Tastes of Summer – Watermelon and Ice Cream

Posted on July 30, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

I bought a whole watermelon the other day. I needed it to make a delicious heirloom tomato watermelon gazpacho recipe I planned to bring to a potluck.

I was surprised that I could actually make such a delicious gazpacho!

I tasted the recipe after it was demoed by Chef Harold Deiterle, who recently released a cookbook, Harold Dieterle’s Kitchen Notebook Techniques. It won me over.

But mostly I wanted the watermelon for snacking. Fresh watermelon is one of those distinctly summer foods, a flavor I associate with backyard spitting contests of my childhood. The heat and humidity of summer bring on a kind of thirst that only watermelon can truly quench.

There are a few other flavors I lately connect to summer–even if I may in fact indulge all year long. Iced tea, ice-cold beer, and ice cream.

On the day I had about a quarter of my watermelon left, I heard someone mention watermelon rind as one of those trimmings that you’re going to be stuck composting, since there’s not much you can do to make it edible, sellable, and appealing. Not that I disagree. But I took it as a challenge. I was going to make watermelon rind pickles.

Watermelon Rind Pickles
Adapted from Food.com for 1/4 watermelon
About 2.5 lb watermelon rind (flesh mostly removed, shell included)
For the brining:
1⁄4 Cup salt
1 quart water
For the pickling syrup:
2 Cups white vinegar
2 Cups water
4 Cups sugar
1/3 lemon, sliced thin
Spices:
1 cinnamon sticks
1/3 teaspoon whole cloves
1/3 teaspoon whole allspice

Remove all the juicy watermelon flesh and reserve for another use. (Admittedly, I will miss having the rind as a handle when I eat the remains later. Oh well.)

At this point, I had 2 lb 8.5 ounces.

Next you will need to peel the outer hard rind from the softer white portion. It took a fair amount of muscle power and time to remove the green shell. I used a combination of peeler and knife. Your knife should be very sharp for this, and it’s important to be very careful. Cut away from yourself and always keep hands and fingers behind the direction you are cutting!

After 5 minutes of labor, the green parts were gone. The next step is to remove any remaining pink, and slice into 1 to 2 inch by 3/4″ pieces. This took about 7 minutes.

Final weigh in? 1 pound 8.6 ounces of rind. So 1 pound was still going to the compost, but if I had planned to use the whole watermelon’s rind (which would make more pickles than I would know what to do with), I would have saved more than 5 pounds.

Make a brine by dissolving 1/4 cup of salt into 1 quart of water.

I could have used less for this rind, and you may need to scale up for more.

Allow to brine in refrigerator overnight.

Drain and rinse soaked watermelon rind.

At this point, I used the scale of 0.375 to approximate the other ingredients: allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and lemon. I could have scaled down a little less on the sugar, water, and vinegar that made up the syrup; in the end it would have helped to have more for inside the jars.

If you’d like, combine the spices together in a cheesecloth.

Combine the syrup and spice ingredients and bring to a boil for about 5 minutes.

Add half of the rind and simmer until it becomes translucent. It took about 36 minutes for my first batch.

Spoon rind out of the pan and into a clean jar. Be sure to sterilize, if you plan on preserving longer term.

Repeat the simmering step with remaining rind.

Remove spice satchel and discard. Pour boiling syrup to cover the rind in jars. Why not include the lemon?

Taste test results: Not bad. The cloves were a little more noticeable than I would like (I’ve complained about this before). Otherwise, the flavor resembled those Vlasic sweet and crunchy pickles, which were once the only type I could tolerate.

Looking for other ideas for the watermelon flesh? Real Simple posted this yesterday:

onethread design via Real Simple

Returning to the topic of ice cream….this same week, I thought I better make some before National Ice Cream month ends!

Ice cream (or sorbet) is another dish that can incorporate whatever you have around. Even cucumber. This time, I’m went to the herbs in my garden, and incorporated them into a rich base made with egg yolks.

Is tomato ice cream in my future?

Mint Ice Cream
Adapted from Melissa Clark’s New York Times recipe

1 Cup mint leaves
⅔ Cup sugar
1.5 Cups heavy cream
1.5 Cups milk (I used my skim)
⅛ teaspoon sea salt, finely ground
6 large egg yolks

Combine mint leaves and sugar in a food processor. Grind together until fully combined and green.

Pour cream, milk, sugar mixture and salt into a small saucepan and cook until the sugar dissolves. Whisk yolks in a separate heat-proof bowl.

When the sugar has dissolved, remove pan from heat and slowly whisk in about a third of the hot mixture into the yolks.

