Last of July

Boy, it's been a strange month!  On one hand, this July seems to have lasted forever.  On the other,  it seems to have flown by as well.  "Time flies", they say and Groucho Marx added "...and fruit flies like bananas!"  Wikipedia (which we all believe without reservation, of course) said that July

"... starts on the same day of the week as April in every year, and January in leap years. In a common year no other month ends on the same day as July, while in a leap year July ends on the same day of the week as January. 

So there.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Dragonfruit
When we were down in the Keys, we found Dragonfruit at one of the roadside stands near Homestead.  I hadn't realized it was grown here.  I wish we'd bought some then, it was a lot cheaper than the $4 per fruit (!) I paid at my local megamart the other day.  Lady Sally had never experienced Dragonfruit.  I'd had both the red and white varieties several years back when I spent a month's vacation on the Big Island of Hawai'i.

This is a unique (if expensive) taste treat.  Similar in flavor to Kiwi, Dragonfruit (a.ka. Pitaya or Pitahaya)  is the fruit of one of several species of cactus!  Originally native to Mexico, the cactus has spread throughout Central and South America and Asia.  They are commonly grown in Hawaii, as well as down here in southern Florida. The texture is firmer than Kiwi and not as creamy as avocado.  

The gazillion teeny seeds are edible thank Murphy!  They'd be a pain to seed out!  Once you halve the fruit a spoon along the edge will allow you to peel the skin away.  Skins can be used as decorative containers, of course, while the fruit can be cubed, sliced or rounded up with a melon baller.

Most of the recipes you'll find are for Dragonfruit ice cream or some variation on a shake/smoothie.  Personally I think most of those are so full of other stuff that you'd lose the unique but oh so subtle flavor of the Dragonfruit.  A cubed fruit salad will let the flavor through through, as will the recipe below:

Dragonfruit Avocado & Shrimp Salad
The name tells you the three major ingredients.  I added a couple more items to make this a bit more filling as part of a soup and salad dinner for two.

1 Dragonfruit
1 Hass Avocado or half a large Choquette/Florida variety
1/2 lb Shrimp, cooked & peeled
2 cups chopped greens - I used Greenleaf lettuce.  Anything but iceberg!
4 Mozzarella balls
4 Cherry Tomatoes

For the dressing:
2 Limes, juiced
2 tsp minced garlic
3 Tbsp EVOO

Cook the shrimp.  I like mine Cajun Barbecued -- that is cooked with a bit of Cajun seasoning like Tony Chachere'stm brand.  The peel and cool them while you prep the rest of the salad. Cube or slice the avocado and dragonfruit.  Lay down a bed of greens, sourround it with dragonfruit, and place the avocado in the center (or vice versa).  Add the tomatoes and mozarella.  Top with the shrimp.  Whisk the dressing ingredients together and set it on the table to be added as desired.

The soup?  My signature Butternut Squash soup -- recipe in the March 31st post here about Black Cardamon.

Canjica de Milho -- Brazilian Sweet Corn Dessert Pudding
Awhile back I picked up a package of Maiz Blanco Trillado (Goyatm brand) that was being remaindered at my megamart.  This is dried cracked hominy.  I've used a lot of hominy, but never in this form.  I found the following recipe for a sweet corn pudding and decided to give it a try.  The dish is often served at Festa Junina, the Brazilian Summer Solstice festival.  Warning.  The following recipe will be a LOT easier if you skip the Maiz Blanco Trillado and substitute canned white hominy

For 2 servings:

1/4 cup Maiz Blanco Trillado
1/2 cup Half & Half
1/4 cup Raisins
1/4 Cup Sugar
1 tsp fresh ground Cinnamon

Start with a cup of water, and simmer the hominy low and slow for at least an hour or until tender, adding water as necessary!  After an hour add the half & half, sugar, raisins and cinnamon.  Continue cooking until tender/soft and the creamy gravy thickens.  Ladle into bowls and allow it to set and thicken even more.

Pretty yummy if you like rice pudding, but a LOT of work.  Use canned hominy and save an hour!

