Limoncello Shrimp

A few weeks ago, we made homemade Limoncello, and somehow, we have some left. We've sipped, and we've shared, and still there was a little bit left, so we decided to cook with it. We made Limoncello Shrimp. They were sweet, to be sure, and since we served them with a strawberry salad, perhaps the overall sweetness factor was too high. Maybe next time, we'll serve them over rice to even out the flavor. However, they were good. Really good. Like sop-up-that-sauce-with-the-nearest-hunk-of-bread good. Anyway, here's what we did.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 teaspoon Herbs de Provence

1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1/2 cup Limoncello

2 teaspoons butter

1 tablespoon heavy cream

In a saute pan, mix the oil, garlic, zest and herbs. Then heat the pan to medium-high. Cook, stirring, until the mixture becomes aromatic (less than a minute). Then add the shrimp. Toss the shrimp and the herb mixture well, and cook until the shrimp become pink, 3-4 minutes. Remove the shrimp from the pan and set aside. Carefully wipe out the pan with a paper towel and then return it to the stovetop. Add Limoncello to the pan and cook over medium-high heat until it is reduced to about 1/4 cup. Remove from heat and whisk in the butter and cream. Pour this over the shrimp. Serve with bread and a nice salad from a light summery meal.

Rosemary Balsamic Duck Breasts

Duck. Rich, dark meat and crispy skin - one of Amy's favorite things to eat out, but we haven't really tried cooking in. When we saw a couple of gorgeous-looking duck breasts at our local butcher, we decided it was time. Many people are put off by duck, intimidated by cooking it or not wanting such a fatty protein, but our recipe (below) was quick and easy, and hey, fat means flavor, folks. And these had great flavor. (We served them with plain steamed broccoli so we weren't adding more fat to the meal. Everything in moderation, right?)

It was only the next day, poking around online, that we realized the mistake we made. Amy found a cooking tip written in 2007 by someone with the screenname "logicalmind" that summed it up best: "I find that placing the duck in an already heated pan causes the skin to brown before enough fat has rendered. Allowing the duck to heat from a cold pan renders much more fat and makes the skin crisp nicely...And a bonus tip, save the rendered fat in a pan and use it to cook some potatoes. Unbelievable." We had, unfortunately, heated the pan first (and it was a cast iron pan!) and had that exact problem - overly browned skin that wasn't as crispy as we would have liked, and little fat to use for cooking something else. So duck lovers, take note! (Note also that we made the adjustment in our recipe - what we should have done versus what we did wrong).

 

Ingredients:

2 duck breasts

2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary

4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Score the fatty duck skin with a sharp knife, taking care not to cut down to the meat. Pour the balsamic vinegar into a shallow dish and add the chopped rosemary. Add the duck to the dish, meat side down, and allow to marinate at room temperature for 20-30 minutes. Place the duck fat side down in a pan, turn the pan to medium-high heat and cook the duck until the skin crisps up (6-8 minutes). Remove the breasts and carefully pour the rendered fat from the pan; set aside for later use. Place the duck back in the pan, flipped so that the meat side is down, and return the pan to the heat. Cook an additional 7-8 minutes for medium-rare. When it is cooked to your liking, allow the duck to rest on a cutting board, then slice thinly against the grain and serve.

Wordless Weekender: Ribs and Corn

Blackberry-Vanilla Cheesecake Ice Cream

Amy's mom is a clipper-sharer. Everyone gets clippings - articles, recipes, coupons - from her vast collection of newspapers and magazines. Last weekend, we got an article on homemade ice cream from the June 2010 Country Living magazine. Now, we make homemade ice cream quite often, so we didn't necessarily need more recipes, but it was nice to get some fresh ideas. One we liked was "raspberry cheesecake ice cream." It was a great idea, but we made it better with a few adaptations and a dash of very good vanilla.

Vanilla is one of those ingredients we take seriously. No imitation extracts for us, only real, natural vanilla extract. And our particular favorite is Nielsen Massey Madagascar Vanilla. It gives our ice creams, and other dishes both sweet and savory, a smooth, intense vanilla flavor. In this particular ice cream, we used only a teaspoon, so as to not overpower the zip of the berries nor the tang of the cream cheese. It was just enough - this cool creation was sweet, tart, and silky - pure summer in a bowl.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons whipped cream cheese

3/4 cup sugar

6 ounces blackberries

1/2 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon Nielsen Massey Madagascar Vanilla

In a large bowl, whisk cream cheese and sugar into a crumbly mixture. In a food processor, puree the blackberries (you should have about 3/4 cup's worth of puree); strain out seeds. Whisk the puree into the sugar mixture, followed by the cream and the milk, until full incorporated. Pour mixture into ice-cream maker and follow manufacturer instructions.

