A Few of My Favorite Summer Things

                                                        Art by Pete

While I’m on vacation, enjoy these dishes that have become my must-makes over many summers now. For your consideration—a soup, salad, and an entree!

Take your pick of the best tomatoes and put them in this Gazpacho Andaluz.  

A sumptuous Summer Salad is beautifully made with the bounty of the season. 

Trenette col Pesto Genovese (that’s pasta with pesto, bliss potatoes, and green beans to you and me, bub) is a wonderful classic Italian dish, highly suitable for this time of year. 

I hope you are enjoying your summer!

Gazpacho Goodness

This is my go-to summer favorite for years now. Probably invented in Seville, gazpacho was originally served at the end of a meal. Though there are many versions of this soup, “the traditional, tomato-based Andalusian variety is the one you want to find on your table on a hot afternoon or warm evening. It’s salad in a blender; summer in a bowl...”

  
Try with a 28 oz. time-saving can of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes, ease up on the olive oil if you’d like, but by all means enjoy, whatever you do!

Gazpacho Andaluz
Adapted from Saveur
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 slice country-style bread, about 1” thick, crusts removed
2 small cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 lbs. very ripe tomatoes, seeded and coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
2 tbsp. sherry vinegar
1⁄2 cup extra-virgin olive oil Salt

Optional garnishes: 1⁄2 green pepper, seeded and finely diced; 1⁄2 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely diced; 1 cup 1⁄2-inch croutons; 1⁄2 small white onion, peeled and finely diced; 1 small tomato, seeded and finely diced

Instructions
1. Soak bread for 1⁄2 hour in a small bowl in water to cover. Squeeze out moisture with your hands.
2. Purée bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, vinegar, olive oil, and 1 cup water in a food processor until very smooth.
3. Push purée through a coarse sieve with the back of a wooden spoon. Gazpacho should be fairly thin. Season to taste with salt.
4. Chill gazpacho in refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Adjust seasoning. Serve in individual glasses, or in soup bowls with garnishes on the side.

 
This article was first published in Saveur in Issue #7

White Gazpacho

While it may be inadvisable to wear white after Labor Day, this pale, creamy gazpacho from foodandwine.com made with cauliflower is highly recommended (at least by me) all through the year. I substituted walnuts that I already had on hand for the suggested pine nuts and almonds to great effect, I thought. I would recommend (here I go again) that after blending all the ingredients together, to push the solids with the back of a wooden spoon through a fine mesh sieve over a bowl and refrigerate the thinned soup then. Try it with toasty bread in the cooler months to take off the chill!

White Gazpacho
Ingredients
 1/2 medium head cauliflower, cut into 1-inch florets 
 2 slices of crustless white bread 
 1/4 cup pine nuts (1 1/2 ounces) 
 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped 
 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
 1 large shallot, coarsely chopped 
 1 1/4 cups blanched slivered almonds 
 1/2 medium seedless cucumber, peeled and coarsely chopped, plus 1/4 cup finely diced cucumber
 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil 
 Kosher salt

Method
In a large saucepan of boiling salted water, cook the cauliflower until tender, about 8 minutes. Drain, rinse under cold water until cool and drain well.
In a blender, combine 1 1/2 cups of cold water with the cooked cauliflower, bread, pine nuts, chopped garlic, sherry vinegar, chopped shallot, 1 cup of the slivered almonds and the coarsely chopped cucumber; blend until smooth. Add the olive oil and pulse just until incorporated. If necessary, add more water to thin the gazpacho. Season the soup with salt and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 350°. Spread the remaining 1/4 cup of slivered almonds in a pie plate and toast for about 6 minutes, until fragrant and lightly golden. Ladle the gazpacho into bowls. Garnish the soup with the toasted almonds and the finely diced cucumber and serve.

First published in part in Food & Wine. Thanks to contributor Joy Manning and photographer Hallie Burton!

Perfect Picadillo!

Behold the simmering stew! Unlikely as it may sound, we are actually friends with our neighbors and the other evening they taught us how to make this picadillo! You begin by sauteeing half of a large onion in olive oil and adding two links of chopped chorizo sausage. Three pounds of ground beef substantiate the mix along with four chopped carrots and one cup of water. Put two chipotle peppers, four chopped tomatoes, 1/4 of an onion and 1/2 bouillon cube in a blender. Add this to the meat mixture with three peeled and chopped potatoes, salt and cumin to taste. Simmer for 45 minutes or so until liquid is absorbed, adjust seasonings and add more spicy chipotles if you, as some do, like it hot!


While the picadillo continued to simmer, we served glasses of Baby's sangria and gazpacho, with roasted corn, sizzled bacon, chopped onion and parsley as a garnish. So refreshing and absolutely wonderful to look upon.

Taking a cue from Herba Buena, an excellent restaurant here in the city, we made a Cuban Sandwich Pizza much as they do. We made our own dough found in the pages of Jim Lahey's My Bread and slathered it with a bechamel sauce, tinged with Roland's mustard.

Pickles, slices of ham, Swiss cheese and slivers of this gorgeous porchetta that Baby made were piled on top of our Cuban pizza.

When we were done, there wasn't a dry eye in the house and only a single slice left!

We continued on with a classic Tortilla Espanola, a snap to make in the set of frittata pans from Williams-Sonoma with six eggs, a handful of potatoes and an onion. A glimpse of Baby's index finger is seen here, stirring the concoction.

The hearty result! We spruced it up with some Sriracha sauce, another one of our favorite things.


At last we had our fantastic picadillo, with a side of rice, corn tortillas and lime wedges for good measure. Coronitas for all! And eclairs for dessert!

Soundtrack: Forever Tango; Mango Santamaria, Watermelon Man; Perez Prado, Besame Mucho; The Antonio Carlos Jobim Songbook; later, lots of 80's music