Creamy Zucchini & Basil Pasta

This was my favorite recipe invention of this past summer (past already!), but I never got a great picture of it so I kept holding off posting. Part of the problem - squished up roasted zucchini is delicious, but not very photogenic. The "creamy" in the title comes from the texture of the zucchini, not from the optional cream. I served it as a dip at a dinner I made for my family and when the bowl was almost empty someone took a piece of bread and carefully cleaned out the last remnants - that's the sign of a good dip. It has the bright, summery flavor of fresh basil and the more autumnal, savory flavor of toasty, roasty zucchini. That makes it a great dinner for this in-between-seasons time.

Creamy Zucchini & Basil Pasta
serves 2, generously

4 cups zucchini, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup heavy cream (optional)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
salt, pepper, and olive oil
3/4 pound short pasta
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs*
2 T butter

• Toss the zucchini in olive oil, salt, and pepper and spread onto 2 cookie sheets. Roast in a 450 degree oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. Put the pans a few shelves apart in the oven and switch half-way through so that both pans get nicely browned.
• Meanwhile, saute the garlic in a small pan until just starting to brown. Set that aside in a bowl big enough to hold the pasta.
• In the same pan, toast the bread crumbs in the butter until brown.
• When the zucchini are dark brown, scrape them into the bowl with the garlic. Add the basil, cream, and Parmesan and mix really well, squishing the zucchini against the side of the bowl. 
• Mix in the hot pasta. Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top of each serving to keep them crunchy.
• To make this as a dip, omit the bread crumbs and pasta and just serve it with slices of bread or crackers.

*I used 2 pieces of good, white, sourdough bread that I toasted a little, cut into small pieces, and ground up in my Cuisinart.

Mom's Almond & Fruit Crumble

Is it a crisp or a crumble? I can't decide. I do know that the first Fourth of July that Mom made this it was a crazy hit - plums, blackberries, and the marzipan flavor from the almond paste along with the melting creaminess of the ice cream. We all asked for it again and again after that. She got the idea from Bon Appetit magazine and when I went looking for the recipe I was surprised to discover that it was actually supposed to be a tart, but Mom just stole the idea for the topping. If you like almonds and crisps/crumbles/whatevers, you'll love this. I make it in the winter with plums I've frozen from the fall. Now is the perfect time to discover you love it too and put away some stone fruits and berries for when a taste of summer will save you from the winter doldrums.

Mom's Almond & Fruit Crumble
serves 12

Topping:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup cold almond paste (about 5 oz.)
1/2 cup brown sugar
6 T cold butter
1/4 cup almonds

2 1/4 pounds fruit,* cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup sugar
3 T cornstarch

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
• Combine the topping ingredients, except the almonds, in a food processor and pulse until combined. Or cut everything together using a pastry blender. Then mix in the almonds.
• Toss the fruit with the sugar and cornstarch and spread into a 9x13 pan. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit
• Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. The fruit should be bubbling (this activates the corn starch) and the topping golden brown.
• Let sit for 15 minutes before serving so that it can cool and set a little. Don't worry, it will still be warm. You'll be tempted to serve it right away, but it will burn your mouth, trust me.
• Serve with ice cream.

*I think it's best with stone fruit and berries, especially Italian plums with blackberries or nectarines with blueberries, but many different combinations would work.

Feijoada (Brazilian Style Black Beans with Orange)

This is another recipe that I used to worry someone who really knew how to make it would get mad at me for my non-traditional interpretation. Then I looked around on the internets and discovered that there is already a huge debate about what should be considered "traditional" Feijoada (it is considered by some to be the national dish of Brazil). I'd never even heard of it until one day I saw it upcoming on the menu at the Still Life and I was supposed to make it as a soup. This was before I could just Google it and find 50 different versions. I found it in one international cook book, one take on it as a side dish, and I invented a soup out of that (because almost anything can be reinterpreted as a soup). Now I'm back to serving it as side dish. The orange makes me think a little of the Caribbean. We eat it along side spiced, grilled meats, just as is with rice and tortillas, or as a soup with double the stock listed below.

