Radishes, Radishes, Radishes

The radishes in the supermarket are excellent this month. Mine are almost ready in the garden. We love them. For some reason the best results for radishes I've ever had were in South Dakota where the growing season is very short. I actually bought a half pound package of radish seed and grew them all.

Try a radish and butter sandwich. Slice radishes thin and arrange on buttered pumpernickel bread. Salt radishes. Enjoy.

Radishes are also good steamed in butter with sugar snap peas. If you're lucky and prompt you can get the radishes and peas ready for harvest at the same time. Here's some salads.

Orange and Radish Salad

Ingredients
1 bunch large red globe radishes trimmed
4 large navel oranges
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
1 1/2 teaspoons orange-flower water , usually available in Middle Eastern or Asian groceries
1 teaspoon confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Wash the radishes, cut off the green tops and the roots, and grate the radishes into a glass salad bowl.
2. Peel the oranges and segment them, reserving 2 tablespoons of the juice. Place the orange segments in the bowl with the grated radish. Mix the remaining ingredients and the reserved orange juice together in a small bowl and pour the marinade over the radish and orange mixture.
3. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 30 minutes so that the flavors mix. Serve at room temperature.Serves 4 to 6


Red Radish Salad

2 teaspoons sugar
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 cup sour cream
12 red radishes, trimmed and thinly sliced
2 Delicious apples, quartered cored and thinly sliced
1 European seedless cucumber, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
Salt and black pepper

Combine sugar, lemon juice, and sour cream in a medium bowl with a fork. Add radishes, apple, and cucumber. Turn vegetables and fruit in dressing to coat. Season with dill, salt, and pepper, toss again; serve.

Radish Salad

Ingredients:
2 tsp. white wine vinegar
2 tsp. canola or corn oil
1 tsp. caraway seed
2 tsp. chopped fresh oregano
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pinch of sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pinch pepper
15 to 20 medium-large radishes, trimmed and sliced thin or shaved

In a small bowl, combine vinegar, oil, caraway, oregano, garlic, sugar, salt and pepper. In a large bowl, toss radishes with vinegar-oil mixture. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.

Remember Julia Child. Save PBS

No recipes today. Just an angry comment. A congressional committee has recommended slashing all funding for PBS and NPR within two years. Here's the story in Free Press. Without PBS we would never have enjoyed the Victory Garden, The French Chef, or Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. So write your congressman or woman. Tell them how much we all want and need PBS.

Ok.Now that I've ranted there's time for some Julia Child recipes. Julia wasn't too fond of vegetarianism, but she did try to occasionally have a recipe or two for vegetarians.


Soupe Au Pistou -- Provencal Vegetable Soup

3 quarts water
2 cups each: diced carrots, diced boiling potatoes, diced white of leek
1 Tb salt

Boil the water, vegetables and salt slowing in a 6 quart kettle for 40 minutes

2 cups diced green beans or 1 pack frozen cut beans
2 cups cooked or canned navy beans (I prefer the cooked beans)
1/2 cup broken spaghetti
1 slice stale white bread crumbled
1/8 tsp pepper

Twenty minutes before serving so the green vegetables will retain their freshness, add the beans, spaghetti, bread and seasonings to the boling soup.
Boil slowly for about 15 minutes or until the green beans are just cooked through.
Correct the seasoning again.

4 cloves mashed garlic
6 Tb tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil

Prepare the following pistou while the soup is cooking:
place the garlic, tomato paste, basil, and cheese in the soup tureen and blend to a paste with a wooden spoon.
Then, drop by drop, beat in the olive oil.

When the soup is ready for serving, beat a cup gradually into the pistou.
Pour in the rest of the soup.

Serve with hot French bread or hard-toasted bread rounds based with olive oil.

