Labor Day variations on a theme

I've been having a pretty good summer but I find myself in a quandary, which is troubling because I'm not even sure what a quandary is. But it seems I've just gotten started with summer dining fare and it's already time to move on to fall and winter grub.

Colorado throws me off that way. The best farmer's market offerings are in August, which is just a stone's throw from the end of the year. Palisade peaches, sweet Olathe corn, and Rocky Ford melons come and they go so damn quickly ... you can't find them, can't find them, can't find them ... then all of a sudden they're everywhere, and then before you know it they're gone.

The weather doesn't help. It's 90º today, 75º tomorrow, and 90º again by the weekend. So who knows whether you should be splitting a watermelon on the porch or hunkering down in front of the fire with a bowl of stew?

That's where we are with Labor Day. Typically the last major grill-fest, and yet it doesn't feel like summer any more.

Which is why I'm thinking of one-off versions of typical summer grill and BBQ stand-bys. Baked beans and potato salad, but just a wee bit off.

Potato Salad with Green Beans and Salsa Verde, via Napa's Long Meadow Ranch Winery.

Instead of mayo, the salsa verde and lemon zest and juice makes this a bright and versatile salad that goes well with just about everything, and makes for a nice summer/fall transition side.



Salsa Verde

¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup chives, finely chopped
¼ cup parsley, finely chopped
(or substitute ½ cup of other seasonal herbs)
2 Tbs mint, finely chopped
1 tsp lemon zest
2-3 Tbs lemon juice
1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
salt to taste

Mix everything in a small bowl (at least one cup) and let it stand at room temperature for about an hour.

Potato Salad

1—1½ pounds potatoes, 1 inch cubes
2-3 Tbs butter
1 lb trimmed green beans

Boil the potatoes for 8-10 minutes in salted water, then drain and toss with 1-2 Tbs of butter (or olive oil). Lightly salt. Then boil the beans for 3-4 minutes, just until tender. Drain and toss with 1 Tbs of butter. Optional: after draining, dunk the beans in a large bowl of ice water for a minute to preserve the color.
Clean up saver: instead of draining the potatoes, scoop them out and transfer them to another bowl, preserving the water. Then boil the beans in the potato water. This saves water and energy, since you're not bringing two pots of water to a boil separately.

Mix the potatoes and beans, then coat with the salsa verde. The author recommends serving immediately, but this will keep at room temperature for a few hours or can be saved in the fridge until you're ready.


Chipotle-Maple Black Beans, via the Cuisine at Home folks.

1 medium onion, diced
1 Tbs olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs apple cider vinegar
2 cans black beans (drain or not drained, doesn't matter)
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup ketchup
* 1-2-3 chipotle chiles in adobo, minced
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp worcestershire sauce

*Lots of ways to go here. Use one chile with its seeds, or two or three chiles with or without seeds, depending on how hot you want it. Start on the low end and work your way up unless you know everyone likes it hot. A grapefruit spoon is an easy way to remove the seeds: just cut the chile length-ways and scrape the seeds out.

Saute the onions over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Deglaze with the vinegar, then turn to high and bring to a boil. Add everything else, reduce to medium low, and simmer for ten minutes.
At this point, you can serve them up if you want, but it's better to turn it down to low, cover with a slight vent, and simmer for a good hour. Or, if you don't mind getting two pots dirty, you can saute the onions and garlic, deglaze, then move everything to a crock pot on high for 1-2 hours.

Salsa is as Salsa does

Couldn't grill last night because we've had a couple or three days of rain and hail, so Mr. Weber's feeling lonely. Summer is his time, not because that's the only time you can grill but because all of the farmer's markets are in full swing so there's lots of interesting stuff to smack on his grates.




But it's been oven and stovetop for a few days, which is fine.


(Left: broiled mahi-mahi with mango salsa. Recipe: broil the fish and spoon on the salsa.)




But for me, more so than grilling season, summer is salsa season. Again, not something that only works in the summer, but something that works so much better in the summer because of all of the fresh produce to mix in there.






Salsa is a perfect example of my cooking sensibility: you can throw out measurements, forget 25% of the ingredients, swap out half of the ingredients for something else, and it still works. In fact, I find the idea of a salsa "recipe" to be a bit of an oxymoron. You don't really have recipes, you have guidelines or rules of thumb.

