Our first dinner menu combines the flavors of succulent lamb, lemon, and garlic in a festive reason for "dusting off" the family outdoor grill. Lamb is a traditional meat of the season; and although we can now buy it all year long, somehow, splurging on a rack of lamb when the tulips are in bloom, seems appropriate. The rib chops are just the right size and easily trimmed of all fat. We teamed the chops with one of our favorite grains, couscous, and the smallest of fresh green beans. For dessert, we're suggesting grilled pineapple, topped with sugar-free ice cream and a sprinkling of chopped toasted almonds.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
The second menu is designed for that first warm evening when you want to eat light, yet elegantly. This is an easy meal to prepare, making it perfect for a weekday meal when you'd rather spend your time on the terrace than in the kitchen. It'll give you extra minutes to enjoy the scent of the hyacinths in bloom, while you contemplate the dent in your budget that the annuals will make when you start your yearly trips to the local nursery.
This is a recipe that can use substitutions as dictated by market availability. Go to your fish market and look at the tuna, shrimp, crab, scallops, and any firm fish that your fish monger promises was alive hours before. For years, I was one of those people who didn't take back fish if it smelled when I unwrapped it. I would just change my menu. Well, seafood is expensive, and we eat little protein these days, and when we do, we want it to be delicious and fresh. When it's not, I return it and let the store know that I'm not satisfied. To their credit, most have tried to get fresher fish or at least are more honest when I ask about the freshness of their seafood. Remember, if you substitute another variety of seafood for the scallops, be sure to take into account the additional fat, sodium count, and exchanges.
Since this is a whole-meal salad, we're serving it with bruschetta and a simple dessert of fresh raspberries with a bit of crushed baked meringue. Not only is the meal easy and quick to prepare, but the cleanup afterwards takes only takes minutes. Plenty of time left for a stroll through the gardens to mentally layout a new color scheme for this year's annual garden.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our third meal is full of flavors of the Pacific Rim -- fresh ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and chopped cilantro (sometimes call Chinese parsley). Since it's a stir-fry, most of your time is spent in slicing the pork and preparing the vegetables. We usually pop any stir-fry meat or chicken into the freezer for about 30 minutes before slicing it. The partial freezing allows us to get very thin slices with little effort. We chose to serve the stir-fry with rice, but you could also use noodles -- soba, buckwheat, or even linguine or fettucine.
With the meal, we suggest a small bowl of slices of English or hothouse cucumber (a darling of the 90s that's a bit more expensive than the garden variety cucumber, but it's virtually seedless and there's no need to peel it), combined with radishes and grated carrot. The salad has a "pickled" flavor that nicely complements the flavors of the stir-fry. For dessert, a favorite in our house: pieces of fresh mango and sliced banana. Somehow, the combination of these two tropical fruits heightens the individual flavors of both. Do try it; you'll find yourself picking up a mango often so you can have this dessert (it's also great as a fruit for breakfast).
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
Our last menu is based on a favorite dish learned from my Persian friend, Parvine. Every time she visits, we beseech her to cook some marvelous food from her homeland. This time we took her to the fabulous Central Market in Austin where she could buy the necessary herbs, dried limes, and other exotic ingredients that she used for several dishes that we served to our Texas friends at a special dinner party. Along with Abgoust, a savory lamb, bean, and herb stew which we'll give you the recipe for in another issue, several interesting side dishes containing herbs, nuts, and yogurt, Parvine fixed her special chicken with dried fruits that I've enjoyed on several occasions in her home and at her bed & breakfast in Newport, Rhode Island. Each time she prepares this dish, it's a little different -- this time, my lemon thyme was flourishing in my strawberry jar herb garden so it was the herb of choice. Another time, she might use oregano or sweet marjoram or mint. But always the dish has the thin slices of orange and lemon that are baked on top and eaten, rind included. As the fruit bakes, the rind mellows and adds a delightful accent to the savory chicken.
Since the chicken dish is a complete casserole, we teamed it with a wilted spinach salad and suggest vanilla nonfat yogurt topped with pieces of kiwi as a refreshing dessert for the rather heavy meal. To serve the meal, Persian style, offer a plate of fresh herbs, small sprigs of basil, flat-leaf parsley, mint, cilantro, and dill to eat along with the chicken. A fresh herb plate is always on a Persian table and we've adopted the practice in our homes -- the fresh herbs excite the tastebuds and aid in digestion of the meal.
(for the recipes, click on The Recipes or click on the individual recipe above)
