For the US quarter-final game against Brazil, a couple of Ella’s teammates came over for a pajama-party USA themed breakfast: pancakes with red/white/blue strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream. It wasn’t about the food. The food was fun, but the game was the centerpiece of the morning. Offering pancakes was just an excuse for getting some of them together to root for their players, then celebrate, and the extra whipped cream came in handy when we all needed a pick-me-up during the nail biting overage time.
After, they swarmed the park & had an impromptu meet up with another teammate and her dad.
These are not the padrones we usually eat all summer long, but ones we actually grew in our garden. They were perfect. If the plants actually start producing, this will save us at least $6 a week. A girl can dream, can’t she?
My contribution to dinner in the mountains was a twist on one of our family favorites: grilled salmon tacos. It was inspired by bags of fresh chips and fresh corn tortillas that were in the cabin, a pile of limes, and a bag of shredded cabbage. We had sour cream, and plenty of mayonnaise and cumin for the baja sauce.
We never use salmon for tacos, but I made the drive to Overland Meat Company and bought the fish most recently brought in, which that day proved to be some beautiful looking salmon tail. If you’re ever on the South Shore of Lake Tahoe, this is the place to go for beautiful, freshly butchered meant and impeccable fish. Normally I would have balked at using it in tacos, but I had eaten some recently that were surprisingly good. I bought 2 lbs, and we had a simple, delicious dinner. They were, in fact, some of the best fish tacos I’ve made, but I attribute that to the quality of the wild salmon and not so much anything fancy I did with it. Here is the recipe that served 5 adults and 4 children, with no leftovers:
Grilled Salmon Tacos
serves 7-8 adults or 5 adults + children
2 lbs wild salmon filets
2 lemons
2 limes
white wine
olive oil
salt
cumin
Marinate the salmon in a ziplock bag with the juice of 1 1/2-2 lemons, 2 limes, a splash (about 1/4 cup) wine, a good sprinkling of salt, about 2 T cumin, and olive oil to cover the fish. 30 minutes will do, but you can leave it longer for more flavor. I generally marinate from after lunch to dinner.
Grill salmon, skin side down, over medium high heat until cooked through.
Let cook slightly, peel strips of salmon off the skin, cut into chunks if you prefer, and serve with:
warm corn or flour tortillas (your preference)
shredded green cabbage
red salsa
cream sauce (equal parts mayonnaise and sour cream, lime and cumin to taste)
refried black beans
shredded cheese
cherry tomato salad dressed with salt, olive oil & lime
I may never bake another brownie again. Oh, I will certainly make brownies, but now I’ve found a recipe that rivals even the one I discovered in Kate Moses’ gorgeous memoir-with-recipes, Cakewalk, the brownie recipe I said — oh, less than two months ago — was the last brownie recipe you would ever need.
Well. If you want brownies without turning the oven on (which is useful in the summer) keep this recipe handy.
The irony here is that I did have to turn the oven on. Lacking the chocolate wafer cookies that are a key ingredient, and with my local market out of stock, I baked them myself rather than drive around to other markets looking for them. My recipe comes from Alice Medrich’s glorious Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies but you can find a very similar version of the recipe at Smitten Kitchen.
And yes, I did put up with a fair amount of teasing for baking cookies to grind up to put in my no-bake brownies. Those folks would be eating their words if their mouths weren’t so full of brownies right now.
Here’s what you need:
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 cups evaporated milk (from one 12-ounce can)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups finely ground chocolate wafer cookies (from two 9-ounce packages; if you bake these yourself from the recipe linked above, you’ll have plenty for the brownies plus a dozen or so leftover. Do not share them with anyone who teases you about baking cookies to put into no-bake brownies.)
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons salted cocktail peanuts
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
Salt
Here’s what you do:
Line a 9-inch square baking pan with plastic wrap, leaving a 1-inch overhang on all sides.
Heat chocolate and evaporated milk in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring, until chocolate melts and is smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Set aside 1/3 cup.*
Combine cookies, 2 cups coconut, 1 cup peanuts, the sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Pour in chocolate mixture; stir until combined.
Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan. Spread reserved 1/3 cup chocolate over top. Finely chop remaining 2 tablespoons coconut and 2 tablespoons peanuts; sprinkle evenly over chocolate.* Refrigerate until set, about 2 hours. Remove brownies from pan by lifting plastic wrap. Remove plastic, and cut into 24 brownies.
Keep refrigerated (or even frozen). These would be excellent broken up and stirred into ice cream.
* I didn’t read the recipe very carefully (typical) and forgot to reserve chocolate/peanuts/coconut for the topping, but of course the brownies taste just as good with all those ingredients inside rather than on top.
