It's hard to believe it now that it's grey and rainy again, but last Friday it was 97 degrees in Portland. In May. In Maine. I'm going to refrain from any discussion of climate change... but boy howdy, I can't say I've ever experienced that before!

After I met my dear friend Kirsten for a drink, Otis and I rendezvoused at Caiola's for our first night on their patio. Caiola's is a beautiful, calming oasis of yumminess on Pine Street, where you are pretty much always guaranteed a fabulous meal along with impeccable service.

Last Friday they had one of my favorite drinks on the menu: the lemon drop. When made correctly, these taste just like a tangy glass of lemonade...not too sweet, not too sour. These were perfect: full of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, and just enough vodka to make them effective.

Lemon Drops always make me think of my friend Sarah, with whom I've consumed many.

I highly recommend that you make a pitcher of these for your next barbecue. Your guests will thank you.

Lemon Drop

1 1/2 oz vodka (Citron if you have it, otherwise plain is OK)
1 t sugar
Juice of 1/2-1 lemon (depending on how juicy it is!)

Add all ingredients to shaker over cracked ice. Shake vigorously. Pour into chilled martini glass. You may garnish with a sugar rim and either a twist or a wedge of lemon.

(and my advice? drink it FAST.)

I just got word from the CSA that we'll be getting our first share distribution June 20. Just in time for us to go away for a week...nevertheless, we're very excited.

In the meantime, we've been making do with bagged watercress and arugula, and lots of grilled meats.

My mom was nice enough to bring up a copy of Mark Bittman's article in the New York Times about grinding your own burger meat, and how a) that's the new trend, and b) it's way better.

All I can say is, Otis and I were wayyy ahead of that trend. I asked for, and received, the kitchenaid food grinder attachment for one of my holiday gifts a couple of years ago. For about six months it sat in its little box, languishing away.

But then! We began grinding here, grinding there, grinding thither and yon! I think I mentioned in my previous posting about Thai meatballs that grinding the meat for those is the way to go. Well, the grinder also makes incredible meat for loaf, and, (coming to the point of this post) makes some damn tasty turkey meatballs.

I was especially pleased to learn when I returned home from work today that Otis is planning on making tortellini with turkey meatballs for dinner tomorrow. (Tonight is leftover bbq pork and corn on the cob with garlic oil. Hey, there's that garlic oil again...))

Anyway, coming to the point. Turkey meatballs! You need a grinder for this, obviously.

Ingredients:
1 lb boneless turkey breast, very cold
2 stale dinner rolls, torn into pieces
S&P
Basil, oregano, other herbs to taste
2 eggs, beaten

To Prepare:
Grind the turkey and the bread through the grinder on coarse
Mix in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients
Form into small round balls
Fry in a small amount of olive oil until cooked through

OK. That was not a very exciting recipe, especially if you don't have a grinder. How's this for a teaser... we bought four thai chile plants this weekend, each of which should yield 200+ hot-as-hell chiles. Coming soon: lots of hot stuff!

Until I was about 27 I had a visceral horror of all thing mayonnaise related. Something about the combination of creaminess, blandness, and viscosity really grossed me out, and it was extreme-- I would send back sandwiches that had even a trace of mayo on the bread, and forget about pasta or potato salad with mayo-based dressing.

Slowly, however, over the past few years, I've begun to appreciate mayo as a flavor vector. I still couldn't stomach just plain mayo on a sandwich, but with the help of garlic aeoli and other complementary sauces, I've realized that a mayo-based sauce, as long as it has a lot of other flavors, can be really delicious.

Due to a variety of work and personal factors I've been an extra-lazy cook lately, and Otis has been picking up the slack, but this Tuesday I decided to make up for it by making a quintessential summer supper: shrimp salad for the main course, and blueberry crumble for dessert.

Against all weather-man odds, it turned out to be a gorgeous summer day, so my hour in the kitchen with a hot oven wasn't ideal. But the supper turned out to be absolutely delicious.

I adapted the shrimp salad recipe from Cook's Illustrated.

