Flounder, Asparagus & Vidalia Onions Roasted in an Herb Butter Rub Served with Orzo, Dressed in a Lemon Butter Sauce

Clearly Summer is the time for fresh, light, and citrus. This dish requires a bit more preparation and can get complicated, in part due to my making two separate sauces - the herb butter which the fish, onions and asparagus cooked in and the lemon-butter sauce which I made to serve over the fish, veggies, and pasta.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and start with the herb butter. In a bowl, beat 4 tablespoons of softened butter with a fork. Add 2 teaspoons of minced fresh flat leaf Italian parsley, 1 tablespoon of fresh minced thyme, 1 teaspoon of fresh minced chives, the zest from 1 lemon, the juice from two lemons, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Using a dab of extra virgin olive oil, I oiled a 9x13 cooking dish and layered the bottom with 2 or 3 thinly sliced vidalia onions, then the asparagus. Generously rub down the flounder fillets with the herb butter and lay on top of the onions and asparagus.

The flounder will cook pretty quickly depending on thickness; to avoid overcooking I generally go with 10 minutes per inch of thickness. Toss it in the oven. Put on the water to boil for the orzo.

Once your fish is nearly finished, move on to the lemon butter sauce. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter over low heat in a small saucepan with the zest from 1 lemon. Whisk in 1 tablespoon of flour and cook, stirring until the mixture just begins to color. Add 1 cup of chicken broth and the juice from 1 lemon, wisking vigorously to smooth out any lumps or chunks. Cook, stirring occasionally, until thick. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Once the fish, onions and asparagus, and orzo have been plated, pour the sauce over and serve.

Summer Bounty: Tomatoes

This tomato plant is a wonderful addition to our garden this summer. As with our edibles, we have it on our roof to keep neighbors from picking it at street-level. Given that it's a bit unsteady and a little over 3 feet tall, after bringing it home, I tethered the plant base to a very convenient satellite dish protruding from the side of the building, left by a former tenant. Further reinforcing it are bricks stacked three high surrounding the four sides of the base. The plant has remained despite crazy monsoon-like storms.

Speaking of undesirable weather, the plant has taken a bit of a beating from our unusually steamy summer; with temperatures hovering in the high 90s for pretty much all of July, the leaves did wither a bit, but as you can see the plant is still happily producing fruit, which we have been able to add to salads, salsas, and sauces.

Trout Amandine

Instead of fillets of fish I asked my fish poacher for two trout, gutted, de-boned, and beheaded. Laying each fish flat, skin side down on the pan, I seasoned each with salt, pepper, and a bit of fresh lemon zest before I set them in the oven at about 350 degrees.

Turning my attention to the almonds, I chopped about 1/4 cup and added them to an already heated frying pan. You'll want to stir them frequently so they toast rather than cook and burn, for approximately 5 minutes. Transfer the nuts to a plate.

Wipe out the frying pan and add 4 tablespoons of butter, the juice from one lemon, and about a quarter cup of minced fresh flat leaf Italian parsley. Stir in the almonds and season with a bit of salt and pepper.

At this point the fish should be thoroughly cooked, tender, and moist. Once the fish have been plated, spoon the sauce over. I served it alongside fresh orzo that boiled with a bit of butter and lemon in the water and fresh brussel sprouts.

The Cooking Channel's Ice Cream Truck Tour Has Taken Philadelphia

A little while ago, my coworkers and I took a wee walk from our offices to the corner of 12th & Arch where The Cooking Channel's Ice Cream Truck has been parked all day.

To celebrate the launch of The Cooking Channel, they have been traveling the country in their ice cream truck handing out sweet treats from the area's tastiest vendor to heatstroke induced pedestrians. Bassets Ice Cream, located in The Reading Terminal Market, was handing out a delicious confection called Guatemalan Ripple Fudge, a blend of coffee ice cream, coffee filled chocolate peanut butter cups, and chocolate sauce. Yum. My personal perk was a free American Apparel t-shirt that says "Food Person" on the front, courtesy of being so damn happy and nerdy about food that I have a food blog. Love it!

