Soba noodle salad with ginger and mizuna

Greetings from the Bluebonnet sickbed. Not exactly a primo summer vacation destination. However, to make up for the lack of surf and tropical drinks, we have plenty of iced water and Nyquil. After battling this wicked stubborn cold for weeks, here I sit, unable to launch into summer vacation festivities with the kids. Total and absolute bummer.

Guest chef Will took pity on me and whipped up a fresh, cool, gingery dish that soothes my sinuses. This soba dish incorporates those dark green leafy vegetables (mizuna, in this case) that's supposed to be an amazing source of vitamins, folate, carotenoids, and other goodies that keep us healthy. I'm in dire need of healthy these days. I think I'm personally responsible for deforesting half of the continental USA with my kleenex usage. By the way, if you don't have any mizuna, you can substitute watercress.

Soba noodle salad with ginger and mizuna

1 large bunch mizuna, washed, stemmed, and chopped
1 large carrot or 2 small carrots, sliced diagonally into thin slices
1/2 hothouse cucumber, cored and sliced into matchsticks
6 ounces dried soba noodles
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, peeled and diced fine
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Cook soba noodles per directions in boiling water. Drain and rinse with cool water until they are no longer hot.

In a large bowl, combine mizuna, carrot slices, soba noodles, and cucumber.

In a small bowl, whisk together ginger, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar,
and sugar. Pour over salad and toss. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

Tacos de calabacitas

After yesterday's haywire contortions, it's nice to return to something simpler, earthier. This recipe takes the best of your summer garden, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, and transforms them into fresh, rich, delectable vegetarian tacos. They're simple enough for an everyday dinner and special enough for company. This one is headed straight for our summer menu rotation.

Tacos de calabacitas
Adapted from a recipe by Julian Medina, chef and owner of Tolache in Manhattan, and printed in the June 21, 2010 issue of The New York Times
Yield 4 servings
Time 30 minutes

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons minced onion
1/2 cup diced yellow summer squash
1/2 cup diced zucchini
1/2 cup corn kernels, preferably fresh (we used frozen)
1 jalapeño, stemmed, seeded and finely chopped
1/2 cup diced tomato or quartered cherry tomatoes
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
dash cumin
salt
1/2 cup Monterey Jack cheese, grated
8 corn tortillas
1 tablespoon minced cilantro (optional)

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat the oil until shimmering. Add onion and sauté until translucent, about 2 minutes. Add squash, zucchini, corn kernels and jalapeno. Sauté until squash and zucchini are lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes, oregano, cumin, and salt to taste.

Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook, stirring once or twice, until squash, zucchini and tomatoes release their juices and begin to blend, 5 to 7 minutes. Uncover, and adjust salt as needed. Sprinkle with cheese, cover, and cook until cheese is melted, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and keep warm.

Preheat a griddle or large heavy skillet over medium heat. Working in batches, warm the tortillas on the griddle, about one minute a side. Place the warmed tortillas on a platter and cover with foil to keep warm.

Arrange two warm tortillas on each of four plates. Place equal portions of filling in the center of each tortilla. Garnish with a sprinkling of cilantro, and serve.

Adventures in ice cream making

Note to self: do not make frozen custard before morning coffee.

Addendum to note: do not attempt to make a very persnickety food for the very first time ever before morning coffee. Ever.

It started with the very best of intentions. (Doesn't it always?) I had some rhubarb pulp left and a handful of strawberries and a new ice cream maker just begging for some play. And Mark Bittman made custard-based ice cream sound so very straightforward. What could go wrong?

If my life were a movie, this is the scene where you'd hear ominous music begin to play in the background. Like when the nubile blonde says to her friends, "I'll catch up with you guys later" in an 80s horror flick. You know it's a very bad idea.

Maybe it wouldn't have gone so wrong if I hadn't taken that extra step of trying to combine roles? Culinary goddess, thrifty domestic manager, and doting parent. You see...the frozen custard called for six egg yolks, and I didn't want to waste six perfectly good egg whites. Especially free-range egg whites approved by Whole Foods (that assuager of vague well-heeled carnivorous guilt). Oh, and I have this very finicky child who rejects most breakfast foods and eats only egg whites, no yolks. (Do you see where this is headed?)

