A few weeks ago, I had a weekend off. A real weekend off, with no obligations, no place to be. This does not happen very often for me. When it does, you would think I would take it easy. But instead, I cook. I called my friend Jane and invited her for breakfast.

I looked through the fridge and the cupboards to see what there was. This is what I came up with.

This is my contribution to Real Food Wednesdays.

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My baby meyer lemon tree

Is it just me, or are Meyer lemons way easier to get this year than they were last year? I have been buying them 6 at a time, and using them for so many things. I thought I would share a few of them here. I’m also going to give a few tips on having them all year round, so that you never have to be without them. As you can see from the picture above, I have a plan for the future. This little tree is covered in buds right now, so hopefully next year, those will all be lemons!

If you don’t know what a Meyer lemon is, they are a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange. They look like a lemon, but the skin is a little thinner and often a little more orange-colored. They smell like lemon, but sweet. You can use them anywhere you would use a Eureka lemon.

For more information, visit Oysterculture’s citrus entry.

First, the links to things I’ve already made and posted on this blog: blueberry-Meyer lemon scones and lemon-clementine cake. My friend Natasha at 5starfoodie created this great Meyer lemon crepe recipe.

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This is an amazing weeknight dinner. It pulls together in no time, and it tastes fabulous. You can fiddle with it and make it differently every time you make it. Change the meat, change the herbs, add a little lemon juice, even change the vegetables. My ideal weeknight recipe.

I like the pork version because I love pork tenderloin almost any way you cook it. But if you would rather have chicken, veal, flank steak, halibut, it works. With the flour for dredging, I’ve used brown rice flour, whole wheat pastry flour, and oat flour.

I don’t particularly like eggplant. I don’t hate it, but it has be right for me to want to eat it. This recipe is the first recipe I’ve ever made for eggplant that I want to make over and over. My friend Jackie and I came up with this recipe over a year ago, and we make it at least once a month. The eggplant is peeled, so it isn’t bitter. I like the baby eggplant better than the big one. I also like the skinny Japanese eggplants or the zebra striped ones. The Japanese eggplants are what is in the picture.

Again, with the eggplant, you can vary it any of a number of ways. Add a little white wine or chicken broth, use shallots instead of garlic, change the herbs. I’ve used basil, savory, garlic chives, sage, even mint. The panko helps to hold it together and gives it a little crunch. If you can’t find panko, try regular bread crumbs.

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From Chadzilla

Apparently, people liked this idea. So here is the next installment. The blog: Chadzilla

This time, I chose a blog that is not quite so well-known. I don’t know exactly how I found this website, although it had something to do with the South Beach Food and Wine Festival. He is, I’m pretty sure, a chef at the Key Biscayne Ritz-Carlton. He’s local, for me, but I don’t know him. He doesn’t talk about himself much on his blog. It is a chef blog, as opposed to a food blog. He experiments with sous-vide and emulsions and gels. If you’re looking for a recipe for banana-eel ice cream, it’s there. But this recipe for chocolate crackers with sea salt is simplicity itself. And really, really good. I will definitely be making this again!

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My mother says this is her last meal. If she could pick anything at all, she’d pick lobster salad, lettuce, tomato, and bacon on toast. It’s hard to disagree with her. This was really, really good. And easy. I got home at 8 o’clock last night, and had dinner on the table at 8:30. I did, I admit, make the lobster salad ahead of time. It’s a great leftover from grilled lobster tail. Just steam an extra one.

I got the idea for the herb-caper mayonnaise from Wine Bar Food: Mediterranean Flavors to Crave with Wines to Match by Cathy and Tony Mantuano. If you don’t own this book, it has to be because you don’t know about it. I swear, I may never eat a real dinner again after reading it.

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Okay, I know I just posted scones 2 weeks ago. What can I say? I ran out and had to make more.

These are a little bit of a creative take on Cindy Mushet’s recipe for Candied Ginger Scones in The Art and Soul of Baking. I loved the idea of these, because they have no butter in them, and the cream is whipped. The original recipe was not whole wheat, so I substituted 1/2 of the flour with whole wheat pastry flour.

I wanted to go back to my original idea for this blog – the eleven best foods you’re not eating. So, blueberries it was. And lemon peel is supposed to help prevent cancer. Besides, what isn’t a little better with some Meyer lemon in it?

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This is going to sound like the most decadent meal. And it is!  But I swear to you, the entire meal was less than $30 for 2. Including wine!

The original recipe this was based on is a pain in the butt to make. I beg my father to make it for any huge celebration. When I passed my boards, he gave in. But most of the time, I cannot talk him into it. Or, he’ll only make it for me, and everyone else gets steamed lobsters.

But I hit on a much, much easier way to do it. It starts with frozen lobster tail – instead of the live lobster from the original. The last time I priced these at a well-known supermarket, they were still around $40 for 2. But Fresh Market occasionally has them on sale. I got them last week for 2 for $15!! Now, I grew up in Rhode Island, and spent most of my life in New England. I get it. Lobster is supposed to be a certain way. Did I mention 2 for $15? Make sure to steam an extra one for this lobster club sandwich!

The other important element is compound butter. My personal favorite is Meyer lemon. Feel free to fiddle with the butter. Herbs, spices, wine, whatever sounds good. I like just the lemon because it does not overwhelm the lobster taste.

Serve this with a fennel salad and crusty rolls. For wine, I chose a Prosecco. It’s light and not too dry, making it a great choice with the sweet lobster meat.

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Chocolate-cherry whole wheat scones. I could eat these every day. One of these days, I will share with you what I really do eat every morning. But these are my special treat. In my freezer, there is a bag of frozen raw scones, so I can always have melty, tender, warm scones right out of the oven. A cappuccino on the side. Now that’s breakfast. Also try the Blueberry-Meyer Lemon scones!

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It is rumored that the “apple” in the Garden of Eden was, in fact, a quince. If so, I don’t know how Eve walked about eating it. They are as hard as a rock until you cook them. And who would think something so ugly could taste so decadent?

By no means did I grow up sheltered as far as food was concerned. My parents traveled extensively, and my mother always came home with some exotic new food. Despite this, I never so much as heard of a quince until fairly recently. It would never have occurred to me to cook with one. 

When I bought New Flavors for Desserts in Williams-Sonoma a few months ago, I was immediately drawn to the recipe “poached quince with mascarpone, caramel, and gingersnaps.” Raquel Pelzel described it as apple-and-pear-like, which sounded so appealing. The reality is better than that simple description. They are like an apple and a pear combined, but with an amazing floral fragrance, and just the slightest hint of vanilla.

It took me several weeks to find quinces, since although they were in season, there is not much demand for them in Miami.

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For Christmas, I bought my father a Piastra. He loves to grill, and I thought he might enjoy trying something new. He loved it.

A piastra is a granite slab, 14 x 10 inches, that goes on the grill. Mario Batali introduced it to American cooking. You heat it to high temperature, spritz a little oil on, and sear to your heart’s content. It’s a little like cooking on hot cast iron, but on the grill. 

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