The Craft Begins

At first, I couldn’t decide what I thought of this dish, and while I was thinking about it, I noticed that there was none left.  I’m going to take that as a good sign.

I personally believe that fresh produce is the best thing ever, and also that everything is better with bacon.  Add a little fresh dill, and that’s how this dish was born.

Ingredients:

4-5 ears of fresh corn, shucked
1/2 of a medium white onion
3-4 thick slices of bacon
fresh dill
salt and pepper to taste

First item on the agenda is to cook the corn.  I like to char it a bit on the grill, but you can also boil it.  Just make sure to put the corn into a pot of cold water with a splash of vinegar and take out as soon as it reaches the boiling point.  Cut bacon into little slices, width-wise.  Fry up in a pan on medium heat until just slightly short of your desired crispiness.  I like mine fried to the point where it’s practically charcoal, but that’s personal preference.   At that point, add onions and cook until softened.  Drain off most (but not all) of the bacon grease and then put back on the burner.  Cut the kernels of corn off the cob with a sharp knife and cook with bacon and onions until  well mixed.  Remove from heat, toss with a bit of freshly chopped dill, add salt and pepper to taste, and enjoy.

I love simple summer salads that can be eaten cold.  There’s something refreshing about not having to cook on a hot summer night.  This salad is nice because it’s subtly salty and crunchy.

Ingredients:

1 package orzo pasta (the bigger, the better)

1 can chunk white albacore tuna

1/2 red onion, sliced thinly

2 tbsp. capers

fresh dill

salt, pepper and olive oil to taste

Boil orzo according to package directions, drain in a colander and rinse with cool water.  In another bowl, shred tuna and combine with a splash of olive oil, sliced red onion, capers, fresh snipped dill (you can use dried if you can’t find fresh), capers and salt and pepper.  You’ll need to use less salt than you think since the capers are so salty.  Toss with the pasta, chill, and eat!

I’ve been running into some serious computer problems lately, but it looks like I’m back for a bit at least!

So I’d like to share with you all a really, really easy recipe. I love fresh herbs in the summer, and buy way more than I could ever possibly consume. I dry a lot of them (upside down in a paper bag) which works like a charm, but I wanted to find another way that I could preserve those yummy summer flavors.

So I settled on infused olive oils! I thought that it would be really difficult, and that it wouldn’t turn out, but they ended up being wonderful. Now the kind of oil you makes really depends on your tastes, but some of the ones I made were: blood orange; citrus (orange, lemon, and lime); herbs du provence (rosemary, thyme, garlic); lemon dill; and green meanie. Green meanie is the most delicious – every fresh herb I could find, including garlic, thyme, dill, rosemary, and basil. All you have to do is pick a flavor combination that you love (I made my mom some straight basil oil) and then find a clean, pretty bottle. Place the herbs in the bottle (the more the better, I say!) and then fill to the top with olive oil. Let it sit at least a week – the flavor will be nice and intense by then. It keeps indefinitely, or at least so it seems. And the best part is, when you use some of it you can just refill the bottle with more oil and that way it lasts forever!

I like to use these oils as an easy salad dressing, as a marinade for chicken or fish, to dip bread it, and pretty much anything else you can think of that needs a bit of light herb flavor. Go crazy! Add peppers or flowers or anything you want. The possibilities are endless (and I use this in a lot of my recipes so it never hurts to have some on hand).