I’ll be doing some cookin’ in the kitchen later today, but no new recipes this morning. I still have plenty of recipes to post from my own collection, but I don’t have photos of them – – yet. Therefore, since it’s high season here for tomatoes, I’ll give you the low-down on them, with all the info coming from the book How to Pick a Peach, by Russ Parsons. This particular chapter has more chemistry-related content than most others I’ve shared with you. It may be a bit more scientific, but I found it very interesting.

What I Learned About Tomatoes

• Tomato flavor or lack thereof, is one of the biggest complaints in the produce world.
• Scientists who study flavor chemistry have identified more than 400 compounds that go into the taste of a ripe tomato. And more than 30 of those are regarded as essential (as low as one part per million). The human nose can detect some odors/flavors in parts per trillion. [Now that’s a statistic we foodies need to remember. Really.]
• Here are the four compounds found in greatest concentration in tomatoes: Z-3 hexenal – a fresh green fragrance (like cut grass); Beta-damascenone – generally described as fruity and sweet; Beta-ionone – fruity and woody; 3-methylbutanal – nutty-cocoa facets (it’s happens to be in Parmesan cheese)
• Flavor compounds present in a whole tomato change when the tomato is altered (cut).
• When a tomato turns from green to red, it’s caused by the development of coloring chemicals called carotenoids, which have flavor-causing chemicals attached to them.
• As a tomato ripens, the amount of sugars build
• As a tomato ripens, the acids change, from malic to citric
• As a tomato ripens, a whole host of aromatic chemical compounds are formed: hexanal (winey), alanine and leucine (meaty), and valine (fruity. Furaneol (pineapple aroma) is also created.
• Tomatoes can be picked green and will continue to ripen, especially if exposed to ethylene gas (that’s what nearly all tomato producers do).
• Even vine-ripened tomatoes (that we consumers pay a premium to buy) are picked at a stage that most of us would consider green, when only the very first traces of a tan, yellow or pink blush appear on the tomato’s base.
• The biggest challenge with tomatoes is to produce a fragile, temperamental product on an industrial scale. The same problem exists for nearly every agricultural producer.
• Unfortunately, taste has been the least of anyone’s concern in the industrial side of the business, and as a result, breeders have developed tomato strains that resist all manner of cankers and wilts and very little on flavor.
• Temperatures below 60 degrees F reduce the aroma-creating volatiles in the fruit.
• If you ever go to a grocery store and see tomatoes are being refrigerated, don’t buy them. (Industry experts are still trying to educate grocery stores in proper storage, and it’s not in the cooler.)
• Eighteen states grow tomatoes here in the U.S., with California and Florida leading the parade. But, a third of all sold here come from overseas (Mexico, Canada and the Netherlands primarily).

How to Choose and Store Tomatoes:

• Avoid tomatoes with any flaws – nicks, dents or cuts.
• Choose tomatoes that are heavy for their size.
• Other than looking at the color (more red than green) disregard color unless you’re going to eat it immediately.
• Over-ripeness can be just as much trouble as under-ripe. Over-ripe tomatoes are mealy with off flavors.
• Trust your nose.
• Do not EVER put a tomato in the refrigerator – it’ll kill flavor faster than anything.
• Do not store tomatoes in direct light.

Russ Parsons’ Favorite Simple Dish: Dice seeded (cut a tomato in half and squeeze gently to remove most seeds), unpeeled tomatoes as finely as you can. Dress them with a little olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Taste them, and if they need a little red wine vinegar, add that. Place a log of fresh goat cheese on a plate and spoon the tomatoes around it. Parsons says “you may never go back to tomatoes and fresh mozzarella.”

The book also included recipes for an Heirloom Tomato Tart, Golden Tomato Soup with Fennel, and Seared Scallops with Tomato Butter.