Then pour the yolk mixture back into the pan and whisk with the remaining hot cream.

Place pan back on a medium-low burner and cook slowly, thickening at about 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

Turn off heat and allow mint to steep in the mixture for about 30 minutes.
Pour through a sieve to catch any solids.

Cool mixture to room temperature and then chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

Follow the directions for your ice cream machine and churn away.

After 20 minutes in this frozen-bowl style, you’ll have soft-serve.

Transfer to a freezer container to harden.

Happy summer!

Christmas in July

Posted on July 15, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

This is embarrassing.

I still have a Panettone I received as a holiday gift.

How terrible is that? For one, it’s an embarrassment of riches to be able to say “woe is me, I have extra cake/bread that I haven’t felt like eating!” This problem is not unique to me, as I confirmed from subsequent Googling. The part that makes it so embarrassing is that I have come to JULY without touching it.

At one point, the cake was tucked in a cubby of a shelf while the months ticked by. Oh, it wasn’t hidden from sight. Just from my apparent consciousness.

Now I’m determined. Cautiously excited. I’m not sure how wise it is to eat the cake so late, and I’m not sure if it would be accepted as a donation. I will justify using it by pointing out that the cake was labeled by someone to be good for about 5 months. What’s another 2.5?

I slowly removed it from the packaging, inspecting for decay. So far, so good.

The perfumey smell of fruitcake hit me as I removed the paper covering around the sides and bottom. Determination: good to go.

French toasts and bread puddings are the top ways to use this sweet, cake-like bread studded with dried fruit. Since I love soaking bread until it becomes a custard consistency, I’m all for it. But with whom am I going to share a large, rich casserole any time soon? To my delight, PJ Hamel’s blog and recipe came up in my searches. It transforms the cake into the form of moist bread loaves, a much more convenient way to keep (i.e. freeze) and share!

The original recipe calls for 9 to 10 cups of diced bread. The full cake totalled about 13 cups for me, so I scaled the recipe accordingly.

Panettone Bread Pudding Loaf
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

4 large eggs
2 2/3 Cups of some combination of milk and cream (I used 2 Cups skim milk and 2/3 Cup heavy cream)
1/4 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 panettone or about 13 Cups panettone or other bread, diced into 1″ cubes
about 1 1/4 Cup fresh lemon curd, split (recipe below-prepare ahead of time to allow for chilling, or purchase pre-made)
coarse sparkling sugar, for sprinkling on top; optional

Microwave Lemon Curd Recipe
Also from King Arthur Flour
Makes at least 2 Cups (more than needed; feel free to halve the recipe, if preferred)

1 Cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 Cup granulated sugar
1/2 Cup (8 Tablespoons) butter, melted
2 large eggs

I ended up using 2 large and 3 small lemons to reach 1 Cup of freshly squeezed juice.

In a large microwave-safe bowl or measuring cup, melt the butter. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well to combine.

Place bowl in microwave and cook in 1-minute increments. After each minute, remove from the microwave and stir to combine.

The curd is done when it is thickening and coating the back of the spoon. Or, when it reaches 185°F – the instant-read thermometer is your friend!

Mine took about 6 minutes to reach 185, but after 3 minutes some of the egg already cooked! Straining is required in this case. I happen to notice my new pasta scoop might have the right size holes for simply scooping out the solids–and it was!

Stir, transfer to a container, and refrigerate (or freeze, if in a rush) until firm.

On to the bread pudding!

Prep your bread by cutting or tearing into pieces.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, dairy, and vanilla. Pour the mixture over the bread and stir. Allow the bread to absorb much of liquid-anywhere from 30 minutes to, in my case, 90+ minutes.

When the soaked bread and curd is ready, preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter up some loaf pans.

Mix the soaked bread some more, and then scoop 1/4 of it into each pan. Plop a heaping 1/2 Cup of lemon curd on top of that layer.

Cover with the rest of the bread/custard.

Now more fun stuff: the recipe calls for sprinkling with white sparkling sugar. It makes me laugh how out of season this is!

Put the pudding loaves in the oven and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until the top becomes golden brown.

Allow to rest and cool at room temperature for at least 1/2 hour.

Another reason why the title of this post is so appropriate: one of my go-to loaf pans has this festive design!

Slice the loaf and top each slice with a little sifted confectioners’ sugar, for good measure.

The verdict? Delicious. The lemon curd adds some nice freshness to counteract the intensity of the dried fruit. The richness of the dessert goes a long way. The recipe author suggests serving the pudding with some less-sweet vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. To me, it begged for an espresso or coffee or black tea on the side.

Now I just need some classy holiday dinner party guests. Are you in?