Pineapples in Paradise

One of the many great things about living where I do is the plethora of tropical fruits that can be grown around here.  I've talked about mango and mamey of course.  When the time and the fruit is ripe, there will be posts about fresh-off-the-tree oranges, tangerines, key limes, grapefruit and carambola (starfruit) among others.

This week it's pineapple.  Lady Sally has eight or a dozen pineapple "bushes" around her property and gets at least one pineapple a year.  It takes at least 2 years before a bush will produce, and then it won't set fruit every year.  

This year, apparently because of a wet winter, we've had a lousy mango harvest all over SW Florida.  A number of commercial mango growers aren't even harvesting this year, as they figure they won't be able to make a profit after paying labor, shipping, marketing, etc, etc.  

But -- at least for us, it's a bumper season for pineapple.  Five plants set and ripened fruit.  One broke off its stem during a downpour over the 4th of July, but was rescued as a totally green fruit.  While searching how to ripen it, I discovered that green pineapple is somewhat toxic.  I also discovered that to ripen a green pineapple  you do not use a brown paper bag the way you do for mangoes and other soft fruit.  Instead you turn it upside down, and wait:

A whole new meaning for Pineapple Upside Down...

Within a few days to a week, the sugars will flow from the base throughout the fruit, ripening it.

Hmmm.  I harvested the last couple mangoes from the tree.  And I've got ripe pineapple.  What to do... what to do?   (play Jimmy Buffet's Last Mango in Paris while reading the rest of this post).    

Pineapple-Mango Buckle
This is recipe from Martha Stewart, who we know can't spell buckle let alone bake one -- her staff does all the work and she takes all the credit and money.  Regardless, the recipe is darn tasty!.  Of course, if you don't live in Paradise, you can make this with megamart pineapples and mangos -- just don't use that canned nonsense!

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted Butter, room temperature

1 small Pineapple

2 ripe Mangoes

2 Eggs

2 tablespoons dark-brown Sugar

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons AP Flour

1 teaspoon ground Cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon pure Vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 2-quart baking dish (8x8 or 9x9 glass is good) with non-stick. 

Peel, pit and dice the mangoes.  Cut the top and bottom off the pineapple, and slice the skin off the sides. Anyone who wastes the tasty core of a fresh pineapple (throws it away) is no friend of mine!  Cut the whole thing into 1/2" cubes.

Toss the pineapple, mangoes, and brown sugar together in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda.

Cream the butter and granulated sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Add the flour mixture; stir (don't beat) until just combined. Measure out 1 cup of the fruit mixture; fold the rest of the fruit into batter.

Spread the batter in the baking dish. Bake 30 minutes. Top with the reserved fruit. Bake again until golden on top and a cake tester comes out clean, 45 to 55 minutes total. Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Pineapple Mango Buckle

Why buckle?  I still don't know.  But this dessert belongs to the family of goodies called crumbles, grumbles, cobblers, etc. which combine a simple cake batter and fruit.  A buckle is distinguished by most of the fruit being folded into the batter before baking, then additional fruit is added as topping part way through the baking process.

Mojo Pork

Sally's Mum had a hankering for pork tenderloin for our alternating Sunday lunch date, so before we went face down in the dessert Buckle, I served up Mojo Pork with roasted baby potatoes and green peas.  I prefer the Badiatm brand Mojo sauce, a mix of citrus juices, garlic and spices.  I put about a 1/4" of Mojo in the electric skillet, added some spices to the tenderloin, covered and cooked it at 250F for an hour a pound to perfect tenderness.

Mojo Pork Tenderloin

Bonus Recipe - Handmade Applesauce
"Applesauce" was requested to go along with the pork.  Rather than just buy a jar, of course I had to make it.  I used two nice, flavorful apples (Kiku if I remember right) not Granny Smiths or the mis-named and flavorless modern Red Delicious.  Chopped up fine, with the skin on.  Just a tablespoon of added brown sugar, and about a 1/2 cup of water.  Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer about 20 minutes until soft.  Mash the resulting cooked fruit, but don't puree it:

Scottish Culinary Delights

You knew that eventually I'd get around to Scottish food, right?

I have been known to tell folks who ask, that there really isn't any “Scottish Cuisine” – there's just sheep guts and oatmeal.