When I did a search within my own recipe collection posted here at TastingSpoons, my list was huge. But tomatoes may have played a very minor part of most of those recipes. Here are the ones where they played a starring role, or contribute some significant flavor: sorry to harp on the combination of watermelon and tomatoes, but here are the two I’ve posted about that, watermelon and tomato salad, and watermelon and Feta salad. Then there’s my favorite BLT Salad, Strawberry Gazpacho, Pasta ala Puttanesca, Bacon & Tomato Dunk (an appetizer), Creamy Tomato Soup (from canned tomatoes), Siciliana Sauce, and Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce.

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It was written up on somebody else’s blog – this Wordle thing. I’m fascinated with fonts (comes from my background in the ad agency biz), colors, layouts. So this website, Wordle, is right up my alley. I just typed into a window a bunch of words relating to food. I had to upgrade to the latest version of Java to do this, however. Then you click GO and up came this beautiful image using my words. You can submit paragraphs of words from your blog, or something else for that matter, and it creates it for you. (So, you have a passion for fencing, for instance, create one using all the words about fencing. Cool.) Then you can tweak it – with different color schemes, or your own, and you can re-do the screen. I took a screen shot, converted it to a jpg format, then downsized it using Picnik, and uploaded it to here. What fun. You may see a few of these now and then when I don’t have a recipe to post.

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At Costco the other day I purchased a small boneless Australian leg of lamb. I don’t buy them very often because even the small ones are simply too much meat for us to use. And I like to prepare them whole – not cut it in half with freezing part of it (because I think the frozen pieces never are as good as the freshly prepared ones). So I have to be creative in using the leftovers. And we generally invite somebody over for dinner when we fix it. Our son, his wife, and our young year-old grandson joined us this time. I wasn’t motivated enough to make a salsa or sauce this time, but opted to serve it simply, as is. But I did serve it with the watermelon tomato salad, the BBQ macaroni (pasta) salad, and some grilled pineapple (see below).

First I brined it. The experts say red meat (beef and lamb) doesn’t require brining, but I thought it would be a good thing to help retain moisture. I used a spicy herb brine mix that I buy from Whole Foods. As a side note, I use a whole lot less of the salt mixture than the jar indicates (if I used their proportions I’d use up the mixture in about 3 brinings. And if you’re not sure how salty to make it, add some salt to whatever quantity of water you think you need to cover the meat, then TASTE IT. If it’s mildly salty, that’s perfect. Very salty – add more water. You want it to be pleasantly salty. If you can’t really taste the salt, add a bit more.) I’m very sensitive to salt, so I prefer a mildly salt brine, but it’s completely up to your palate.

I let it marinate (turning it several times) for about 4-5 hours, drained it, then Dave threaded it onto the rotisserie probe. The roast was covered in one of those elastic mesh thingies – that held firm all through the grilling process. Because the brine was already spiced, I opted not to use the lemon marinade from the recipe (below) I referred to (Rotisseried Leg of Lamb with Lemon and Butter, from Steven Raichlen’s book, The Barbecue Bible). The recipe includes, though, a basting mixture of oil, lemon juice, white wine (I used just lemon juice), garlic, oregano and pepper, which Dave slathered on the meat every 15 minutes of its grilling. The recipe indicates to grill until the meat reaches 170 F. That’s way too long if you like red-hued meat. We took it off the grill at 140 F, and let it sit. It was still blood rare, so I might opt to cook it just a tad longer (like 145 F). We let it sit loosely covered with foil for 5 minutes (should have been 10) before carving and serving. It was delicious.

As with most legs of lamb, some parts of the meat are more tender than others, but it was cooked very nicely, and I liked the flavor. The combination of the lamb with grilled pineapple was really great.

THE GRILLED PINEAPPLE: We sliced the peeled pineapple in full rounds about ¾ inch thick and grilled just long enough on each side to get lovely grill marks and be hot throughout. If you’ve never had grilled pineapple, may I nicely tell you – NOW – get yourself to a market with good-quality, ripe pineapples and buy one. It’s one of the simplest sides (or dessert with vanilla ice cream if you’re so inclined) that you’ll ever make. I mean – you cut off the skins, remove most of the eyes, slice and grill. If you do it for dessert, maybe put a tiny amount of brown sugar on one side. Either way, the pineapple gets this unctuous caramelized appearance AND caramel flavor. Not to be missed.

