Summer Cucumber Salad

One of the pleasurable successes of our garden this summer has been the English or "hot house" cucumbers. They're long and thin with few seeds compared to the standard waxy cucumbers and are usually seen in stores wrapped in plastic. This helps to retain their moisture. In my opinion, they are more delicate and meaty than the thicker cucumbers and are my choice for this salad but any variety works with this recipe.

This seasonal salad is our family's favorite and takes garden fresh cukes mixed with a few flavorful ingredients to make the perfect chilled accompaniment to what's cooking on the grill.

Summer Cucumber Salad

Serves 6

• 2 - English cucumbers, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 c. Seasoned rice vinegar
• 1/2 Sweet white onion, thinly sliced
• Sesame seeds (optional)

Peel and thinly slice the cucumbers. Thinly slice half an onion.

In a mixing bowl combine the cucumbers, onions and vinegar.

Cover and place in the refrigerator stirring occasionally until thoroughly chilled.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds before serving.

* Amounts are approximate, increase or decrease any ingredients according to taste.

Tips:

• If the garden variety of cucumbers has stayed on the vine too long and is over grown, the seeds may be tough. If you prefer not to have the seeds in your salad, slice the cucumbers in half length-wise and scoop out the seeds by running the tip of the spoon down the center.
• You can find seasoned rice vinegar in the Asian section of the market.
• The difference between seasoned rice vinegar and non-seasoned is a slightly sweet flavor that the seasoned vinegar has.
• If using vinegar full strength is too strong for your taste, it can be cut with a bit of water or mild-flavored oil such as canola.
• Do you prefer your cucumbers crisp or soft? A shorter time marinating in the vinegar will produce a crispier salad. A longer time, will produce softer cukes and onions.

Do you have a recipe that is quintessentially summer with just a few ingredients? Feel free to share with us in the comments section. :)

Thinking of You

My thoughts and prayers go to my blogging friends on the east coast this weekend as you hunker down. Keep safe.

xoxo

Hosting Your Own Backyard Movie Night

A few years ago we hosted a backyard movie night for the high school marching band. With over 80 teenagers the evening was a lot of fun and something I always wanted to do again for our family and friends.

Not knowing what we needed back then we rented the equipment for the night which included an inflatable screen, speakers and a projector.

The menu for the night was pure concession stand nostalgia: hotdogs in paper boats, boxed candy, soda in paper cups with lids and straws. We even rented a popcorn machine and served the popcorn from paper tubs.

A fellow band mom had the great idea of grilling the hotdogs before the band members arrived and keeping them warm thorough out the evening in the crock pot. This worked beautifully and freed us from being behind the grill while the movie was playing. The kids were able to help themselves to whatever they wanted during the night.

Fast forward to an August night this summer ~ instead of renting the screen, projector and sound system this time around we made the screen from a twin-sized sheet, used pvc pipes for the support ($20), hooked up a couple of our own speakers and a projector we use for work presentations. With my techno sons at the helm, my laptop was hooked up to run the DVD. It turned out to be a great system. What’s especially nice is we can set up again anytime without the expense of a rental which runs $200 for the night.

Our homemade screen (shown here the morning after and missing a few clips) was anything but fancy and I had my doubts when my husband came home from Lowe’s with long pvc pipes a couple hours before our guests were to arrive but in the dark all you see is the movie playing not the pipe supports or the few wrinkles in the sheet that were visible during daylight.

In the future, I’d like to grommet the sheet so it can be easily put up to the support frame with a rope but surprisingly a few black metal clips from Staples with string worked perfectly well. Even the perfectionist in me was quite impressed.

The simple menu for our friends and family movie night included my recipe for the Best BBQ Burgers with brioche buns I purchased from a local restaurant called Hanna’s. The buns have become my secret weapon and are incredibly delicious and add tremendously to any bun worthy meal.

To accompany the burgers we served macaroni salad (my SIL’s recipe and the best I’ve ever tasted), grilled local corn (husks on until charred, the corn will be perfectly cooked and the silks will slide right off when the husks are peeled away). We also had home grown tomatoes, vegetables and fresh lemonade. For dessert, my guys made 4 flavors of ice cream to choose from the day before and of course, popcorn.

“Lights! Camera! Action!”

