Zucchini and Toasted Corn Tacos with Fresh Tomatillo Salsa

Wow- I've made vegetarian tacos before, but these were by far the best. The toasted corn gave these a unique flavor- some awesome caramelization... mmmm.
Plus, topped with feta and freshly made salsa verde with CSA tomatillos: to die for.

Indian-esque Feast

Grilled tandoori-style chicken with raita, oven-roasted Indian-spiced okra, and some faux naan (i.e. I made it with leftover pizza dough), cooked in the cast iron pan.

Pretty good! The okra came out a lot spicier than I thought... a slow burn. The chicken was good, but nothin' special. It made great chicken salad for lunch the next day, though.

Angel Food Cake with Fresh Blueberry Sauce

After making the sesame ice cream for the sesame/halvah/caramel sundaes from last week I had a TON of egg whites left over. Angel food cake to the rescue!

This chocolate-speckled angel food cake from Ina caught my eye, but I figured I would try the basic recipe first before mixing it up. The cake came out sweet, light, and fluffy, without that weird chemical flavor the store-bought ones have.

You definitely have to be delicate when mixing up the batter so you don't crush the fluffed up egg whites. Also, I was forced to buy special cake flour for the recipe, which was a little bit of a pain, but not the end of the world.

Served the cake with a fresh blueberry sauce based loosely on Ina's recipe... I didn't strain it because I like the lumps from the fresh blueberries.

Faux Cheesesteaks

In honor of the return of The Jersey Shore, I cooked up some peppas and onions, a la the Sitch.
Ok, not really. I cooked peppers and onions because I got a giant bag of banana peppers from the CSA, which I thought would be the spicy ones, but turned out to be sweet.We turned them into faux cheesesteaks- toasted hoagie rolls with a little mayo, sauteed peppers, onions and mushrooms, and thinly sliced roast beef and provolone. Throw it all together and toss it under the broiler for a couple minutes to warm up and melt the cheese. Ta da: faux cheesesteak.

Jazz in the Sculpture Garden Spread

More Jazz at the Sculpture Garden goodies... chicken satay with peanut and a spicy rice vinegar dipping sauces, summer rolls with mango and red pepper, sesame noodles... plus lots and lots and lots of sangria!

Summery Cantaloupe Sangria

For an outing to listen to jazz in the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden, I made this summery sangria I read about in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine... I can't seem to find the recipe online, but the gist of it was thus:

• lots of chopped up summer fruit (I used cantaloupe and a little peach)
• lots of mint and basil
• white wine
• orange liqueur
• sliced ginger

Let it soak together for a couple hours, pour over ice and enjoy!

Later in the evening, after we'd run out of wine, but the fruit was still in the pitcher, we poured some sparkling wine over it and that worked well, too.

Sesame and Halvah Sundaes with Caramel Sauce

Martha loves sesame... not quite as much as she loves ginger, but definitely a lot. She was coming to DC, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to try out this recipe from Food and Wine for sesame ice cream sundaes with caramel sauce, sesame candies and halvah (a spongey, but pretty tasty sesame candy concoction.)
This recipe bordered on sesame overload, but could be slightly modified and greatly improved.

The ice cream by itself = delicious.
The ice cream with a caramel sauce = great (although the caramel in the recipe is less of a sauce and more of a candy- I added cream to the cooked sugar to give it a saucy consistency).
The ice cream and caramel with the sesame candy and halvah toppings = unique and tasty.
The tahini cream = weird and slightly off-putting.

If I made it again, I would skip the tahini cream in favor of more caramel. Also, I would use a different recipe for the caramel sauce- the one in the magazine was a little wonky, as I said.