Ah but don't be afeart as my ancestors would have said.   There are some great Scots dishes that do not include organ meats -- if ye've a mind tae try 'em. It was the Scots wha gae us Orange Marmalade after a'.

Chef Ken's Faux Haggis

Real haggis is basically a sausage – minced sheep organ meats, oats, onion and a bit of nutmeg and salt crammed into a sheep's stomach and boiled into asubmission.

Since THAT description tends to turn off even many hard-core American Scots, I came up with a version which is much more palatable, containing the essential flavors – lamb, oats, onion and nutmeg. My Faux Haggis is basically a meatloaf that isn't browned.

1 lbs ground lamb

1 large white onion, diced

1 cup steel-cut oatmeal, not the smashed flat version

½ Tbsp fresh ground nutmeg

1 tsp Kosher Salt

1 Egg, beaten

18” x 18” square of cheesecloth

Butcher's twine – ask your friendly local butcher for a couple feet.

Optional – Broth; chicken, beef, or vegetable

Combine the food ingredients in a bowl. Use your hands to combine everything well. You're basically making a meatloaf. Form the raw meat mixture into a log shape and roll it up in the cheesecloth leaving long-ish ends, which you then tie closed with the butcher's twine.  What you now have is essentially an uncooked sausage.

Slide the log into a loaf pan, on the large burner of your stovetop. Add water, or broth if you choose, to come about half way up the side of the log. Bring the broth to a simmer/low boil, and poach the log, turning every 15 minutes or so, for about 45 minutes. Use a thermometer to make sure the internal temperature gets to 155F before removing the haggis from the heat. Let the haggis set for 10 minutes before carefully unwrapping. Slice and serve with brown gravy and Tatties & Neeps.

Sliced Faux Haggis

Tatties & Neeps

Equal weights of cubed Potatoes (tatties) and Turnips (neeps),  boiled together with a pinch of salt and nutmeg. Smashed (coarsely mashed) together with a bit of butter.

Tatties & Neeps

Scones

One food that the Scots are most noted for is Scones. These quick breads are leavened with baking soda and/or baking powder. They can be light and airy or dense “rock cakes” depending on several factors.

Currant-Blueberry Griddle Scones

Think of these as very dense pancakes. These tasty pastries are in the relatively dense category, and have the added distinction of not being oven baked. Lightly spiced, these not-overly-sweet scones are simple to make – in less than 20 minutes.

2 cups AP flour

½ cup Dark Brown Sugar

1 tsp Baking Powder

½ tsp Salt

½ tsp Black Cardamon seed

6 whole Allspice berries

1 stick cold Butter, cut into pieces

¼ cup Zante Currants

¼ cup dried Blueberries

Start heating the skillet to 325F. Put the dried fruit in a cup of hot tapwater to soften. Grind the cardamon and allspice in a mortar & pestle or coffee grinder.

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and spices into a largish bowl. Cut the butter into the flour until it looks like granules. The best, but messiest, way to cut in the butter is rubbing the flour mixture into it between your fingers. Drain the fruit and add them to the flour, tossing to distribute evenly.

Beat the egg and milk together then pour it over the flour-fruit mixture. Stir the liquid in with a fork until it forms a soft dough. Turn the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead it 10 or 12 times. Divide into thirds. Pat each third into a 3/4” thick disk; then cut each disk into quarters or halves. Cook the scones 3-5 minutes per side until nicely browned. Then put on a cooling rack and cover with a tea towel for a couple minutes. Serve hot with a schmear of butter.

 Blueberry & Currant Scones

Blueberry Mango Scone Bread

This light and airy recipe yields two large 'loaves' approaching 12" in diameter, each of which will serve 8-10.

3 ½ cups all purpose flour
¾ cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced and extra cold
1 egg
1 cup whole milk
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 cup blueberries
1 cup of mango, cubed.  Firm  ripe mango is better than soft juicy ripe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cut cold butter into flour mixture until you get crumbles.  Fingers really are best for this.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg.  Add the lemon zest and juice, milk, blueberries and mango, and mix. Pour over flour mixture. Using a spoon, mix gently until well-combined.

