Summer Patio

The summer patio meal is a great way to enjoy the nice weather with some close friends and excellent food.  Choose nice light offerings, ones that don't require laborious cutting and fiddling. One to two bite finger foods are perfect.  Pick a perfect summer night and invite some peeps over and enjoy a great family style meal outside on your own.

Steam up a big plate of Mussels.

Open up some of your favourite summer wine.

Pour lots of glasses for your friends.

Can't have too many friends.

Make sure there is beer on hand.

Set out everything family style.

Caesar Salad is perfect for a patio dinner. 

Char up some local summer corn on the BBQ.

Battered Shrimp are always a nice choice for outdoor eating.

Boiled Shrimp go great as well for the peeps who are slimming.

Get it all on the table and call your friends over.

Keep the wine flowing.

and flowing.

and flowing.

Invite the dogs for table scraps, they will love you for it.

Make sure you get some food for yourself.

Two fat ladies

I love the Fat Lady's cooking show, the old time recipes and the banter!  The food is unabashed in its hedonistic tendency to flavour through fat. Lard, oil and butter abound without apology!  How can you not enjoy their love of food preparation. Here is a fabulous dessert offering from these lovely ladies!

Quercyan Apple Cake

Recipe courtesy Jennifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright

Total Time:

13 hr 45 min

Prep:

45 min

|

Inactive Prep:

12 hr

|

Cook:

1 hr

Level:

Difficult

Yield:

INGREDIENTS

• FILLING:
• 3 pounds apples, peeled and thinly sliced
• 8 ounces sugar
• 4 fluid ounces rum
• 3 fluid ounces orange flower water
• Thinly pared rind of 1 lemon

• 1 pound plain flour (all-purpose)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 ounces butter, creamed

• FINISH:
• 1 ounce butter, melted
• 1 egg, beaten

• Caster sugar (superfine)

DIRECTIONS

Filling: Macerate the sliced apples with the sugar, rum, orange flower water, and lemon peel overnight. Strain the apples, reserving the juice. 

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, put butter and eggs into a well in the centre. Working with the fingertips gradually add 7 fluid ounces of the liquid from the apples. Work into a smooth and elastic paste with your hand and leave to rest for 2 hours. 

Roll out the rested paste as thinly as possible, then transfer to a floured cloth on a large table. Working from the centre, with the palms of your hands, carefully stretch the paste to the thinness of a cigarette paper. Rest it and yourself for 1 hour. 

Preheat the oven to 390 degrees F.
Brush lightly with melted butter and dust with sugar, cover with well drained apples and roll up. Mix the remaining juice into the beaten egg and brush over the top. Bake in the oven for 50 to 55 minutes.

Battered Shrimp

Ingredients

1 pound of shrimp, shelled and deveined, tails off

1 cup of all purpose flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

pinch of salt

cold water as needed

Directions

Set cleaned shrimp to one side.

Combine the rest of the  ingredients to form a loose batter.
Dip cleaned and dried shrimp into batter and coat.

Deep fry till golden brown about 5 minutes.

Serve on a platter, battered shrimp goes nicely with rice for a lighter dish.

They won't last long so dig in!

These battered shrimp go great with Jalapeno Mayo!

Jalapeno Mayo

Jalapeno Mayo is a great dip for battered seafood!  I use it for Calamari Fritti and Battered Shrimp and Crab Cakes!  

Ingredients

1 cup of Mayonnaise 
1 ripe jalapeno seeded and cored chopped fine
1/4 teaspoon of smoked paprika
optional 
1 clove of garlic

Directions

Combine above ingredients in a serving bowl and let stand for 15 minutes so flavours can mingle! 

Colonial Knives

I picked up these knives at the thrift shop.  They are very heavy and rather large.  The larger one measures 18 inches overall and the smaller one is 15 inches overall.  These knives are made by Colonial down in Mexico.  I have no idea how they made it up here to Ontario Canada.  I am just glad they did! A wonderful addition to the carbon steel collection!

English Style Fish and Chips

English style fish and chips are fun to make and eat!  This is a very  basic batter recipe, that will only take seconds to whip up!

Select your choice of fish to fry, I am using Ocean perch today! 

Make sure you dry your fillets well with some Kitchen Paper before you dip them in the batter.

