Bacon-wrapped stuffed pork tenderloin

This was our very special dish at new year's eve dinner table last night! Served with blanched baby bok choy and a creamy yellow-squash and cauliflower casserole - wow, a very rich indulgence that we followed with a smooth Cabernet Sauvignon, holiday cookies and dark chocolate truffles.

Please click on the blog title for full recipe! Bonne nouvelle annee! Wishing you all a very happy healthy tasty new year with all the blessings and dressings from the house of Kouds and Verna!

The Pong-Crack of the Right Watermelon

I’m a few days early, but let’s call it a pre-celebration in anticipation of July as National Watermelon Month! Yes, folks, it’s official: http://www.nationalwatermelonassociation.com/july_designated.php

Now, back to a true queen of summer fruits. Last weekend while shopping at my new favorite Kroger on Broadway near Fountain City, I decided to knock on a few inviting watermelons of regional descent (I believe they are Kentucky-born). I come from a long line of watermelon eaters, and this rounded green vessel of high pink juices is a favorite summer indulgence in Greece and a dear childhood memory. Remember holding the slice as big as your head, crouching down in the grass with elbows rested on knees? Recall biting into the monster burst of crunchy, juicy sweetness, the watermelon crying down your arms, past your legs and onto the ground? The spontaneous seed-spitting contests with brothers, sisters, cousins, neighborhood friends? I do! Our yia-yiá used watermelon to calm us and hush the air during afternoon siesta times, but we simply loved the cold treat and savored every bite that filled our bellies.

When selecting a ripe watermelon, I usually knock on a few to test the sound they call back to me and look for an outer flatter, lighter cream-colored area surrounded by green on the rind. The sound you hear should be deep and round like a standing West African drum, and the shape of and coloring on the rind tells you she’s been lying in the patch a good long time and wasn’t picked too early! I moved several watermelons around in the cardboard bin and found the one that satisfied my search criteria. I carted her home and refrigerated immediately. After about two days in the fridge, this watermelon was perfectly chilled and ready for serving.

When you cut ripe watermelon, it should crack open almost on its own once you have inserted a larger knife either length- or widthwise. You smell the perfume of the fruit hit your nose almost instantly, and the deep pink flesh becomes exposed. Rustic cuts are best in my book because I like to hold my watermelon with rind and relive the youthfulness of the flavor! This first treat in our house proved perfectly sweet – this time, seedless – and most fragrant. So go get your tongues wet in preparation for the prize of summer harvests and cry out for watermelon, whether at your area farmers markets or supermarkets – get your watermelon on, y’all!
Oh,…and if you’d like to grace the queen with class, try this recipe for minted watermelon popsicles that will bring your summer grill party to a whole new level:

[taken from Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2010, pp. 292-3; also available online at http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/minted-watermelon-popsicles - Joy Manning’s recipe follows:]
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds seedless watermelon without the rind, cut into 1-inch dice (about 4 cups)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup mint leaves, minced
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
Pinch of salt

Directions
In a blender, puree the watermelon with the sugar until smooth. Stir in the mint, lemon zest and salt. Pour the puree into 8 popsicle molds or 2 standard ice cube trays (insert popsicle or kabob sticks halfway through freezing) and freeze until hard, about 3 hours.
Serves 8

Make Ahead
The watermelon popsicles can be made ahead and frozen for up to 1 week!

I Chooose Pie!...Blueberry, girls and boys, mmm...

Koudou's favorite, my friends. Try it out and let us know how your belly decides... it's all in the two sticks of buttAH and ripe fresh blueberries. Enjoy!

http://knoxify.com/knoxville-blueberry-orchards-i-chooose-pie/

Stuffed Mediterranean Squash with Avgolemono and Pantzaria!

After a long, hard beauty sleep and many moons in continuing food experiments, I'm trying the foodlover writing in cyberworld, folks...check it out, hope you enjoy!

http://knoxify.com/a-trip-to-new-harvest-farmers-market-yields-two-recipes/

Tomato

They speak for themselves. Every one a blessing in the belly all summer long. Happy Birthday, Grandma Irena!

Yet another Tzatziki Recipe!

