It's Summertime and The Livin' Is Easy

Tonight we are enjoying a great summer evening. After a rainy day the evening is cool and a nice breeze is blowing through the kitchen. As has been the case in recent weeks we are incorporating fresh and local ingredients when we can while still exploring new culinary ideas. Our three courses tonight are all technically simple and come together quickly with relatively few ingredients. Our main source of inspiration this week was The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper, a wonderful new cookbook worth checking out.

Our first course, a direct recipe from How To Eat Supper, was a chilled soup. This no-cook Iced Cantaloupe Soup was a great way to start the evening. After only a few minutes in the kitchen we were sitting on the back porch enjoying a refreshing appetizer and catching up on the events of the week. Here is the recipe, we recommend you seek out a fresh cantaloupe and try this beautiful orange soup.

Iced Cantaloupe Soup With Jalapeno and Basil

One 2 1/2-pound intensely sweet-smelling ripe cantaloupe
2 cups ice cubes
Generous pinch of salt
4 or 5 grinds black pepper
2 tablespoons sugar
Juice of 2 large limes (about 1/2 cup)
Grated zest of 1/2 large lime

Condiments
1 or 2 jalapeños, seeded and cut into fine dice
10 to 12 fresh basil leaves, coarse chopped
1/2 medium red onion, cut into 1/8-inch dice (optional)

Method
1. Cut the melon into quarters. Scoop out its seeds and trim away the rind. Slice it into chunks and put them into a food processor. Add the ice, salt, pepper, sugar, and lime juice, and puree. Stir in the grated zest.

2. Place the jalapeños, basil, and onion in separate small serving bowls. Pour the puree into individual soup bowls or into a pitcher for further chilling.

3. To serve, pour the soup into bowls and pass the condiments. The basil and jalapeño are the essential finishes for the soup, while the onion is an attractive option.

Our Main Course, inspired by 101 Cookbooks, came together quickly and utilized minimum ingredients. We used store-bought ravioli and rotini and threw together a quick sun-dried tomato pesto to toss with the pasta. We added roasted cherry tomatoes and crumbled goat cheese to the top and served it on top of a bed of baby spinach. Check out the recipe at 101 Cookbooks and if you aren't familiar with Heidi's site spend a while getting familiar with her wonderful blog.

Dessert was another no-cook recipe. This sorbet had frozen pineapple at the base that was flavored with ginger and almond extract. All ingredients were mixed in the food processor and blended smooth. Spoon into bowls and enjoy this little slice of heaven. By the way, this is another How To Eat Supper Recipe.

A Trip To The Mediterranean

Since it's summer and fresh produce is bountiful we wanted to prepare a meal that captured the freshness of our ingredients. With our minds fixed on lush, fresh produce we immediately decided to fix a Mediterranean themed meal.
Our starter was an easy, easy bean dip. We will even give you the recipe (courtesy of Epicurious.com).

Balsamic Bean Dip with Fresh Veggies

• 1 15-ounce can cannellini (white kidney beans), drained
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar plus extra for drizzling
• Oil from jar of roasted red peppers
• Assorted crudités (we used bell peppers and carrots)
  
• Pita bread, cut into wedges

Puree beans, olive oil, and 1 tablespoon vinegar in processor until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl. Drizzle with pepper oil and a few drops of vinegar. Serve with crudités and pita wedges.

This was simple and tasty and a great recipe to have in your go-to cookbook. A high quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar really make this spectacular.

For the main course we ventured into a new realm for BIV - a savory pie. We made a Mediterranean Vegetable Cheese Pie flavored with spinach, onion and dill.

This beautiful main dish filled the kitchen with wonderful scents as our anticipation heightened. We served this pie with a somewhat unusual pasta size dish. We used orzo, a rice shaped pasta, tossed with butter and flavored with a touch of cinnamon.

The spice was more of an understatement, but the dish truly complemented the Mediterranean flavors of the pie.

And as so often happens on BIV, the dessert was the star. And this desert, as with the entire meal, was simple and easy.

We used greek yogurt flavored with vanilla and sweetened with honey. The yogurt was topped with toasted walnuts to make a delicious, yet light finish to the evening.

Simplicity

Sometimes, pictures speak better than words and tonight that explains our meal. The menu was simple and our agenda was to use great ingredients and let them shine. The food truly was the star and we will let the pictures for themselves. Enjoy and let us know what you think!