This is a very simple batter recipe.  Two cups of all purpose flour, two teaspoons of baking powder, pinch of salt, and enough cold water to make the mix very loose.

Dip the fish in the batter, coat well and let the excess batter drip off for a few seconds!

Swish the batter coated fish in the hot oil for a few seconds until the batter in the oil starts to puff up, this will keep your fish from sinking straight to the bottom of the basket and sticking there. The cooked batter will keep it floating on top of the oil.  Then gently slide the fish into the hot oil. 

You can see how this fish is floating and not dropping to the bottom of the basket.

Repeat till the basket is full but not overcrowded.  You are going to cook off your fish in batches, so have the warming oven ready.  180F should do to hold your battered fish while you cook the rest off.

Turn your fish so all sides become golden.

Pull your fish out of the oil when the colour is perfect.

Dump them on your fries and put them back in the warming oven and carry on with the next batch.

When you have finished all your fillets you should have a nice golden pile of battered happiness to feed your peeps!

Plate and serve!

Pan fry a few fillets for the Paleo dieters!!!! 

You can always fry off a few sweet potatoe fries!  The oil is still hot!!!! 

Ingredients

Your choice of fish fillets

2 cups of All Purpose flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

pinch of salt

cold water 

Directions

Combine flour and baking powder and salt in a large prep bowl.  Using a batter whip stir in water till the mix is very loose.  The batter should be very runny.  

Dip fillets into batter and coat thoroughly, lift out of batter and let the excess batter run back into the bowl. 

Swish your coated fillet in the hot oil, letting the  batter puff up as you swish.  This will allow the fillet to float on the oil instead of sinking directly to the bottom of the basket and sticking.  

Once the batter has puffed gently slide the rest of the fillet into the hot oil.

Repeat with next fillet until the basket is full but not over crowded.

Cook the fish until batter turns golden brown turning the fish occasionally so all sides brown!

Pull your battered fish from the oil when you like the look of them!

Cook fish in batches, keep the cooked ones warm in the oven set to 180 F.  

Baked Calamari

Baked Calamari makes a nice change from the deep fried variety.  This dish is like ratatouille with some calamari thrown in for good measure.  Served with rice or pasta it makes a hearty meal. For a lighter fare you can have it with some chunky bread in a bowl.

Ingredients

1 pound of calamari hoods cleaned and skinned

1 eggplant

1 zucchini

1 bell pepper

1 onion

1 tin of whole tomatos

garlic, thyme, oregano to taste

1 tsp of chili flakes

salt and pepper

olive oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F

Slice eggplant into 1/2 inch rounds and place into oiled roasting pan.  Slice zucchini into 1/2 inch rounds and place on the eggplant base.  Slice onions and peppers into chunks place on the the eggplant base.  Slice squid hoods into rounds, place ontop of vegetables. Sprinkle liberally with olive oil.  Pour can of whole tomatoes on top of everything.  Spread the seasonings over the whole roasting pan.

Cook for two hours until everything is very soft and the calamari is cooked through.

Serve

Share your favourite recipes here

Please feel free to leave your favourite recipes here in the comments section!  I would love to see what you enjoy cooking!  I am always on the lookout for new and great recipes!!!

Calamari Fritti

Ingredients

one pound of squid skinned and cleaned

equal amounts of flour and cornstarch 

salt

oil for frying

Directions

Slice hoods into rings or strips

Dredge in flour cornstarch mixture

Drop into oil for 1 to 2 minutes until golden colour develops

Remove from oil and drain

Serve

 Jalapeno Mayo makes a great dipping sauce! 

Fries go great with battered Calamari and the oil is already hot!!!! 

Click Here to see how to make the perfect French Fry!

Work in batches to so you don't cool the oil too much! You want the oil nice and hot to flash fry those tender rings!

You can throw the whole batch of cut squid into the dredging mix and pull as many out as you need for each batch!  Shake them off good so you don't get a lot of loose flour in your oil!

They will only take a minute or two, pull the rings out of the oil when they are a nice golden colour!

This is what your oil should do when you drop your batch in!  You need this oil hot!!!!

Keep your batches warm in a 180F oven while you work!

Get your dipping sauces ready!

Plate on your favourite seafood plates! 

Serve!