This week, Jen takes over the ingredient picks for the next 4 weeks, and we started off with Rosemary. I normally think of rosemary as a winter herb, so it was interesting to see the mix of recipes that we all came up with for the dead of summer.
Jen went all out and did two rosemary meals. Mostly just because she was trying to use up the bunch. Jen, agreeing with me, thought it was an interesting challenge because she also doesn’t really think of rosemary in summery foods.
First, she did grilled veggies and halloumi wraps. She made a sauce by blending olive oil, minced rosemary, English mustard powder, salt and pepper and a splash of vinegar until it emulsified, then set half aside and diluted down the other half with lemon juice and olive oil and used it to marinate slices of eggplant, zucchini and asparagus. Those were then grilled with red pepper slices and halloumi. She then griddled tortillas and made wraps with some of the sauce, hummus and the veggies and cheese. Verdict: very yummy! The second meal was two pizzas to clear out various ingredients from the fridge. At the base of both was a sauce of olive oil with minced garlic and rosemary. The first had the sauce, apple slices, the end of the blue cheese from Mike’s pizzas last week, a tiny bit of fresh mozzarella and Parmesan. The other pizza had the sauce, some leftover tomato passata, some leftover spicy chorizo slices, some Gouda, a bit of mozzarella and Parmesan and red pepper slices. Both were really delicious and totally different from one another. The rosemary came through really well.
Bryan was visiting Lara this week and glommed onto her recipe, it would seem. They made Lemon-Rosemary Pound Cake for their entry for the week. Lara also made rosemary focaccia bread and rosemary and goat cheese mac & cheese last Friday for dinner. All were delicious! The entire 9×13 pan of mac and cheese was pretty much polished off on Friday night and Olive even gave it a “more please!” So if you were wondering when you should make more mac ‘n cheese the answer is …right now.
Mike went with a classic combination for this week and made the Rosemary Chicken recipe from Jamie Oliver’s 15 minute meals. Naturally it took about 45 minutes to do one of his 15 minute meals because… real life. There was a misreading of the ingredients before shopping, so there were no oyster mushrooms on top, or chilli in the tomato sauce.
I went for the cocktail route this week. I also made some focaccia later with some of my remaining rosemary. I made these blackberry whiskey lemonades for the house. I didn’t end up with enough blackberry syrup (I think I cooked it too long), so they were probably tarter than they should have been, but that turned out okay and maybe even better for being less sweet. Everyone really liked them, and they looked beautiful. And I think I squeezed every last drop of “summerness” out of rosemary with this mix.
Special guests this week were Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Jim, who served themselves up cheese, crackers, rosemary garnish, and a bottle of red wine each for their anniversary. Always a welcome addition to the challenge!
Capers in the Kitchen 