Julia's Notes On Cooking Green Beans

Cooked green vegetables should be beautifully green, and just cooked through. As the great Escoffier wrote, introducing green beans in his Guide culinaire, they are "the most exquisite of vegetables, but they must be prepared with the greatest care. They are best when a little firm to the tooth, but without exaggeration." Great care, certainly, but there is nothing difficult about cooking a bean. You may either steam green beans, which is fast and easy and works well for small quantities, or boil them-and you can cook them several hours in advance without losing their fresh quality.

To steam green beans and other green vegetables: Set a steamer basket with the vegetables into a saucepan just large enough to hold it tightly covered. Add an inch of water, bring to the boil, and cover the pan tightly. Regulate heat to moderate. Green beans will take only 3 to 5 minutes if really fresh -- watch attentively that you do not overcook, and taste a sample frequently until the beans are done. If you are not serving them at once, immediately refresh the beans in iced water to stop the cooking and set the color.

The Big Boil: This is more cumbersome than steaming, but it is recommended for large quantities. The immense amount of boiling water means the beans will come quickly to the boil, and the rapid cooling in ice water stops the cooking and sets the color. Bring a large kettle of water to the boil -- 6 quarts of water for 2 pounds of beans. Provide yourself with a colander and have two trays of ice cubes available. When the water is at the rolling boil, drop in the trimmed and washed beans. Add 2 tablespoons of salt (for 6 quarts of water), and cover the kettle for a minute or two until the boil is reached again. At once remove the cover and boil uncovered; after several minutes, begin tasting as a test, and keep tasting. They are done when they are just cooked through but still have the slightest crunch. Drain immediately, and either serve at once or immediately return the beans to the kettle and run cold water over them. When half full, drain again, add the ice to the kettle and cold water to cover. Drain in 5 minutes or so, when thoroughly chilled.
The finish: Whichever method you use, the drained and cooked beans are now ready to be reheated, or to be served cold in a salad.
Ahead-of-Time Note: The beans may be cooked several hours in advance, but to keep their freshly cooked taste, I always dry them thoroughly in clean towels, then refrigerate them in a covered bowl.

Julia Child's books include: Mastering the Art of French Cooking; The Way to Cook; The French Chef Cookbook; Baking with Julia; From Julia's Kitchen; Julia's Delicious Little Dinners; In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs; Julia's Casual Dinners; Julia's Menus for Special Occasions; Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home; Julia's Breakfasts, Lunches, and Suppers; and Julia's Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking.

Let's Talk about Dessert

I got a chance to watch Paula Deen on the food network over the weekend. She made this great, easy pie.
Mae Dawson's Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie
Recipe courtesy Paula Deen
Recipe SummaryDifficulty: Easy Prep Time: 10 minutes Inactive Prep Time: 3 hours Cook Time: 40 minutes Yield: 6 to 8 servings

1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, unsifted
1/2 pint (1 cup) whipping cream
3/4 cup milk
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie shell
2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
Pinch nutmeg
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Combine sugar, flour, cream, and milk in a mixing bowl. Pour into pie shell. Dot butter bits all around top of pie. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, and then reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and cook for approximately 30 more minutes. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate until chilled. Serve chilled.
Cook's Note: If using a glass baking dish, lower oven temperature by 25 degrees F.

The strawberries are still looking good. In a week or so we'll start to get blueberries. We have two great berry sources in our part of Virginia, Westmoreland Berry Farm and Belvedere Plantation. When my grandson was small he loved for us to take him to pick berries at the berry farms.

Almond Pastry with Strawberries
This dessert is lovely to look at and luscious to eat!

Pastry Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Butter, softened
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon almond extract

Filling Ingredients:
1 cup whipping cream, chilled
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1 pint (2 cups) fresh strawberries, hulled, quartered

Topping Ingredients:
1 tablespoon powdered sugar
2 tablespoons sliced almonds, toasted

