Lest I overwhelm the collective voice of the blog via my self-indulgent introduction, I will provide the breakdown of the Watermelon and Feta salad I contributed to V-Bar’s delightful engagement party. I can’t take credit for the Jambalaya, that was all the boy and The Fat Man (Paul Prudhomme).

Watermelon and Feta Salad

adapted from Jacques Pépin

1 Watermelon, cut into bite-sized chunks or balled, if you have the patience

1/3 cup olive oil (the unsullied kind)

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

2 teaspoons kosher salt

Tabasco (I like a good amount, but add to your taste)

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cups crumbled feta cheese

1 small sweet onion, diced

1 cup coarsely chopped mint leaves

Jacques adds olives, but I omit.

Whisk together everything you can whisk in a big bowl, then add the watermelon, feta, and anything that’s not so easy to whisk and toss. Garnish with the mint. Eat soon, it quickly turns to soup as the melon de-bloats.

Fresh Salsa
1 pint cherry/grape tomatoes, finely diced
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 jalapeno, finely diced (use your discretion on seeds)
1 garlic clove, pressed (optional)
1 lime, zested and juiced
handful of cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Add all ingredients into a bowl, once mixed salsa should be ready to consume.  The lime zest is what really made this salsa pop for us crows, why do we not zest more often?

In true Crow fashion, there was way to much food. It is always better to have too many with leftovers, than not enough to feed everyone. Although, one day it will be nice to figure out exactly how much food 20 people will eat over the course of a night of casual munching, being left with loads’o'leftovers at the end of the evening is still okay in my book.

For Holly’s & my contribution, we decided to honor our great Sicilian lady friend with an antipasto platter, and a grilled fennel & herb salad.

Here is the lovely spread! Below you can see the close-ups of our veggie & meat platters

On the platters:

Olives
Marinated Mushrooms- store bought and jazzed up with fresh herbs
Fresh summer Tomatoes
Balsamic Marinated Onions
Roasted Garlic
Roasted Peppers
Pickled Peperoncini w/parsley

Hard Salami
Genoa Salami
Provolone
Prosciutto
Holly’s mega-homemade mustard

I think we are getting the hang of this cooking thing!

After a long journey across the country with my man crow, my cat, and in a strangers car, I’ve arrived in New England. More importantly, I will soon be reunited with the JP crows!

I immediately started missing Oakland, and Oakland taco trucks, the second we left California. The thought of entering a taco-free world, and worse yet, a hard shell taco world (and what I thought would be a ceviche free world, until the crows retreated!), was eating away at my soul with each passing day. I knew that I had to share the glory of a good taco with my parents, who were so graciously allowing me to stay at their house while I got my proverbial “shit together.”

The results? Joyous, wonderful, & delicious.

for proper assembly smear black bean goo on the bottom of the shell. add meat. add cream, pile on cilantro, cabbage, and salsa. drizzle with hot sauce, squeeze 1/4 lime. enjoy!

Now, of course, my taco was not “authentic” either. I used no lard or deep frying, and chose to fill my taco with more than meat + onions + cilantro. Nonetheless, it filled a void in my tummy. My favorite animal meat is pig. I love me some pig, especially when it is cooked by several men in a taco truck. I, of course, could not replicate this on a New England grill, so I had to think fast! I went with some extremely thin sliced-bone in- somewhat fatty-pork. Marinaded in Lime zest, oil, hot peppers, cilantro, salt and pepper, then grilled to a tender but done perfection, I sliced it as thin as possible to form the base of our tacos.

Soft Shell Taco Essentials (the players)

small taco shells- I prefer a yellow corn tortilla, but white corn or flour will do, I suppose
cilantro
red onion
hot sauce
red cabbage
sour cream
salsa
karen’s magic bean goo creation (recipe below)
limes- juice and zest
meat product of your choosing!

So, one could just use these ingredients as is, and have a delicious taco. I made a few small, simple, and fast additions to really make it delicious.

Sour cream: Zest a lime and add 1/2 the juice to a 1/2 of sour cream
Salsa: A pico de gallo style salsa would work, this time I cheated and bought some. If you feel like being 100% home made you: take 3 large tomatoes & dice them finely. Zest 2 limes, add all juice. Dice 1/2 a red onion. chop a full bunch of cilantro. dice very finely at least 1 jalapeno, more if you like heat. Finely grate 2 garlic cloves. Mix everything together with a heafty dose of S & P.
Karen’s Bean Goo: The first time I made tacos at home was with our Oakland friend Karen. She made a black bean “hummus” earlier in the day that went SO WELL with our dinner tacos. Drain & rinse a can of black beans. In a blender combine, black beans, a tomato, a green pepper, cilantro, S & P, and some onion. Blend until smooth.
Cilantro & onions: In a bowl, mix a bunch of cilantro with 1/2 a diced onion. Juice a lime over it and add a good amount of salt. It should taste salty.