As for the lamb: Now we’ll see what I can concoct for the leftovers. Any of you have favorites? My first go-to would be shepherd’s pie, but it’s awfully hot weather for that. So, we’ll see what I can invent this time.
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It was last summer that one of my cooking magazines arrived with a cover  photo of a watermelon and tomato salad. At the time my face must have squeezed up funny-like, thinking yuk, why would anyone combine the sweet of watermelon and the savory pucker of a tomato. Well, I stand corrected. Big time. It’s a match made in heaven, especially if you have ripe tomatoes. Flavorful full-of-summer tomatoes and ripe, sweet watermelon. And likely  you’ve encountered this salad if you’ve eaten in any leading edge or avante-garde restaurants. Dave ordered it recently at one restaurant. I tasted it and agreed it was sensational.

A couple of months ago my friend Kathleen served us a watermelon and Feta salad, which I liked ever so much. It was simply dressed with Feta and mint. I’ve made it a couple of times this summer and enjoyed it hugely. So I guess you could say that I’ve discovered the culinary big deal about watermelon. I can’t eat a whole lot of watermelon – because of the high water content, it fills me up so, so fast. So I never serve it as a dessert because generally I’m too full for that much additional fluid in my already sated stomach. But as a side dish with a meal, it’s fine.

Therefore, when I purchased the September, 2008 issue of Saveur (a magazine to which I do not subscribe), with a photo of watermelon on the cover, I thought ah-ha, maybe there will be some other variations on the watermelon and tomato theme. Sure enough there were. The issue contained a few other watermelon concoctions: Watermelon, Feta and (Kalamata) Olive Salad, Russian Pickled Watermelon, a Watermelon Curry (believe it or not, an Indian hot dish served with rice) and a Watermelon Pudding (a Sicilian specialty). I’ve earmarked the pudding to try (very low calorie). And it did contain a salad of watermelon and tomato chunks, with red onion and a vinaigrette dressing. That intrigued me. I did alter the recipe some, so it’s more of a Carolyn recipe, but still this recipe was the inspiration.

The salad is incredibly easy. You shave up the red onion slices and marinate them in champagne vinegar and sugar (Splenda) with a little cayenne added. That wants to sit for about 30 minutes to lessen the bite of the onion. Meanwhile, you cut up the watermelon and tomatoes, the mint and Feta (not in the Saveur recipe,  but I added it because I like the watermelon-Feta combination). Once you toss everything together, then you add a splash of basil oil (my substitution) or olive oil, along with some cracked black pepper. The original recipe called for salt, but I didn’t think it was necessary. The Saveur recipe also suggested basil (although I had some in my garden, I decided to use some infused homemade basil oil my friend Lucy gave me last summer). But if you’d prefer the olive oil, add fresh basil to the salad as well. I just used a whole lot more mint, because I like the combination of mint and watermelon.

The onions retain their crunch (a great texture in the salad since the watermelon and tomatoes are soft), but they lose their bite with the vinegar soak, and the vinaigrette just adds a great smoothness to the entire dish. I l-o-v-e-d this salad. The joy of it is that you could easily substitute your own twist – you don’t like mint? Add tarragon. Don’t like Feta? Eliminate it. Or add ricotta salata, which might be more appropriate anyway. Just maintain the tomatoes and the watermelon, and create from there. The salad is edible the next day, but it’s lost a lot of its zing, so ideally make just enough to eat at that first meal.
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When I saw this recipe title my head tilted sideways and a big question mark floated skyward out of my ear. No, you don’t barbecue the salad. Who whooda thunk of putting barbecue sauce in a pasta salad, I ask you? The recipe came into my inbox from Cook’s Illustrated (I get an email epistle from them regularly) and this recipe was in the list, but credited to Cook’s Country, a magazine I don’t subscribe to. It sounded so incongruous I had to go investigate the recipe further.