So I decide that the very best usage of our resources is to make frozen custard before breakfast. On a school day.

Was it a surprise that this ended in tears? (Was it a surprise that in the next scene, the blonde is stumbling through a dark woods, screaming her nubile lungs out? It's really amazing how many horror movie suburbias have vast expanses of woods. Super convenient.) Anyway. Back to the custard slaughter...a pot of frothy, curdled custard-wannabe poured down the sink and many muffled curses at Mark Bittman for failing to note that custard must be cooked at a very low temperature. Very low. And that one must not beat the milk into the eggs too vigorously.

So. Take two.

It looks like liquid cat food for your senior kitties, right? Tuna custard for your toothless felines?

Our new $24 retired-model Cuisinart purchased at Costco did not make ice cream. It made...sludge. Product-of-blood-sweat-and-tears sludge. Plus strawberry rhubarb has an odd fleshy color that isn't super attractive, especially when it's not a nicely shaped mound of ice cream.

(It did taste good and was an excellent use of leftover rhubarb syrup pulp.) Oh well. Adventures in ice cream making, take two, is coming soon.

Vanilla rhubarb soda or rhubarb bellini or...

I love this. It embodies the very best of what I love about cooking and food.

Simplicity. Taste. Versatility.

What am I talking about? Rhubarb syrup. You can't get any simpler than this. Best of all, you use every bit. After cooking down the rhubarb, use the syrup for making amazing vanilla rhubarb soda or bellinis. You can use the pulp as jam or ice cream topping. If you haven't already made something like this, you're going to swoon. Promise.

By the way, I have a shameful admission for a self-professed foodie. This is my first rhubarb encounter. Before it showed up in my CSA box, I don't think I'd recognize rhubarb if you'd bopped me on the head with it. Of course, I'd had it in pie, usually of the strawberry rhubarb variety. But by then, it had been cooked down into indistinguishable lumps. Did you know that rhubarb looks like beautifully rosy celery? Who knew?

Simple rhubarb syrup
Adapted from the kitchn and The New York Times

4 cups rhubarb, chopped crosswise into thin slices
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
approx. 1/4 vanilla pod, sliced lengthwise

Combine rhubarb, sugar, water, and vanilla pod into saucepot. Bring to a boil. Cover and turn down to a simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the rhubarb has broken down and the liquid has thickened.

Let cool. Strain through a fine-meshed sieve or cheesecloth. Refrigerate pulp and syrup separately. Use within one week.

This turned out to be very sweet. Syrupy sweet, in fact. Next time, I might dial back the sugar just a bit. Then again, it was syrupy perfection.

The pulp wasn't very photogenic, but made an amazing topping for a buttered multigrain English muffin. An easy, delicious start to the day.

Add 1 part rhubarb syrup to 4 parts sparkling water for an all-natural, unusual, delicious soda. The girls both gave it two thumbs up. I don't remember how they pulled off this contortionist feat while guzzling the soda down as fast as possible.

And if you're feeling a bit more celebratory (or have a more adult audience), mix 1 part rhubarb syrup to 4 parts prosecco. One sip immediately flung me back to my college days, downing bellinis with friends at Birraporetti's. This rhubarb bellini is even better.

The possibilities for rhubarb syrup cocktails are endless. Next on my to-try list might be rhubarb whiskey sours. Or these rhubarb mojitos. Cheers!

Sweet birthday sprigs

I'd forgotten. I had a birthday a little while ago. I've gotten to that age where one year slides inconspicuously into the next, and I wouldn't want to count all the candles on my cake. Actually, no one should put that many candles on one single cake. Fire hazard.

My girls presented me with their gifts.

They wandered the yard, gathering flowers from every corner.

I love these sweet little arrangements so much more than the most elaborate and rare florist's display.

It's the little things. Really.