Recipe for delicious cornmeal poundcake to come!

Also- a thought. Let’s combine our ceviche with a tostada shell, these taco toppings, cucumber and have a ball!

Grilled Eggplant Stacks w/ Random Herb Pesto
Cheese and herb options are really up to the cook, I shared what I used in italics but left the ingredients quite vague in the recipe.

1 large eggplant sliced in 1/2 inch rounds
2-3 tomatoes, thickly sliced (make sure you have the same amount of eggplant and tomato slices)
sliced melting cheese (Brie)
olive oil, salt and pepper
Random Herb Pesto: grind up fresh herbs, toasted nuts, chopped garlic and olive oil in a food processor and season with salt and pepper.  Adding a hodge podge of herbs is a good technique to use when your basil is getting low. (basil, chives, parsley, walnuts)

Sprinkle both sides of the eggplant with salt and let rest in a strainer or drying rack for 15 minutes.  Dab moisture away with paper towels.  Brush both sides with oil and place on a preheated grill and put the cover down.  After a few minutes check for grill marks and flip.  Spread the pesto on the gilled side and add the tomatoes to the grill.

Once the tomato slices are quickly grilled on both sides add them to the eggplant and cover with a piece of melting cheese.  Turn the grill on low and shut the cover until the cheese is fully melted.

These eggplant stacks go great with some grilled bread and a garden salad.  If your kitchen isn’t a bazillion degrees then I would also suggest making some couscous as a side.

There weren’t any REAL shockers in this article but I would be interested to see if #2 works effectively, who thinks to freeze mashed up avocado?  #4 seemed the most creative, since avocados are high in fat it makes sense that they would be good in baking, maybe I’ll put that on my kitchen to do list.

Here’s a few that I came up with:

Salad Ingredient- Dice up avocado and toss them with citrus juice and poppy seeds.  I think orange works well here but lime, lemon, and grapefruit are all prime candidates.  Add the diced avocado to your next garden salad for some richness.  Staying on the salad theme you could also add avocado to make a creamy vinaigrette like Miz Emily shared with us last June- Orange Basil Dressing.

Sandwich Ingredient- I know this is old news but since I am an anti-mayo Crow, my new favorite substitute on a BLT is Avocado.  The key here is to use a mushier avocado and spread it on the bread rather then adding huge slices that fall off and add to the overall messiness of the sandwich.  You need to save room on the sandwich for the extra bacon as you can see in the picture below.  Note: this was constructed by my Man Crow who happens to love Mayo & Bacon.

Soup Topping: It’s common to add a dollop of sour cream on certain soups such as black bean or chicken tortilla but you can step it up a notch by pureeing avocado with sour cream or creme fraiche and adding a dollop of that!
Breakfast: Avocados and eggs are a match made in heaven whether you eat them on the side or stuffed in your breakfast burrito.  There is a brunch spot just around the corner from my apartment called Bon Savor that has the best options for omelets with avocado, check them out:
French Omelet Stuffed with fresh avocado, sautéed asparagus, tomatoes, and melted Swiss cheese
Richie Omelet Stuffed with fresh avocado, crispy bacon and melted Swiss cheese
It’s always so hard for me to decide between asparagus or bacon but the important description to pay attention to is the word “stuffed” because they pack atleast a half an avocado in each omelet.

Some of these ideas may or may not be new to you but if you are a lover of this delicious fruit (yes i checked on Wikipedia and it is indeed a fruit) then you probably share the belief that adding avocado to almost anything makes it better.

This year I have been bitten by the gardening bug.  Probably as a reaction to last year’s failure (in which I burnt all my potted herb plants by frying them in the hot sunlight on my roof), this year I am determined. Inspired by Holly, the true green thumb of the Crows, I committed to having a little green spot of my own, to eat some food I grew myself, and a find chance to play in the dirt everyday.

However, there are a few obsitcles in my way.  First of all, I rent, and on the third floor of the three unit, so it’s not exactly the backyard is my domain. Despite the fact that, thanks to my landlord, it frequently looks a like a junkyard, I feel it would be a little presumpous to just sart digging up grass and planting.  My landlord would probably consent if asked, but the yard is mostly shaded, and there is only a small portion that would really work for gardening anyway.  Unfortunately, this section is right in the middle of the yard and next to the house- there is no way I could ever reasonably dig a garden there without upsetting someone.  Plus, setting up a garden can be pricy, and investing into a place you won’t be living for more than a few years seems a little waseful.

So! Soulution!  A potted garden/weed-bed takover.  A garden that is 75% mobile makes big use out of small spaces.  It’s a combo between a tabletop pot garden and a pre-existing raised bed garden that was full of weeds and old leaves.  For the table I used an old wooden coffee table found in the junkyard of my landlord’s and when combined with the large variety of pots I had lying around I think it has a nice esthetic.