I’ve listed some resources to get you started to host your own backyard movie night:

• Learn from fellow backyard theater enthusiasts – Backyard Theater.com
• Blast from the past intermission clips & movies – Movies Unlimted.com
• Boxed candy – Smart & Final; Bed, Bath & Beyond; Costco
• Popcorn boxes in bulk – FSW.com, Smart & Final
• Popcorn boxes in smaller quantities- party stores, Sur laTable.com
• Popcorn machine rental – Google for your area.
• Burger baskets – Surl a Table.com
• Basket liners – Sur la Table.com
• Great ice cream book – Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream & Dessert Book
• Great online ice cream recipes – Williams-Sonoma.com
• An OC rental source for movie equipment set-ups – PopUpPictureShow.com
• The “money is no object” outdoor theater system – Frontgate.com

Tips:

• Set up all power equipment before dark. This includes a sound and screen check.
• Remind quests to “B.Y.O.C.&J.” (chair and Jacket)
• Use the popcorn boxes as holders for small flower vases. This ties in your movie theme on your tables and makes cute decorations.
• Print out a movie ticket image, secure to a sandwich pick and stick it into the top of the burgers for fun.
• Use burger baskets to make your meals more portable when you have larger a crowd and not the table space to sit everyone. The baskets also make great serving pieces for varieties of chips or individual corn-on-the-cob holders.
• Have something warm for your guests to drink if the evening turns chilly.

I’d love to know if you’ve hosted or attended a backyard movie night and what ideas you have to make the night fun.

Icy Italian Citrus Granita

If the name "granita" is not familiar to you, it's an icy Italian dessert that resembles shave ice in texture and is possibly the most light and refreshing treat you can make this summer. In the snooty culinary world of terminology I'd call it a "deconstructed" popsicle. The ingredients are simple: fresh squeezed citrus juice, sugar and water.

No special ice cream making equipment is necessary. If you've got a metal cake pan or baking dish and a fork, you'll have all the equipment you'll need.

What gives granita its special icy flakes of goodness is stirring the mixture as it freezes or by "raking" the mixture's surface after it has frozen solid. Due to the sugar content the scrapping produces an almost soft textured flake.

This recipe uses a blend of citrus juices but a single fruit flavor, such as tangerine, would be very good too.

Perfect for after dinner on a warm evening and pretty enough for company.

Citrus Granita (serves 6)

• 2 c. orange juice, freshly squeezed and strained
• 1/2 c. pink grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed and strained
• 2 Tbls. lemon juice, freshly squeezed and strained
• 1 Tbls. lime juice, freshly squeezed and strained
• 1 1/2 c. water
• scant 1 c. superfine sugar (1 cup minus a couple tablespoons)

Combine all the juices, water and sugar in a bowl or pitcher. Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Transfer mixture to a shallow rectangle metal pan or glass baking dish.

I use a 9x13 metal cake pan. I feel the metal freezes the mixture faster and keeps it from melting if I take it out of the freezer to stir it but I usually stir and rake the mixture in the freezer. I also keep a fork in the freezer for convenience.

To obtain ice flakes:

Method #1- Check on the mixture after about a half hour. Ice crystals will have begun to form. Stir mixture. Stir again every half hour until mixture is more solid than liquid.

Method #2- Freeze mixture until solid. Take a fork and scrape it over the frozen mixture in a raking-like motion until icy flakes form.

Bonappetito!

Kitchen Gadget Love

My new favorite kitchen toy.

Sharp & Fun.

Kuhn Rikon Pink and Black Dot Paring Knife

Sur la Table – also available in store

A Midsummer Night's Balancing Act

August.

It's just starting to hit me that time is running out and my opportunities for all my good intentions this summer are dwindling.

Son2 will be back at college next month and how many good home cooked meals have I made? Not many. I need to change that. Son1 flies into town on Friday for a week's visit which we'll also have the pleasure of celebrating his birthday with him at home. This is a real treat. He deserves a party. His request for his homecoming - home cooked meals. I've got to step it up.

We finally purchased a new replacement car a week ago which has helped both my husband and I to move on from our accident in June. I'm surprised how much this one thing has affected us. There is no joy involved that a new car usually brings and my only criteria was the replacement had to be equal or better than what we lost. I needed this emotionally so not to feel the other driver had taken more away from us. This has helped me to release some emotions but I need the closure only the tying up of loose ends will bring and this hasn't happened yet.