Feijoada (Brazilian Style Black Beans with Orange)
serves 4, as a main dish with rice and tortillas

3 cups dried black beans, or 3 to 4 cans of beans
3 slices bacon, cut into small pieces (optional)
2 garlic cloves
4 cups stock
1 orange
2 limes
2 bay leaves
cayenne to taste
8 cloves
4 cardamon pods
1 cup chopped cilantro
3 cups kale, chopped (optional)

• In the morning (or the night before if you're organized), rinse the beans and cover with cold water. In the evening, discard the soaking water
• Cut the peel from the orange (save the peels), then slice out the pulp. See the directions below.
• Saute the bacon in a stock pot until it just starts to brown. Add the garlic and saute until it starts to brown.
• Add the beans along with the cayenne, orange peels, lime juice, bay leaves, and stock.
• Tie the cloves and cardamon into a cheese cloth bundle, smack a few times with a heavy pot, and add to the pot.
• Simmer for 2 hours (1 hour if using canned beans), adding water if needed. You'll need to stir more often near the end to keep it from sticking to the pot.
• If you want to add the chopped kale (it makes for a heartier main dish), add it about 30 minutes from the end.
• When the beans are tender, remove the cheese cloth bundle, stir in the orange juice and pulp, cilantro, and salt. Done.

To cut out the orange supremes:

• Cut the very top and bottom off of the orange - just enough to see the pulp.
• Start cutting from the top, "skinning" the orange until the pulp is showing. Don't worry about going entirely from top to bottom, you can just flip the orange and cut away any peel that you missed.
• Holding the skinned orange in your hand over a bowl, slowly cut down both sides of the pith so that the supremes fall into the bowl with the juice. It's a little creepy to cut towards your hand, but if you go slow and don't apply too much pressure, you'll be fine.

(The photos function on Blogger is not working - again! - so I'll add photos of how to do this later. In the mean time, there are a bunch of decent video demonstrations online.) It's really not necessary to do a careful job for this dish because you're going to stir the pulp into the beans and break it all up anyway.

Orzo Salad

 

This is a dish that is so simple, and so open to endless variations, that it seems a little silly to write it down as a recipe. But I've been working on orzo salads all summer and they are worthy of a post. You can change pretty much every part of this, but keep the orzo. There's something about its tiny, rice-like shape that makes for the best cold pasta salads. Try it with roasted vegetables off the grill, shrimp, an Italian vinaigrette, raw zucchini sliced very thin, chick peas and Moroccan flavors, just about anything.

Orzo Salad
serves 4 as a main dish

1 pound orzo
about a 1/3 cup olive oil (just enough to keep the orzo from sticking)
juice of 3 lemons
2 chicken breasts (optional)
2 tomatoes, seeded and cut small
1 cucumber, seeded and cut small
1/2 pound feta (I really like feta), crumbled
1 cup plain yogurt (Greek-style with fat works best)
1/2 cup mixed fresh herbs, minced (basil, mint, & oregano are my favorite)
1/2 a red onion, cut very very small
salt & pepper

• Cook the orzo just like regular pasta, but pay attention to your colander. Mine has holes that the orzo fits through so I have to use a mesh strainer. 
• Toss the orzo with the olive oil and half of the lemon juice. Set aside to cool while you prepare the rest.
• Grill the chicken breasts with salt and pepper, cute into bit-sized pieces, and set aside to cool.
• When the orzo and chicken are cool toss everything together in a large bowl. 
• For best results, let it sit for at least an hour before serving. Sometimes I make it a few days ahead, but then I hold out the tomatoes and cucumber until I'm closer to serving it.

Rigatoni with Roasted Zucchini and Crispy Prosciutto

Pardon me if this gets boring, but I'm madly in love with my vegetable garden. I stroll by it several times a day, shaking my tomatoes in hopes of getting them to set, noting the progress of the mess of Delicata Squash vines taking over the path, pinching off the bolted stems of the arugula so I can get one more spicy pizza out of it, standing at the potato barrel resisting the urge to dig down and see what's happening. It's about as organic as a city garden can be. We even splurged and put in a drip irrigation system so we haven't been wasting water. Here's the problem: I'm not much of a vegetable eater, but I planted all this to to challenge myself to figure out how to add more veggies to my diet. And it's working because I would make this again even if I didn't have a plant shooting out a zucchini a day.

