Watery Watermelon?

When life gives you bland watermelons make a salad. Salt really enhances the flavor of watermelon.

Watermelon Arugula Salad with radish, red wine vinaigrette

I also tried to make a smoothie with it but the watermelon got totally overpowered. The smoothie still tasted great though.

Kiwi Watermelon Smoothie

Grill'n and Chill'n with.. Bobby? (no way in hell's kitchen)

Grilled Beer Marinaded Pork Tenderloin, Caramelized Fuji Apples, Grilled Cauliflower

No...This is not Welch's

I've never liked grape juice from a bottle nor will I ever buy it. The cute little precocious girl in those commercials isn't that convincing.

Fresh red grapes blended and strained served over ice... ahh... so refreshing. (even better with a shot or two of vodka)

Its hard to find good pie these days..

About a month ago I went down to Delaware with some friends for the weekend and we visited a local farmers market. It was nothing like the Union Square market we have in NYC. Lewes Delaware is a small town and the market was very small but there were a few good stalls. One that caught my eye was selling pies. I figured that in a small town there would be some good pies made by some lady in some farm house close by. I bought a blueberry peach pie with a lattice top. It looked so good I felt myself drooling. We saved it for dessert after dinner that night. I thought about it all day.Finally after dinner we dig into the pie. At first I noticed that the filling was a bit glue like. It seemed to be held together by some clear gel (I won't mention any brands but you get the idea). So unnatural that my anticipation and hope for good pie was gone. The crust was not buttery and flaky. The filling... well that I don't have any explanation for, nor do I ever want to think of that gel like substance again.

So once again I'm back to if you want something made well make it yourself! Everyone apparently is out to cut corners and make a buck, or maybe they just don't know any better.

I finally had some time to make my pie.

Flaky Pie Crust (9 in base and lattice top)

2.5 cups AP flour

1tsp salt

1Tbsp sugar

2 sticks butter, very cold

1/2 cup cold water

Place AP, salt, sugar in food processor and pulse a few times. Add cubed cold butter and pulse till butter is size of small peas. Add water while pulsing the flour butter mixture until you get a crumbly mixture. Turn out and press dough into two discs, one slightly larger than the other. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate till firm.

While dough is chilling make the filling.

Peach Berry Pie Filling

3 Peaches, Sliced cut into large chunks

2 cups Mixed berries (blueberry, raspberry, black berry)

2 Tbsp Minute Tapioca

1/3 cup sugar

Mix Tapioca with sugar then toss fruit with it.

Roll out dough on plastic wrap. Flip dough into plate.

Fill with peach

filling. Refrigerate

Roll out smaller piece of dough and

cut into strips.

Interweave strips to form lattice. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle

with cinnamon sugar.

Bake at 350F until crust is golden and filling is bubbling.

You will be tempted to eat it right away but allow to completely cool before slicing.

Doesn't that just make you want pie? You should smell it coming out of the oven...

Pink Lemonade

Pink lemonade doesn't have to come from some bottle filled with artificial flavorings and colors. Make your own with some lemons, raspberries (frozen) and sugar (splenda for the calorie conscious).

Pink Lemonade

8 lemons

1 pint raspberries (frozen/ fresh)

to taste sugar or sugar substitute

1 quart water

mint (garnish)

Juice lemons. Puree raspberries in blender with water. Strain lemon juice and raspberry puree together. Sweeten to taste ( if using sugar dissolve by boiling in water to make a syrup) and add mint.

Family Meals

"family meals" in the industry usually means using scraps to make a meal for the staff of the evening. I've worked at some nice places where they actually buy ingredients just to make the meals but that was a luxury. At Per Se the staff meals actually utilized mostly trimmings, which was awesome because they only use the best meats and produce. I think we ate Kobe/Wagyu beef burritos once a week. (I gained a lot of weight working there because we ate so well).

Now most nights at Recette we don't make family meal but this week we finished prep early so we treated ourselves. Jesse bought ingredients at the market and I made fresh pasta (I fully intended to do nothing and drink mojitos but got coerced). It was a pretty good one pot meal.

Chicken Stew with chorizo, coconut, and farfalle.

Chowing down with my "family".

Jamba's got nothing on me.

Smoothies are so good on a hot summer day, but paying $6 for one isn't. I like to keep some frozen fruit around just for these days.

Raz-mango-yo

1/2 cup mango

1/4 cup frozen raspberries

1/4 cup non fat yogurt

1 T lemon juice or 1/4 cup lemonade

3 ice cubes

Blend and enjoy!

Behold the Eye of the Dragon

Long Yan (Dragon's Eye) is a fruit similar in concept as the Litchi. You pop the shell to eat the white flesh and spit out the pit. The flavor is not as fruity as the Litchi, its just very sweet.

Long Yan is often dried and used to sweeten Chinese herbal medicine drinks (brings back bad memories of childhood visits to the apothecary for cold remedies, which made dymetapp seem like candy).

My favorite application of Long Yan is sweet sticky rice pudding soup with dried Long Yan.

Purple is the new black

Taro Almond Cake

1 cup almond flour

1/4 cup AP flour

4 ea eggs

3/4 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup Taro brunoise, boiled to tender

1 Tbls taro extract

Cream butter method.

Give me scallops any day... every day...

Seared Bay Scollop, Meyer Lemon Creme Fraiche, Lemon Caviar, Pickled Fennel, Baby Greens

The dish that I always initially gravitate towards is the scallop dish. For those of you who don't like scallop you must be eating at too many Chinese restaurants. For me a scallop must be well seasoned and seared. Don't give me sauteed frozen. I can spot a frozen one as soon as it hits the table I don't even need to cut into it. Sadly, not only Chinese restaurants that try to pull one over on you. I've been to reputable restaurants (most recently Commerce in the West Village) that have tried to pass frozen off as fresh. Once frozen and thawed the scallop will never sear properly all the moisture will be constantly leaching out. If your scallop is pale and rubbery throw it against the wall; it will bounce back.

Tortellini

Tortellinis are like pockets of goodness, if made right. They are like wontons but with more filling. I like to make them fat so that there is a larger filling to pasta ratio. I hate commercially made tortellini because they are usually just filled with cheese and frozen. These are filled with shrimp, lobster, olives, and thyme.

Amuse Bouche: Seafood Tortellini, Mint Pea Puree, Bacon

Rhubarb: Thats some sweet weed.

Rhubarb is considered a weed in some places but here its a very season vegetable that is usually cooked and sweetened because they are quite tart. The stalks resemble a celery stalk but thicker and red. The leaves are poisonous and are usually removed before the stalks are sold.

Strawberry Rhubarb "Pie": Gram Cookie, Maple Tuile, Mascarpone Mousse, Almond "Streusel", Poached Rhubarb "Kidneys", Strawberry Rhubarb Compote, Strawberry Balsamic Reduction.

To make a compote simply place cut up pieces of rhubarb in a pot with water just to cover. Add sugar to taste and boil until tender. While hot fold in diced strawberries. Drain excess liquid, which can be further reduced to make a glaze.