Super Sloppies.

Vegan slop-sloppy joes.


October 1st marks the first day of the eat local challenge. It's day one and I am already chalking this years challenge up as an epic failure for me personally. Mainly the neighborhood supermarkets are slightly scary, and definitely are not even close to being on the organic bandwagon yet. I honestly do not want to know where most of the items are grown and I feel I may be better off not knowing. When your local super market is nicknamed the ASS-MART, I think it's safe to say market basket and Johnie food master would be a god send right now. Yeah there are plenty of green markets in the Brooklyn area, some I really do like. Regularly shopping at them just seems to get pricey faster than normal. I try to keep on it as there is a green market literally everyday of the week if you're looking for it. I think the key to healthy living and schooling the eat local challenge is clearly having a csa share or having your own garden. That should cover about 80% of what you need to eat leaving you only to search for proteins and grains. I miss my Parker farm share.

I loaded my fridge up with tempeh and tofu last time I made it to unholy foods. I've been eating less and trying to eat more vegetables and vegan things. Mainly after my last visit to the local mart smelled of cow urine, the already suspicious meat department was looking worse by the day.

Anyway...

This is my vegan super sloppy joe.

Note the package of sloppy joe mix. It's actually from Brockton Mass, I had to buy it, at 79 cents who could say no. The packaging looks as if it is from 1974. Surprisingly, there is nothing but spices listed in the ingredient list, it saved me from buying quite a few expensive spices.


So I browned one crumbled package of Soy Boy tempeh in olive oil. Added one diced Wheeler pepper, one can of tomato paste, 1 cup of water and Brockton's own sloppy joe spice pouch. This was topped on my purple cabbage apple slaw marinated in rice wine vinegar for a bit of a kick. all on top of a classy white bun.

The slaw completed the package & you will not miss the meat.

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Chippers and Blue!

A slightly higher brow approach to Wellfleet's bastard fish.

I can still remember getting pushed out of bed by my dad before the sun was even up. We would make it from Dennis to Wellfleet before the sun eventually pushed through on those grey Cape Cod mornings. My grandfather had an old center console boat at the town landing in Wellfleet. He fished for blues & stripers for a while.

me & a striper: circa 1990-something off Cape Cod

I was pretty young when they went out, but it still is of my best memories. I can remember leaving the harbor and trucking out to sea at full speed for what seemed like forever. Eventually there was no land in sight, the water was deep and choppy. This was the point of no return, it's time to show your sea legs or you'll be turning green and praying for shore. Luckily I stood strong, as I think most Adams' were born with sea legs.

The outboard finally slowed down. The fish finder, the active birds, "boiling water" and the strange faint smell of watermelon all pointed to a feeding frenzy. We dropped our lines and started reeling them in, they kept coming. We had all sorts of lines, rod and rigs out. I know we had some reels set up with lead line and jigs, you needed a glove to fish this one. I can't recall how many we caught on this particular trip but it seemed like a hell of a lot. Those bastard bluefish liked to fight too, they didn't come in easily. The blues weren't afraid to take one last look at you in the eye before trying to bite some of your flesh off while you're lazily removing a hook.

On the way back in to Wellfleet we went around the tip of Provincetown, I got to do some diving and swimming near some sand bars. Back to business at the pier as it was time to sell the days catch before stopping at the Beachcomber. They must have known a guy because I was way too young to be in there...Anyway I guess you can say I have a soft spot for the bastard so here it is.

Chippers and Blue: Old Blighty style fried bluefish, mixed rosemary oven chippers and a fresh corn & tomato salad.


Mixed rosemary oven chippers

• Sweet potatoes & baby new's tossed in olive oil, chopped fresh rosemary, sea salt and pepper roasted at 450 for a half hour. These are our new favorite chips or "chippers."

Fresh corn & tomato salad

• 3 ears of corn, kernals sliced.
  
• 3 roma tomatoes diced.
  
• Quarter of an onion diced
• Chopped basil
• Toss with sea salt, pepper and olive oil and bring up to heat on the stovetop. You don't really want to cook this, I just wanted it warm with a nice "raw" bite.

