Chilled Grilled Pesto Shrimp with Stone Fruit Salsa

Just when you thought I had fallen down a well, I give you...

Chilled Grilled Pesto Shrimp with Stone Fruit Salsa 

Start with the Salsa

The beauty of this is that since it is Stone Fruit Salsa, you can use whatever fruits are ripest at the store.  The only requirement is that it has a pit! 

For this batch we used:

1 large peach

2-3 plums

1 mango

Peel, pit, dice, throw them in the bowl.

Add:

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp raspberry vinegar

8-10 fresh basil leaves torn or rough chop

Mix well, cover, and put in the fridge.

For the Shrimp

1 ounce raspberry vinegar

1/2 cup olive oil

1 plum (pitted and rough chopped)

15 basil leaves

Pinch of salt

Dash of pepper

Throw everything in the blender and blend well.

Pour into a large ziploc and add:

2-3 pounds Raw U-15 Shrimp (peeled, deveined, tail on)

Marinade 1 hour in the fridge.

Remove shrimp from marinade and grill.

(approximately 2-3 min each side)

Put them back in the fridge.

Just before serving place salsa in a bowl and decoratively arrange shrimp.

Graciously accept applause.

Charlie's Infamous Grilled Peaches

This is one of the easiest things I make, and yet it never fails to garner ooh's and ah's of appreciation.  It makes a fabulous alternative dessert, or my personal favorite, as a side dish when grilling steak.  They take a mere matter of minutes to make, so you can throw them on while the steaks are resting.  Add a tossed green salad, and some crusty bread...

Ingredients: 

Peaches (You don't want them too ripe.  Still slightly firm is better for grilling)

Goat Cheese

Honey

Balsamic Vinegar

In a small sauce pan on the stove pour 1/3 cup Balsamic Vinegar.  Cook over low heat until reduced by half.  I usually put this on the stove while I am prepping the salad that night.  That way I can keep an eye on it...not that you really need to...it is pretty hard to screw up... I just like to!

Preheat the grill.  (You can skip this step if you were just grilling steaks!)

Slice the peaches in half.  Place them on a pan and spray both sides with cooking spray.  Head out to the grill, and spray it with cooking spray also.  Place peaches on the grill, cut side up.  You are going to grill them a couple of minutes on each side.  It varies a little based on the ripeness of your peaches, but 2-3 minutes per side is a good estimate.

When you are done they look like this!  This time the blurriness can't be blamed on my crappy camera.  That's steam baby!

Bring the peaches in from the grill, and fill the center of each peach with a scoop of goat cheese.

Drizzle the top with honey.

Pour your balsamic reduction into a small pitcher and drizzle that over the top as well.  Use about half as much balsamic as honey.  You don't want it to overpower your peaches!

I promise you, people will LOVE these.  Positively divine! 

Pop the Prosecco!  Dinner is served!

Time to find a new Farmer's Market

So remember when I started this new, Fresh Food Wednesday item for my blog?  Remember how excited, and nerdy I was?  Remember how I promised you amazing, fresh recipes from the ingredients that I bought at the Farmer's Market on Tuesday?  Well, that was before I realized that our local Farmer's Market carries the exact same items each week. 

In their defense, it is a small market.  But this is week 3 of our attendence and there hasn't been one new fruit, vegetable, animal, or mineral to be found! 

So in this weeks addition of Fresh Food Wednesday I have two things to offer you.

1.  How to spoil your dinner.

Vanilla Quark

I know I already featured the Garlic Quark, but the Vanilla takes it to a whole new level.  There are pieces of fresh vanilla beans in the quark.    It is like a smoother version of ricotta.  Almost like a creamy goat, but without the bite.  We went through 2lbs of strawberries and a tub of Spring Hill Vanilla Quark while I was making dinner.  I am pretty sure it was better than whatever I made (Especially since I can't remember what that was.).  If you don't live near a farmers market that carries Spring Hill Cheese, you can buy it on their website: http://www.springhillcheese.com/. 

2.  We are trying a new Farmer's Market on Saturday morning.  Which means I hope to have new fun things for you next Wednesday!

Until then...eat cheese!

Towandaaaaaa!

This episode of Fresh Food Wednesday is brought to you by one of my all time favorite movies: Fried Green Tomatoes.  Why?  "I'm older, and I've got more insurance!"

BLfgT Sandwiches
"That frying pan did more than fry tomatoes that night."

