Watermelon Mojito

This is a delicious recipe I made for a girl's day a few weeks ago. Taken from Barefoot Contessa 

Mash about 30 mint leaves with a mortar and pestle.

Juice the watermelon with a blender (then strain) or a juicer if you have one.

Put the mashed mint int a pitcher with 2c of the watermelon juice 12 oz light rum (I used Bacardi), 1/2 cup of simple syrup, and 6 tbl fresh lime juice and mix!

Pour over ice and garnish with mint sprigs!

Apple Galette

This is a great simple winter dessert, so much easier than spending the time on a pie! 

Recipe (from Epicurious )

Ingredients 

1 3/4 c flour

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 c chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 " cubes

2 tbl ice water

1 1/2 lb Granny Smith apples, peeled, quartered and cute into 1/8" thick slices (Being without a mandolin, my apples were many different thicknesses and it just added to the yummy rusticness!)

4 tbl sugar, divided

1 tsp grated lemon peel

1/4 c apricot preserves

whole milk

Prep

Blend flour and salt in processor. (Didn't have a mixer at the time I made this, Just used a pastry cutter and it was just fine!) Add butter and blend, using on/off turns, until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add 2 tablespoons ice water and blend just until dough begins to clump together, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry. Gather dough into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic and chill 1 hour. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep dough chilled. Soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.

Roll out dough between sheets of parchment paper to 1/8-inch-thick round, 14 inches in diameter. Remove top sheet of parchment. Using bottom sheet as aid, transfer dough on parchment to large unrimmed baking sheet. Chill 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Combine apple slices, 2 tablespoons sugar, and lemon peel in medium bowl; toss to blend. Spread preserves over crust, leaving 1 1/2-inch plain border. Arrange apple slices in concentric circles atop preserves, overlapping slightly. Using parchment as aid, fold plain crust border up over apples, pinching any cracks in crust. Brush crust with milk. Sprinkle crust edges and apples with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake galette 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F and continue baking until crust is golden, about 30 minutes longer. Remove from oven. Slide long thin knife between parchment and galette. Let stand at least 10 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.

I served this with a dollop of plain yogurt, but would also be good with ice cream (duh!)

This kept awesome, ate it over a few days. I'd be curious to mess around with fruit/preserve combos and also with sprinkling sea salt on top, the possibilities are pretty endless now that I've got the method of this down!

Littleneck

The Gowanus canal area is becoming quite the spot in south Brooklyn. The other weekend Matt and I decided to check out Littleneck based on the fact that they tout bellies, old time tunes and a clam shack setting. 

We ended up trying a lot of things, some clams and oysters and maine whelks from the raw menu came out first. I seem to have bad luck (or bad technique?) when it comes to eating oysters and this time was no exception because I got some shards of shell. The actual oysters and the clams, however, were delicious, fresh and briney. This was my first time trying Maine Whelks, a kind of snail. I've only had snails prepared in the french style, cooked with butter, garlic and parley. These Whelks were, whelp, not my thing. The melted butter that was meant to be served with them quickly solidified in the ice. They were cold, tough and chewy. I think this is more about my lack of snail love than fault the raw bar, though. Lesson learned: not a whelk gal.

Then we had the special, salt baked shrimp, which were amazing. The shrimp were perfectly cooked and the sharpness of the salt was a great complement. Then came star of the show, the clam belly roll! A soft  piece of bread, golden with butter cradled a pile of fried clam bellies, crowed with a generous draping of sauce. The rich flavor of the hot clam bellies, the crunch of the breading and the creaminess of the sauce were amazing. A good clam neck can be sought out in this town but this was the first belly experience I've had in New York that transported me back to summers in New England, walking the boardwalk at Hampton Beach with taffy sticky fingers and salty hair.

Matt chose the Wandering Star beer they had on tap, which paired great with everything.

The decor of Littleneck was Brooklyn nautical,  the expected edison bulbs hanging around but also some buoys (everyone likes a buoy!), some ship paintings, rope, all that fun seaside stuff. I made an exciting discovery of an Amish Stove in the bathroom. 

We also had a mysterious item catch our eye, sitting at the bar: what looked like a heavy green drinking glass with a wine cork lodged inside, maybe some type of wine opener? Love a good conversation

starting antique at a bar! 

All in all, I would go back, sit at the bar and have a belly sandwich and a beer, a simple pleasure that this spot does well. 

Vermont Ice Cider

Recently I was put in charge of bringing the dessert wine to dinner. Instantly I thought of ice wine (aka Eiswein), a sweet, crisp wine I had sampled at an Austrian wine tasting a year ago. I also heard a great bit on the Crush about ice wines that revived my interest.  I breezed into my go-to spot, Astor wines and walked confidently to the dessert wine section to see that...yikes, these ice wines were classy, starting at $45 (for a half bottle). The thing about tastings is that..they're free. By my calculations I must have drank $200 worth of ice wine that night!

For a low-key night at home, a plan B was in order. When I saw this Eden Ice Cider from Vermont I knew I had to try it. The process actually quite different than ice wine: the apples are harvested, kept in cold storage, and then frozen, melted off and fermented. The result is a wonderful, refreshing dessert wine that would pair wonderfully with a lot of things, a rich carmel cake, ice cream, pudding all come to mind, although I could probably put away a bottle of this over an evening by itself! The best thing about this ice cider is the price point.  I found this at Astor wines for $19.99, a steal! It's worth noting that this Northern Spy Ice Cider is on the list right now at WD-50. If it's good enough for Wylie, it's good enough for me.

Another food blog

...I know that's what you're thinking! But this will be different. This blog is going to make you drool about food, inform you on where to eat and even give you some recipes all through drawings. Food is a narrative: finding it, making it, eating it, sharing it. This is my way of sharing the tasty, the adventurous with you.

"In my world, everyone's a pony and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!" -Dr.Seuss