The Simplest Breakfast

Lazy Sunday morning here in localsville. Since localseasonal September started, a Sunday morning routine has developed. I wake up, make myself a cup of coffee, drink the littlest bit of it and make D mad by letting it cool to room temp, assure her that I meant to let it sit as I stick it in the fridge for ice coffee later, and then trot over to the farmers market, lots-o-canvas-bags in tow. By the time I'm back from the market, I'm warm (it's a bit of a hike from Dupont with all those groceries in hand) and I'm hungry. So I take out those beautiful yellow cherry tomatoes, that Keswick creamery spreadable herb cheese, those farm-fresh eggs, and that lovely, tart cows milk yogurt, and I whip us up a little breakfast. Nothing fancy -- wonderful, in fact, in its sheer simplicity. These pics are from our breakfast 2 weeks ago.

Happy lazy local Sunday, everyone!

Plum Ice Cream

This past December, D got me an ice cream maker for Hanukkah. "So that you'll have a way to make us ice cream when summer rolls around." That D's pretty smart: ice cream makers are much cheaper in the dead of winter, but summer inevitably returned, and now tubs of ice cream line our freezer. What flavors, you ask? Well, currently we have wild honey, raspberry sorbet, apricot sorbet, and this here plum that I'm getting ready to tell you about. I've had some lovely organic plums in my fridge for a couple weeks. Most of them I took for lunch, but something had to be done with the rest. I'd gone back and forth between stone fruit crisp and plum tart tatin, until I remembered that The Perfect Scoop was sitting on my bookshelf, gathering dust. Sure enough, David Lebovitz had included in it a recipe for plum ice cream; the fate of my plumlings was decided.

Here's the thing about fruit ice creams: they're not chocolate. Now don't you vanilla fans jump on me all at once -- I appreciate a good bowl of white. (Scratch that: off-white. If it's vanilla, it has to be custard-based, in my humble-o.) But people, chocolate and I are exclusive. We're in love. And that's just how it is. So you can understand why fruit ice cream has always seemed a little, well, not-quite-right to me -- that is, until I made some myself. Plum ice cream is stupendous! Wonderfully creamy, sweet and tart, with all the assets of stone fruit and of ice cream in one. I'm a little obsessed.

With plums at every farmers' market in town, now's the time to try this one out.

Plum Ice Cream from David Lebovitz in The Perfect Scoop

• 1 pound plums (about 8 )
• 1/3 cup water
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp. kirsch

Slice the plums in half and remove the pits. Cut the plums into eighths and put them in a medium, nonreactive saucepan with the water. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 8 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar until dissolved. Let cool to room temperature.

Once cool, puree in a blender or food processor with the cream and kirsch until smooth.

Chill the mixture thoroughly, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Summer vegetable (and fish) stew

If you're anything like me, your fridge is swimming with zucchini and corn, your counters teeming with beautiful tomatoes. Not that I'm complaining, mind you -- I wouldn't dare, with summer produce this close to done -- I'm just saying, I've got three bumper crops and I don't even have a garden. What's a girl to do?

Not fret, that's for sure. I've found countless] great sources for ideas to use up the big three. Not to mention the inner-workings of my own crazy imagination...which led to this summer vegetable (and fish) stew. The fish in () because it's optional. (Not that everything in this recipe isn't optional -- hell, you could change the stew entirely for all I care -- but I've been told by my friends that I need to be more assertive and instructive, less "just do what you want"ish. I'm trying.) You want to know a secret? I didn't plan on making this a fish stew at all. I planned on making braised zucchini-ratatouille dish, then pan-frying some turbot fillets and laying them nicely on top. All went as planned, until I flipped my fillets (which were doing beautifully in a generous helping of browned butter). I'd hoped for them to have a nice, crisp browned crust, but instead the grains had separated and stuck to the bottom of the pan and it didn't look pretty at all. For your sake -- so that you wouldn't have to look at a picture of a yummy-ugly dish -- I took the ratatouille, tossed it right back in the pan, and started spearing the fillets with my spatula to break them up a bit. As I finished them off in the ratatouille, they started to break down a bit, forming a nice-looking stew. I served the stew (to myself and D) with a slice of good, crusty sourdough, which proved ideal for mopping up the juices at the bottom of my bowl. What started as a mistake ended...quite nicely, if you ask me.

I also want to take a moment and pay homage to the humble celery. I often hate on celery, having disliked its taste when raw for quite some time, and having dreaded those ants-on-a-log snacks as a kid. I buy it almost never -- in fact, the last time I bought it was probably in college. But I had a bunch left over from the caponata, and I thought that since this stew was a clean-the-fridge stew anyway, could adding a little celery hurt? No, it most certainly couldn't. And sure enough, celery's flavor was awesome in the stew. Can I describe how so? Nope. Maybe you should try it and see for yourself?

