The Bitten Word

Italian Parsley and Raw Beet Salad

Gourmet (September 2009)

We're total suckers for beets. We love 'em. Mixed with bright citrus flavors, they're heavenly. Matched with a good goat cheese, they're mouthwatering. We've paired them with country ham and cornbread, with green beans and mustard and as the focal point of a fancy little appetizer.

But there's one problem we always encounter, a daunting, sigh-inducing hurdle that makes cooking with beets feel like a big undertaking: Ya gotta roast 'em.

Beets taste amazing, but these root vegetables are so dense and hearty that you have to roast them in the oven for a long time to make them palatable. (It's the same reason you don't serve raw potatoes.)

So when we came across this Italian Parsley and Beet Salad in the September Gourmet, we were immediately intrigued for one major reason: raw beets.

Easy Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce

A Bitten Word Recipe

As you've no doubt read in countless places, there's a tomato shortage in this area, due to Paula Abdul leaving American Idol, or something like that.

Though we're definitely seeing fewer tomatoes this year in our CSA share and at our local farmers market, we haven't exactly been tomato-less. Last week, for instance, we got six pounds of tomatoes in our share (though we had opted for a double share that week). 

Because we were going out of town, we knew we couldn't get through all six pounds in a week.  But we knew exactly what we'd do with them.

Broiled Snapper with Lemon Confit

A Bitten Word Recipe

Don't you hate it when you have all this lemon confit just lying around, and you never know what to do with it but there it is, sitting in your fridge, making you feel guilty for not using it, and then finally you're just, like, "GOD, lemon confit, quit judging me," but the confit just keeps sitting there, staring you in the face?

Okay, maybe not.  

But seriously, we'd made our lemon confit: packed the lemons in sugar and salt and preserved them in the fridge for a couple weeks.

But what to do with it?

Eric Ripert, the chef whose confit recipe we had used, says he uses it to flavor simmering dishes like pork and beans, or to make a lemon butter. They're also apparently a staple of Moroccan and North African dishes. Food author David Lebovitz uses preserved lemons in everything from sauteed vegetables to tapenade to Israeli couscous to ice cream. 

We've come up with our own lemon confit dish -- far simpler than any of those others -- that we absolutely love. This Broiled Snapper with Lemon Confit could not be any easier -- or more tasty or more healthful. We've already made it twice in the past week!

Lemon Confit

Food & Wine (July 2009)

"Lemon confit" is one of those food phrases that sounds so complicated, so mysterious, so wonderfully French. It conjures images of culinary school, "Top Chef" and Michelin-rated restaurants.

At least it did for us.

But then we came across this incredibly simple confit recipe in the July Food & Wine. It's from the chef Eric Ripert (who, uh, went to culinary school, has made numerous appearances on "Top Chef" and who runs a four three-star Michelin-rated restaurant). 

Ripert's method is so easy, though, that it's taken lemon confit from a beguiling menu term to a staple in our refrigerator.

But what exactly is confit? How the heck do you confit a lemon? And what can you do with it?

Initially, we had no idea, so of course we plunged ahead with making a batch.

Bacon with Citrus Glaze

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living (September 2009)

Orange-and-honey-glazed bacon.  Just think about that for a minute. Orange.  Honey.  Bacon.  A salty slab of bacon coated with a caramelized, sweet glaze of honey, brightened with the citrusy, sunshiney bolt of fresh-squeezed oranges.

We were salivating at the mere thought of this three-ingredient dish.

But when we made it, our salivation gave way to frustration.

The first batch of bacon ended up charred, smoky and burnt to a crisp. So -- believing in the healing power of cured pork -- we changed the recipe and tried again.

This is a tale of two bacons.

Corn, Cranberry Bean, and Fried-Okra Salad

Martha Stewart Living (August 2009)

"Y'ALL."

That is not a word we use often -- and it's not a word we use lightly.

But after one bite of this phenomenal, change-your-life salad, we each slammed down our forks, looked across the table, widened our eyes and exclaimed: "Y'ALL."

Watermelon Bloody Marys

Martha Stewart Living (July 2009)

On Sunday mornings we pay a visit to the farmers market, where we play a little game called "buy so much produce that we'll struggle to get through it all by week's end."

Recently, we've been obsessed with beautiful, impossibly sweet watermelons from one of the vendors. So we've bought one for the last few weeks and lugged it up the hill back home --  no small feat given the amount of other purchases we're carrying. 

We've mostly been eating it as a dessert or a snack, cut up into big chunks and lightly salted. We've also made Tequila Soaked Watermelon wedges a couple times for parties and even Pickled Watermelon Rind.

This weekend, we couldn't resist whipping up a batch of these Watermelon Bloody Marys.

Pickled Watermelon Rind

As we've mentioned many times before, we both grew up in the South, and we're familiar with just about all the Southern staples you can think of.

But there's one Dixie delicacy we'd never tried: pickled watermelon rind.

After we cut up a melon for our Tequila-Soaked Watermelon Wedges, we hated to throw the rind away. So we decided it would be the perfect chance to try our hand at pickling it.

Top Crust Peach and Cardamom Pie with Cardamom-Vanilla Ice Cream

Bon Appétit (August 2009)

When we saw this Peach and Cardamom Pie while leafing through magazines earlier this month, we immediately knew that we'd be making it. After having a cardamom flavored dessert this summer at Chez Panisse, we've been dying to give the spice a whirl ourselves.

Plus, we were eager to try out the concept of a "top crust" pie. A new spice and a new technique?  Sign us up! And because that wasn't enough, we also tried our hand at making a homemade cardamom ice cream to accompany the pie.  

Let's see how it went.

Tequila-Soaked Watermelon Wedges

Martha Stewart Living (July 2009)

Nothing says "Martha Stewart goes to a frat party" quite like this recipe for Tequila-Soaked Watermelon Wedges. 

When we took a tray of these babies to a party last week, the guests were a bit skeptical, not wanting to devour them and find themselves on the floor an hour later. 

The name of this dish might conjure visions of happy hour at a Cancun taqueria. But it turns out, these Tequila-Soaked Watermelon Wedges are delicious -- and surprisingly sophisticated.