Old Blighty style fried bluefish

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup seltzer water (unshaken next time please...)
• 1 egg
• sea salt and pepper
• bluefish (or fish of choice)

Stir the batter up, get rid of those lumps. (It's probably not too late to turn this batter into pancakes.) The seltzer is suppose to give the crust a nice airy lift and a good bite which it did. Cut your FRESH bluefish into serving size pieces and dip into your batter before frying in medium high oil. The fish took around 8 minutes per side. When I'm frying battered fish I always cook by color. You're looking for a nice dark golden brown.

Plate & enjoy.

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"Chippers and blue, chippers and blue!" God I couldn't stop saying that for a few days.

It's all about the sauce.

This sauce was born very quickly out of the desire to eat only what was on hand.


It turns out what was on hand was at least quality home grown ingredients. We had an abundance of tasty cherry tomatoes I used for this sauce in addition to field tomatoes and home grown oregano and basil.

Oven roasted pizzaiola sauce

2 large field tomatoes sliced
20 or more cherry tomatoes halved
half an onion sliced thin
3 garlic cloves crushed
1 small shallot diced
large handful of fresh oregano finely chopped
5 large basil leaves finely chopped
sea salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. While the oven is heating lay out all of your tomatoes, onions & garlic on to a large baking sheet. Sprinkle your diced shallots and herbs on top of the tomatoes. Aggressively brush everything with plenty of olive oil. Season with sea salt & black pepper. Place the tray in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until everything is just starting to crisp up with a nice golden brown color. The kitchen should smell amazing at this point.


Transfer all of the roasted goodies into a food mill over a large bowl and grind away. Taste what you have, it's pretty good. Super fast sauce, tons of fresh flavor with oregano breaking through screaming at you for attention. This batch was just enough for 1 pound of pasta. We had a little oven roasted crispy kale as well with this.

So good.

Cannoli deconstruction.

Maybe?


I had close to a cup of left over ricotta from the stuffed zucchini blossom recipe and couldn't let it go to waste.

I made a quick deconstructed cannoli.

1 cup ricotta
~1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon lemon zest for garnish

Tasted great like a lemony cannoli filling pudding, but would have worked much better with an anise wafer or something crunchy to complete the idea.

Maybe next time.

(Stuffed) Zucchini Flowers

Fiori di Zucca


Sometimes it pays to be late. The vendors at the Union Square Greenmarket were packing up just as I arrived. I saw these zucchini flowers being tucked away and knew I had to act fast. I lucked out, the vendor gave me her 12 remaining flowers for $2.00 which is a great bargain. These lovely flowers are usually the highest price starters on most respectable menus.

I used The Fat Red Baron's (ahem, Batali) recipe for this. The Baron did suggest goat cheese ricotta which sounds delicious but, I opted for some fresh, local, farm house cow's milk ricotta instead.

12 zucchini flowers
1 cup ricotta
1 egg
2 scallions (thinly sliced)
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
sea salt & black pepper to taste

Mix thoroughly & get ready to stuff. Each flower took about 1 tablespoon of filling.


A second set of hands is suggested in stuffing these flowers. A pastry piping bag would have also done the trick. Be sure to inspect inside each flower for renegade insects that may be attracted to the sweet pollen.


These baby's were fried in OO on medium high heat and do need to be served immediately. A quick tomato salad was served along side, inspired by a dish had at Il Panino, created by the lovely & talented Marissa Iocco.

3 field tomatoes, rough dice
1 cucumber, half moons
1 tablespoon of capers
handful of fresh basil, cut chiffonade
juice of half a lemon
splash of unfiltered good GREEN olive oil
sea salt & black pepper to taste

Let the juices mingle at room temp in a nice bowl. After a few minutes you'll have some really intensely flavored red juice which I saved to drizzle over the hot zucchini flowers. I grilled the rosemary focaccia which was a most excellent choice to sop up the salad juice.

The stuffed zucchini flowers came out wonderfully. The flowers had nice caramelization with the cheese oozing out, making them really out of this world. We were popping these in our mouth like candy.

An excellent meal served on the balcony with some bubbly Chistalino, a Prosecco style rose wine.

Biker's Bounty

Over the Williamsburg bridge and through the woods...

I mean through the boroughs.