Our appetizer was simply popcorn drizzled with browned butter

Salad greens with blueberries, radish and goat cheese

Foccacia Bread with rosemary and sea salt

Squash ribbons with pasta

Chai Cupcakes with Honey

Bananagrams

Tonight was exciting for sooooo many reasons! Where do we start??
Well let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. We invited a special guest this week to enjoy dinner and our newest reality show, SYTYCD. Juba joined us for the evening and SJ dropped in for appetizer before heading over the mountain and making his own dinner. After the initial excitement we settled down and enjoyed our appetizer of roasted chickpeas and a dill dip with sliced bell pepper and cucumbers. One of the best aspects of this BIV was the addition of a new game, banagram. This is a word tile game packaged inside a banana that we played a few rounds of. The game is fast paced, competitive and very fun! If you like word games, it is worth checking out - but I will admit that SJ and I both ended up as rotten bananas.
After recovering from our game we settled into preparing our main course which was comprised of the classic combo soup and sandwich; but this was BIV style. Our soup was based on a pureed blend of roasted vegetables becoming a smooth, flavorful dish. The sandwich was an awesome accompaniment for the soup. SB prepared the sandwich the night before by roasting eggplant, zucchini, squash and red peppers then placing them in hollowed cibatta bread with a pesto sauce and thick slices of mozzarella cheese. The sandwich was wrapped and placed in the fridge to allow the flavors to mellow. It turned out wonderful!
And then for dessert, we enjoyed a new treat with the tropical fruit mango. The mango crisp was a warm, bubbly fruit mixture topped with a macadamia nut mixture. We served it with a vanilla tofu pudding for an incredible finish to our great evening!
Now to top it all off we are watching SYTYCD and having a great time!

And Mom Makes Three . .

The BostonsInVirginia are cooking on Friday this week because we have a very special guest joining us. . . . . . . . our Mom! That makes three Bostons In Virginia! We knew we wanted to fix a special dinner for her since she came all the way to visit us and since yesterday was her birthday. So, we went back through our archives and chose some of our favorite dishes to put together the special birthday dinner. We invited the boys to join in, so really it was quite a party!
We started with appetizers and happy hour.We recreated a couple of our faves; Fig and Goat Cheese Bruschetta and Asparagus White Bean Tart. Both were very tasty while sipping on a cold beverage and catching up with everyone.
We moved out to the deck to enjoy our main course, a garden salad with potato gnocchi.
We rounded out the evening with a game of cards and lemon pie. It was a great night!

Cuban Fun!

Summer is here and what better way to celebrate than with a little foodie trip to Cuba. Well, SB and SH are still here in Virginia; but in our minds we are exploring the streets and flavors of our southern island neighbor (now that travel restrictions have been lifted, maybe someday we can actually go).

Our starter tonight was Spicy Corn Fritters. These fried patties were full of corn, green onion and fresh cilantro then spiced with cumin and coriander. The patties were served with a sweet and sour sauce that enhanced the flavor of the fritters.
The main course tonight was an adventure into the unknown for us. We were familiar with frozen black bean burgers that come in multiple varieties in the frozen food section at the grocery, but we had never ventured there from scratch. To serve burgers with chips is an American staple; but we took it to the next level with yucca. We chopped the yucca into thin slices, fried them in peanut oil, and finally sprinkled them with salt, chili powder and cayenne.
I cannot say enough about this combination- the burgers were a bit spicy and so much better than the frozen veggie burgers you buy. The chips were crunchy and flavorful (and easy!).
The sweet treat to finish off the evening was the Tres Leches Cake. This Cuban delicacy was a rich cake soaked in milk that we topped with fresh fruit. This cake was slightly sweet and feels like summer with the raspberry topping.
Another successful dinner!

Inspired by the Middle East

As our President is in the Middle East brokering world peace BIV are following in his footsteps (well, not literally but culinarily). Our meal tonight was inspired by the flavors and ingredients used in Middle Eastern cuisines. We began with a classic appetizer, hummus. Hummus is likely the Middle Eastern food most integrated into American culture. Tonight we made a traditional chickpea hummus enhanced with the flavor of roasted red peppers. We served the hummus with toasted pita chips, carrots and sliced orange bell pepper. We didn't plan on it, but this course was a delightful, monochromatic orange.

Our main dish tonight was again inspired by our favorite food blog 101 cookbooks. Heidi recently posted a recipe for Sweet Potato Falafel and we could not wait to incorporate this into a meal. We paired the falafel with a flavorful couscous enhanced with edamame, tomatoes and feta cheese. The flavors of the slightly sweet, yet spicy falafel with the creamy, peppery couscous were a perfect combination. The only change I would make next time is to add a dollop of cool yogurt to the plate.

The dessert was inspired by the combination of phyllo dough and cheese known as Knefe. Our interpretation was Sauteed Grape Napoleons with Red Wine Reduction which incorporated a goat and cream cheese mixture with toasted phyllo dough sheets. White grapes were sauteed then stacked in layers with the cheese and phyllo. The napoleon was a light cap to a wonderful meal and a dessert that will take a place among our favorites.

SB- What an amazing feast! This menu is one of my favorites that we have done. The flavors came together perfectly, especially serving the flavorful yet mild sweet potato flafel with the spicy couscous dish. The presentation of this dish was easy and elegent.

The dessert blew me away! It is easier than it looks, don't be afraid to try it. It is light and flavorable, and beautiful as well!