Summer vegetable (and fish) stew

• olive oil
• 2 stalks celery, minced
• 1/2 a yellow onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• carrot, if you'd like (I didn't have any but a handful minced would do)
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 bay leaf, optional
• 1 zucchini or yellow squash, or three of those small summer squash, cut vertically into thick slices

<1/2 cup liquid (stock, wine, and water will all work)

• salt and pepper
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 2 fillets turbot or other white, mild fish (total a bit more than half a pound)

In a heavy bottomed saute pan over medium heat, add a few Tbsp. of olive oil, and sweat the onion and garlic until very aromatic and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add bay leaf, celery, and carrots, if using, and continue to cook until soft, about 5-6 minutes. Add zucchini/squash and saute until browned, about 4 minutes. Add tomato, stir to incorporate, and add a bit of your liquid of choice, to scrape up the little bits that have gathered on the bottom of the pan. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Continue to add liquid gradually, cooking for an additional 3-4 minutes until it all comes together. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl, and wipe out pan. (If you're not adding the fish, taste and adjust, and serve.)

Blot fillets dry with paper towels and season liberally. Heat the butter in the same pan over medium heat until bubbly and starting to brown. Add fillets. Once in the pan, don't move them around all too much -- you want them to develop color and crispness. After about 2 minutes, flip. At this point, if yours turn out as mine did, there'll be little brown bits of fish deliciousness, and that's ok. Start cutting into the fish with your spatula, breaking up the fillets into smaller pieces. Then add the vegetables back into the pan, toss to mix, and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes until fish is fully cooked (but not too cooked), and serve in big, homey bowls with nice, crusty sourdough bread. YUM.

Not Your Ordinary Gazpacho

I rarely title my posts with anything but the name of the recipe I'm posting -- but this particular recipe is fabulous, and if I told you what it was called, I might scare you. Let's just say it's not your ordinary gaspacho. First off, it's white. As you might have guessed, cucumbers are definitely at play here, and they lend a wonderful fruity freshness that's key in offsetting...the other ingredients. Also in the mix are almonds that have been blanched, toasted, and ground, as well as rustic bread that's been soaked in water and blended to thicken the soup. And that other ingredient, you ask? Buttermilk. Don't freak out.

Here's the thing. The soup is called "Cucumber Buttermilk Gazpacho," but it should be called "Cucumber Almond Gazpacho." I get that buttermilk is a key player in this soup -- and I recommend making it with the real thing, and not milk mixed with a tsp of lemon juice -- but it's a flavor in the background, one that pulls everything else together, not worthy of the title. Especially since its presence scares people.

Let's just review our dairy trivia for a minute: according to Wikipedia, "fermented dairy product produced from cow's milk with a characteristically sour taste. The product is made in one of two ways. Originally, buttermilk was the liquid left over from churning butter from cream. Today, this is called traditional buttermilk. Buttermilk also refers to cultured buttermilk, a product where lactic acid bacteria have been added to milk." Ok, so it's fermented. Lest that scare you, so is wine...and who doesn't love a nice glass of wine? It's also sour. But so are lemons and limes and oranges, oh my! so don't hate. And if you've ever swallowed your nerves and tried buttermilk -- in pancakes, or ice cream -- you know that it's got a quite distinctive, quite lovely flavor. So there.

Lest you be concerned that this soup is too rich, I can assure you, it's not. And I'm sensitive to creaminess. The generous garnishes of juicy tomato, sharp scallion, herby parsley and toasted almonds make this a fun soup to eat while offsetting the buttermilk perfectly.

Here's what I can promise: everyone cringes when I say the name of this soup. But guess what else? No one has not tried it. And? No one has not liked it. So maybe you'll try it. And maybe you'll like it. Just maybe.

**I must give props to Jana. Not only did she introduce me to this recipe (by way of making it for a recent lunch party), but she opened my eyes to the oft-doubted-but-kind-of-wonderful marthastewart.com. So thanks to Jana!

Cucumber Buttermilk Gazpacho from MarthaStewart.com

Makes 6 cups

* 3/4 cup whole blanched almonds * 1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds, for serving * 4 ounces rustic white bread, crust removed, bread cut into chunks * 2 1/2 pounds Kirby or regular cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped (about 4 3/4 cups), plus 1 unpeeled cucumber, diced, for serving (about 9 cucumbers total) * 2 small garlic cloves * 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling * 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice * 1 cup buttermilk * 2 teaspoons coarse salt * Freshly ground pepper, to taste * 3/4 cup cold water, plus more if needed * 1 large ripe beefsteak tomato, diced, for serving * 4 scallions, sliced, for serving * 1/2 bunch fresh flat-leaf parsley, for serving (I used chives instead of scallion and parsley, because that's what I had lying around...)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread whole almonds in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet, and spread sliced almonds in a single layer on another rimmed baking sheet. Toast in oven until brown and fragrant, 7 to 10 minutes (sliced ones will brown more quickly). Let cool. 2. Place bread in a bowl, and cover with cold water. Let stand 10 minutes. Squeeze out liquid, and discard. 3. Puree half of each of the whole almonds, bread, peeled cucumbers, and garlic in a blender. Add half of each of the oil and lemon juice, and puree. Transfer to a large bowl. Repeat. 4. Stir in buttermilk, salt, and pepper. Add water; if a thinner consistency is desired, add more water. Pass through a medium sieve. Refrigerate at least 1 hour (or overnight). If desired, thin with water before serving. Serve cold. Drizzle with oil, and serve with diced cucumber, tomato, scallions, parsley, and sliced almonds on the side.