F'rinstance, last night's mango salsa can be summarized as follows: mango salsa = less tomato than normal (or none at all), some extra red pepper, and go easy on the spices. It's not about a precise combination of set ingredients; it's about "mostly this," "easy on that." You got your fruity salsas, your mostly tomato, your mostly tomatilla, your fresh and your roasted veggie versions, your pure veggie and your heavily spiced, and your with or without beans.

What was in last night's mango salsa? I dunnoh ... some mango, I seem to recall. Maybe one tomato. Some cilantro. Lime juice. I think I forgot the onion, but might add some to the leftovers. Salt. Cumin? I think I left that out. Can't remember for sure.

From last year, everything you need to know about salsa.


What's in your favorite salsa?

Braising Hell

Even the most die-hard vegan has to admit, you drive by a rib shack and the place just smells good. Might not be your cup of tea to actually eat, but the smell is like a slap of Vitalis, a cup of coffee, a good nap, and a favorite book all wrapped up in one. It's something familiar yet not boring, a little bit of everything but not too much of anything.

(Carnitas burrito, guac, and green salad with Mexican-ish dressing)

But smoking ribs is a lot of work. The really good joints, they start working 6-8 hours before the first meal is to be served. You have to get the right wood and charcoal mix, get the smokers up and running, prep your meat with a mop, rub, or sauce, and then let the smoke and time do their thing.

So it's always cool when you find a simpler way to do something that gets the job done almost as well. And I've had a ton of luck with this recipe from the folks at Spilled Milk, the foodie version of Car Talk.

(The entire Spilled Milk braising collection: braised scallions, Molly Stevens' braised cabbage, and carnitas.)

Braising seems like a winter way to cook. Slow cooking, aromatic, fills the house with warmth. But I'm not going to cut it out of the schedule just because the Weber is topped off and the sun is raining down its UVAs and Vitamin D on us. Because the Spilled Milk recipe for carnitas keeps turning out shredded pork as good as the places that pass out handi-wipes by the bucket.

We've made this three times now, with very slight changes to their recipe each time, and it's fool-proof, bomb-proof, and oh so versatile each time.

And while it's not exactly the same thing as good ol' barbecue, you do get a pile of tender pork that rivals the pulled pork from the most traditional of smokehouses.

The basic recipe is easy. Three pounds of pig (pork shoulder or country style ribs) and an onion go into the pot, all chopped. Then you pour in a mixture of one cup of chicken broth, 1/4 cup of tequila, and a few tablespoons of lime juice. Turn up to high until the liquid boils, then turn down to simmer, uncovered, for 2-3 hours. Right before you're ready to serve it, you can turn up the heat to evaporate the rest of the liquid.


The only thing I'd suggest is to do the whole thing in a Dutch oven. They called for braising the pig in a sauce pan, then moving everything to a skillet to slightly brown the meat before serving. If you use a Dutch oven, you can do the whole thing in one pot. Plus, let's say you've cooked the pig for two hours, but everyone is going to bet late for dinner. You don't want the carnitas to dry out yet, and you don't want to scoop it up and put it in the fridge. With the Dutch oven, you an turn the stove down to as low as it will go, cover it, and let it self-baste until you're ready to brown it up. Yet another example of how the Dutch oven rocks.

(Carnitas salad, cabbage, and scallions.)

The Spilled Milk recipe is for a carnitas salad, which I highly recommend. Your pork meat goes over chopped cabbage, and gets a dressing of hot sauce and lime juice.





Unless you're feeding the entire high school football team, you're going to have leftovers, and the carnitas is great in a quick burrito, taco, or sandwich. Here we mixed mayo with homemade salsa on a roll, with the carnitas, cabbage, and lettuce.




Like I said, we've made this three times now, as such:
1. No change to their recipe. The meat is tender and succulent, and the tequila gives it a brightness that goes well with the cabbage in the salad.
2. Left out the tequila and used either a Vidalia or Texas Sweet onion instead of a plain yellow. This produced a mellower carnitas, still very tender, with a stronger pork flavor.

(Left: braised carnitas with triple sec and hot sauce.)

