Apricot and Almond Galette

My mother always wanted to live in San Diego, but as far as she got was Troy, NY.

She was born in the beginning of the 20th century, died in the beginning of the 21st century and was buried in an ecumenical cemetery not more than 20 blocks or so from where she lived her whole life.  San Diego, she said, correctly, had the perfect climate: fairly sunny, warm in the daytime and cooler at night. No snow ever.

For me, almost any season is okay. I like the autumn smell of wood smoke in the air and in winter, curling up with two cats as I read long, meandering novels. Spring never seems to linger too long and, now, we bid adieu to summer.

No matter the season, I love to cook. I am still having such fun with all the summer vegetables. I eat two or three tomatoes a day. I am grilling zucchini and summer squash outside or sautéing them with a little butter and garlic and salt on the cooktop in the kitchen. Last night I roasted a spaghetti squash, then tossed the innards with chopped tomatoes, basil and a little butter. Today I will make a frittata with sweet peppers for a 9:30 am meeting at my house.

Next weekend I will make a little dessert with fresh peaches and almonds. The recipe below, from calls for apricots, but any stone fruit will do.

Apricot and Almond Galette

From Bon Appetit, June, 2017

Yield: 4 servings

One-half cup blanched almonds
One-third cup sugar, for more for sprinkling
1 large egg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
One-half teaspoon almond extract (optional, but I do love almond extract)
One-half teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (plus more for surface)
1 package frozen puff pastry, preferably all-butter, thawed
12 apricots (about 1 and one-quarter pound), halved and pitted (or other stone fruit, quartered if large)

Place a rack in middle of oven and preheat to 425 degrees. Pulse almonds and one-third of sugar in a food processor until very finely ground. Add egg and pulse to combine. Add butter, almond extract (if using), vanilla extract, salt and 1 tablespoon flour; pulse until almond cream is smooth.

Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface just enough to smooth out any creases.

If you are using a package of pastry than as 2 sheets, stack and roll out to a one-quarter- to one-third rectangle.

If your package contains a single 16-inch to 10-inch sheet of puff pastry, halve it crosswise and roll out one half on a lightly floured surface until rectangle is one-quarter to one-third inch thick, saving remaining half for another use. Transfer to a parchment-lined (or Silpat-lined) baking sheet. Fold over edges of pastry to make a one-half inch border around sides. Prick surface all over with a fork (this keeps the pastry from rising too much when baked and helps it cook through. (Spread almond cream over pastry, staying inside borders. (Chill dough in the freezer for a few minutes if it becomes too soft to work with.) Set apricots, cut sides up, on top of the cream. Sprinkle lightly with sugar.

Bake until pastry is golden brown and puffed, 15 to 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and continue to bake until pastry is deep golden brown and cooked through and apricots are softened and browned in spots, 15 to 20 minutes longer.

Borscht

Not everyone likes beets. This is hard for me to understand. What’s not to like with beets. My mother didn’t like vegetables. I found this later in life, when I asked my mother why we I didn’t have vegetables, canned or fresh, except for sweet corn and tomatoes in the summer and canned green beans and canned peas in the fall, winter and spring. Simple, she explained. She didn’t like vegetables.

She did, however, like borscht. It was one of five or six dishes she actually made. Even later in my life I found out that she did like borscht but that she never made it from fresh beets. Rather, she used canned beets.

I love beets and I especially love borscht. I make it often and, in my everlasting quest for fresh tomatoes (maybe by the time you read this, there will be local and fresh tomatoes), I am finding beets. Last week I went to White Gate Farm in East Lyme, a place I visit rarely because I find the prices exorbitant, figuring that if any place had tomatoes, they would. They didn’t, but I did see beautiful beets. I bought two bunches (beets are always inexpensive), and that evening I made borscht.