Rigatoni with Roasted Zucchini and Crispy Prosciutto
serves 4

1 onion, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
8 slices of Prosciutto, cut into thin strips (sub thinly sliced ham, if needed)
olive oil
4 smallish Zucchinis, or enough to really cover a cookie sheet, cut into coins
lots of grated Parmesan cheese
1 T chopped fresh oregano
1 pound Rigatoni

• Start by crisping the Prosciutto in a pan that has been heated to medium-high and drizzled with a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Drop the strips into the oil and give them a stir so they don't stick. Cook until they're crisp - about 10 minutes - then remove to a plate.
• Toss the zucchini coins in olive oil, salt, and pepper and lay them out on a cookie sheet. Roast in the oven at 450 for about 15 minutes or until they are nice and browned. If it's too hot outside to turn on your oven, just do them on the grill.
• Cook the onion and garlic in the same pan as the Prosciuitto (adding more oil if needed). If you have a little extra time, it's nice to cook the garlic first separately, letting it get perfectly brown, and then set it aside with the Prosciutto. Then do the onion until nicely browned. If you're a little more rushed, cook the onion until it starts to brown on the edges, then add the garlic and do the same.
• When the pasta is done, toss it with the onion, garlic, Prosciutto, oil from the pan, oregano, and a generous amount of grated Parmesan. Top with the zucchini coins. It's great warm or cold.

Easy Empanadas

 

When people complain about the weather here, I'm usually one of those annoying natives that says, "I like the rain." But Seattle's average temp so far this June has been 58, and that's just not OK. My plan has been to conjure Summer by cooking food that makes me think of warmer climates. Enter empanadas. They are so easy to make (don't ask me if this is authentic) and very adaptable to whatever is in season, whatever you're craving, or whatever happens to be in the back of the fridge about to go bad. The meat in this is highly optional. We're planning a batch with pizza toppings inside.

Empanadas
serves 2 for dinner, more as an appetizer

Dough:
2 cups all purpose Flour
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 stick butter (cut into small pieces)
1/2 c cold water

Filling:
1/2 a large yellow onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, diced
1/2 pound beef (or maybe mushrooms or beans)
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t paprika
2 T fresh oregano
cayenne and salt to taste
1 T tomato paste
3 cups hearty greens (kale, chard, spinach), cut into bite-sized pieces.

First make the dough (or substitute frozen pie crust):

• In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Using your fingers, cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly. Add cold water and mix with a wooden spoon so the dough comes together.
• Turn out dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead  2 or 3 times to form a smooth ball. 
• Flatten with the heel of your hand then roll out to a thin sheet (about 1/8 inch thick).
• Cut into circles with a bowl or cup (depending on what size you want).

Then make the filling:

• Saute the onions and garlic in a little olive oil. When they've just started to brown, add the meat (either ground beef or a steak cut into small pieces). Cook until the meat is just done (about 5 minutes).
• Add the tomato paste and spices and cook until things start to stick. Then add the greens and all their moisture will make things unstick (or add a smidge of water if this doesn't work).
• Cook the greens for about 5 minutes. You want the filling to be moist, but not too wet.

Now assemble the empanadas:

• Put a little filling on half of each dough circle. I've learned (from many empanadas that wouldn't close) to start with half as much filling as I think it will take.
• Dip your finger in a cup of water and use that to wet the edge of the dough. This will help it stick when you fold over and pinch or fork the edges closed. 
• I haven't tried it yet, but I've heard that these freeze really well at this stage. You don't even need to thaw them, just take them out of the freezer and continue.

• If you want, you can beat an egg and brush this on the tops of the sealed empanadas. Then bake at 400 for about 20 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Serve with hot sauce, chimichurri, homemade sour cream, or whatever you like.

Chimichurri

Chimichurri is sort of South American pesto. I don't remember how I discovered it - maybe a birthday of Mom's years ago when we went to the Buenos Aires Grill - but now I'm totally obsessed with it. I want to eat it not just on red meat, which is traditional, but on chicken and pork chops and salad and pasta salad and chips and sandwiches. It's acidic and spicy and freshy and I started eating it with a spoon last night and sort of made myself sick. But the point is, make this and I hope you'll love it too.

Chimichurri
makes about 1/2 a cup, which is plenty because this is very flavorful stuff

2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 cups (loosely packed) parsley
2 cups (loosely packed) cilantro
2 T fresh oregano (or 1 T dried)
1/2 t cumin
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1/2 t smoked paprika
juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
salt to taste

• If you're pressed for time use a food processor to blend everything together (do the garlic first, then dump all the rest in), but it's a little more authentic if you just chop everything really small and mix it together in a bowl. Let it sit for about half an hour to get all the flavors together.
• If you know that you don't like things that are very acidic, hold back on half of the lemon and vinegar and add them bit by bit to taste.