Shrimp Salad

1. Boil 1 lb shrimp in 2 cups of water with the juice of three lemons, the lemon rinds, 1 tablespoon sugar, and 1 teaspoon each black peppercorns and salt. (About 5-10 mins, depending on the size of the shrimp.)
2. When the shrimp are done (pink and opaque) remove them to an ice water bath to stop the cooking. Remove and dry.
3. Drain and reserve the shrimp stock, and place in the freezer, never to be seen again. (That's what I did. Hopefully I'll actually remember it's there and do something with it.)
4. Whisk together 1/4 cup mayo, the juice of 1 lemon, 3 tablespoons minces chives (I used chives from our container garden! whoopee!), and 2 tablespoons chipotle mustard. Season to taste.
5. Cut shrimp into appetizing bite-sized pieces and mix into the dressing.
6. Serve over watercress dressed with a quick squeeze of lemon juice.

That's it! Although if you're hungry, I might double the recipe...Otis ate about 3/4 lb of the shrimp. I think he spent all day working outside on a deck or something, so he deserved it. (He also ate 2 sourdough dinner rolls.)

For the blueberry crumble, I also adapt a Cook's Illustrated recipe. It's really easy:

1. Macerate the blueberries with sugar and lemon zest for about 1/2 an hour.
2. Process together flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and sliced almonds. Bake on a parchment-covered cookie sheet until light brown.
3. Mix 1 T of cornstarch in with the berries (mix with a little water 1st to avoid clumping)
4. Put the blueberries in a square pyrex, and cover with the crumble, crumbled.
5. Bake for about 1/2 hour.

Serve warm, with a dollop of whipped cream if you have it. Or, do like the Brits and just pour some cream or half-and-half over it. Best thing to come out of English cuisine since the fish finger.

When Otis read my turkey meatball entry he was shocked to see I didn't include his turkey meatball recipe, which is much better than mine. So here are the ingredients-- I think you can figure it out from there.

1 1/2 lb ground turkey
1/3 cups grated parmesan cheese
1 or 2 small dinner rolls, toasted and processed
1 beaten egg
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/8 t white pepper
1/4 t crushed red pepper
2 T garlic oil
1/4 t oregano
1 T parsley flakes

He makes these up and serves them with pasta and a yummy cream sauce. They're also good in sandwiches.

Sunday was a glorious day-- fish sandwiches and bloody marys on the deck at the Porthole, then wandering the streets until it started thundering and I felt compelled to hit Hannaford for a week's groceries.

The, while wandering the meat area, "do you like chicken?"

Oh no, I said to myself. Another grocery store crazy person.

"...Yes," I said.

"There's bags of chicken breasts for 99 cents on sale."

Then I realized the woman was just a helpful person understandably excited by a good sale. Turns out they had all natural hormone free purdue chicken in 1.8 lb bags for 99 cents. Really.

I cleared the rest of the inventory. You know you're getting older and weirder when chicken sales become exciting.

So on Sunday night I made chicken for dinner.

I've long been a fan of charmoula, a classic Moroccan sauce which is kind of like an African pesto, made with lemon zest, parsley, and garlic. Sometimes, though, the raw garlic can be a little much. So I decided to cook the sauce lightly. It turned out delicious.

Chicken with Charmoula

4 large boneless chicken breasts
Flour
Salt & pepper

1 bunch parsley
6 cloves garlic
Zest and juice of 3-4 lemons
Salt & pepper

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Heat olive oil in large skillet.
3. Season flour and coat chicken breasts.
4. Brown outside of chicken, transfer to ovenproof dish, and move to oven.
5. In food processor, combine other ingredients and processes until finely chopped.
6. Remove chicken when just cooked through.
7. Add a small amount of flour to original pan (just enough to bind the sauce) and add parsley mixture.
8. Sautee for 1 minute.
9. Add chicken and sautee for 30 seconds.
10. Serve with lemon wedges.

I served this over tri-color couscous, and it was very darn tasty.

In other news, we finally received our first CSA share! The sad part is, we're leaving on Friday for a week in San Francisco. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course-- but we won't really have time to eat our veggies!

We'll be giving most of the veg for this week and all of the veg for next week to our friend Ravinder, who is cat-sitting for us while we're away, so I'll try to get a couple of recipes out of him. He's a fantastic cook.

Regardless, here's the list for this week:

1 head Chinese cabbage
1 head green lettuce
1 head red lettuce
1/4 lb mesclun
1/4 arugula (Wold Pine grows the best arugula. I am so sad not to be able to eat every last bit!)
1 bunch cilantro
1 fresh garlic plant (this looks like a leek, sort of. It's new to me, so I will definitely report back.)

Thanks to Wolf Pine for including this blog in the share newsletter. I promise to all the visitors from the farm that I'll be posting recipes from share contents as soon as we get back from vacation.

Along with reports from the fabulous restaurants we'll be eating in next week!