Raiding Home Depot with the man crow was a lot of fu!  I scored all the seedlings either there or at the Curley Plant Sale in JP on Saturday morning.   I also bought planting soil and four pots for this operation- the rest I had already from last year’s debacle.   On the table I am growing:

-Herbs: basil, italian parsley, thyme, oregano and rosemary.

- Two varietys of tomatoes

-Green Pepper

I can’t wait to mow on some fresh herbs!

Herbs!

Its going to smell so good when they get growing too!  Now the true inspiration here is the side-of-house garden. This raised bed has alsway been there, but you would barely have noticed it because it was so overgrown with weeds.  They took mere minutes to remove, and then I repaced them with a layer of soil I had leftover from potting. Here, I have planted:

-2 more tomato plants

-green lettuce

-green beans

Side of the house, raised bed garden.

Please try to ignore the cable wire. This will be really my first experiment in growing from seed, so I’m excited!  Of course there is a lot more I would have liked to try, but I think this is a good start.   Also check out my gardening supply bucket:

How can this not be a success?  Expect frequent updates as the summer moves on on!

Mo slicing up the avocado

Kielbasa: sliced into medallions and grilled on each side; dip them in mustard and they taste just like a delicious meat chip
Burgers: Variety of veggie and beef (hardwick farms yum) topped with either sliced jack or asiago, tomatoes, onions and avocado.
Veggies: Garden salad and a zucchini, mushroom and onion pouch with fresh thyme, olive oil and a couple pads of butter for extra richness.

BEER

Drinking bottled beer out of a coozy isn’t nearly as fun as a can but how do you find a decent beer packaged in aluminum?  It just so happens that Mo and I have discovered the answer to this dilemma: Dales Pale Ale and Pork Slap.  Both pack a hoppy taste which is often missing from their other canned counterparts.  For our BBQ we had the Dales, brooklyn pilsner, miller high life, and an assortment of other misfits.  I was surprised to see how many summer brews are already available at the liquor store but I’m trying to refrain from them until May since I have a long season ahead of me.  Unfortunately the Geary’s Summer is not out yet, the one beer I would break my rule for!

Me Vbar & Mo

What’s Next?  I’m thinking about combining the two items in the title and grilling a beer can chicken…stay tuned…

perfect flip- no stickage and beautiful grill marks

Usually we grill pizza for a crowd but last week Mo VBar and I got to enjoy our two creations all to ourselves.  We’ve been trying to get alot of these JP Crow dinners in while we can because by the end of the month Mo will be moving to NYC to start a new crow outpost there.

We put on some tunes from brooklynradio.net, decided on our toppings and followed our standby pizza grilling technique outlined in a previous post.  Since we all have similar tastebuds it didn’t take us long to come to a decision:

Pizza #1: garlic oil, mozz, sliced tomatoes, and artichokes topped with a sprinkling of pecorino romano and freshly chopped basil.

Pizza #2: pesto, diced chicken sausage, caramelized onions, diced red pepper and a combination of mozz and goat cheese.  This was a play off a panini that the three of us enjoyed a couple months earlier that proved to be simple and satisfying.  We washed it all down with some Sauvingnon Blanc from one of my favorite wine producers, Root:1.

We were too busy that night to take any pictures of the finished product but here is a grilled pizza i made a couple days later with the leftover half a dough.  For toppings i used fire roasted tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, diced kalamata olives, fresh mozz, pecorino romano and chopped basil.

We’re all anxious to try new and excited pizza toppings and techniques so feel free to share some interesting combos with us!

Corned Beef and cabbage is thought to be a poor man’s meal, but that is not the case if you’re buying your cut of meat at whole foods.  Luckily we had all the other ingredients on hand so it wasn’t too bad splurging on a nice cut of beef.  At the meat counter Mo and I were somehow coerced into buying the biggest slab of corned beef they had to offer.  We had to hurry home to start cooking the 6 pounds of beef so we wouldn’t be eating our meal at midnight.

The weather in the Boston area was beautiful on St Patty’s day so we all took advantage of the much needed sunshine by drinking beers and listening to tunes  on the back porch while the corned beef boiled away.  The hardest part to this meal was peeling the pearl onions, besides that this was one of the easiest dinners I’ve made to feed a crowd of about 10.  We followed this recipe and used cabbage, carrots, pearl onions and potatoes as our vegetables.  As if 6 pounds of beef and a mountain of root vegetables weren’t enough food, we made a side of braised turnips and a giant green salad.

Mo Taking out the Beef

The corned beef came out delicious- i was excited to see that it was a normal beef color and not that bright pink shade common among the cuts that are pre-packaged and jacked up with preservatives.

Matt loading up on veggies

After polishing off all the beef and root veggies we found ourselves entering a food coma.  To fight off our feelings of lethargy, we mixed up some whiskey and baileys shooters which gave us much needed energy and filled the void of not making a dessert.