Whole Wheat Penne with Spinach Pesto and Chickpeas

This past weekend when I took a pair of garden shears to my spinach patch I thought, why did I plant this - I don't really like spinach. I prefer chard and beet greens and kale, all of which are exploding in the garden and I can't think of how to eat them all before they bolt. Then a friend suggested spinach pesto, which she makes exactly like basil pesto. Spinach pesto, even if it turned out as boring as I think spinach often is, would be garlicky and lemony and freshy. A pasta dinner started coming together in my mind. We were thinking we'd grill some chicken to add a little protein, but our budget for meat was busted (we're trying to only eat animal products from local, organic, ethical farms, but since we're on a serious budget around here that means we can't afford to eat as many as we used to). Inspired by my favorite ceci bruschetta topping, I added the chickpeas instead. It's a winner - fast, cheap, healthy, and super-flavorful.

Whole Wheat Penne with Spinach Pesto and Chickpeas
serves 3 to 4
printable

For the Pesto:
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
4 cups (loosely packed) spinach, washed and dried well
1 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup parmesan, grated

For the pasta:
1 pound whole wheat penne, or other short pasta
1 clove garlic, minced
1 15oz can of chickpeas (a.k.a garbanzo beans)
1 sprig rosemary (optional)
extra parmesan for garnish

• While the water for the pasta is heating, make the pesto (or substitute store-bought basil pesto) by first grinding the garlic with a little salt and pepper in a food processor. Then add the spinach and lemon and grind again. Add the cheese and drizzle in the oil a little at a time until it is the consistency you like.
• In a small frying pan on medium heat, saute one garlic clove in a little olive oil until it just starts to brown.
• Add the (drained) chickpeas and the rosemary sprig. Cook, stirring only a few times, until the chickpeas have browned a bit - about 10 minutes.
• Toss the pasta with the pesto, chickpeas, and salt and pepper. Garnish with more parm. It's great warm or cold.

Stacked Tomatillo Enchiladas

My favorite recipes are ones that end up feeling almost like formulas (for every one person you'd like to serve use 1 part this and 2 parts that) rather than the usual recipes we're all used to. This enchilada recipe is one of those easily adapted formulas that works with any type of protein from chicken to pork to a vegetarian substitute, just about any flavor/type of beans, any flavor of salsa, and a couple different kinds of cheese. It's an excellent way to use up leftover meat or even take advantage of the convenience of a ready-to-go rotisserie chicken. The "formula" below is for my favorite version - an imitation of the green enchiladas they used to serve at Barbacoa on Queen Anne (I miss their cocktails too, and the Mexican Hot Chocolate Flan).

Stacked Tomatillo Enchiladas
serves 2

6 small* corn tortillas
1 to 2 cups grated jack cheese (depending on how cheesy you like it!)
2 cups Tomatillo Salsa
2 cups Easy Pinto Beans
2 cups shredded chicken
garnish with sour cream and cilantro

• Start with hot ingredients. Heat the salsa in a small pot and grill your chicken just before assembling (or heat up your leftovers), etc...
• To heat up the tortillas, brush a sheet pan with oil and lay out the tortillas on it. Rub the tortillas in the oil, then flip so that both sides are coated. Heat them under a broiler until they are soft - just a minute or two on each side.
• Build the enchiladas in 2 wide, shallow, oven-proof bowls or (if you're like me and you don't own anything like that) in any small oven-proof container that can go under the broiler. I've made boats out of aluminum foil in a pinch.
• Start with a generous cup of beans in the bottom of each bowl, then top with a tortilla.
• Sprinkle 1/2 a cup of chicken on top, drizzle with salsa, and top with cheese and another tortilla.
• Do one more layer of chicken, salsa, cheese and tortilla. Then top the whole pile with a little more salsa and cheese.
• Place under the broiler on high for about 5 minutes, or until the cheese has started to brown. Don't walk away - the last minutes under a broiler the cheese changes quickly.
• Serve with sour cream and salsa. Watch out for the hot plate!

* I like more layers so I trim regular corn tortillas when I can't find the really small ones. If you're feeling like these are going to be too big, just do one layer!