Pasta is something we severely limit around here, and not because we don’t like it. But when I read this, it just sounded so different I had to try it. Right off the bat, I didn’t have scallions (used red onion instead) or red bell pepper (used some baby mild mini peppers instead), and I prowled my refrigerator for BBQ sauce and finally found something close (an Ancho Chile Spicy glaze). But hey, necessity is the mother of invention. I wanted to make this salad, and I used what I had on hand. Once  prepared, I dipped my spoon into the bowl and was absolutely wow-ed by the taste. I l-o-v-e-d it. We had it with our dinner and for leftovers a day later. I made a half batch. After two dinners, I added more vegetables to the mixture and prepared a small amount of additional mayo and bbq sauce which the salad needed. The vinegar is an important aspect of this salad – when I added the veggies with the added mayo and BBQ sauce, at first I didn’t add the vinegar. The salad was flat. If you do add more veggies to it, you’ll need more dressing. Also another dash of hot sauce too. Next time I’ll try it with low-fat mayo. With all the flavor in the salad already, it may not need the boost of full-fat mayo.

The dressing is simple: mayo, barbecue sauce, cider vinegar, some spicy hot sauce (I used a Vietnamese one I keep on hand at all times), chili powder, garlic powder, cayenne (actually I omitted this because I used a spicy barbecue sauce) and black pepper (see photo with the pepper dotting the top). The dressing is poured on top of the pasta which is mixed with bell pepper, celery and the onions (scallions). It took about 15 minutes to make, not including the time to heat the pasta water. You could eat it immediately (although it would be warm or room temp), but they recommend letting it chill for 30 minutes or so, but it will keep for a couple of days. Perfecto for a summer barbecue dinner. You will be missing out if you don’t try this one. I’m so excited when somebody finds a way to make something ordinary into something fabulous. Why didn’t I think of that?
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Since I’m giving updates about things in general, I’ll fill you in on two fronts. If you’ve ever had small flea-sized bugs eating your chocolate stash, read on. And I’m finally writing an update to our 7-month saga of our backyard . . .

Bugs

I wrote up on my blog the other day that I’d discovered a LOT of little black bugs dining away on my chocolate in the pantry. Last week I cleaned out many pounds of chocolate (varying kinds from chips, squares, bars, large bars). [Never let it be said that I ran out of some kind of chocolate I needed when the inspiration hit me to bake something!]  It pained me to throw away all that stuff, but I surely wouldn’t eat any of it if these bugs (and a few tiny white worms) were even munching away on the other end of the bar. I know, we consume lots of bug fragments every day with food we eat, but I don’t ever do it intentionally. I made a trip to the Container Store the other day and bought some sealing-type plastic boxes (hopefully they seal well enough to keep these little critters OUT). So today I began cleaning out the shelf the chocolate bin had been living on. Well, let’s just say that my housekeeping skills have been lacking. It’s been 18 months since the kitchen remodel was done, and I hadn’t cleaned those shelves since. And it showed. But what was ON those shelves was not dust particularly, but bug bodies, live bugs (yes, more of them) and all kinds of detritus from said bugs and other bugs. The moths/bugs that thrive on wheat-based food/flours were in evidence too. Dave helped me, finally, when I’d just about exhausted my energy schlepping bottles, cans, boxes, bags of stuff from the pantry to the island. I smashed hundreds of the little black bugs. They’re not hard-shelled, so they squish fairly easily. But I’m quite certain I haven’t gotten them all.

