We were really busy at the restaurant last week with the San Jose Grand Prix in town and so on Friday I made this pasta special which was incredibly easy and delicious. You can use any pasta shape you like, but I like using orecchiette because the pasta holds a small pool of sauce in the center.  I also added diced grilled chicken, but you can leave it out if you prefer. Pancetta or prosciutto would also be great with this dish.

To start, make a standard garlic cream sauce by sauteing an onion in canola oil. Add fresh garlic, roasted garlic, salt, pepper and deglaze with white wine, and simmer on low until the wine is reduced. Add heavy cream and simmer until cream is reduced by about a quarter. Set cream mixture aside to cool for about 10 minutes before adding the other ingredients. Pour cream mixture into a blender and add a large bunch of fresh basil, freshly grated parmesan cheese, lemon juice, fresh garlic, and a small amount of spinach for color. Blend until smooth and taste again for seasonings and add additional, salt, pepper or lemon juice to taste.

Since there are so few ingredients in this dish, I recommend that you purchase fresh English peas instead of using frozen—their taste and texture is amazing. To finish, cook the orecchiette to al dente.  If using chicken or pancetta, saute in olive oil with fresh garlic and deglaze with a small amount of wine and reduce. Add the basil-pesto cream sauce, blanched peas, arugula, parmesan cheese and toss to coat. Taste and adjust seasonings by adding fresh lemon juice. Finish the dish with shaved parmesan and a fried basil leaf. Enjoy!

For today’s special I made Pan-Seared Mahi with Applewood Smoked Bacon-Corn Fritters and Charred Yellow Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho. This dish has great flavor, color and texture. The Yellow Heirloom Tomato Gazpacho is served cold, which is quite refreshing during the summer and boasts a beautiful golden color with flecks of black and green. For even more contrast, a traditional red tomato gazpacho would pop nicely against the golden corn fritter and seared Mahi.

For the bacon-corn fritter, I sauteed the bacon and then added diced onion and fresh shucked corn kernels and cooked until the corn was tender but still had some crunch. Set the mixture aside and cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, in a blender, add a small amount of cream, egg and fresh corn kernels and blend until creamy. In another bowl, add about a cup of flour, a tsp of baking powder and then stir in the cream-corn and the bacon-corn mixtures to combine. Add chopped fresh basil, parsley and salt and pepper to taste.

You can either drop spoonfills of the mixture into a saute pan, or spray a small cookie cutter with oil and then spoon the mixture into the form to create a more defined circle. Saute on low until somewhat firm (remove the cookie cutter) and then flip and finish in the oven until fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside.

This bacon-corn fritter is great served with either roasted chicken, ribs, salmon, shrimp, or soft-shelled crabs. Change up the sauce/salad depending on what you serve it with and you’ll have delicious entree for summer! Enjoy!

When I lived in Maryland I had friends who had a vacation home in St. Michaels’ on the Eastern Shore. I would spend holidays and many weekends during the summer months with their family fishing for the ultimate catch—the Maryland Blue Crab. We would get up at the crack of dawn—4:00 am to tie salted dead eels to a 1,500-foot trout line to catch crabs before the sun became too intense to scare the crabs away. We would walk down the pier in the dark, with our flashlights and thermos of hot coffee in hand, as we got in the boat and headed out to the glassy coves of the Chesapeake, laying out our bait in hopes of an abundant catch. After we finished laying the lines, we headed back to shore, but only briefly, before we headed back out again with our nets in hand as we slowly motored the boat, netting our feast for the day.

Once we arrived back at the house, we would sleep until at least 1:00 pm and then fire up the steaming pots getting ready for our Crab Feast. And everyone in the neighborhood was invited. Picnic tables would be covered in today’s newspapers, kegs of beer would be plentiful, corn on the cob would be grilling, vats of butter melting, along with tubs of freshly made coleslaw and of course, the star attraction…bushels of Maryland Blue Crabs would be steaming with plenty of Old Bay Seasoning, Rock Salt, Distilled Vinegar and of course Beer!  That was in the 1980’s–and unfortunately things are a lot different today…:-(

Several weeks ago, I was visiting my family in Maryland and I wanted to purchase steamed crabs, but at $55 per dozen for really small crabs, I was shocked and decided to purchase jumbo lump crab meat instead at $18 per lb. I know that blue crabs fully mature in late August-September, but I never remember them being so small and expensive for mid-June. So I decided to use my jumbo lump crab meat and make a creamy crab soup with charred fresh corn, which was absolutely incredible. I served the soup with a salad tossed with a fresh watermelon, cantaloupe, arugula, mint, lemon and olive oil, and served it with crusty, fresh bread and it was delicious!! And of course, a really nice refreshing wine. It brought back all of the memories when crabs in the Chesapeake were plentiful and those 4:00 am fishing trips

So when I got back to work, I was happy to see that the Executive Chef had purchased Chesapeake Bay Soft-Shelled Crabs and so I wanted to make my favorite Soft-Shelled Crab BLT Sandwich with Cajun Remuolade and Old Bay Fries!

A soft-shelled crab is the same as a regular hard shelled blue crab except (unfortunately) he was captured at his most vulnerable point when he is shedding his shell (and his skin is really soft) before he has an opportunity to mature to a larger crab. Most people (unless they grow up in the mid-Atlantic East Coast, Gulf of Louisiana, or even San Francisco) are really turned off by the sight of wholes crabs or cleaning them and prefer crab meat, which has already been cleaned and processed. But once you sit down at a table covered in old newspaper and crack open a cold beer and have this steaming flavorful, seasoned crab in front of you—you can’t help but take the next step! And the same goes for cooking and eating soft-shelled crabs!

I cleaned and soaked the soft-shelled crabs in buttermilk and then tossed them lightly in seasoned flour (paprika, old bay, salt and pepper) before lightly pan-frying in canola oil until crispy. Meanwhile, make your Cajun remoulade sauce—you can even use good store bought mayonnaise seasoned with Cajun spices. Next cook strips of applewood smoked bacon until crispy, and then shred romaine lettuce and slice fresh heirloom tomatoes. Serve everything on a warm crusty bun, along with fries or chips tossed with Old Bay Seasoning and salt.

This to me is my ultimate summer sandwich and I hope that you’ll give it a try and it will become a favorite of yours as well. Enjoy!

I wanted to make a light dessert for summer last week and so I made Lemon-Ouzo Mousse and Yogurt Cake with Roasted Strawberry Syrup. My original plan was to make a 4–layer lemon cake, but the cake was too dense and heavy for the mousse filling and so I decided to use the cake as a base for the mousse instead. It turned out really great—refreshing with bold flavors and interesting textures.

The cake base is yummy enough to eat on its own without the mousse. It turned out incredibly moist and rich and would be great drizzled with a light lemon syrup or lemon icing. For the cake, I used thick Greek yogurt and lots of fresh lemon juice and lemon zest. For the mousse, in addition to fresh lemon juice, I added a small amount of Greek Ouzo, which is a sweet anise flavored liqueur and goes really well with the lemon flavor and roasted strawberry syrup.

So next time you’re making a dessert and it doesn’t turn out exactly as you had planned rethink the design and use the ingredients in another way. You’ll end up with a great tasting, beautifully presented dessert. Enjoy!