeno, seeded and finely minced

½ cup cilantro, chopped

Lime juice

Cumin

Salt

Instructions:

1.       Remove as many skins from beans as possible. 

2.       Place beans into food processor or blender.  Blend, adding reserve bean liquid when needed.   Should come out looking like a thick, beige paste. 

3.       Add tahini, garlic, jalapeno, and cilantro to blender. 

4.       Season with lime juice, cumin, and salt.

Raw vs. Roast: Oysters and Bone Marrow

They told me oysters were an aphrodisiac.  I would describe as more like a sloppy, seawater kiss.  My first oysters tasted like how I imagine slimy, frog tongues taste.  These grey, ghost-like forms floated on top of puddles of briny ‘oyster liquor’.  Once I slurped the nectar from the shell, I was instructed to gulp down the rest of it whole.  Slowly, it slithered down - that cold, fat, amorphous glob.  The second one was given a quick chew.  I found its texture to be like rubbery flesh and the aftertaste to be straight salt-water.  It’s not that I had a “bad oyster” (admittedly it was a pestering thought on my mind – I have heard the stories!), I just like being able to chew what I eat, and not feel repulsed by what goes down.  Why I still appreciate the oyster is because it stemmed from the challenge to prepare food that had not been tried before.  For me, the reward of these oysters was not the taste, but rather the excitement leading up to the completion of a dare. 

 Shucking oysters would seem to be a job reserved for only hardened seafarers, the Brawny Man, or Chuck Norris.   But a sharp finesse and a good angle can take you a long way.  I remained constantly haunted by the image of slicing through the web of my fingers.  I needed step-by-step instructions, and hands on, guided assistance. That is why I provide you with this link to hopefully help: http://www.marylandinfo.com/sponsorships/how_to_shuck_oysters.html.  

I gingerly placed a teaspoon of mignonette into the oyster shells, open like bodies waiting for autopsy. The mignonette, made of diced shallots, red wine vinegar, fresh parsley, and black pepper, was my lifesaver while eating these.  I enjoyed that more than chasing with a shot of Belvedere vodka. 

So while the oysters were a bit too much to swallow, I am considering keeping meat-butter on hand.  What’s meat-butter, you say?  Sold in stores as bone marrow, we dubbed it meat-butter.  Spreadable, creamy, and extremely dense, it satisfies like an entree and only costs you $2 a pound.  Seldom have I felt a stronger urge from my inner carnivore.  The taste is unforgettable, perhaps because its consumption seems so sinfully taboo.  The marrow itself is chalk full of vitamins and minerals, so there is a reason it is treasured by your natural heart.  Roasting the bones is simple and takes less than a half hour.  In a 450˚F oven, roast the bones for 15-20 minutes.  Fat will leak out of the bottom, so make sure you have a pan that can capture the fatty goodness.  When the marrow starts to bubble slightly, it is ready to be eaten.  Larger bones will take longer.   

 The only negative is that bone marrow is not highly photogenic.  Granted, we did eat the marrow pretty rare.  The pasty-pink color in the photo doesn’t capture the true golden shimmering of the rose colored marrow.  It can have a globby texture but, I appreciated its delicacy.  Toasted slices of French bread served as the base, and the marrow was placed on top of a bed of crunchy, citrus parsley salad.  It was as light as an appetizer, but hefty enough to satisfy your protein craving.  It’s definitely not something you will see at the cafeteria, and I would be surprised to see it on even a high-class restaurant’s menu.  But making it is a) novel for the guest and b) cheap for the host.  Some groceries do carry it, just call ahead and ask.

Bombay Burgers

Re-gifting.  Some people try to justify it by calling it charity or recycling.   C’mon, let’s be honest.  Re-gifting is when your inner-thrifty-shifty self gives a gift that is actually just something from the dregs of your closet or attic.  In the context of thrift stores, this is awesome.  But it’s worth it.  Someone has already paid all the overhead charges, and you buy the product simply for what it’s worth.  I don’t expect to get re-gifted by my grocery store.  Curry powder is your local grocer’s re-gifting scheme.   

 Curry is not an individual spice.  It’s a more generic term for a blend of spices, most often a combination of turmeric, coriander, and cumin.  I am not too distraught about it though – the burgers ended up delicious.  Hopefully, the curry powder creation was intended to make things easier (of course, at a price). 

Now for the real kicker: the Bombay Burger is entirely meatless.  Before your arteries unclog and your “vegetarian alert” comes on, let me tell you – a “burger” made from kidney beans, bread crumbs, sauces and spices still packs a hefty taste.   Initially, the burger has a savory Indian spiciness.  Halfway through, you realize that every bite requires its own exclusive spot in your stomach.  If you eat a ½ pound Bombay Burger, you will feel like you ate a solid ½ pound of food.  The aftertaste left my tongue blanketed with curry.  If only the heavy pounding of a tablespoon of cumin had not left such an unpleasant spiciness…  Bottom line: less cumin, and do not eat or serve the burger entirely plain. 

  My meager toppings the first burger were only a fresh slice of tomato and some sliced onions.  A cream-based sauce was what was missing.  Originally, I had thought some tzatziki sauce would do the trick.  I have not yet had the opportunity to experiment with that one, but I did create a Tomato Dill Sauce to go with my leftovers (rough recipe below).  

 NOM! With the sauce, the burger was bangin’.  You tasted peppery spiciness, without having it knock out your taste buds.  On my second Bombay Burger go-round, I found the burger to be warm and ‘meaty’, and the chilled sauce and fresh tomatoes to be light and relieving.  Appropriate year-round, these ethnic burgers show off how filling and satisfying non-meat burgers can be.   

Bombay Burgers (Adapted from the blog: Voracious)

1 (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained

2 T olive oil

¼ cup water

3 T A1 Steak Sauce

2 T soy sauce

2 tsp cumin

1 T curry

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp paprika

½ tsp Cayenne pepper

2 tsp Sriracha (or Asian Hot Sauce)

½ cup bread crumbs

(About) ½ cup all-purpose flour

3 tsp cornmeal

Instructions:

1.       In a food processor or blender, combine beans, olive oil and water.  Blend until beans are well mashed and smooth.  Scoop into large mixing bowl.

2.       Add steak sauce, soy sauce, cumin, curry, garlic, and black pepper.  Mix thoroughly. 

3.       Season with paprika, cayenne and sriracha (this is where you can make it more or less spicy).

4.       Add in bread crumbs and ¼ cup flour, mix.  (If you need more flour, add it). 

5.       Knead with your hands for about 3-5 minutes.

6.       Roll burgers in cornmeal to help from sticking to hands.  Form bean mixture into 4 patties.

7.       In a 9 inch skillet, heat about 2 T olive oil over medium high heat.  

8.       When oil is hot, place patties on skillet.  Cook for about 7 minutes, or until the outside is firm and compact.  

Serve with a Creamy Sauce, no bun needed.                                                              Makes 4 patties

Tomato Dill Sauce

Ingredients:

2 heaping T sour cream

2 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp dried dill weed

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1.       Combine all ingredients and serve chilled over burger. 

Makes enough for about one burger.