Just thought you might like to see the bounty. It's a nice 10 mile ride round trip by bike to the awesome Union Square Greenmarket. Unbeatable selection of freshness from upstate.

I had one casualty on the ride back, I lost one egg, which isn't bad considering I'm carrying a stuffed messenger bag bombing down the Williamsburg Bridge. Also picked up a bag full of delicate zucchini flowers, jersey field tomatoes, a bag of carrots, rosemary focaccia, and fresh ricotta.

Save gas, ride a bike.

蕎麦! (Ice cold summer squash & soba on a hot summers day!)

Ice ice baby...

Is the buckwheat soba noodle under appreciated because of it's bleak brown color? Maybe it's not as bright and lively as it's brother Mr. Udon or as common as it's cousin Mr. Ramen but Sir Soba does have some advantages.

I think they have a bit more flavor than other noodles with the slightly nutty undertones. They are also gluten free, if that is one of your needs. Most importantly though, buckwheat soba noodles are better for you nutritionally, with higher sources of fiber, iron and protein. I also really like the texture of them, fully cooked they are a bit chewy and sticky, it's nice trust me.

Phase I

You'll want to either start this dish in the morning or the evening before hand as these soba noodles will need to marinate in this dressing to achieve their full taste-tacular potential.

For the dressing:

1/4 cup light olive oil

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbs honey

3 tbs rice wine vinegar

3 spring onions
1 tbs chopped ginger

2 tsp black pepper

I really recommend purchasing the mini Cuisinart processor if you want to get serious about making great creamy homemade dressings, it's a magical tool.

Pulse all the dressing ingredients in your processor until you have reached a smooth consistency. In a large bowl have ready 1 package of Buckwheat Soba noodles cooked, ready to be dressed with said dressing. Mix thoroughly because these noodles like to stick together. Cover and leave to marinate in your fridge as long as possible.

Phase II
About an hour before you are ready to eat.

Quick Asian-inspired pickles
1 farm fresh summer squash

I first made some quick Asian inspired pickles for this. Slice 1 cucumber into thin half moons, salt and let sit for 10 minutes. Wash off salt, in a small bowl add 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar, a dash of sesame oil, 1 tbs sugar and 2 tbs water. Mix well, add half moons to soak it up while prepping the rest of the meal.

Cut the squash into a thick julienne and let steam until just cooked.

Phase III
Assembly + Eat

toasted sesame seeds
1 sheet of seasoned seaweed laver
1 spring onion

Plate your dressed noodles with your quick pickles and summer squash. Garnish with your toasted sesame seeds, thinly sliced spring onion and matchstick sliced seaweed and enjoy.

Fresh, filling and lots of bright flavor.

Raw shell pea and balcony mint salad

Plain simple & dead tasty.


Shell peas
Very finely ribboned home grown balcony mint
Minuscule diced red onion
Sea salt & black pepper

Toss with good olive oil & give a squeeze of lime juice to brighten the flavors.

This went well with some vintage cheddar and Riesling.
Raw & vegan (minus the cheddar) too.

Totally Tropical Pork Mojo

With summers heat and humidity creeping in the desire to eat or even cook inside seems to fade.

Start with a pork tenderloin, you may have to trim the excess fat and pull off the "silverskin" before this is ready to marinate in the MOJO baby.

The Mojo sauce or marinate is a very common in Cuban cuisine. It's simple as pie to make and is lip smacking good.

Tropical Mojo

• 1/2 cup olive oil

• 8 garlic cloves thinly sliced

• Juice of 2 limes & half an orange (traditionally a sour orange is used in place of the orange and lime)

• A bunch of fresh oregano & cilantro chopped

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Splash of vinegar
• 1/2 cup of water

Heat the oil over medium high heat; throw in the sliced cloves till lightly browned. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a quick boil.

After the Mojo has cooled allow tenderloin to marinate in this for at least 24 hours.

This totally tropical pork mojo was served with the following!

• Grilled onions
• Grilled asparagus
• Grilled plantains mmm
• Black beans with cilantro, cheese and grilled onion

Nicely washed down with a DOUBLE IPA homebrew from two good friends. Very malty, sweet and high in booze. Tasted like a cross between a Sam Adams and a Dogfish 90 min..

Damn fine.