Jamaican Jerk Burgers with Orange-Chipotle Mayonnaise [Rhonda]

Degree of difficulty: easy
Time: 10 minutes prep, plus grilling time
Serves: 6

This burger is such a nice switch from the usual cheeseburger and takes about the same amount of time in the kitchen, which is to say, not much, particularly if you stir up the mayo ahead of time. (By the way, orange-chipotle mayo has major potential for any number of things--steamed shrimp, crispy fried fish--it's ridiculously tasty.)

Although I've made a few additions and changes over time, the basis of this recipe is from Lynne Rosetto Kasper's newsletter, The Splendid Table, from American Public Media. I highly recommend you subscribe to it if you don't already, as Kasper has an amazing repertoire of interesting menu ideas. I met her at a cooking demonstration at the North Market in Columbus several years ago, and she is as nice as she is smart.

Ingredients:

Orange-Chipotle Mayonnaise:
1 cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons orange juice
Zest of 1 orange
1 tablespoon minced canned chipotle chiles (I use much more--I love the intensity of this flavor!)

Jerk Sauce:
1 bunch scallions, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (I use a sprinkle of dried when I don't have fresh)
1 small habanero chile or 2 medium jalapeno chiles, seeded, chopped
1 garlic clove
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup soy sauce

2 pounds ground beef

6 sesame seed hamburger buns
Spinach leaves or romaine lettuce
Tomato slices

For orange-chipotle mayo: Mix all ingredients in small bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Can make a day ahead, refrigerate.

For jerk sauce: Finely chop first 4 ingredients in food processor. Add sugar, oil and soy sauce, process until almost smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

Heat grill (I'm still old-school and use charcoal--it adds such a nice flavor). Set aside 3/4 cup jerk sauce. (The rest of the jerk sauce can be served with the burgers or refrigerated to use on chicken, pork, etc.)

Shape ground beef into six patties, place in a glass baking dish, pour 1/2 cup of jerk sauce over patties and turn to coat. Let stand 20 minutes.

Grill patties, brushing with remaining jerk sauce from baking dish. Assemble hamburgers, using the lettuce, tomato, patties and orange-chipotle mayo.  Serve immediately.

Suggested soundtrack: It kept playing in my head as I devoured my burger--Usher's "OMG"

Simple Summer Sweet Corn [Rhonda]

Degree of difficulty: super easy
Time: 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how quick you are with a knife
Serves: 2 to 4

A recent trip to the New Albany Farmers Market yielded an abundance of beautiful, just-picked white sweet corn. In lieu of firing up the grill and roasting it with chile lime butter, or steaming it on the cob, I quickly removed it from the cob, added a little butter and salt, briefly warmed it and stirred in a spoonful of creme fraiche at the end. It was heavenly, and all the rich, simple corn taste came bursting through.

Ingredients:
4 ears white sweet corn (Silver Queen, perhaps)
1 to 2 tablespoons butter
Dollop of creme fraiche or 2 tablespoons heavy cream
Sprinkle of sea salt

Serve warm.

Suggested soundtrack: Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat's "Lucky"

Clams with Chiles and Lemongrass [Rhonda]

Degree of difficulty: easy
Time: 15 minutes prep (easy), 3 minutes to steam the clams
Serves: 2 as an appetizer, 1 as an entree

Clipped from a magazine some time ago--Elle Decor? Martha Stewart Living?--this is such a clean, yet bracing and spicy way to serve littleneck clams. The hardest part is finding tender, fresh-caught clams--Whole Foods comes through regularly, as well as reputable fish markets. Paired with a chilled pinot grigio, some bread and a salad, it makes a late summer dinner on the terrace delightful.

Ingredients:
Coarse salt
1 dozen small clams (littlenecks are fabulous), rinsed well
1 stalk lemongrass, hard outer leaves removed and reserved, bottom four inches of stalks thinly sliced crosswise
1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 or 2 small fresh green chiles (jalapeno, serrano or Thai chiles), thinly sliced crosswise
1 or 2 small fresh red chiles (Holland chiles or cherry peppers)
Juice of 1 lime, plus a few lime wedges
1 tablespoon Asian fish sauce
Several sprigs fresh cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped

Dissolve 2 tablespoons salt in a large bowl of cold water. Add clams. Let soak at room temperature 10 minutes. Drain. Scrub clams under cold running water. Transfer to a large bowl of fresh cold water. Repeat, scrubbing clams and rinsing. Drain.