This is my mother’s recipe and requires three ingredients: beets, onions and lemons. To this, you add water, salt and pepper. If you want a bit of sophistication, top perhaps with fresh dill fronds. My family ate in icy cold, with a warm boiled potato and a big dollop of sour cream. I dispense with the potato and just spoon a tablespoon or two of the sour cream into the soup. It turns it a gorgeous dark pink.

Borscht

Yield: serves 6

6 good sized beets, peeled and cut into 2-inch cubes*
1 large onion, peeled and quartered
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper, to taste
Fronds of dill (optional)
Sour cream for serving

Place beets and onion into a good-sized soup pot, with cold water to cover.

Bring to a boil, then bring to a simmer for about 45 minutes, or until beets are soft. Add lemon to soup and allow it to cool. Using the grating or slicing tool of a food processor, process the beets and onions. Add vegetables back into the dark, red broth and warm the soup. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate. To serve, pour cold soup into bowls (I love to use white bowls), stir in sour cream, add dill fronts and serve.

*I would love a few recipes for beet greens. I throw them into the disposal, but I know many think that is sacrilegious.

Corn chowder

There are beach days and there are beach days.

I am not sure there has ever been a summer that didn’t include a salt-water vacation.

As a baby, toddler and teenager, there was Belmar, N.J. I had Angrist and Kasdan cousins who lived there full-time, although the two Angrist brothers worked in New York City, one as a librarian at CCNY and the other a pathologist at Albert Einstein medical school.

Charlie’s wife, Claire Kasdan Angrist, was a teacher of French as Asbury High School. Her twin brother had a son, who became a well known movie director. Claire and her sister, Sylvia Angrist, had married brothers. Claire and Sylvia used to play Scrabble in French.

And every day the sun shone, there was the beach.

Today is July 4, 2017. And today was a beach day as glorious as any I can remember.

Today, too, were two beach stories in The Day. On the front page was a story about the Miami Beach Association fencing in Old Lyme to stop a “significant increase in the inappropriate behavior of persons using the beach.” The second story, first page of the second section, was a feature saying Groton’s Eastern Point Beach “concession stand still serving up favorites”

My beach used to be Old Lyme. You needed a beach pass and there were very few parking places, but it wasn’t fenced.

Today, my beach is the one in Groton. As a City of Groton citizen, and an old woman, too, it costs $11 for the season. The beach is gorgeous and huge. And on this gorgeous, sunny Fourth of July, as I left the beach to go home to write this column, there are dozens more parking places available and the $1.75 foot-long hot dog is as good as it ever was, as long as a gull doesn’t get to it first.

Summer doesn’t get much better than this. And just imagine, fresh tomatoes and sweet corn are still to come. I still have packets of the latter in the freezer and I bought some lobster to go with it.

Corn Chowder

Adapted a lot from an 1964 edition of Joy of Cooking

One of the best things about this recipe is there is neither butter nor heavy cream in this recipe. Sure, some salt pork for flavoring, but this is pretty healthy.

Yield: serves 6 to 8 as a main dish with a salad and maybe some good bread

2 tablespoons olive oil
6 to 8 ounces salt pork, diced
One-half cup chopped onions
One-half cup chopped celery
1 green pepper, seeded and chopped
1 and one-half cups peeled diced raw potatoes (with Yukon Gold, you needn’t peel)
2 cups water
One-half teaspoon salt
One-half teaspoon paprika
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk*
6 to 8 ears of fresh corn, blanched for 2 minutes in boiling water, then drained in iced water
Meat from claws and tail of one and one-half to two-pound cooked lobster, cut into small chunks
3 cups hot milk*
Chopped fresh tarragon, and more for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste

Pour oil into a heated, heavy-bottomed stock pot, add salt pork and sauté until browned.

Add onions, celery and green pepper and sauté until translucent.

Add potatoes, water, salt, paprika and bay leaf and simmer until potatoes are soft, around 15 minutes.

Add flour and 1 cup of milk and stir until mixture is thick.