All in a Wednesday Afternoon: Mint Lemonade, Homemade Mayo, and Killer Salmon Salad
I woke up this morning disgusted with the state of my own physical and mental squalor. My room was a mess, I hadn't worked out in a couple days, I've been watching too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Netflix; I've started at the beginning. So I popped up, took a stroll to Arizmendi for a large coffee (their coffee is organic, fair trade, very dark and very hot, oh yeah they have good pizza too). Came back to my sunny garden to finish reading A Lie of the Mind, for which I was still holding out hope for a callback. Then threw in a load of laundry and went for a run. Now when I get domestic it isn't long before my attention is turned to the kitchen.
So what's a sweaty girl to do on a beautiful Emeryville day with a garden full of mint and a bowl of lemons?
Whip up a little blender lemonade of course.
1 cup of water
3 lemons, halved and peel cut off
1 overflowing tablespoon of honey
1 or 2 big handfuls of mint leaves
Blend this, then strain and pour over ice. Incredibly refreshing, and not a bad sports recovery drink!
So I went about my cleaning, only to find myself back in the kitchen with 2 beautiful fillets of salmon that I had received from a catering gig. Hmm, they still smelled alright, better use them up now. Pop those in the oven at 375 for 12 minutes, slathered in olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, let rest out of the oven for 5 min.
Gorgeous baked salmon. If you're not a cook, this could be your new winner recipe.
While the salmon was baking my wheels started turning...I've been wanting to try my hand at homemade mayo for a while and remembered a version from a raw "uncook" book of mine. But alas, I had lent the book to a friend. I knew it involved raw egg, olive oil, emulsifying. So I turned to Google, and found many a recipe with sugar and vegetable oil, like this one from Alton Brown. Even Epicurious turned up a version with canola oil. This just ain't my style - unless I'm frying something, which I never do, my only two oils are olive and coconut. I know, I know why they do this. Olive oil is too strong and overpowering for traditional mayo and a lighter vegetable oil fades into the creamy white goodness. I happen to love the flavor of olive oil though, and I have my nutrition principles. A Google search of "homemade mayonnaise olive oil" turned up this blog: Cooking for Engineers. Don't you just love the name?? And it was perfect, four ingredients: egg yolk, salt, white pepper, olive oil. Nothing funky, nothing nutritionally deleterious. And most importantly I had all of them.
1 egg yolk
juice of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper (ok I didn't have white pepper but I didn't care about looks too much)
Whisk
Add a drop or two of olive oil at a time, whisking as you go. Make sure the mayo is fully incorporated or emulsified before adding more oil. I didn't measure the oil, just kept adding it until the mayo had a creamy texture that pleased me. The good people at Cooking for Engineers have more precise measurements. I gotta tell you though, it was nothing like Best Foods. My pastured egg yolk gave the whole thing an orange-ish hue (more on pastured eggs here), and the olive oil was peppery, grassy and distinct. I loved it though!
Combined with baked salmon and some grated carrots I had sitting around to make a salmon salad, and plopped on a bed of torn romaine, dressed with olive oil & lemon juice:
Now I just gotta get back to laundry!
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
So what's a sweaty girl to do on a beautiful Emeryville day with a garden full of mint and a bowl of lemons?
Whip up a little blender lemonade of course.
1 cup of water
3 lemons, halved and peel cut off
1 overflowing tablespoon of honey
1 or 2 big handfuls of mint leaves
Blend this, then strain and pour over ice. Incredibly refreshing, and not a bad sports recovery drink!
So I went about my cleaning, only to find myself back in the kitchen with 2 beautiful fillets of salmon that I had received from a catering gig. Hmm, they still smelled alright, better use them up now. Pop those in the oven at 375 for 12 minutes, slathered in olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, let rest out of the oven for 5 min.
Gorgeous baked salmon. If you're not a cook, this could be your new winner recipe.
While the salmon was baking my wheels started turning...I've been wanting to try my hand at homemade mayo for a while and remembered a version from a raw "uncook" book of mine. But alas, I had lent the book to a friend. I knew it involved raw egg, olive oil, emulsifying. So I turned to Google, and found many a recipe with sugar and vegetable oil, like this one from Alton Brown. Even Epicurious turned up a version with canola oil. This just ain't my style - unless I'm frying something, which I never do, my only two oils are olive and coconut. I know, I know why they do this. Olive oil is too strong and overpowering for traditional mayo and a lighter vegetable oil fades into the creamy white goodness. I happen to love the flavor of olive oil though, and I have my nutrition principles. A Google search of "homemade mayonnaise olive oil" turned up this blog: Cooking for Engineers. Don't you just love the name?? And it was perfect, four ingredients: egg yolk, salt, white pepper, olive oil. Nothing funky, nothing nutritionally deleterious. And most importantly I had all of them.
1 egg yolk
juice of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper (ok I didn't have white pepper but I didn't care about looks too much)
Whisk
Add a drop or two of olive oil at a time, whisking as you go. Make sure the mayo is fully incorporated or emulsified before adding more oil. I didn't measure the oil, just kept adding it until the mayo had a creamy texture that pleased me. The good people at Cooking for Engineers have more precise measurements. I gotta tell you though, it was nothing like Best Foods. My pastured egg yolk gave the whole thing an orange-ish hue (more on pastured eggs here), and the olive oil was peppery, grassy and distinct. I loved it though!
Combined with baked salmon and some grated carrots I had sitting around to make a salmon salad, and plopped on a bed of torn romaine, dressed with olive oil & lemon juice:
Now I just gotta get back to laundry!
Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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