I've also been wanting to change my blog over to Wordpress, get a new look and activate my domain name. It's time to tap into the social media world which makes my head spin and overwhelms me. Lisa, at her wonderful blog, Amid Privilege, has been a mentor as Amanda, at Everyday Elements has. I admire them both for stepping into this fray fearlessly confident and competent.

I have also been working with the very talented Anne Harwell at Annechovie. I have admired her artwork since I found her when I began blogging and have commissioned a new pink martinis and pearls header design. My schedule and forgetfulness has held her up this summer but she has been nothing short of a saint. I am so appreciative of all these special ladies.

And of course there are the cookies. I have many ideas and techniques I want to try to create. I feel honored to get email requests almost on a weekly basis although I don't advertise. Some requests I can fulfill and some I can't. They have to fit between my work for our family business that positively has to be done on certain days and what I can push to another. Inadvertently, cookie projects mean my counters are sealed in plastic wrap which also means take-out only and no home cooked meals... yet again.

I love my iPad2! I just finished reading The Help and am reading The Dukan Diet on it. I was shocked when a message came up congratulating me on playing 1,000 games of solitaire! I've had it since mid-June. I quickly shut my pink cover and walked away mid-game. What a waste of time I've gotten into the habit of late at night. My Elizabeth I hardcover book is still waiting for my return. I am ashamed I have been seduced by Angry Birds and glitzy apps.

I continue to write for my community's online newspaper. It's something I really enjoy. The audience is different from here but writing for two blogs in completely different ways can be another balancing act.

For the next few weeks, I have a few cookies orders to fill and samples to make for my nephew's wedding in Sedona at a winery in October. It'll be here before I know it.

I'm attending a second concert at The Huntington Library in beautiful San Marino, the town which we were married in, and planning a backyard movie night as the last hurrah of the season.

I want to study Photoshop Elements more, buy and make friends with a new camera and learn how to work the mouse in my car so I can rock the Sirius radio with the windows down and the moon roof open all without help from anyone under 25.

I need to be a more thoughtful friend, sister-in-law and daughter-in-law and write those thank you notes from my birthday in June. I'm blaming it on the iPad and the thousand games of solitaire whether it's truly to blame or not.

I notice the Boston Ivy on our wall is beginning to change color with the passing season but our sweet corn has yet to fully mature. I want to be like both of them right now. Unpredictable yet with purpose.

So, for the next few weeks I'll be popping in and out but not with any planned schedule. I'm going to let the end of summer take me where it will.

Pineapple Sherbet

If you haven't tried homemade pineapple sherbet with fresh lemon and orange juices you don't know what you're missing. Prior to this frozen epiphany, I had only tasted store bought from 31 Flavors which left me ordering Daiquiri Ice next time.

Words I would use to describe ~ cold, icy, refreshingly fresh.
And a phrase ~ "One more little cone won't hurt."
And a sound ~ *sigh*

What is particularly nice about this recipe is that it makes 4 quarts from the get go so you actually have enough for company without having to make multiple batches or doubling or tripling the recipe.

It is also a very old recipe.
Lovingly handed down from the Nance family.
To my knowledge it came from their grandmother in Kansas and settled out west in California with their father who recently passed peacefully at 89. I love how recipes are impervious to travel and time but retain their love and connections to so many.

When my boys were younger and we made chocolate chip cookies together they used to ask me why I added 2 drops of boiling water to the dough since they couldn't see how that would make a difference. I told them they were probably right it wouldn't make a difference to the recipe but I do it anyway because it was my grandmother's recipe, then my mom's, now mine and theirs. I do it not so I don't forget, I do it to remember.

This is also quite the unforgettable pineapple sherbet.
Courtesy of Myrtle, then Hal, now Janice, Carole and Cheryl, to me and now, you.

Pineapple Sherbet

2 1/2 - 14 oz cans of crushed pineapple, non-drained
1 1/3 c. fresh lemon juice (approx. 7 lemons)
2/3 c. fresh orange juice (approx. 1 1/2 oranges)
2 quarts milk
4 c. granulated sugar
2 egg whites
Combine pineapple, juices, sugar and milk. Add egg whites. May appear to curdle but will smooth out when freezing. Freeze according to ice cream machine maker's instructions.

