June 15, 2014 Lunch – Stone Crab Claws with Tartar sauce and jicama slaw Dinner – Five Spice Chinese BBQ Pork with a Brussels sprouts, onion, garlic, and potato casserole and Caprese salad and blueberry and apricot cobbler

June 15, 2014  Lunch – Stone Crab Claws with Tartar sauce and jicama slaw    Dinner – Five Spice Chinese BBQ Pork with a Brussels sprouts, onion, garlic, and potato casserole and Caprese salad and blueberry and apricot cobbler

We have been picking apricots almost daily.  We worked in the garden for a few minutes while the bacon for our usual bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches burned to a charred crisp on the stove.  Luckily we had picked lettuce for our sandwiches and remembered that I had bought Stone crab claws and so I made a Tartar sauce with mayo, lemon and pickle relish and minced shallots.

We also ate the rest of salad enhanced Jicama Slaw and the crab claws with a bottle of Leese Fitch Sauvignon Blanc from Sonoma County California.

 At around 9:30 am we drove to the Railyard and walked through the booths.  Not much of interest but I did buy a bottle of Heidi’s Raspberry Ginger preserves for $7.00.

Railyard market

Then we went to Megan’s and picked another approximately five pounds of apricots and went home.

I pitted about ten pounds of apricots and put them in a large pot and Suzette added two cups of sugar and later I sliced about a dozen basil leaves from the garden and we added them to make herbed apricot butter.  So now we have four large jars and containers of basil flavored apricot butter.

I also cut up some more of the apricots for cobbler and bagged them.

At around 5:00 we started the Brussels Sprouts casserole.  

I de-stemmed about 1 lb. of Brussels Sprouts and then diced 1 brown onion and placed them in the large 15 by 10 inch pyrex baking dish.  We picked about five or six stalks of garlic in the garden and I peeled about fifteen cloves and put them into the casserole and bagged the rest of the cloves of garlic, then I picked about three stalks of sage, de-stemmed the leaves and sliced about ¼ cup of fresh sage leaves and added that to the casserole.  We still had a bit of room left so Suzette fetched three potatoes and I peeled them and diced them and added them to the casserole.  Suzette tossed the casserole ingredients with salt and olive oil and we placed it in a 350˚ oven to bake for 50 minutes and when it was baked garnished it with 1/2 cup of grated Pecorino Romano cheese.

 

Brussels Sprouts Casserole with grated cheese

Five Spice Pork 

While the casserole was cooking I cubed the PPI pork in Five Spice and chopped up about six or seven stalks of chives and sprinkled them onto the pork we were heating in the large skillet and dusted it with an extra pinch or two of Five Spice powder to refresh its flavor.  

Suzette made a Carpese Salad with sliced tomatoes (Sprouts $.98/lb.), slices of fresh mozzarella cheese (Costco) and more leaves of basil from the garden and then drizzled the salad with balsamic vinegar and Portuguese olive oil.

Caprese Salad before the dressing drizzle 

While the casserole was baking Suzette also made a cobbler with blueberries and the cubed apricots.

Jiffy Cobbler Recipe

Here is the recipe for the cobbler:

Mix in a small bowl
1 stick of butter melted in the baking dish
1 cup of flour
2 tsp. of baking powder
1/2 tsp. of salt
2/3 cup milk

Then pour into the baking dish and add 4 cups of fruit and bake in a 375 degree oven for 35 minutes.

cobbler ingredients ready for the oven

When the casserole was cooked and the pork heated Suzette put the cobbler into the oven at 350˚ and baked it for 35 minutes and then another 10 minutes to fully bake it to firm.

We took the casserole out of the oven and spooned pork onto plates and then casserole and took the Caprese Salad to the gazebo and ate a lovely dinner by the pond with glasses of 2013 Pinot Noir Rosé from D’Autrefois in Pays D’ Oc (from the south of France, near Aix en Provence).

After dinner Melissa cleared the table of the dinner dishes and soon returned with bowls of warm cobbler garnished with dollops of the stiff whipped cream Suzette had made for Saturday night’s dessert of berry shortbread cups filled with berries.

Another hearty but easy meal made with a PPI ingredient, after a leisurely day spent foraging, chopping and cooking.

Bon Appétit