Heat oven to 350°F. Combine all pastry ingredients in large bowl. Stir together with fork until fine crumbs form into dough. Press half of dough on bottom of 10-inch tart pan with removable bottom. Prick dough several times with fork. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.
Immediately cut pastry round into 12 wedges. Gently remove bottom from tart pan. With pancake turner gently remove each wedge; cool on wire cooling rack.
Press remaining half of dough on bottom of same 10-inch tart pan. Prick dough several times with fork. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Do not cut second pastry. Cool pastry 5 minutes; gently remove edge of tart pan. With pancake turner gently loosen pastry from bottom of tart pan (do not remove from bottom of tart pan). Cool completely on wire cooling rack.
Meanwhile, beat whipping cream in chilled small mixer bowl at high speed, scraping bowl often, until soft peaks form. Continue beating, gradually adding 3 tablespoons powdered sugar and lemon peel, until stiff peaks form (1 to 2 minutes).
To assemble, gently slide whole pastry round onto flat serving plate. Spread or pipe pastry round with whipped cream mixture. Top with strawberries. Gently stand pastry wedges, on side, on top of whipped cream at a slight angle, gently pressing into whipped cream and between strawberries. Rearrange strawberries, if necessary. Sift 2 tablespoons powdered sugar over top of pastry; sprinkle with toasted almonds.
Makes 12 servings.

Blueberry Roly Poly

INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup hot water
2 cups biscuit mix
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/3 cup evaporated milk
3 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 cups blueberries

PREPARATION:
Heat 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, and 1/2 cup of hot water to boiling. Pour into 8x8x2 inch baking dish. Mix biscuit mix, 3 tablespoons brown sugar, evaporated milk, and three tablespoons water together just until mixture forms a dough. Roll out on floured board in 8x12-inch rectangle. Spread with blueberries then sprinkle with cinnamon. Roll up like a jelly roll. Cut in slices about 3/4-inch thick and place slices in the hot syrup. Bake at 425° for 25 to 30 minutes.

Red, White and Blue Dessert
This is a must for every summer patriotic holiday. We love it so much! I make a big pan of it in my big glass lasagna pan.

Crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
6 tablespoons sugar
dash of cinnamon (optional)
12 tablespoons melted butter
Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl, and mix well. Firmly press the crumb mixture evenly in your pan. For all other pies, bake crust at 350°F for about 8 minutes. Cool.

Filling:
16 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
juice of 1 lemon
Beat ingredients until fluffyand easy to spread. If it isn't soft enough add a bit more lemon juice. Spread the cream cheese mixture over graham cracker crust. Arrange toppings in a flag design or in stripes.

Toppings:
2 Pints fresh blueberries
2 cans cherry pie filling
large container Cool Whip

Makes 12 servings

My grandson is a picky eater, but he'll eat lots and lots of this dessert.

Save the Pickle Juice

In summer I hardly ever want to eat anything but salads. Broccoli has been very good and inexpensive the last few weeks, so I've been making lots of broccoli salads. Here's a bean and broccoli salad. You could just use cider vinegar in the dressing, but I like to use the juice from sweet pickles. I buy two different kinds of sweet pickled peppers, one is hot and one is not. The sweet pickling juice of either makes a nice addition to all kinds of salad dressing. For potato salad I add pickle juice and a little dry mustard to mayonnaise. This also is good for cole slaw.

Broccoli Bean Salad

3 cups mixed cooked beans- blackeyed peas, kidney beans and dried limas are a good combination
2 cups fresh green beans, stemmed and cokked about 5 minutes until barely tender
2 cups chopped raw broccoli
large tomato, diced
1/2 chopped green olives

Marinade

1/3 cup sweet pickle juice
1/3 cup olive oil
3 cloves, finely minced garlic
salt to taste
1 teaspoon Italian seasonings blend

Mix beans and broccoli. Pour marinade over it and refrigerate at least an hour. Mix in tomato and olives just before serving


Broccoli Cheese Salad

2-3 pounds broccoli broken into florets. Peel and chop the tender parts of the stems
4 ounces Cheddar cheese (cubed)
1 medium red onion (chopped)
1/2 cup broken pecan halves
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
3 tablespoons sweet pickle juice
Combine the last three ingredients. Then mix with remainder of ingredients. Chill about 4 hours.