I do not make idle threats. However, I am horrifying lazy. Actually, that’s not true at all; I’ve just been traveling a heck of a lot the last couple months so I haven’t had the opportunity to do much cooking. HOWEVER however, revenge is a dish best served cold, as is this one, and long ago I threatened Candice and Heather Anne with this recipe so here it is. NOT that I’m trying to get revenge on them for anything or nothing, it’s just that they were a little aghast at the idea even though it is SO GOOD.
(THAT SAID, we made this for Seth’s mother back in May and, while she didn’t hate it, she informed us that she wouldn’t be making it for herself any time soon. Also that she suddenly developed a love for kalamata olives. Silver lining?)
The key to this salad has a lot to do with balance, with playing off salty and sweet and sour, with freshness bouncing off heartiness. And if you’ve ever put salt on your apple or watermelon you’ll know exactly what I mean. (Do other people actually do this? Or is this another weirdo Vietnamese habit I think is normal?) All that nonsense said, I don’t have a whole lot of instruction for you on this one; just(ish) a list of ingredients. Which look like this:
And consist of:
A watermelon (the sweeter the better), cut into bite-sized chunks
A block of feta cheese, cut into smaller bite-sized chunks
I said that the key to this dish is balance, and the key to balance is ratio. So basically you want a quarter to a third the amount of feta and olives as to the watermelon. Does that make sense? MATH IS HARD. What I mean to say is, you want mostly watermelon, with a bit of feta and olive mixed in to add a little salty accent.
After you've carried the two, put all that in a bowl, add a fair bit of the mint, a generous squeeze of lime juice, and a glug or two of extra virgin olive oil. (You can also add thinly sliced red onion to this, but I never do.)
Give it a gentle stir and an initial taste. My guess is that it’s going to need a bit more lime juice, and some salt and pepper. But they’re your taste buds, so you decide for yourself. Then, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for an hour or two until it’s nice and cold.
And voila. A refreshing salad for a hot barbecue.
(One small note: this salad doesn’t keep well. The salt eventually breaks down the watermelon and turns it into mush, so it’s best to make this the day you need it and not the day before. Consider yourself warned.)
I know quite a few of you already have my super easy and super delicious recipe for banana bread, so for those of you who don't, SUCKS TO BE YOU, SUCKERS.
Just kidding.
Here you go, suckers.
3-4 very ripe bananas, peeled
1/3 c melted butter
1 c sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
1 1/2 c flour
Preheat your oven to 350 F.
Mash up the bananas in a large bowl with a fork.
(When I was in Belize I rode a horse named Banana. This was Banana:
Clearly not the same thing.)
Stir in the melted butter.
Stir in the sugar.
Stir in the egg, lightly beaten.
Stir in the vanilla.
Stir in the baking soda (and fine, the pinch of salt, too).
Stir in the flour...
...Until just combined.
Pour into a loaf pan sprayed with cooking spray.
And bake for one to one-and-a-half hours, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
Let it cool for a while on a wire rack and then slice into perfectly even slices.
Or just cram it into your gaping maw by the fistful. Whatever floats your boat, suckers.
As you no doubt have already guessed, it's summer! Well, I'm told it's summer anyway, but if you were to look out my window right now all you'd see is dreary wind-whipped rain and if you were to look at me right now all you'd see is a drowned rat wearing a pink shirt and doing a pretty decent job of typing on a laptop. If the drowned rat doesn't say so herself. POINT IS, we just had a glorious if far too short three-day weekend, and at least two of those days were accompanied by glorious sunny weather and at least one of those days was accompanied by THE NATIONAL, MOTHERFUCKERS! so who cares if it rained a little bit?
Actually, that wasn't the point at all. POINT IS, now that summer is here so is strawberry season and chances are your local supermarket/super farmers' market is overflowing with the stuff, and dear lord almighty I love me some strawberry ice cream. And this particular strawberry ice cream is, as my boyfriend told me, the best ice cream I've ever made. And once again I'm replacing the whole milk and heavy cream with fat-free half-and-half, which I KNOW is so freaking unnatural if you think about it too hard, but as I mentioned once or twice before it's summer and my pool opened this weekend and also my ass is big enough as it is, thank you very much.
For a quart + a heaping bowl for immediate consumption you'll need:
1 pint of strawberries, sliced 3 cups of fat-free half-and-half 3/4 cup sugar (use 2/3 cup if your berries are particularly sweet) Pinch of salt 5 large egg yolks 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
First you're gonna want to macerate your strawberries, and all that means is you're gonna toss your sliced strawberries in a bowl with about 1/3 cup of the sugar and let that sit around for an hour until the strawberries get all juicy. I have no idea why this happens, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with science. Also unicorns.
Next, heat up 2 cups of the freaky-deaky fat-free half-and-half, the rest of the sugar, and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan until everything gets all warm and steamy, but not boiling. (Sound familiar? That's because this is how you make ice cream. It's all the same. Only the names have changed.)
Plop your egg yolks in a bowl and whisk them all together. Now you are going to temper those with a little of your warm cream mixture by slowly pouring a little of it at a time into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that the egg yolks get incorporated into the cream without scrambling first. Because scrambled eggs are good for breakfast but not for ice cream (as far as I know).
Now to make a custard! Scrape that all that back into the saucepan, stirring it constantly over medium heat with a silicon spatula, scraping the bottom and sides of the pot as you stir. In about 10 minutes, you'll notice the mixture has thickened considerably. Once it coats the spatula so that you can run your finger across the coating and have it not run (if you have an instant-read thermometer, it should register about 170 degrees), you're done. (With this step, anyway.)
Pour the remaining cup of fat-free half-and-half into a large bowl, and set a mesh strainer on top. Now pour your custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. This will catch any pieces of curdled egg that may have curdled on accident. Don't worry, it's common. It happens to most guys. It's not a big deal.
Strain your strawberries through the strainer, but don't strain yourself as you make sure all the juices get into the bowl. (See what I did there?) Stick these strawberries in the fridge and save them for later.
Finally, add in the vanilla and stir it all together.
And now we Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V:
Here's the big secret to making ice cream at home: the colder your base is before you put it in the machine, the better. So wrap up your bowl in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge at least overnight. Or, as Jack Bauer has taught us, 24 hours is better. Then, fix up your ice cream maker however you're s'posed to fix it up, flip that baby on, and pour your custard in.
And watch the magic happen!
Also, listen to the magic happen!
Magic is loud!
After 20ish minutes of loud magic, add your strawberries. By saving them until the last 5 minutes, you can keep them from getting mushed up into unrecognizable pulp during the churning process.
After they've all been incorporated, scoop your ice cream into a container and stick it in the freezer for another couple hours. Then? YUM.