Once Dave started helping me we discovered them – both the flying type and the little black pinheads in lots of places. I threw out nearly all of the remainder of my chocolate (including all the bars of Scharfen Berger chocolate I bought at the factory last year). These were the packages that were on the other side of the pantry that I THOUGHT weren’t affected. Uh, no way. The bugs were all over it. In crevices in the packaging. I’d open a package and they’d be in the folds inside, AND having a smorgasbord on the chocolate itself too. And leaving piles of their poop behind. Then I decided I’d better look into the grain bins I have (just big plastic unlidded boxes I use to house various types of beans and grains). I’d gone through all that stuff a few months ago when I discovered the flying critters in there. Well, they’d gotten desperate for wheat food, and had delved into the imported French lentils, for whatever reason. There were dozens of the flying ones inside a tightly sealed plastic box of polenta cornmeal (perhaps that’s where the critters came IN to my kitchen, since there were a couple hundred in one small container). They weren’t really eating the lentils or the cornmeal I found out, but they liked living in the bags or bin. Then we found them in most of the opened boxes of pasta. They weren’t eating the pasta either, but they’d made nests in the bottom of the boxes. I wasn’t enamored with trying to sift out the detritus, so all that went into the trash too. About the only good thing about this exercise was that I have a bit more room on my pantry shelves now.

The Backyard

I know . . . the back yard looks lovely, doesn’t it? That’s new brick coping around the pool and a new pebble-textured plastering job in the pool itself. But first, backtrack a bit. I think it was in January or February that I mentioned that we were having drainage problems around our house. We live on a hill, as you can see from the photo. If it weren’t for the cloud bank out in the distance you could see the Pacific Ocean about 10 miles out there. I could write several chapters of a book on the stages of drain repairs around here about that. We did get it fixed. We think. Then there is the pool (and separate spa) – we had a couple of run-ins with the county about permits, but eventually paid the piper to get them. All we did was re-plaster our pool and spa and the permits cost us upwards of $2000. In the process they were quick to inform us that if and when we replace a water heater, a permit is required. Or if we replace a single or multiple windows, a permit is required. Or replace a garbage disposal. I mean, a garbage disposal, for heavens’ sake? We were, to say the very least, astounded. [In case you hadn’t heard, our county and our state – California – are in serious financial difficulty . . . we’ve concluded the powers-that-be have decided  homeowners needs to bear a significant brunt of paying up . . . the legislators can’t get a tax increase passed, but they sure can raise fees.] Anyway, back in February we had a bunch of deep holes (shafts) dug around our yard – I think I posted pictures of one of them. We were trying to figure out where water was standing underground. We finally discovered where (just to the left of the pool in the picture above), although we only HOPE the drain repair has rectified it. We won’t know until next winter when the rains come.

So what exactly did we have to do to finish this job? The drains were repaired about 5 months ago. We didn’t have to have a permit to do that! But the pool – we had to install a second drain in the bottom of the pool (a safety code). We had to install a second self-closing gate on the other side of the house. We had to put a new lock on the fence gate at the bottom of our hill. And we had to pay for an inspector to come and look at the work three times (that alone was about $200 per pool – and spa – per visit, since we also get to pay his mileage and the time it takes for him to drive here). We didn’t have to re-fence our property, fortunately.

So about 5-6 weeks ago we thought we were “done” with the pool and spa. Then about a week after the last worker-bees left we noticed our spa was losing water. I won’t belabor it – somehow the skimmer had developed a crack (probably from all the jack hammering that had been done to remove brick coping and the plaster). That cost $1500 to replace. The next day the spa lost 4 inches of water. The worker-bees who had replaced the skimmer had jack hammered one of the Jacuzzi jets, so a hundred or so gallons of water (I guess) had drained into the soil around the spa. There were a number of expletives-deleted words said about then. That got repaired the next day at no charge. We thought THEN we were done. Wrong. Two weeks later we noticed the main pool was losing water. A lot of water. Dave went to the deep hole that’s closest to the main pool and sure enough, there was standing water in the bottom of the hole. We found out the skimmer in THAT pool had developed a crack too. We’ve now had the 2nd skimmer replaced (another $1500 for this one too). We hope, just hope and pray, that we’re now finished. And that we have no more leaks. It’s been nearly 7 months in the process. Meanwhile, our flagpole (the photo from my other post) is still leaning, and probably will continue to do so. We can’t fix that without removing all patio areas, re-grading, compacting and re-constructing. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars for that. We’ll live with a leaning flagpole, thank you. 

