Hong Kong

I said a few days ago that I'd upload some photos from our trip to Hong Kong. Because I know there's nothing like people (especially people you don't really know in real life) making you sit down in a dark room to look at their vacation slides. Anyway, I put them into some collages, so here they are.

Tomatoes Stuffed with White Beans

This is such a simple, 5-minutes-and-you're-done type recipe. But I really loved it. Probably because I love anything having to do with balsamic, tomatoes and basil. It's also a really perfect lunch to pack, if you just wrap the stuffed tomatoes in, say, foil, so they don't spill everywhere. Plus, it's a good way to celebrate the last of the season. Enjoy!

Tomatoes Stuffed with White Beans
Original recipe

4 large tomatoes
Small handful of chopped parsley
Small handful of chopped basil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon capers (I keep mine unrinsed, but you can rinse if you want)
1 large clove garlic (it's going to stay raw, so don't go overboard)
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 15 oz can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

Slice the tops off each of the tomatoes and use a spoon (I use a grapefruit spoon) to dig out the core and seeds. If the core isn't too tough, chop it up and put it, along with the rest of the tomato guts, in a medium bowl. Set the tomato 'shells' aside.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and toss until everything is coated. Spoon the filling into the tomato shells. There is will extra filling, which you can serve on the side.

Pecan Sandies-like

There are a few store-bought cookie types I'll always associated with home. Two actually, that my dad always ate. The first is the Oreo, but that's easy to guess. The second is the Pecan Sandie. I have to admit he didn't usually have much competition from us kids for the pecan-studded cookies. We were more interested in things frosted. Preferably with elves. We left the nut cookies mostly to him.

But when my parents came to visit the other week, I thought I'd try my hand at a homemade version of my dad's old favorite. I have to admit that I haven't actually eaten a Pecan Sandie in years. So I can't tell you if these are close, because that wasn't really the point anyway. But they have Pecans, and they are 'sandy' since they're shortbread cookies. Regardless of how close they are, or not, they're still great little nuggets, and I love that Art Smith's recipe makes a pretty modest number of cookies. You'll get about one log out of this to refrigerate and slice, or freeze for later. He says the dough is easily doubled if you make them and find you just can't live without more.

Pecan Sandies-like
Adopted from Art Smith's Back to the Table

1 cup all purpose flour
Pinch of ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans

First toast your pecans. You can just dry toast them by heating up a small skillet on the stove over medium heat and throwing them in. Let them roast, shaking them around a bit, until they're fragrant. Be careful not to burn, this will only take 5-7 minutes, but keep an eye on them the entire time. Set aside.

Whisk together the flour, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. Cream the butter and sugar together, along with the vanilla, in a large bowl with an electric mixer. You want the butter and sugar to become light and fluffy, which will take around 3 minutes. Stir in the flour mixture, then fold in the pecans until you have a stiff, moldable dough.

Lightly flour a clean work surface and form the dough into a 9" log. Wrap the log tightly and refrigerate until well chilled and firm. You want it to be firm enough to cut it into slices with a knife. You can also freeze the dough at this point if you want to save it.

After about 2 hours of chill time, preheat the oven to 350 F and put a wrack into the center of the oven.

Unwrap the dough, and slice it into 3/8" thick slices. Place the slices about 1" apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the cookies start to brown around the edges. Allow the cookies to cool for about 5 minutes on the sheet, then transfer them to a cooling wrack to cool completely.

UPDATE: I thought the taste of these cookies really improved by the next day. Also, be careful not to over-toast your pecans, since they'll be baked again in the batter.

UPDATE ROUND TWO: I think in the future I would not toast the pecans prior to putting them into the batter. I think baking them in the cookie will be sufficient and will avoid over-toasting.

Grilled Tomato Crostini

Forgive me. I'm going to bombard you with tomato recipes. Mostly because I love them, and because we have to take advantage while we can. This is actually a recipe I meant to share last month, after I returned from a visit with my sister in Chicago. She's the one with access to a grill. Oh, and a willing boyfriend who will pretty much throw anything on there that we ask him to. He's very amenable like that.

So this is a crostini, but it's grilled. The bread is grilled, the tomatoes are grilled. Grilled tomato crostini. I don't know, dudes, there's not much more to say about it right now. It's really, really good in that very simple way. Because how can grilled tomatoes be anything but delicious really. That's not even a question, you see. So have at it.

