It never really is fall in Houston; it gets less hot, fog shows up more often and a couple trees change color and drop leaves. The less hot part is what we really savor around here after 4-6 months of blistering heat. One of the great side effects of our extreme weather is that we end up with pretty robust herbs. Our herb garden is active almost year round, filled with sage, oregano, chives, rosemary, thyme, basil, lavendar, parsely, mint, cilantro and bay. Maybe a couple more are out there I didn't remember.
With the weather breaking, we had this menu last night to celebrate my sister and niece visiting from Chicago.
- Goat cheese with olives, thyme and lemon
- Roasted eggplant with capers and mint viniagrette
- Grilled herbed chicken (grilled plain chicken for my picky kids)
- Haricot vert, roasted peppers and capers in viniagrette
- Fingerling potatoes with garlic and oregano
- Mascarpone filled cake with sherried rasperries and blackberries
- Update: Green Grape Sangria - I forgot about one of the crowd favorites!
Most of these recipes came from or were adapted from the July 2008 Gourmet magazine. However some recipes (sangria) do not appear to be online.
Winners:
- Goat cheese - simple, obvious, great proportions
- Eggplant - use the Batali technique of salting then pressing the liquids out of the eggplant slices and it's a winner.
- Cake was ultra simple and could be modified to many other effects. WAs pleased that I could add a dessert without having to invest any significant time.
Losers:
- None. But the chicken could have been more heavily herbed.
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