Roasted Tomato Pasta (sort of Amatriciana Sauce)

This is a perfect pasta for late Summer or for when some hothouse in B.C. is cranking out so many tomatoes that they're on super sale at the grocery store. Once they're roasted the tomatoes freeze well and are great to use on pizza, in dip, on a sandwich - so many things. This is basically an Amatriciana sauce - tomatoes, red chili flakes, and bacon or pancetta - though it would usually be served on spaghetti or bucatini (my new favorite). If you have the tomatoes on hand it only takes about 15 minutes to make. It's a great go to dinner - rich, spicy, simple, satisfying, and fresh.

Oops, too good to wait for the photo.

Roast Tomato Pasta
serves 4

5 pounds (about 15) ripe tomatoes
olive oil
salt & pepper
8 garlic cloves (papery skin still on)
4 slices of good bacon or equivalent of pancetta
2 generous pinches of red chili flakes
1/2 an onion, sliced
1 lb pasta
Parmesan cheese

• Cut the tomatoes into eighths and spread them onto two sheet pans with the garlic cloves. I use a non-stick liner to make clean-up easier, but tin foil or parchment paper will work also. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper, and then toss to coat.
• Roast in the oven at 325 degrees for about 2 hours - until they are dark, but not burned. I know that's a long time, but you can make these on the weekend, store them in the fridge for a couple of weeks or freezer for a couple of months, and you'll have the toms ready for whenever you want them.
• Scrape the tomatoes and any good pan juices into a bowl. Peel the garlic, mush it with the back of a spoon, and mix it in with the tomatoes.
• Put on your pasta water. I set a half cup measuring cup next to the pot to remind me to take out some of the pasta water before draining. This is the only way I ever remember to do it.
• In a frying pan, cook the bacon until brown but not hard.
• Add the onion and cook until it starts to brown, then add the chili flakes and cook for about 2 minutes more. Set aside.
• Cook the pasta and before draining take out about half a cup of the salty, gluteny water. 
• Add the pasta to the bacon and stir in the tomatoes. Stir in the pasta water a bit at a time. If you forget this step, don't worry about it, it just smooths the sauce a little and helps it coat the pasta better.

Fresh Tomatillo Salsa

This is the 3rd or 4th time I've tried to make my own Tomatillo Salsa, but it's my first success. I use this salsa in Stacked Chicken Enchiladas, Green Chile Pork Tacos, and just for eating with chips so it seemed worthy of its own post. Thanks to a great blog that I just discovered, Mexican Foodie, for giving me the initial recipe that I varied a little.
I updated this post when I made a huge batch to give away. Scroll down to the bottom for those instructions.


Tomatillo Salsa
makes 2 to 3 cups, depending on how juicy the tomatillos are

1 pound fresh tomatillos
1 jalapeno
1 serrano chile
1/2 a red onion
2 T oil (not olive)
2 garlic cloves
1 cup cilantro
salt
1 to 2 limes

• Heat a heavy-bottomed (preferably cast iron) pan to medium-high. Place the jalapeno and serrano chile in the dry pan and roast until they have are mostly black. You'll have to turn them a few times over 5 to 10 minutes.

• Remove the chiles and place the tomatillos, husks removed, in the same pan. Blacken top and bottom and, if possible, a little of the sides. Set them aside with the chiles.

• Roughly chop the onion and and it to the pan. It will cook quickly because the pan is so hot from the roasting. After about a minute add the oil, stir well, and remove from the heat.

• Remove the seeds from the chiles and put them in a food processor with the garlic, cilantro, juice of 1 lime, tomatillos, and onions. Add salt to taste and blend well.

• Adjust the seasonings, adding more lime, salt, and maybe even another chile. 

For a big batch, all the ingredients are the same, but I had to simplify the process or I would have been turning tomatillos in the pot all day.

• Pre-heat the oven to 425.
• Spread the tomatillos, onions, garlic, and serranos onto sheet pans that you've covered in foil (or else cleanup is a nightmare). Keep the different items as separate as you can because they roast at different speeds.
• Roast in the oven until the edges of everything are blackened and at least a couple of the tomatillos have split. I pulled out the garlic first, then the onions, then serranos, and last the tomatillos.
• Blend in batches according to the directions above. Combine all the batches together in a big bowl and check the seasonings.
• Tomatillos, especially with lime added, are acidic enough to preserve just like you would do jam.