Grilled Tomato Crostini
Adopted from Food and Wine

3/4 inch-thick slices of good ciabatta bread or the like
1 clove garlic, cut in half
Olive Oil for drizzling
Salt and Pepper to taste
Handful of small basil leaves
1 pound, about 4 medium, tomatoes, quartered
1/2 pint grape of cherry tomatoes
1/2 pint small mixed heirloom tomatoes, can be halved (or you can just use 1 pint of one type)

Preheat your grill for the tomatoes. Cut out four sheets of foil large enough to accommodate 1/4 of the tomatoes each. Spread them out on a work surface and mound the tomatoes in the center of each. Drizzle them with a bit of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Fold the foil over to form tight packets.

Set the packets on the grill and cover it. They should grill over moderately high heat for about 18 minutes, or until they have softened and some of them begin to burst. Remove from the grill and, using scissors, cup open the packets and set aside.

Grill the bread until a bit charred, about 1 minute on each side. Transfer the bread to plates and rub each one with the garlic halves. Mound the tomatoes and their juices over the bread and drizzle with a bit more olive oil. Season with salt, and garnish with basil. Serve.

Tomato and Watermelon Salad

So would you believe that last week I ran off to Hong Kong and didn't even tell you? It's true, I did. And although I'm pretty sure Hong Kong is the single hottest place on the planet, it's also pretty amazing. I'm working on getting some photos developed, and then I'll give you a smattering. Although because of said heat, I have to admit that I didn't have much of an appetite, so food wasn't exactly the focus.

And as a result I was craving fruits and vegetables when I finally got home after a fifteen hour plane flight that wasn't really that bad (thanks to 8 straight hours of Dexter). I think we're kind of at the end of when this salad will be worth making. You need watermelon, for one thing, and delicious, delicious tomatoes for another. In New York, I'm told by the woman at the farmers market, you've got about another two weeks to really capitalize on the tomatoes. Which I plan to do with perhaps another go at this seriously wonderful salad, and a repeat performance from my favorite peperonata. (Have you made that one yet? This is your reminder to do it.)

So you know when you're little and you learn that the tomato is, in fact, a fruit? This salad proves it, because although a somewhat unlikely combination, it turns out that at the height of its sweetness, the tomato goes perfectly with the watermelon. A little olive oil and balsamic thrown in with a toss of mint and a handful of pistachios, and that's pretty much the game. It takes, like, 5 minutes after the fruits are chopped. And it is de-licious.

Tomato and Watermelon Salad
Adopted from Prevention Magazine, randomly

Half a good-sized watermelon, cut up into chunks
2 very good sized heirloom tomatoes (those suckers can be huge) or maybe three or four normal sized tomatoes
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Salt and Pepper to taste
Small handful of mint, chopped
Handful of pistachios, roughly chopped

Toss everything together in a bowl. This salad keeps pretty well, but if you're not going to finish it off in one sitting, set aside the mint and pistachios and add them as you serve the salad, or they'll get soggy. And no one likes a soggy pistachio.

Grilled Trout with Lemon-Caper Mayonnaise

I'll admit that I always get Labor Day and Memorial Day mixed up. As the eternal student, I know they both book-end summer and that one of them (Labor Day, it turns out) signals the return to classes. The one last party weekend before the serious business of life resumes. Normally I wouldn't have a suggestion in the world for your Labor Day BBQ because I don't have a grill. And I don't know many people with grills. And when I am around grills, I'm usually not in charge of them.

But a few weeks ago I made an impromptu visit to Chicago to bother my sister. I made her do all kinds of things with me, like an architectural tour on the river. And grocery shopping. And then cooking at her boyfriend's house. And I managed to do not very much of the cooking, because in the case of her boyfriend, making dinner almost always means grilling it. So he made this fish, although my sister and I chose the recipe. He did a spectacular job, actually, and just as Food & Wine promised, smearing a thin layer of this lemon and caper flavored mayonnaise on the fish before grilling really did keep it nice and moist.

Grilled Trout with Lemon-Caper Mayonnaise
Adopted from this recipe from Food & Wine

3 scallions, sliced thinly
2 tablespoons capers, unrinsed
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
3/4 cup mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
Four 10 ounce boneless rainbow trouts, head and pin bones removed

In a food processor pulse together the first six ingredients until the scallions are finely chopped and incorporated into the mayonnaise. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

Fire up the grill, or preheat a grill pan and spread about 1/2 tablespoon of the mayonnaise mixture on each side of each of the trouts. Season again with salt and pepper.

Grill the fish over high heat, turning once, until cooked through. This should take about six minutes. Serve the fish with the rest of the mayonnaise for more spreading.