Place half the dough on a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper and shape into a disc about 3/4” thick. Bake 25 minutes or until slightly darker than golden brown. Let cool until ready to handle. Cut into wedges and arrange on a platter.  Bake the other half od the dough likewise.  After cooling, the second disk can be covered with cling wrap and frozen, uncut.

Optional Glaze

To prepare the glaze, mix juice of about half a lemon and 1/2 cup powdered sugar.  You may need to adjust measurements to achieve desired consistency. Drizzle over scones and serve

Mamey... How I love Ya....How I love Ya....

On our road trip to the Keys we stopped in Homestead, FL at one of the numerous fruit/veggie stands along the road and bought some fruit while stretching our legs.  Got a huge papaya of a variety that was tasty even without a squirt of lemon juice, a couple of mangos (Lady Sally's tree was not yet producing), and a mamey.

Mamey?  You ask?  Yep.  We'd seen mamey flavored ice cream advertised at a local Peruvian restaurant, but not seen the fruit itself, or tasted it.

Mamey is a tropical fruit, common in the Caribbean islands and Mexico, not often found outside the tropics.  Even here in Fort Myers we see them only occasionally at the megamart.  The skin is sandpapery and the fruit should be hard when you buy it.  You can tell when it's ripe by scratching a bit of the skin away near the ends.  If you see dark orange meat underneath, you've got a winner.

You cart your hard-to-the-touch mamey home and let it sit on the counter for a few days.  Eventually it will start to soften under the skin, sort of like an avocado.  And when it's firm-soft, it's time to eat.  Inside you'll find a large pit which comes away easily, leaving you acres of good eats.

The taste?  REALLY hard to describe.  Very sweet.  Overtones of papaya, which it resembles but is not related to.  Overtones of yam.  Overtones of citrus.  Totally unique, creamy not fiberous, texture.

So what do you do with your mamey fruit?   Ice cream, of course, if you've got an ice cream maker.  Lacking that, there are also mamey bread and cupcake recipes, and I suspect it would make a great scone as well. Many Caribbean and Latin recipes are variations on the smoothie/liquado/batido/milkshake theme.  

My Mamey Smoothie 

Mamey Smoothie

Mamey fruit

A squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice

Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream

Blend fruit and yogurt. Devour.

It can't get much simpler...

The recipe I found that was both elegant and tasty was for a dish I call Mamey Foster -- a take on the classic Bananas Foster.

Mamey Foster

Mamey Foster  a.k.a. Mamey Flambé

Yield: 4 servings - 210 calories per serving.

1½ lbs Mamey, ripe

1 tbsp unsalted Butter

2 tbsp Brown Sugar

1 tbsp Lime juice, fresh 

2 tbsp fresh squeezed Orange juice

3 tbsp Apricot Brandy

1 cup Frozen Vanilla Yogurt

Lime or lemon slices (optional)

Cut mamey in half lengthwise and remove the seed. In the same way that you cut slices of avocado inside the skin, cut the mamey into 1 inch slices and set them aside.

Melt the butter in a skillet. Add the brown sugar and lime juice and stir well. Add the mamey and cook just a minute or two. Turn, and cook an additional 2 minutes. Add the OJ and brandy.

Ignite the brandy mixture with a long match; let the flames die down.

Arrange slices on dessert plates; spoon sauce evenly over fruit and top a scoop of frozen yogurt. Garnish with lime or lemon slices, if desired. Serve immediately.  Heavenly!

Fruit Pizza

For the recent 4th of July holiday I was tasked with creating a red/white/blue themed dessert.  Here's the fruit pizza I came up with:

1 Pkg (16 oz) Sugar Cookie Dough (refrigerated)

8 oz brick Cream Cheese, softened

1/3 c Sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 pkg Blueberries (or other fruit of choice)

1 pkg Raspberries (or other fruit of choice)

Pre-heat oven to 350F.  Spray a 12" pizza pan with non-stick.  Place cold dough in center of the pan and spread outward covering the pan evenly.  Bake about 15 minutes until golden brown.  Cool completely.

With an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla, until fluffy.  Spread mixture evenly over the cooled crust.  Arrange fruit on the cream cheese, pressing firmly to seat the fruit.  Refrigerate until chilled, at least 1 hour.  Slice into wedges and serve.