I decided to commemorate my “Christmas in July” in yet another way: dropping off donations to the Salvation Army. It was probably around the holidays that I last dropped off my extensive collection of rejected clothing and shoes.

The cat sitting on the sweatshirt? That’s Riley. I didn’t give her away.

The piles were doing no good in my closet. Here’s hoping they find a good home!

Championing Food Waste Reduction

Posted on July 10, 2015 by makehastenotwaste

Have you noticed the flurry of activity and media coverage about food waste? At some point during this recent lull in my blog, it felt like everywhere I turned I encountered an article or conference or event related to individuals, companies and governments making efforts to use what is normally tossed.

A few highlights:

At the Blue Hill WastED pop-up in March, I dined on fried fish cartilage, salad made from discarded fruit and vegetable peels, and a vegetable burger that was a total mashup of scraps — from the vegetable pulp to the bread trimmings that made the bun. Nearly every regional media outlet reported on the restaurant.

Chefs across the world are following suit — this past June, a Barcelona restaurant served an inspired four-course “Gastro-Rescue Dinner” that took advantage of tomato squeezings, misshapen eggplant, and the meat scraped from skeletons of filleted salmon, to name a few.
“Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life” is the theme of Expo Milano 2015, the Universal Exposition which runs from May 1 – October 31, 2015 in Milan, Italy and expects to have more than 20 million visitors. For three months, some of the Expo leftovers are being served to needy people in an abandoned nearby theatre, in partnership with the local Catholic charity. 40 prominent chefs will pitch in for one of the months, creating gourmet meals out of the leftovers.
Chef Dan Barber is being recognized further for his book, The Third Plate, now a James Beard Foundation Book Award winner. From reading it, I learned how complicated it can be to fish, farm, cook, serve, and eat responsibly, and how deeply connected our menu preferences are to the earth’s ecological system.
Kangaroo tail, anyone? Chef Curtis Stone is a champion for maximizing ingredients, which he showcases at his James Beard Nominated LA restaurant, Maude, also a James Beard Foundation Award Nominee.
Governments are taking action to reduce food waste! France’s legislative body passed a measure that bans supermarkets from destroying or tossing edible unsold food. When foods were nearing “sell by dates,” supermarkets found them difficult to sell and therefore threw them away–and sometimes went to extreme measures to keep foragers out of the bins. The law requires the stores to donate food to charities or for animal feed; otherwise they face fines and jail time. Here in the U.S., Massachusetts’ commercial food waste ban went into effect on October 1, 2014. The regulations require institutions and businesses disposing more than one ton of organic waste per week to donate or reuse the edible food and compost the rest. (One ton still seems like a lot, does it not?)
Blue Apron continues to expand its following. It announced $135 million in new funding this June. According to Eater’s published analysis of its prominence, “Blue Apron built its empire on the idea of reducing food waste.” Not only does it help customers be more efficient, it also supports sustainable farming practices among its farmers.

I’m encouraged to think that public awareness is increasing. The issues aren’t brand new, of course, and have been in the news for many years. Last month, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) released the results of its 2014 research on U.S. Consumers’ perception of food waste. In terms of knowledge and awareness, 42% of respondents said they saw or heard information about wasted food in the previous year. 16% looked for information about reducing food waste. 24% of respondents characterized themselves as “very knowledgeable” about ways to reduce their personal levels of food waste, and 38% say they are “fairly knowledgeable.” Do more people know more in 2015?

It can get lonely to sit at my computer and read and write about food waste concerns and my personal quests. I’m thrilled to reach any one person with my blog, and to encourage any friend or acquaintance in person. But do enough people really care? What else can I be doing?

I’ve been fortunate to meet and discover a growing community of regular people who are creatively and smartly making things happen. They keep me inspired:

Finally, a grocery store chain in the United States (out in California of course) and a start-up venture called Imperfect Produce plan to sell less-than-perfect produce at a discounted rate. This adds value to the perfectly edible product farmers sometimes find easier and cheaper to throw away (Via NPR)
Others are creating a marketplace for surplus food; through a website or app, they connect those with excess food with organizations poised to use it. In Massachusetts, there’s Spoiler Alert. In Northern California, there’s CropMobster.
What about all that packaging we waste? A pair of entrepreneurial designers created a product called Loliware, which are flavored, edible, biodegradable cups that serve as an alternative to single-use cups that get tossed into a landfill.

These are the champions! I can’t wait to see what’s next.

An effort to make efficient use of every last drop, stem, crumb, and moment.

Monthly Archives: July 2015

Tastes of Summer – Watermelon and Ice Cream

Christmas in July

Championing Food Waste Reduction