...I know, there are as many tzatziki recipes - in the kitchen, in your cookbooks, in your family's culinary treasures, online - as you can imagine, yes? And now I offer one more to the mix, Vera's Tzatziki, oh yes...

Tzatzíki (Greek cucumber-yogurt salad)

Ingredients

2 32-oz. containers plain yogurt, strained
1 cucumber, preferably English hothouse (peeled, seeded and cubed to 1/4-inch thickness or grated)
3-4 cloves garlic (peeled and crushed)
2 T. extra virgin olive oil, plus 1 tsp for garnish
salt and pepper to taste
1 oz. fresh dill, finely chopped (optional)


Directions

1. If you can’t find strained yogurt at a local grocery or specialty store, line a medium size mesh strainer with cheesecloth (doubled), add yogurt and cover; strain over a larger bowl or pot for at least 3 hours, draining juice if needed to maintain enough space for juices to strain freely. Note: Danon brand plain yogurt is a jewel and available at your local supermarket!

2. Mix all ingredients in a non-reactive medium mixing bowl. Place several layers of paper towel on top. Change paper towels 1-2 times while chilling in refrigerator overnight (at least 6 hours).

Serves 8-12.
Recommended with roasted salads, fried vegetables (e.g. eggplant or zucchini) and warm crusty bread (e.g. baguette, any rustic loaf). Tzatziki is an excellent companion to Moussaka and Spanakopita. Our friend Katie eats it with her chicken salad sandwiches and "Cool Ranch" Doritos, sometimes even just with a spoon...or her fingers! And our habibti Abeer loves it with extra olive oil as a dressing for her monster salads chockfulla greens, cilantro and other colorful fresh veggies, mmm mm good!

Mama Conners's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies...with Bacon!

Chocolate chip oatmeal cookie, I love you. I love you so much that I kissed you with bacon and golden raisins. Crunch and Melt in our mouths, Koudou eats at least two, three, sometimes even four cookies every day... the recipe makes several dozen. Mama Conners, mama of my dear friend, Brian, was feeding several children. I believe that they all grew big and strong from these cookies! I dream of making these cookies for my baby/ies someday, too.
Brian and I printed this recipe in a dingy little computer lab at the University of Bonn, Germany, way back in 1994. We longed for these cookies, and his mama emailed us the goods... so now I sit here with this frail little piece of old computer reel paper, folded, oily and having traveled across the big pond with us when we moved back to the States. I cherish you, my dear little note.

And now, to the golden nugget, to be held with love and visited often in your ovens, on your kitchen tables, in the bellies of those you love and those you don't!

4.5 c sifted flour
3 tsp baking soda
3 tsp salt
3 c shortening (2 sticks unsalted butter)
1.5 c refined sugar
2 c brown sugar
6 eggs, unbeaten
1 Tbl hot water
24 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
6 c rolled oats
1 Tbl vanilla extract
1 c (or more) raisins (optional)
1 c chopped nuts (optional)
1 c (approx. 8 pcs.) crumbled bacon of your choice (optional)...Smithfield rocks!

Preheat oven to 350 Fahrenheit. In mixing bowl, sift flour, add baking soda and salt. Blend thoroughly. In separate bowl, cream fat until fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla extract and cream well. Beat in eggs, add hot water. Fold in sifted (dry) ingedients. Add chocolate chips, rolled oats, raisins and bacon and mix well. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Allow to cool or not! Enjoy!
Cookies remain crisp in air tight container depending on season. Excellent with a glass of milk or deliciously strong cup of coffee!

Thank you, Mama Conners!

I love bright yellow cornbread

my very first cornbread...EVER. it was an exercise in connecting with my EasternKentuckySkaggs self, and ohso tasty! valentine's day, last saturday, i decided to "bring Cracker Barrel home" and cooked up a big southern food storm in our kitchen. for koudou, mama and me. i wanted a cornbread that was moist but crisp and crumbly all at once. i had a little baggie of Martha White brand yellow cornmeal mix (hot rize). I looked on the side at her "Tex-Mex Cornbread" recipe and decided I would base my batch on her inspiration...