Put reserved lemongrass leaves in a large pot with 1/2 inch of water. Bring to a boil. Add clams. Steam, covered, until clams open, three minutes or so. Drain and reserve clams in separate dish. Discard any unopened clams and the leaves.

To the pot add oil, sliced lemongrass, shallots, garlic and chiles. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until lemongrass and shallots turn golden, about a minute. Remove from heat. Add clams back to pot, gently stir to coat.

Stir together lime juice and fish sauce in small bowl, expanding the amounts if you need to, and pour over clams. Transfer clams to a large serving bowl, sprinkle with cilantro. Garnish with lime wedges.

Suggested soundtrack: Don Omar Tego Calderon "Bandolero"

Fig, Ricotta, and Honey Crostini [Zack]

When I don't want to have a heavy dinner, I skip out on meat.  I especially try to avoid red meat if I get home from work late and need to eat a later diner.  Nobody likes to wake up in the morning and feel heavy.

This recipe is very simple and has a few interesting flavors that meld together to produce a crunchy addition to any meal.  The sweet figs and honey balance out with the rich ricotta and savory, garlicy bread.

Try this one with a fresh summer salad!

Process:

(honey not pictured)

Slice your bread into 1/4 inch (or 1 cm) slices.  Heat your oven to 350F / 175C.

Lay the slices on a baking tray and lightly brush them with olive oil.

Pop the tray into the oven and bake for about 7 to 10 minutes, until it's brown and crispy.  Make sure to watch it - bread burns quickly!

While the bread is in the oven, mix your ricotta in a bowl with 3 of the sprigs of thyme leaves.  The leaves are easier to strip off of the stems if you run your fingers from the top and work down.  Add a pinch of salt and as much cracked black pepper as you like.

Slice your dried figs thinly.

When the bread comes out of the oven, let it cool until you can handle it, and then brush it with a peeled garlic clove.  The crunchy bread will grate the garlic and it will nicely fragrance the bread.

Spread the ricotta mixture over the bread, top with the slices of fig, and then drizzle honey on top.  Add the leaves from the last thyme sprig for some color.

Serve with something fresh - I chose a summer salad of radish, cilantro, avocado, and a lemon honey dressing.

Ingredients:
(makes about 8 large crostini, or 16 baguette-slice sized)

1 loaf of hearty wheat bread
1 250g container of ricotta cheese (~1 cup)
7 dried figs, sliced longways
1 garlic clove
1 to 2T of olive oil
2 T of honey for drizzling on top
4 sprigs of fresh thyme

Gotye - Somebody that I used to know

Asian Confit Pork Belly [Zack]

Can you recall a time when you were eating ribs and they were so tender that the meat fell straight off the bone?  Have you ever had a piece of cooked bacon where the fat is juicy and slightly crisped?  How about a dish where 5-spice was the star of the show?

If you combine all of those heart-racing memories, that's the definition of a good confit pork belly.  You already know the ratio of meat to fat in pork belly if you have ever seen a piece of uncooked bacon (bacon is made from the belly of the pork).  When the belly is cooked slowly, the meat portion becomes tender like pulled pork.  The fat portions melt in your mouth, and the asian 5-spice flavors sing throughout the whole experience.

It is a perfect appetizer, or the star of a rice bowl with vegetables. You can make this a few days before you entertain and let it sit in the fat in the fridge (see: confit duck legs).

This continued craze over bacon will hopefully cross over to the real thang.  Why?  Because it's somehow way more socially acceptable to have a chunk of confit pork belly instead of a whole plate of bacon for dinner.....

Process:

Divide your pork belly up into 4 individual servings.  Sprinkle with 5-spice powder, coriander, and salt.  Let it rest while you prepare the rest of the recipe.

Get a pot going on medium-low heat with 1T of sesame oil.  Once it has heated up, brown all 4 sides of each of the sections of belly.

Take the pot off of the heat once you have browned everything and add in the rest of your oil until the bellies are fully covered.  Toss in your whole garlic cloves - skin-on is okay.  Place the lid on the pot and put it in an oven at 200F / 100C.