Green Chile Pork Tacos with Homemade Sour Cream

My favorite thing to make in my slow cooker is a spicy, tomatoey pork taco filling. I used to say it was the only thing worth making in a slow cooker, but now I know about a few other things. Lately, I've been trying to make my own tomatillo salsa for Stacked Tomatillo Enchiladas (success finally!), but since I still can't quite get that right I keep ending up with tupperwares full of decent, but not fantastic tomatillo salsa. What to do, what to do... Last week I adjusted my old, favorite taco recipe to be green instead of red and we were shocked to discover that we like it better. Shocked! How could our most loved dinner be changed and improved? Our world is rocked over here.
Oh, and, we served it with homemade sour cream. Maybe that's why these were some of the best tacos I've ever made...


Green Chile Pork Tacos
serves 4 to 6

1 yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, diced
3 pounds boneless pork (just about anything will work, but you might need to trim off fat depending on which cut you use)
2 cups chicken stock (depending on your slow cooker)
2 T cumin
2 T oregano
2 cups tomatillo salsa (store-bought or try this recipe)
1 bunch cilantro
1 to 2 T pickled jalapenos, minced (they're spicy)
1 7 oz can green chiles, or equivalent fresh chiles roasted and diced
2 limes
avocado
corn tortillas
sour cream

• Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper. Heat a little oil in a large frying pan and brown it on all sides - you're not cooking it now, just creating flavor. Put the meat in the slow cooker and put the lid on.
• In the same pan, saute the onion until the edges start to brown, scraping up any good bits the pork left behind. Then add the garlic and saute just until it starts to brown.
• Sprinkle the onions and garlic with the cumin. Have your stock ready. Toast the cumin until it starts to stick, then, quick, dump in your stock.
• Add the rest of the ingredients BUT reserve 1 lime and some cilantro for the end. Bring this all to a bubble (I never put anything cold in my slow cooker) scraping the bottom to get all the toasted goodness off.
  
• Pour this over the meat in the cooker and give it a bit of a stir so that the meat is coated. Scrape down the inside of the cooker so that no sauce is splashed above the line of sauce/meat (this helps with clean-up and prevents burned edges).
• Cook on High for 6 to 8 hours. I check mine after 6 hours to see if it's too soupy. If it is, I cook it the last 2 hours with the lid off. Slow cooker vary a lot so you might need to stop after 6 hours or add a little more stock and keep going. The meat should me falling apart.
• Add the juice of the second lime, break up the meat a little, and stir it in with the sauce. Serve it however you like tacos or with rice and beans. 

Dreams of Summer Fish Stew

We didn't go on a vacation to sunny weather this Winter, but this Seattle Spring has been so lovely it's almost making up for it. We're already craving lighter dishes, spending time in the garden, going on more walks. That also means we're running into the Summer dilemma of wanting to cook and post things to the blog, but not wanting to spend the time inside to do that. So Sunday evening we searched around online looking for inspiration for dinner. It needed to be something very fast (John had spent three days making cakes and cookies), light but hardy, and it had to satisfy the dreams of Summer that the weather was conjuring. We found it on the Everyday Food page (a great resource if you're comfortable tweaking the sometimes bland recipes). This would be a wonderful dish for entertaining because it all comes together so quickly and it's unusual, but delicious. It's one of our new favorites.

Dreams of Summer Fish Stew
serves 4 to 6

2 pounds firm-fleshed fish (we used Cod)
2 limes
1 onion, sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 t cumin
cayenne to taste
2 T tomato paste
2 cups chicken or fish stock
1 15oz can coconut milk
2 15oz cans of diced tomatoes
rice and chopped cilantro for serving

• Cut the fish into two-bite pieces (remove bones if there are any) and put this in a bowl. Squeeze the limes over the fish and let this sit while you work on the rest (about 15 minutes). Give it a stir after a few minutes to keep the fish coated with the lime.
• In a small soup pot, saute the onion in a little olive oil. When the edges just begin to brown, add the garlic and let that saute for a few minutes.
• Sprinkle the cumin and cayenne over the onions and garlic. Toast the spices for about a minute and then add the tomato paste. Stir well (so that the paste can toast, but not burn) for about 2 or 3 minutes.
• Add the tomatoes, coconut milk, and the fish - including the lime juice - to the pot. Add salt to taste.
• Add the stock a little at a time, stirring gently. Stop adding stock when the consistency is how you like it.
• Simmer for 15 minutes, or until the fish is just starting to flake apart.
• Ladle the stew over cooked rice and sprinkle with chopped cilantro.