White Bean Dip with Baked Pita Chips

I think that this is a perfect snack, or meal, if you get carried away. While watching one of our many PBS channels, there was a lady making what she called "healthy after school snacks". This was definitely the most grown up of each of her items, but pretty great looking. I don't remember what spices she used, but I instantly thought of the seasonings for the dipping oil at one of our favorite restaurants, San Chez. Last summer they changed their menu to no trans fat, and introduced a wonderful oil with parsley, cumin, sea salt, black pepper, and lemon juice. It is absolutely fantastic, and I decided to use these seasonings to try to re-create the flavor.

The only downside to this is that there is no recipe. I just added olive oil, cumin, a pinch of salt and pepper, and lemon juice until it tasted right and had a nice smooth texture. There was some method to the madness, though.

Method:

1 can Canenolli beans, rinsed and drained
1 lemon
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
cumin
parsley

-Blend beans using preferred method (I love my stick blender, much less messy than a food processor for small jobs!)
-Add the lemon juice and a bit of olive oil, mix in
-Add a pinch of salt and pepper
-Slowly add cumin and parsley until you get your preferred taste


-Turn oven onto 400 degrees
-Cut a pita into 8 pieces, brush both sides with olive oil
-Bake for 15 minutes, flipping them over after 7 minutes
-Let cool

-Serve the dip cool.

-Enjoy!

Gazpacho

This past week has been super hot. Each day has been in the mid to high 80's or low 90's, and only getting down to the 70's at night. It's hard for me to want to eat and cook (or anything else) when it is that hot. I know it will only stay this way or get worse, so I figured we needed to start acclimating, and that gazpacho would help!

My Mom used to make gazpacho in the end of the summer when we realized that there were way to many tomatoes and cucumbers for us to put on salads or sandwiches. I remember taking a large yogurt container full of this cool raw soup to football practice/training in August, and that it was always super refreshing.

Since we don't have a garden, Greg and I ventured out to the local farmers market this morning to gather our bounty. I figured that there would be a noticeable difference between store bought tomatoes and the farmers market ones, but I had no idea just how much better they would be! There was so much meat on these baseball and larger sized tom's that you could have easily eaten one like an apple! They were just wonderful!

Staying to form, I browsed as many gazpacho recipes that I could find, and saw that there are really only three main ingredients: tomato, garlic, and bread. Yes, bread; I don't remember my Mom putting any in hers, but every other recipe calls for bread! Other common ingredients included: cucumber, bell pepper, cumin and paprika. Celery, jicama, and jalapeños were listed on several recipes, but I don't like that the celery flavor overpowers other more subtle flavors, so I opted to not use any. My end result is really not so much a true recipe, but a "technique" as my Mom would say.

The end result was pretty good. I like that the bread adds texture and substance to the soup, without changing any flavors. Next time I would put more cucumber and less Worcester sauce, but try to keep everything else about the same.

Recipe:

2 pieces of bread
5lbs of tomatoes
1 large cucumber
1 red bell pepper
3 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 C. of tomato juice (I'm sure V- 8 would also work fine!)
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
2 tsp Worcester sauce (I recommend using less, though)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

- Chop up half of the tomatoes, cucumber, and bell pepper. Keep skins, juices and seeds. Place into a large pot. Thinly slice the garlic and add to the vegetables. Tear apart both pieces of bread and add to the vegetables. Add the tomato juice, paprika, cumin, Worcester sauce, salt and black pepper. Blend this mix until it has formed a smooth puree.

-Finely chop the remaining vegetables. Add to the puree. Chill and serve cold. Stirring a spoon full of sour cream through the soup is also a delicious garnish.

-Enjoy!!!

Open Asparagus Sandwich

One word: Fantabulous. I first saw a picture of a very similar sandwich on Food Network's website. After seeing what looked like the perfect summer sandwich, I started browsing the web for other variations. More or less, each and every picture I found looked better than the one before, and I knew that we needed to try this sandwich.

Most pictures and recipes called for, or showed the sandwich on a traditional baguette; white bread. Greg and I adore good wheat bread, and found a nice multi-grain baguette at the grocery store (Meijer, actually!) and opted to use that instead. I also decided to use shredded mozzarella instead of a slice, because it seemed that a slice would take away from the flavors and add a lot of grease. I decided to brush my bread with a rosemary, black pepper and sea salt olive oil mix to spice things up a bit; I'm very glad I did. I described the sandwich to my mom and she suggested using provolone instead of mozzarella, and that she had seen an onion and rosemary loaf that would work really well, too. This just goes to show that it's a versatile sandwich as well.

Over all, this sandwich is indeed, fantabulous. I can't wait to have another one tonight with Greg, and to keep making them through out the rest of the summer!

For the recipe, I am giving the ingredient amounts for 1 sandwich, so it can easily be multiplied.

1 slice of French of Italian bread on a sharp angle.
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1/8 (a dash) of crushed rosemary
a pinch of black pepper and sea salt
2 piece of asparagus
1/4 tsp lemon zest
2 slices of tomato
1 tbs mozzarella cheese
2 slices of ham

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Combine olive oil, rosemary and sea salt in a bowl, set aside
Slice bread and brush each side with the olive oil mixture, place in heated oven
Cut each asparagus piece in half after trimming the ends
Place the asparagus and lemon zest in sauce pan with about a half inch of water, turn to boil and cook until tender crisp
Slice the tomato
Once the bread is crisp on the edges and the asparagus cooked (about 5 minutes max) remove the bread, keeping it on a baking sheet, and drain the asparagus.
Place the ham on the bread, then layer with tomato, asparagus, and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with a little black pepper.
Place back in the oven for about 2 minutes until the cheese melts.
Remove and let cool for a minute or so.

Enjoy!!!