Let it slowly cook for 5 or 6 hours.  Check to see if it's meltingly tender by pricking it with a knife.  If your pork belly had a bone in it, the meat will shrink away, exposing the bone.

You can either serve right away, or put it in the fridge once it has cooled off.  If the meat is submerged, it should keep for a few weeks.  To serve at a later time, you can heat the whole pot up, or put it in a frying pan with a little of the oil to warm it through.

Ingredients:
4 slices pork belly (bone-in is fine as well)
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1.5 tsp 5-spice powder
1 tsp salt
6 whole cloves of garlic
1T sesame oil
~3 cups canola / peanut oil

optional:  top with some sriracha or hot chiles

Creativity options:

• Mexican:  substitute cumin instead of 5-spice, top with a fresh green salsa
• Greek:  continue with the cumin idea, make a feta and yogurt sauce.  OR make friends with a nice butcher and get your hands on some lamb belly
• Italian:  remove the 5-spice, throw a few juniper berries into the oil. Puree rosemary, garlic, and tomato paste together with a bit of olive oil for the sauce.

Song - The Roots - Duck Down

Summertime Pasta Primavera [Rhonda]

Degree of difficulty: easy to medium, only because you're working with angel hair pasta
Time: 15 minutes prep, 10 minutes to cook
Serves: 2 generously

There was a restaurant, Dieci, around the corner and down the street from our E. 84th Street brownstone when Mike and I lived in Manhattan, that served the absolute best pasta primavera, always with snips of fresh basil. Their choice of springtime vegetables--asparagus, snow peas--can be subbed out for seasonal summer produce. The Saturday lunch version you see here is just zucchini, yellow squash, ripe tomatoes and basil.

Two secrets that you already know. One, use real parmesan reggiano. Two, use homemade stock if you have it. Takes it from amazing to ridiculous.

Ingredients:
12 ounces angel hair pasta
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups or more homemade chicken stock, or canned
Splash of white wine
A squeeze of fresh lemon juice
1 zucchini, chopped
1 yellow squash, chopped
2 ripe tomatoes, chopped (I used Roma)
Handful mushrooms, chopped (not used here because of Mike's sad aversion to them)
2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup or so grated parmesan reggiano
10 or so basil leaves, chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Prep (clean and chop) all veggies. Heat the water for the pasta in small stock pot. Melt butter in saute pan, add garlic and those vegetables that take longer to cook--here, the zucchini and squash.

Saute, then add tomatoes. Add splash of white wine, saute to reduce slightly, add stock. (If you're using canned stock and want to reduce it a bit, strain out the veggies before they are done...you can always add them back in at the last.) The trick is to balance the amount of stock with parmesan cheese--too much cheese (Mike believes there is no such thing) will make the whole dish dry. Too much stock, well, that doesn't work either. Add some of the grated cheese to the sauce, and squeeze just a little fresh lemon juice into it.

Drain the angel hair pasta after cooking it al dente (and watching it! the whole cook process for angel hair is measured in small minutes, 2 or 3, tops). Dump pasta back in stock pot, add vegetables, sauce, basil, salt and pepper, and some parmesan. Toss, taste and adjust seasonings and liquids if necessary. Serve with basil leaves for garnish and a light sprinkle of parmesan.

Suggested soundtrack: Luciano Pavarotti's "Che gelida manina" from La Boheme

Pulled Lamb Shoulder Carnitas V2 [Zack]

"Lamb Carnitas" have been the most popular keywords in a Google search that have led people to Mama Tommy's blog.  This only slightly edges out the keywords "bang bang sex", which leads to my mom's Bang Bang Shrimp post.  I still don't understand how someone looking for bang bang sex gets distracted and clicks on a picture of shrimp (or I don't even understand what bang bang sex means), but there are more important things to ponder in life.

This second version is easier than my first Lamb Carnitas post.  You don't need to confit the cubed shoulder, you just brown the whole sucker in a pot, and then let it roast in a covered vessel for about 6.5 hours.  The meat will fall apart with just one stern look at it when it comes out of the oven.

The savory, juicy pulled lamb is accompanied with a fresh tomato salsa that brightens up your tacos.  It will make your taco pop!

Process:

Arrange your ingredients for roasting the lamb shoulder.