Strawmato Caprese Salad

Strawmato, eh? Intrigued, we made the $2.99 (for a dozen on the vine) purchase. Shaped like a strawberry? Kind of. Sweeter than a regular cherry or grape tomato? A little bit. Delicious tossed in a salad with fresh mozzarella, torn basil, salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar? Yeah, but it's hard not to be. As good as homegrown? Heck, no. We'll wait, patiently.

It's Soft Shell Crab Season!

It's soft shell crab season! We dredged these little crabbies in flour seasoned with salt, pepper and "Slap Ya' Mama" seasoning then sauteed them with a clove of pressed garlic. What a snack!

Wordless Weekender: Rainbow Fruit Kebobs with Dipping Sauce

Mini Burger Grill Basket

Sliders. Are. Everywhere. Beef, pork, crab, lobster - every menu around our area has some form of sliders so it's only a matter of time before we try them at home. We haven't yet, however, because we want to grill them (it's summer!) and we just saw this product offered from Avon (yes, the makeup people). It's a mini-burger grill basket and we just know it will keep our sliders from sliding into the depths of the grill and becoming forever lost. We'll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime, take a look at what others have to say about grill baskets at Foodbuzz's Daily Special.

Amy gets a night off

I like fire and I like meat. So when Amy called to say that she needed steak the logical action was to go to Bogners, a local family-owned butcher shop which, quite frankly, I don’t frequent enough. Every time I go I am intoxicated by the array, freshness and price of the meats. The staff is friendly and will take time to explain the different cuts and their uses. It’s easy to leave this place with a few extra steaks and a couple of pounds of slab bacon that you didn’t realize you needed to have. You get the idea. Places like this make me want to celebrate being a carnivore. The scent of the grill, the parallel chars, the warm juices and, of course, the taste. Let’s not forget the taste.
Yeah -- meat is good.
Tonight’s meal was a simple one: A limoncello aperitif. Freshly sliced rib-eyes with Montreal seasoning. Batonnets of purple fingerling potatoes sautéed with a slice of slab bacon. Steamed green beans seasoned with pink Himalayan salt. A bottle of 2003 Clos Du Val Cabernet Sauvignon.

Our day just got a whole lot better.

Homemade Limoncello

"Meyer lemons, this. Meyer lemons, that." For awhile there, every blog we read was extolling the virtues of the Meyer lemon. Unfortunately for us, here in nasty New England, in cold Connecticut, Meyer lemons are pretty hard to come by. Unless you drive an hour out of state to Trader Joe's and happen to come across of small bag of the beauties. Imagine our glee!

New, albeit related, topic. We have been enjoying limoncello for over a decade, since Amy had her first sip of the real thing on her first of many trips to Italy. We've never been 100% satisfied by anything we've bought from the liquor store. However, now and then, an Italian friend-of-a-friend, or a kind restaurant server or manager somewhere will share some of their homemade stash. We've always wanted to make it ourselves...so, we thought, when life gives us Meyer lemons, make limoncello!

We mixed the Meyer lemons with regular, organic ones because we weren't thinking straight in the store and didn't buy enough of them! Nonetheless, the mix produced a vibrant yet smooth tasting liquor. It was not too sweet, as some brands tend to be, nor too harsh with an alcohol burn, as others are. It was appropriately thick without having a cloying syrupy texture. Basically, it seemed to fall somewhere in between all of these things, and we were delighted with our results. Here's how we made our own homemade limoncello. Enjoy. It's soooo worth the effort.

Ingredients:

8 medium-to-large organic lemons

4 Meyer lemons

750 ml. bottle of grain alcohol (we used Everclear)

5 cups water

3 and 1/4 cups sugar

 

Directions:

Thoroughly wash and dry the lemons. Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skins from the lemons, taking care not to get any of the white pith, which will cause a bitter flavor. Put the peels in an airtight container and add the alcohol. Seal the container and shake well. Store the container in a cool, dark place for seven days. Each day, once a day, shake the container well. You will begin to see the alcohol take on a yellow tint - this is a good thing! On the seventh day, mix the sugar and water in a large saucepan. Heat it over medium heat until the sugar dissolves (no need to boil it) - this is simple syrup. Strain the lemon peels from the alcohol, then mix the alcohol with the simple syrup. You have now created homemade limoncello. Store in an airtight container or bottles as desired. Serve chilled.