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Oh, one more thing – the person who was stealing by blog posts has ceased and desisted – her website no longer contains any content. It’s still there, but it’s empty. Thank goodness and good riddance.

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The blog called What Did You Eat was not one that I happened to follow. Apparently I’d never come across it. But Sher died suddenly, last month, from a heart attack. I read about her death on several other websites . . . from other bloggers who had an online/email friendship with her. Sher’s husband posted a last note, informing everyone about his wife’s death, and thanking people for the friendship shown to her. She was young – well, certainly not of an age when she should have died. Lots of bloggers around the world have done their own tribute to Sher by preparing some of her recipes. They did it on a specific day a few weeks ago. On one of those blogs I read about this coffeecake that she had posted – actually it was another blogger’s recipe, Butta Buns.

The coffeecake sounded perfect for summer. And, the Bible Study guys were coming to our house and I needed a treat for them. This recipe was sitting, front and center, on my cookbook/recipe stand. My DH kindly offered to go buy fresh strawberries for me, and I whipped it up the night before. The coffeecake is delicately flavored. Even though it has cinnamon in it, it’s subdued and I couldn’t even tell it was there. The fellows enjoyed it very much. I halved the recipe, made it in a 9×9 pan and baked it for 30 minutes. Came out perfectly. My question always: would I make it again? Yes, I might. But I might not. Maybe during the height of strawberry season. I might add just a tiny bit more cinnamon, and I’d add some to the topping (or maybe a touch of nutmeg) as well. The recipe said it served 12. I got 9 portions from the 9×9 pan, so it likely could serve 18.
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As I analyzed this recipe, I was trying to figure out what, exactly, made these Turkish. Must be the feta cheese (a staple in the Turkish breakfast menu) and the walnuts. We certainly never had anything like these in our travels in Turkey. But then, we only ate in restaurants, and this likely wouldn’t feature on any dine-out menu. What appealed to me about these was – first – the zucchini. I had some home grown ones in the refrigerator that are a week old and needed to be used. Secondly, they have very little flour in them – the egg provided most of the binding. I wanted to make something that was more vegetables than pancake, and this fit the bill perfectly. Zucchini by and of itself doesn’t have tons of flavor. I guess I’d call it a kind of neutral vegetable, kind of like eggplant. Not like fennel. Or artichokes. Or broccoli.

The recipe came from Bon Appetit (found on Epicurious) magazine, circa 1996. Lots of other people have made these and left comments on the recipe site. Lots of alternate ideas (like using basil and mint instead of dill and tarragon, neither of which I had on hand) and suggestions for serving (with different kinds of salsas and sauces) all of which sounded good. I decorated mine with a tiny dollop of sour cream and a tiny mint leaf that was left on the chopping board. Next time I might try a different cheese (like Parmesan), but that would mean it’s likely not Turkish anymore. I added more feta (per somebody else’s suggestion) but still didn’t taste it in the finished product. I think I want a stronger cheese. Feta is a fairly strong cheese, and salty, but it got lost in the pancakes. So, if you decide to make these, keep that in mind. I still have more zucchini left, so maybe I’ll try these again with my own interpretation.

The finished product? Well, they were good. I won’t call them exceptional – not like the fennel fritters I made last year that knocked my socks off. But these were good. Healthy even. If you used Eggbeaters they’d be even lower in calorie and fat. Next time I’ll play around with the herb mixture – I couldn’t taste the mint or the basil at all. Odd that I couldn’t. I used plenty in the recipe. I particularly like thyme with zucchini, so perhaps I’ll try that instead of the basil. And maybe the tarragon would be good instead of the mint. And definitely I’d change out the cheese. Parmegiano-Reggiano would be my first substitution. But I think children would like this – providing they liked zucchini. We had leftovers of these, and 2 days later I think they tasted better than they did when I made them. I didn’t expect that with a pancake, but then, it’s mostly zucchini, not pancake. So these could easily be made ahead and reheated (I did it in the microwave which worked admirably well).
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I know – this picture doesn’t look like a layered salad. I forgot to take a photo of it in its layered form. This pix was taken the next morning – the leftovers – which we thoroughly enjoyed with our dinner the next day. I took the layered salad to the home of friends – our hostess was serving a rotisseried turkey, so I wanted a side dish salad that wouldn’t overwhelm. I turned to my kitchen library and pulled out this cookbook.