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups hot rize cornmeal mix

1 15 oz. can creamed corn

1 cup milk (I used buttermilk)

4 T canola oil

1/2 t sugar

1/2 cup shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese

a pinch of salt and smoked spanish paprika

baked her at 425F in mama jo ann's well-greased 9-in. skillet, approximately 30 minutes or so until golden cracked on top. Cooled her down and enjoyed with mama's fried chicken, homesmashed buttermilk taters w/ mushroom brown gravy. fresh cabbage-carrot salad and my slow-cooked shell beans/field peas/yellow squash. damn, that was good!

Octopus Oktapodi Tintenfisch Krake

give me octopus anyday. aegean octopus. caught by baba yianni, lingering briefly in a plastic shopping bag with seawater, eventually tenderized with forty beatings on a nearby rock formation, rubbed, frothed and beaten again. grilled, boiled, stifado (stewed with onion). we children would sit on the beach, sand literally "everywhere," meaning in our ears, noseholes, on eyelashes, skin, bumcrevice, you name it... stickysaltysweaty sand. we played with the lingering octopi in the plastic seawater bags, watched them cling to us with hundreds of tentacle-hickies on our arms. i wonder now if they tasted the salt and sand on us, desperately attaching to what they believed was a step back into home... we screeched and giggled at their stickiness, watching baba prepare their finicky flesh for our meal out next to the water. i remember that was the summer i was wearing my all-time favorite (yes, to this day...) swimsuit, a bright blue onesie adidas, white strips up the sides, burned shoulders and slowly sunbleaching long hair, skinny little swissgreekamerican girl. i wasn't even interested in food at the time, but octopus and fresh figs somehow rest happy in my mind. climbing fig trees on thassos... but i digress, we'll leave the figs for another time,... and the fish that the sea caught for me in my lost and tossed fishing line wound around a little cork board...

ode to an octopus

sticky salty

long and clingy

regal in the sea

loving living under

between behind the rocks

frothy kissy hicky clingy

tender meaty lemon

olive vinegar oniony

m m m!

Dreaming of Oysters...Mussels, Clams

my baba and i share a love for fresh oysters. i'm thinking about clams, mussels, scallops. smoked oysters, too.

i've been surfing around for inspirations for flavor combinations and came upon a few with oysters and other shell critters this evening.

in november last year, i was visiting a dear friend. we ate at carrabba's, feeling like a meze night, so we ordered a variety of 'appetizers.' among them steamed mussels in a special, garlicky pernod basil sauce. it was a defining moment of culinary divinity, and i never trusted that such an experience might happen at a chain restaurant. a generous reminder that awe-inspiring food living is found everywhere, anywhere, any time! mussels, plump with their soft seafulness. swimming in a sauce that only commanded us to sponge her up with hot crusty bread that evening!

...i'm adding on...tuesday night, a farewell dinner with aunt sue before she heads back down to florida. she, mama and i had lusted after a creamy green-with-parsley clam linguine all the way home on our drive back from baltimore to visit grandma and family. so that's exactly what we did last night! mama and i first made and froze two dozen fat crabcakes (recipe off old bay seasoning tin and some flourish) and then made a creamy white sauce for the clam and chopped fragrant fresh parsley. linguine al dente. serve her up with extra fresh parsley and grated parmesan. belly pleaser, grazie!

clams, mussels, oysters, maryland blue crabs. thank you, salty mama natura!

Pimenton de la Vera

mama introduced me to this burst of red smokiness, both sweet and spicy-hot versions. she's in love with it, too. brought it back from spain a few years ago when she and baba were traveling through. it's precious like saffron, in my heart, at least. rich, deep, dark red. delcious seasoning for eggs. sometimes, i add a few sprinkles to sizzling and sauteeing onions, garlic, soy sauce and green beans, mmmmm.

pimenton de la vera might marry nicely with saffron itself in a rich creamy saffron sauce or soup. or rubbed into a nice thick ribeye with some coarse kosher salt and freshly ground pink or green peppercorn, grilled. asparagus as accompaniment, mmm.

spicy hot or mild, the smoke in its essence is so precious.