3. The third time, I'm embarrassed to admit, we had failed to replace our vanquished bottle of tequila, so I intended to make it just like #2. But for whatever reason, at the last minute I poured a splash (2-3 Tbs) of triple sec over the pig. No idea why. Just did it. And then, because we were going straight to the burrito/taco phase and skipping the cabbage salad phase, I added the hot sauce to the liquid as it braised. Maybe 2-3 tablespoons of Texas Pete. I have no idea what the chemical formula for the reaction between triple sec and Texas Pete is, but the resulting carnitas had a tangy, slightly sweet BBQ flavor.

For the burritos or soft tacos, we warmed the tortillas in the oven, added the carnitas, some chopped cabbage, guac and salsa. Served it up with a side salad with a home-made version of a Mexican dressing (or, at least, what this haole druid thinks a Mexican salad dressing would taste).




Braised Carnitas

Around 3 pounds of pork shoulder or country style ribs
1 onion, diced
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup tequila (blanco)
Lime juice, from one lime or 2 Tbs

Carnitas Salad Dressing
Hot sauce (Frank's or Texas Pete) + lime juice (about a 3:1 mix works for me, but you'll need to play with that.)

Mexican Salad Dressing
1:1 ratio of mayonnaise to sour cream
splash of milk
splash of lime juice
dash of cumin, ancho chile powder (or other chile powder), Mexican oregano
(optional: finely chopped fresh cilantro)
Only make enough for the number of servings that you need, pour over a mixed green salad.




Leftovers

Georgia is the "peachtree" state?

Everyone knows the best peaches are grown on Colorado's western slope. There's something about the high altitude sun.

(The whole state nickname thing always cracks me up. Georgia produces around 40 tons of peaches per year, while their neighbor South Carolina produces around 60 tons. So Georgia isn't even the biggest peach producer in the SEC. California produces more than the rest of the country put together, but there isn't enough room on a license plate to list all of the things they lead in.)

Local peaches are just starting to hit the outer aisles of our grocery stores. And there's no reason to we wary of the early shippers. Peaches ripen according to their position on the tree, with the outermost fruit ripening first and the innermost last.

We picked up some Palisade peaches this week and they were just about perfect.

Try any of these once the fresh crop shows up at your grocery store:

A French sweet-and-sour sauce for meat.

Peach Salsa

Peaches and Chicken

Salsa 101

All of your salsa questions answered.

Q. Should I use fresh or roasted veggies in my salsa?
A. Yes.
Try this next time: divide all of your ingredients in half, and roast half of them and put the rest in without benefit of thermodynamic alteration. Then taste the two, side by side. You'll pick up on some obvious differences (one will be smokier, duh) but should notice other things as well. The grilled veggies might be a tad sweeter (peppers), a bit less bitter (tomatillos), or maybe nuttier (avocados).

Q. Should I coarsely chop, finely chop, or puree the veggies for my salsa?
A. Yes, of course.
I was about to say, depends on what you want to use it for ... but then realized, even that doesn't matter. If you need something for a chip, both extremes work. A topping for grilled fish? Again, both. Thick and chunky, thin and soupy, either way. Just depends.

Q. Chile peppers: seeds in or out?
A. Yes.
Seeds in adds heat, while removing the seeds lets you maximize the flavor of that chile without scorching your taste buds. Me, I prefer focusing on flavor instead of just trying to out-heat the other guy, so it's usually seeds out for me.

Q. Cilantro: just the leaves or include the stems?
A. Yes.
I used to always pull the leaves off the stems quite delicately and meticulously, until one time I was running out of time and I just threw the whole thing into the food processor. The stems add a bit of a sharper, more intense flavor.

Q. Only veggies or how about fruit?
A. Yes.
Get a little too crazy and you're looking at a fruit salad instead of a salsa, but a bit of peach, pineapple, melon, papaya, and definitely mango will work. But you start getting into berries or grapes, and then I think you're just showing off.

Q. Beans? Add them or leave them out?
A. Yes. For all the reasons above.

Q. Spices? Should I let the produce stand on its own or do I need to doctor it up?
A. Yes. I'm a big fan of cumin, even though I don't know how to pronounce it. Just like with seeds, make a batch and divide it in half. Keep one batch plain, spice up the other, and check out the difference.