I forget about this cookbook because it’s relatively small. But it’s a treasure of great recipes. I bought it some years back when my DH was really into vegetable and fruit gardening. We ordered a lot of seeds and flowers from Shepherd’s Garden Seeds. The company was sold some while back, but Renee Shepherd subsequently started her own smaller company selling just what she wanted to. You can visit her website, Renee’s Garden Seeds. When it was Shepherd’s, they produced a really lovely catalog, with great descriptions of everything they sold. We ordered some tomato varieties from them that just made headlines at our house (Dona and Carmelo). I also ordered one of Renee’s two cookbooks, Recipes from a Kitchen Garden. And over the years I’ve turned to this cookbook several times for some good veggie recipes.

This salad isn’t anything like the 7-layer one that became so popular about 15 or so years ago – the one with peas on top and then covered with a sweetened mayo dressing? Remember that one? No, this isn’t a THING like it. Except that it’s layered. First you make the easy dressing. It’s just stirred together. Nothing fancy, really, except it’s seasoned with cumin and oregano, and highlighted with lemon juice. You know how I am about lemon juice. I pulled out a small frozen container of my Meyer lemon juice I made about a month ago.

Then you make this thing called a “Seasoning Mixture.” It’s green onions, fresh mint, Kalamata olives and Feta cheese. That combo gets sprinkled on top of every layer of veggies. Interesting, huh? I added copious amounts of mint because I like it. The quantity is up to you, surely.

Then you make the veggie layers themselves. First up (oops, down) is cucumbers. The original recipe called for two cukes (I used the big European type), but I used just one. On went some of the seasoning mixture. Then it was red bell pepper, then more seasoning mixture. And so it went. The tomatoes go on top, then you drizzle the salad with dressing, seal up with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes, or up to a few hours. I decided to enhance the salad with some radicchio, but I didn’t put that on top until the very end (so it wouldn’t wilt), and it didn’t have any dressing on it. No matter – it got plenty when it was served. Because I really enjoy fattoush, the Syrian salad, that has mint and toasted pita in it, I decided to add some toasted pita chips to this layered salad. Ideally, just put enough pita chips on the salad for that salad – they quickly soak up liquid and become soggy if left in the salad. They add a nice crunch, though.

My opinion: this is a sensational salad. It’s not some new taste sensation – I don’t mean it that way. It’s just served in a different style, by mincing up all the layers of veggies, and with the lemon juice dressing. Well, it was just fantastic. I will mention, though, that chopping up all the vegetables took me nearly an hour. Since I wasn’t preparing the whole dinner, I didn’t mind, but if you have any helping hands, this would be a good time to ask for assistance!  It IS best when it’s fresh – the next day it wasn’t quite so good, but then often leftovers aren’t. So my suggestion is to make just enough to consume in one meal, if you can estimate well enough. Otherwise, save the different layers separately (without dressing) and make more the next day. Next time I’ll make it with the all-lemon-juice dressing from my fattoush recipe: 1 small clove garlic, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup lemon juice — or more if preferred, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, and 1 tablespoon zahtar. Hope you enjoy this as much as we did.
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The second night in San Diego – Jayne’s Gastropub