interesting site of further insight:
http://www.fiery-foods.com/Dave/pimenton.html

salt sel alati salz sal

i ate a smoky, crispy, fatty, salty piece of bacon this morning at work. i work in a local restaurant kitchen. the cuisine is self-defined as new south latino fusion. so tasty. i'm welcoming new flavor combinations, learning to enhance, enrich my cooking techniques, working with commercial kitchen equipment again, growing and playing with food.
back to the bacon. i can't remember the farm it came from, but it was *salty*. i could only eat a very small pinch, even as analati! i lifted it off of the parchment paper saturated in grease after having been baked on a half sheet pan. biting into perfectly crispy pork fat, allowing it to melt against the heat of my mouth, then on to the meat of the piece, chewy, salty. my nose taking in the heavy hickory smoke - so strong, my eyes stung - permeating the air in the kitchen and joining my multi sensory enjoyment of this morsel.
this and my perusing the book entitled SALT, given to me by my mama on greek easter last weekend, have inspired me to blurb about salt. my love affair with salt is a long one. i am exhausted as i write, but i promise to return with more, perhaps even dream about it to share later.
in the meantime, let me leave you with a story i stumbled upon earlier this evening on the web...

...from blog: http://mandalamadness.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html -- "There was a child made all of salt who very much wanted to know where he had come from. So he set out on a long journey and traveled to many lands in pursuit of this understanding. Finally he came to the shore of a great ocean. How marvelous, he cried, and stuck one foot in the water. The ocean beckoned him in further saying, "If you wish to know who you are, do not be afraid." The salt child walked further and further into the water dissolving with each step, and at the end exclaimed, "Ah, now I know who I am." ~ancient teaching story"

i'm back. i ask myself when it was that i became aware of salt. when i think of salt, when i smell it, taste it, i think of the sea, of my yia-yia. is it strange that i relish the salt that coats my skin after i've been swimming in salty waters, sometimes even lick my forearm or suck on a few strands of my hair? i like its grit, how it pools in dryness on my skin, gritty flowing waves of salt on me.
my interest in any food, herb or spice, any flavoring, really only began in the summer of 1982 when my parents sent me to greece for several months to live with family and attend Greek public school for personal and linguistic development. ( well, there was the event of the lonely iceberg lettuce and a little shaker of Knorr Aromat seasoning, which was the advent of my cooking life...more to that another time) i was a stick-skinny little swiss girl with long hair in spring. by the end of summer, an intense haircut, the advent of puberty and many luscious meals later, i curved out into a plumper little greek girlwoman, shorter-haired version of me. to the meals...

egg avgo ei oeuf

truly incredible and edible. i love an egg. yia-yia vera ate one every day, preferably dikroko (twin yolk) from the chicken farmer down the street and up the hill in retziki. (sometimes, she would send us to him to get eggs. we would tell him they were for kiria vera, and he always showered us with twin yolks!) we weren't going to go play and roam around retziki in our neighborhood child pack if we didn't eat our boiled egg, nou-nou milk and crusty bread with butter and honey every morning. yia-yia made a mountain of quince preserves every summer for us. she spread it on our thick morning slices of bread and filled homemade pastaflora cakes with it. i want to try quince preserves again soon. i cannot remember what it tastes like, and i don't understand why it's memory is unavailable to me.
yia-yia boiled her sheep's milk, poured it into a clear water glass and allowed it to cool until a skin had formed. as a child, i was revolted by the milk skin. now i crave it, seek it out. sheep's milk, an egg, and forever lots of salt. the sheep herder lived up the hill behind yia-yia's house. we visited him, too. it was at the end of a day, they were milking the sheep, he and his son. pouring it into the classic aluminum container. alexia was maybe 6 years old. she drank it straight out of the trough, foamy, creamy, unpasteurized hot milk. can you smell it? summer's intensity enveloped in this special nectar, grass, sun, Greek heat.

yia yia told mama once that there are people who are analati, without salt. they need more than the average salt-eating person. i believe i'm one of those analati, i really do enjoy salt. perhaps not to the extent yia-yia did. she would pour it in waves onto her eggs. her meals were an entire morning and part of the afternoon in the making, every one of them divine, a gift from the universe. every one a story. i digress. more to so much more soon.