Ingredients purchased at The Farmers Market
Green Heirloom Tomatoes
Mixed Greens
Spring Hill Garlic Quark Cheese (You can buy it through their website.  Don't say I never did anything nice for you!)

From the Grocery
Bacon, Sourdough bread

From the Pantry
Flour, Eggbeaters, Breadcrumbs, Salt, Pepper, Cooking Oil

 Slice the tomatoes into nice, thick slices. 

Arrange three bowls.  The first bowl has flour (salt and pepper to season).  The second bowl has Eggbeaters (you can substitute 3 beaten egg with 1/4 cup of milk).  The third bowl has bread crumbs.  Put a tomato slice in the flour bowl, turn to coat.  Then put the same tomato into the eggbeaters, turn to coat.  Finally the breadcrumbs, turn to coat.

While you are preparing the tomatoes, heat 1/4 inch of oil over medium heat in a large skillet.  Fry the tomatoes on both sides.

Toast the sourdough bread slices.  Spread one side with Garlic Quark Cheese.  Holy Cow is that good cheese.  I mean come to mama, oh heck no, I won't share, good cheese!  On the other side place your mixed greens.

 Stack the tomatoes on the greens, top with bacon, and cover with the quark coated slice!

"Oh, what I wouldn't give for a plate of fried green tomatoes like we used to have at the cafe. Ooh!"

Serve with sides of your choice.  I suggest oven roasted french fries with garlic and parmessan cheese.

My mouth is watering just talking about it.

Oh, and the wine?  Trefethen Riesling. 
You will have to wait until Friday for the details though...

Fresh Food Wednesday

I am introducing a new feature on my blog: Fresh Food Wednesday.  We have been meaning to get to the local farmers market since we moved here.  We finally got our acts together yesterday.  Holy Cow was it amazing.  It was small in scale, but the produce was gorgeous.

The idea for the feature comes from today's trip.  Tim and I are big nerds.  Food nerds, that is.  Tim is a chef by trade, and I worked in hotels and restaurants my entire life.  We love eating and cooking good food.  This is important because you will think I am incredibly nerdy when you read our idea...

Challenge:  Dinner Tuesday night comes from the farmers market.  All items, other than meat, or pantry staples must be purchased at the market.  Menu planning may not be done in advance.  You must create from what you find!

I warned you we were food geeks!  But it sounds awesome, right?!

We purchased:  Beets, Organic mixed greens, Valencia oranges, lemons, farm cheese, and pluots.  No we didn't make anything with the pluots, but the Goose really wanted them! 

We stopped at a local market on the way home and picked up Red Snapper to go with our farmer's market finds.

Dinner?  Mixed greens with beets, oranges and farm cheese tossed with citrus vinaigrette and panfried snapper with citrus buerre blanc

The prep:

For the beurre blanc: slice 1 shallot and put in a small pot.  Add 1/4 cup juice.  I used half of an orange and half of a lemon for the juice.  Add 1/4 cup white wine.  Cook over low heat until reduced by half.  (you can work on other prep while it does this.  It takes some time.)  Add 2 tbsp of heavy cream.  Stir and simmer until thickened.  Add  1 stick of butter, cubed and very cold.  Remove pan from heat.  Whisk until butter is melted.  Strain to remove shallots.

Boil the beets until tender.  Run under cold water and sluff off the skins with your fingers.  The skins come off quite easily.  Wear gloves if you don't want to have purple fingers!  Chop and set aside.

Supreme the oranges and set aside.  Oh, if supreme is a term you are unfamiliar with, it basically means to section the orange.  There is a really easy way to do it, but that is for another post!

Wash greens and set aside.

Take the juice of one orange and one lemon and place in a tall mixing glass with olive oil, some roughly chopped basil leaves and a little bit of white wine vinegar.  Mix the bageezus out of it.  I like to use a stick blender.  If you haven't ever used one, buy one.  They are great for salad dressings, smoothies, sauces, and my personal favorite, soup.  It is definitely $26 well spent!  Buy it here.

Toss the greens in the dressing, top with beets, oranges and crumbled farm cheese. 

For the snapper.  Season with kosher salt and cracked black pepper.  Heat your skillet for a minute or 2 on high.  Add olive oil and let that heat a moment too.  Put the snapper in the skillet and lightly fry on both sides.

Top with Beurre Blanc.

Simple and delcious! 

Enjoy! 

A quick tribute to my husband, who actually cooked this dinner.  I just licked my plate at the end.

Thanks Honey!