Of the other six restaurants on my list of restaurants to try in San Diego, all looked good. But for whatever reason, I chose Jayne’s Gastropub. It’s in an area called University Heights, just off the I-805 at Adams. I made reservations there too (it was a Friday night, after all), and we were fortunate to be able to sit outside in their back patio that evening. Not much of a breeze, but it was perfectly comfortable. I’d read something about their Crostini at Alice’s Q. Foodie’s blog (I think) so we knew we’d order that if possible. Once we were seated, and menus presented, Jeremy, the sommelier approached and asked if we’d like a sparkling wine to start. He suggested three: a Friuli prosecco (Italian), a New Mexican sparkling wine (bone dry) and a sparkling Lambrusco (Italian). He and Dave had lively conversations about wine throughout our evening when he wasn’t busy assisting other tables with their wine selections. He’s a connoisseur of all wines Italian and French (he’s a wine-related writer by day – – if you’re interested, he has his own wine/food/music website: www.DoBianchi.com ). He’s exceedingly knowledgeable about wine in general. Dave ordered the New Mexico sparkler and I had the prosecco. I really loved the prosecco. Dave not so much the other one (no depth, he said, but I don’t know that a sparkling white should have a whole lots of character depth anyway). I nursed my glass all through dinner since I was driving home.  Dave also ordered a very nice Cabernet to go with dinner, recommended by Jeremy. And at the end Jeremy was kind enough to bring us a tiny little nip of the Lambrusco. It was delicious. If they have it I’ll order it next time we go, after I have a glass of the prosecco.

The menu is lovely – includes a bit of everything from gazpacho, carpaccio, Caesar, fish, chicken, beef, pork. It’s a small menu (probably about 6 starters and 8-10 entrées altogether) but covers every type of food you might want. Dave chose the crostini with white bean dip and sweet peppers.

Well, I have to tell a story about the dish because this plate of food (pictured) was just fabulous. The chef had perfectly grilled the bread – grill marks and all, and the bread was still soft inside), and it was served with two bowls, one at each end of the plate – one contained the white bean dip, the other these remarkable, delicious, succulent, piquant piquante South African pickled peppers. Dave gave me one bite of this appetizer and I was hooked on those peppers. The owner, Jayne, very graciously brought me a card with information about them – she buys them wholesale, but on occasion her wholesaler can’t get them, so she usually finds them at Whole Foods, at the olive bar. Ah hah! I’ll have to check that out. The brand is Peppadew, and they’re also available by mail order through Gourmet Food Mall. Martha, Gourmet, Good Morning America and Sara Moulton all discovered these peppers back in 2003. They’re slightly warm (spicy), but tempered by the pickling done by Peppadew – they’re sweet and addictive. I simply MUST find these. Dave liked them so much he asked for more. [I found them at the olive bar at Whole Foods. The store doesn’t carry them in a jar or can, but only at the olive bar, so you buy what you need. Whooray. Thank you, Whole Foods.]

My Caesar salad was good, although not memorable. I usually prefer salads that are tossed – this was a small, whole head of Romaine with dressing drizzled over it and sprinkled with Parmesan and croutons. It was obviously a good dressing and it wasn’t over-dressed, which is a common occurrence at other restaurants, and the croutons were house made. But you have to cut it up. I ate every bite, though, so what does that tell you?

For dinner Dave ordered the Niman Ranch Porterhouse Pork chop. It was absolutely outstanding – I can attest – since I got a couple of bites at the end. I’ve written up blog posts about Niman Ranch meats that I’ve had shipped to us (sign up for their email and you’ll know when they put varied meats on special), so Dave knew it would be good. I ordered the vegetarian dinner – grilled vegetables with grilled polenta triangles (pictured). It also had some melted mozzarella inside the mound, and some kind of zesty, sharp (good, sharp) sauce drizzled around the plate edges. The polenta was perfectly done – still just slightly soft in the center, and the vegetables were well cooked with a great variety, including okra, which I like very much, and certainly isn’t common in many West Coast restaurants. This was an outstanding meal. Dave was still talking about it the next day, suggesting we need to return to the boat soon so we can go back.

Jayne’s Gastropub 
4677 30th Street at Adams Avenue
San Diego, CA 92116
619.563.1011

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