‘Best of Show’ and Other Pretty Ribbons

I hope you’ll allow me my ‘15 seconds, minutes or written lines of fame’ ‘cuz this is going to be one braggy blog post.

It’s my story of entering the 2011 Orange County Fair Culinary Arts Division this summer.

It all started with my husband who lovingly encouraged me to enter cookies I made for my niece’s wedding this past May. Those who love you are always your biggest fans.

Since I had a few extra left over I thought, ‘why not.’

Awards:

• 1st Place in Sugar Sculpture and Edible Sugar Arts
• Division Winner in Sugar Sculpture and Edible Arts

And while I was at it I thought I’d enter my family’s favorite chocolate cake just for fun because they won’t let me make any other cake. I was curious to see if it was really that good. I decided to call it “All-American Chocolate Layer Cake.”

Of course, of all the cakes and cupcakes I’ve made with the recipe, I’ve never taken a glamor shot of it because it isn’t glamorous. It’s just the best darn chocolate cake. Ever. Plain and simple. At least to our family.

Awards:

• 1st Place 2-Layer Cakes
• Division Winner for all Frosted Layer Cakes

There is a story behind this particular winning entry, however.

I had to register my intended submission entries online by June 1. Son2 was still up at college and I had never considered he would be interested in my culinary adventures. Now it was July and he was home for the summer waiting for his internship to begin (as my husband and I were also waiting for the internship haircut to happen). It was the night before the actual cake was to be entered in the fair for judging. Not wanting to lose him for the evening to his laptop in his bedroom upstairs, I suggested he make the cake so I could spend the time with him in the kitchen gabbing as the mixer blended away. I volunteered to be the “icing tester” (sorry excuse, I know) as he made the batter and icing. It was decided I should be the one to take the cake out of the pans (experience needed) and to frost the cake.

Besides winning 1st place and the division win, beating out all other single, double, triple and colossal cakes, we found out later the cake missed Best of Show for all cakes by 2 votes! This included the big fondant multi-tiered showy cakes. Son2 was a very happy baker.

It was the only cake with a third of it gone which we thought was funny.

(bottom shelf, back left)

The icing on the fair cake, so to speak, was for a blog post I entered that originated right here on Pink Martinis and Pearls!

There were three classes of culinary related blog post entries -

• Directional Blog Post – Method, Step-by-Step or "How-to" format with recipe
• Personal Blog Post – Memoir or Personal Story with recipe
• Informational Blog Post – Descriptive, Historical, Event Coverage with recipe

I submitted my post on Decorated Baby Bunny Cookies under the Directional Blog Post Class.

I was flabbergasted when I walked over to the display case and saw the card with my name and blog post name on it with a fancy blue ribbon attached to it and utterly astounded to see the big purple ribbon denoting I had won the big daddy $100 award for Best of Show for the Best Overall Blog Post from all the classes combined!

There were so many blog post entries that I feel particularly honored to have been chosen.

They are printing and enlarging my post for display but I haven’t seen it. They were having ‘technical difficulties’ when I was at the fair last and it was not up yet. Hopefully, it will be up for the award ceremonies.

Yep, I had a great OC Fair experience. Beginner’s luck to be sure.

Although our family recipe for the All-American Chocolate Layer Cake has the honor and distinction of being included in the 2011 Orange County Fair Online Cookbook and it is a great thrill and honor to have outside validation that others appreciate one’s work and skills when it is shared in a public venue, the real prize was sharing the experience with my son…

… in the kitchen past midnight, licking the beater, agonizing whether we should just dig into the cake with big glasses of ice-cold milk and forget the competition (we came sooo close), carefully driving 30 miles with a cake on his lap, wondering what was going to happen, hoping others liked it too and how wonderful and amazing it would be if we won.

My personal Best of Show was seeing the expression on his face when he realized the cake had won and listening to him laugh and yell out as we rode on a spinning ride high above the midway where blurred neon lights mimicked the heady, dizzying celebration of the night .

In time, the colors of the pretty ribbons will fade but I hope these memories of participating in the OC Fair with my son will stay with us both, always.