Start a large oven-proof pot over medium heat.  You will brown your shoulder in here.  Loosely chop your big red peppers, slice your spicy peppers, and chop your onions.

Salt each side of the lamb shoulder and add it to the pot with 1T of oil.  Brown all sides of the shoulder, then add your whole cumin seeds, whole unpeeled garlic cloves, and your chopped veggies.  Stir it all around for a few minutes until you can smell the cumin and the veggies develop a bit of color.

Add in your chicken stock and then dust the lamb shoulder with your cumin and coriander powder.

Cover your pot and add it to your oven at 250F / 125C.  Let this roast for 6 hours or so, and then poke it with a knife to see if the meat falls apart.  I decided to pull mine at 6.5 hours, but it's not a science.

I placed the whole pot into the fridge and let it sit covered overnight (yes I added a 2nd shoulder because I wanted to make a lot and freeze it).  It's not necessary to let it sit - you can go straight to the shredding step if you can't contain yourself.

The next day, the fat had solidified on the top of the liquid and I scraped off the the fat with a spoon.

Shred the lamb with your fingers or a couple of forks.

Don't waste the valuable tasty liquid!  Heat it up and reduce it down a bit.  Puree the mixture until it's a smooth sauce.  You can use a tablespoon of this to add juiciness to the lamb (after cooking it in the frying pan).  Also, you'll have sauce more left over - this is a great sauce for pasta, use it as a base for a soup, be creative - go nuts!

Now, it's time to prep your salsa.  

Lightly chop the tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers (de-seeded if you want to cut down on the heat), and cilantro.  Toss it all in a food processor with 1.5T of red wine vinegar, and puree until chunky.  Add a pinch of salt.

In a frying pan over medium heat with 1T to 2T of oil, add in the lamb and cook until parts of it  become crispy and brown.  This should take about 5 minutes.  Add in 1T of the sauce if you want right before taking it off the heat.

Spoon it into a nice tortilla, top with salsa, cilantro, and maybe some fresh avocado.  Enjoy!

Ingredients:
2.5 lb / 1.1kg lamb shoulder
2 onions
1c chicken stock
1T cumin powder
1T coriander powder
1T whole cumin seeds
3 birdseye chiles, sliced in half
6 whole garlic cloves
a few tortillas
a few cilantro leaves for garnish
1 avocado (optional)

Salsa:
4 finger-hot peppers
1 handful cilantro
1 medium red onion
1 large or 2 medium tomatoes
1.5 T red wine vinegar


Song:  Jamie Cullum - Wind Cries Mary (cover of Jimi)

Corn Cakes with Habanero-Infused Honey and Maple Syrup [Rhonda]

Degree of difficulty: easy unless you're nervous about flipping pancakes
Time: prep 15 minutes, cook time 5 to 10 minutes
Serves: 2 or 3

Here's the challenge: you've gone to the New Albany Farmer's Market on a sweltering hot July afternoon and returned home with three amazing purchases. Fresh-picked blackberries, the season's early sweet corn, and a most wonderful treat, habanero-infused honey. One dish that uses all three?

These corn cakes were fabulous. I served them with a small side of bacon (goes with anything on the planet, right Zack?) and dressed up the plate with a slice of blood orange and a snip of sage.

Since the habanero-infused honey (from Latshaw Apiaries in New Albany, in case you want to order some online) is precious, I drizzled some pure maple syrup on the plate as well.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus additional melted butter for cooking
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup fresh sweet corn, removed from cob
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 fresh jalapeño or serrano chili, or to taste, seeded and minced

In a bowl whisk together the cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda, pepper and sugar. In another bowl whisk together 2 tablespoons of the butter, the egg, and the buttermilk, stir in the corn, onion, chili, and stir in the cornmeal mixture, stirring until the batter is just combined. Heat a nonstick pan over moderately high heat until it is hot, brush it lightly with the additional butter, and working in batches drop the batter by a 1/4-cup measure into pan. Spread the batter slightly to form 3 1/2- to 4-inch cakes, cook the cakes for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, or until they are golden, transferring them as they are cooked to a heatproof platter, and keep them warm.

Serve with habanero-infused honey and pure maple syrup.

Suggested soundtrack: Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" (don't gag....it's cute)