Weekend of cooking and Feast Day San Lorenzo

This weekend has been sunny and hot, something rare this summer in Ottawa.

It is also the Feast Day of San Lorenzo in Rome, 10 August, Patron Saint of this most Summer like activity the Bar-B-Q.

Martyrdom of San Lorenzo by Pellegrino Tibaldi, 1592, at the Church of El Escorial, Spain. 

Peaches and plums are back in Season and have started to appear in Farmers Markets. Ontario is a great producer of many fruits and vegetables not to mention award winning wines.

So Will decided to make peach ice cream, he has a machine to do just that and for many decades now he has been making wonderful ice cream, what can I say home made is by far superior to anything you would buy in a store, no chemicals, no added sugar, no emulsifiers or colouring which often gives an acidic taste to commercial ice creams. Many decades ago, I wish I had a picture to show you, he use to make Bombe Glacée which looked like a watermelon with real chocolate pépites to simulate the seeds.

The trick is to have lots of ice to keep things cold, using cream and the whole peach fruit. It taste like ice cream tasted in olden times.

Peaches with cream (peel and pits) to infuse the cream with flavour of the peaches. 

A good blender helps a lot this is our Cuisinart the second one in 36 years.

But if you are in a rush and have no time to make ice cream, here is another old Italian dessert, this is as old as time itself and most authentic Italian dessert you can possibly imagine. Take white peaches wash them and then cut them up, fill a large wine glass with them, then simply pour a chilled dry white wine over them until they are swimming in it. Voilà and serve. Elegant and simple as they day is young.

Also in the summer we will have cold soups, one I like and again it is an old recipe that Will has used for many decades is a cold Zucchini soup to which you can add curry for a spicy twist. There are other recipes using seedless English cucumbers.

This weekend he also made Creamy gazpacho Andaluz, which is a soup we encountered for the first time while travelling in Andalusia last fall in Seville and Granada.  It is served cold and is delicious, especially on a hot summer day.

For this recipe you will need 3 lbs of medium ripe tomatoes, cored
1 small cucumber, peeled, halved and seeded.
1 medium green bell pepper, halved, cored and seeded
1 small red onion, peeled and halved.
2 medium garlic cloves, peeled and quartered
1 small serrano chile, stemmed and halved length wise
 Kosher salt
1 slice high-quality white sandwich bread, crust removed, torn into 1inch pieces
Half a cup of extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for serving
2 tablespoon finely minced parsley, chives, or basil leaves
Ground black pepper
for the preparation see http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/6061-creamy-gazpacho-andaluz


I made a warm potatoes salad this weekend, using 4 red potatoes, 2 green onions chopped, half of a large red onion chopped fine, a small tea spoon of cayenne pepper, half a cup of mayonnaise and 3 soup spoons of Dijon Mustard and two soup spoons of grated Parmesan Cheese.

Once your potatoes are cooked cut them up in smaller pieces, mix all the ingredients together and serve.

And we had lots of our favourite Canadian Official Cocktail Bloody Caesar,
with a large celery stalk.

The puppies love the celery stalk.

Nora just back from the groomer's our groomer is Kathryn Bowcott, she does a wonderful job with Dachshunds. You can look her up at Kathy.bowcott@rogers.com

Not to worry Nicky is next, he does not know it yet. Both went to the dentist this summer to have their teeth cleaned so now they have a nice smile with 50 lbs of crush, who knew!