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| Photo: Hopkinsii/Flickr |
[Via Flickr]
For the Love of Figs - Feast Your Eyes
[Via Flickr]
Lemon Bars with a Twist
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| Jennifer's Persimmon Lemon Bars. Photo: The Skinny Chef |
Since I don't use persimmons very often, I decided to grab a few and see what summer treat I could come up with. Juicy tart lemons are a staple for me during the summer season and can be easily added to drinks, grilled seafood and everything in between.
As my neighbors had been asking me to bring those classic, tangy lemon bars to their weekend barbecue, I devised a fusion lemon bar that has the perkiness of lemon with the brilliant, creamy orange flesh of the persimmon.
Get Jennifer's Persimmon Lemon Bars recipe after the jump.
Ravishing Raspberries - Feast Your Eyes
Raspberry season is all but here, which means that farmers markets are starting to look more and more like nature's jewelry stores. These raspberries, snapped by clayirving at Flickr, are as striking as a box of rare gems, and most likely much tastier. They're the perfect adornment for any plate, and, like the most beautiful of stones, require scant accompaniment for maximum appreciation.[Via Flickr]
Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured on Feast Your Eyes.
In Season Spotlight - Strawberries
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| Strawberry Salad Photo: Rebecca Flint Marx |
While their tart sweetness makes them shining stars of the seasonal baked goods line-up, strawberries also make great supporting players in savory dishes. They pair well with cheeses, nuts, salad greens and even some meats, and can be as versatile as they are irresistible.
One way to introduce them before the dessert course is in a salad, not only as whole fruit but also as a tangy vinegar. Though you can buy bottled strawberry vinegar (as well as other fruit vinegars), it's plenty easy to make your own. It adds bright layers to the following recipe for spinach salad with toasted pecans, strawberries and ricotta -- and can be added to as many other salads, entrees and yes, even desserts, throughout the rest of the summer and beyond.
Slashfood Sorbet
You've seen that sliced-up green apple sitting up top aside the Slashfood logo. Perhaps you've pondered its culinary potential -- the crisp snap of that bright green skin, the half-sweet/half-tart flavor that is the special domain of the Granny Smith apple.
Voila. Slashfood sorbet!
In sorbet, a single element is distilled into an intense burst of flavor. It should be so vivid that only a bite is necessary. Perhaps you're most familiar with it as an intermezzo to cleanse the palate, in a fluted paper cone to hold while walking alongside your companion and his gelato or in scoops piled high in a frosty parfait glass almost too cold to touch.
After the jump, an original recipe for a gorgeous green apple Slashfood Sorbet. We challenge you to only eat one bite.
Tiny Melons - Pepquinos - Coming to America
The pepquiños are coming, the pepquiños are coming.
Hot off the news that it's now tiny melon season in Britain, the producers of what may just be the world's only bite-sized melon -- the pepquiño -- say they're growing these grape-size fruits on New York's Long Island.
"It's already in America, but very, very small," Nicolas Mazard, the U.S. manager of Koppert Cress, told Slashfood Thursday. "So it will be ready this summer."
Learn how to eat these 3/4-inch fruits after the jump.
Continue reading Tiny Melons - Pepquinos - Coming to America
A Rainbow of Fruit Flavors - Feast Your Eyes
This photo, taken by Audreyjm529 over at Flickr, does more for citrus than any ill-fated product redesign could ever hope to. It's bright, beautiful and so vibrant that you can practically smell the ambrosial scent of lemons and oranges wafting from your computer screen. Prolonged exposure to this picture may cure everything from Vitamin C deficiency to Seasonal Affective Disorder; side effects may include uncontrollable giddiness and a silly grin. Proceed without caution.
[Via Flickr]
Prevent Cancer with a Hangover Cure?
Watercress might just seem like a staple for ladies who lunch on tea sandwiches, but it has a fascinating reputation in the health world. Legend touts its powers as an aphrodisiac, a cure for baldness and even a cure for hangovers.
I'm not so sure about its powers to grow your libido or hair, but I'm guessing that its reputation as a hangover cure comes from its high potassium content. Since potassium is a mineral, which can become depleted due to dehydration from overindulging on alcohol, it could very well be that watercress might just help to soothe that morning-after headache.
I see watercress more as a delicious, energizing ingredient in fast and fresh modern cuisine. When the weather warms up, cool drinks and chilled soups not only refresh -- they also provide great ways add nutrition, giving you more energy to enjoy long summer nights.
Get Jennifer's Watercress Soup with Strawberry Salsa recipe after the jump.
Apricot Desserts - Slashfood Ate (8)
Ok, we know it's a little early to talk about apricots, but it's starting to warm up out there and with peak season just around the corner (from May to September depending on where you live) we just can't help ourselves.
The plump, golden-orange fruit is one our favorite farmer's market finds. A fine snack in its dried incarnation, it also makes for stellar tarts and preserves.