The next and final stop of the Ice Cream Tour is this Saturday in Atlantic City for the Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival.

Nada to Gourmet Basil-Lemon Butter Chicken

Okay, so it wasn't actually gourmet, but it was pretty impressive given that I wanted to cook something tasty and flavorful but had neglected to grab anything. This happens a lot, I would imagine and what I can advise is to scrounge around in your cabinets and garden, maybe even your freezer, for easily paired components for your plate. In this case, I had hastily taken the chicken breasts out to thaw before leaving for work and confronted the question mark when I got home. I attacked our wilting basil plant and finely chopped what was left. We had two lemons sitting in the basket with a few potatoes. I squeezed the juice of both, added some zest to the basil, and two tablespoons of butter to a saute pan. Once the 'sauce' was viscous, I tossed in a handful of the end of some Parmesan cheese and a pinch of salt and pepper. A few leftover baby red potatoes diced also went into the pan.

While the main course was simmering under a lid, I pulled the rest of a bag of frozen green beans and cooked, drained, and tossed with a bit of butter, salt and pepper, serving alongside some leftover bread I warmed in the oven to soften, and Voila! The sauce was absolutely divine, just the perfect amount of tangy which was great on the potatoes and chicken as well as a dipping sauce for our bread.

Chicken, Spinach & Mushroom Quesadillas

I know what you're thinking - why, during this, the sixth heatwave of the summer for those of us on the East Coast - are you even suggesting cooking? The truth is that even as the mercury climbs, we still need to eat AND since this is a stovetop dish, it won't even heat up your kitchen more than maybe two or three degrees.

I took two chicken breasts and diced them into bite size pieces and sauted them in a wee bit of olive oil. This is pretty flexible - you can add some cumin, cayenne, garlic, salt, and chili powder to give it a kick, leave the chicken out altogether for a veggie dish, or just keep the chicken in its natural juices.

Once the chicken is cooked through, add about 6 ounces of sliced button mushrooms (I went with brown baby bella mushrooms). Once tender, add about 2 packed cups of fresh baby spinach until the spinach is wilted. Generally I warm my tortillas in the toaster oven while the mushrooms and spinach are cooking so when everything is finished, the monterey jack cheese that you will sprinkle on the bottom half of each, melts quicker. Layer your chicken-mushroom-spinach mix on top of the cheese and fold the tortilla in half to enclose the filling, pressing closed firmly.

Wipe out your frying pan with a paper towel and add each quesadilla to the pan one at a time, cooking until each is golden brown on each side. You can brush each with some oil, but I've found it isn't necessary. Plate, top with some sour cream and salsa fresca, and serve.

When you have a garden full of pretty flowers, you don't demand of them, "What do you mean? What is your significance?" - Balanchine

Sorry fellow readers; I understand it has been a very long time since my last post - almost three months in fact, but in addition to the general insanity of life, I was felled by a Teratoma. I forewarn however, that you do not look at pictures of said benign tumor that was removed along with a ladypart UNLESS you have a strong stomach. It is NOT delicious nor appetizing. Apparently, 1 in 1,000,000,000 people get these so I can officially say I am 1 in a million.

Now that I have returned, fully recovered, from my "sick leave" I wanted to share the status of our garden this year. We tilled and soiled and mulched in the beginning and discovered the gladiola bulbs that were the size of maybe two walnuts had grown to the size of our palms! So far, we have two that have shot up and more on the way, as you can see by the images. Additionally, some wildflowers, a tiny cherry tree, a rhododendron, and two rose bushes. If you have been following since last year, you can see we have reused the same storage bins for our two large containers of green goodness. The cherry tree and the rhododendron are in containers we found in the alley running behind the houses on our block AND we decided that a $4 pink "beer bucket" was good enough for our roses :) Happy End-of-June-almost-July.