Keep it simple with fresh apricots. Drizzle them with honey and pair with ricotta or goat cheese or toss them on the grill. This season we have an eye on Food & Wine's simple recipe for broiled apricots caramelized with honey, an ideal foil for sweet vanilla ice cream. Below are eight tempting recipes to choose from:
- Apricot and Chocolate Bavarois
- Apricot, Almond and Brown Butter Tart
- Apricots Baked in Fig Leaves
- Apricot and Almond Jam
- Grilled Apricots with Bittersweet Chocolate and Almonds
- Blueberry Apricot Crumble
- Bread and Butter Pudding Served with Clotted Cream and Compote of Apricots
- Apricot Streusel Coffeecake
Feast Your Eyes: Fromage Before Beauty
Dense, rich Humboldt Fog goat's-milk cheese topped with a river of sweet cocoa-and-fig jam? Are you guys drooling too?
We saw this photo over at The Kitchn last week and immediately canceled our existing Friday-night plan, instead summoning four friends to eat cheese and sip beer with us.
One word of advice: Certain fromage freaks might ignore the cracker entirely to try a hunk drizzled with fig compote sans cracker. Messy? A bit. Worth it? Oh, yes.
Change Things Up With Key Lime Fudge
Most desserts seem to fall into one of three realms -- something frozen, something rich with chocolate or some sort of fruit pastry. But when these barriers start to dissolve, that's when the real magic happens -- like key lime fudge.
As one of those strange people who has always preferred fruity desserts to chocolate ones, I couldn't help but pick up key lime fudge on my recent trip to Key West. Unlike many chocolate-free fudges, this wasn't merely a thick, confectioner's sugar-filled treat, but something that balanced the creaminess of fudge with the tart key lime without relying on that all-too-familiar frosting flavor.
Experimenting at home, I've come up with the perfect recipe to replicate that fresh citrus flavor. It relies on white chocolate, which frees us from the throes of frosting flavor that the confectioner's sugar inevitably leaves, and it's quite easy to make.
Strawberry Flavored Desserts - Slashfood Ate (8)
The first seasonal strawberries appear as early as April. The deliciously tart fruit we've come to know today originated in grassy woodlands all over Europe. Find out how to transform these red, ripe, sweet and succulent treats of nature into fabulous desserts.
Strawberries taste delicious eaten plain with a glass of champagne. But in a pie, their juiciness creates a distinctly bitter-sweet flavor that sits on the palate and seems to melt into the pie crust.
Strawberries taste especially rich when paired with milky desserts, like panna cotta and mascarpone. Or, simply add slices of strawberries to a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
This candy-like fruit easily creates a sweet distinctive jam without adding any pectin. Below are eight especially delicious strawberry desserts to try at home:
Juice Citrus Fruits with a Fork - Tip of the Day
You may not be able to produce a glass of orange juice with an orange and a fork, but you'll easily be able to extract enough juice for various recipes.
Continue reading Juice Citrus Fruits with a Fork - Tip of the Day
To Juice, or Not to Juice - What's Your Favorite Juicer?
For years I've had a juicer much like the one in the upper left corner of the image above. Sometimes it's great, sometimes not so much, but it's been a decent friend in the kitchen. However, every time I catch a cooking show, I see these brightly colored squeezers like the one to the right. The half goes in, and a quick squeeze later, every bit of juice has made its way out of the fruit and into the waiting receptacle. And it made me want one.
So today, I popped in my favorite used and new kitchen store and found one for $5 -- the perfect price tag for a kitchen gadget I wasn't sure about. I brought it home, I squeezed some lemons, and in a flash, I was in love. It's so easy and quick -- to use, to clean, to love.
But what about you? How do you juice your citrus, and which of the powerful triumvirate above gets used in your kitchen?
If the jury is still out for you, I recommend that yellow wonder of product.
Retro Sesame Street Goes to a Mexican Restaurant and Makes a Fruit Salad
There's something quite sweet about watching kids working with food, so I thought you might enjoy a trip back to old-school Sesame Street.
Above, two tykes talk about their family's Mexican restaurant, and how they make a few dishes. Since this is a children's show, the kids are involved in all of it, from the grating of the cheese (with a healthy dose of cheese eating and finger-licking) to serving the meal.
And to get even more hands-on, hit the jump to watch another little one make a fruit salad. From start to finish, he slices and dices until he has a bowl full of fruit -- which his friends instantly devour. ...if only we saw that more often on the television! Personally, this one jets me back to my youth and the large fruit compotes my father would always make -- just about the one way my parents could always get me to eat fruit!
I hope you enjoy, and if you know of any other great retro SS food videos, share them in the comments!
Continue reading Retro Sesame Street Goes to a Mexican Restaurant and Makes a Fruit Salad
Second Helping of Slashfood - June 19
Competitive-Eating Contest to Pit Humans Against Elephants
The Backyard Boom - The Hungry Bride
