Tag: summer

Buckling Under Pressure

You’ll have to believe me when I said I laid out the most beautiful design for this dessert. Graceful swooping spirals of jam marbled the batter with artfully arranged baby figs on top. They gleamed, catching the light of the oven, as I carefully closed the door. And were promptly swallowed by the cake rising up from below.

Buckle Up

That’s just what buckles do. I knew this, and even had a passing thought that I should photography the dish before baking, and I still failed to capture evidence. At least, I know that I’ve made the recipe correctly, likely suffering the same initial disappointment of my ancestors, seeing all their hard work disappear into the buttery abyss.

What’s a Buckle?

I like to describe the buckle as a confused cobbler. The batter goes on the bottom, rather than being dropped in dollops on top, but then somehow still ends up on top of the fruit. As it bakes, the cake rises around the filling, puffing and cracking until the surface looks rumpled. Performing an explanation of the name without saying a word, the top appears to “buckle” under the weight of all that juicy fruit. Unlike a crisp or crumble, where the fruit is unquestionably the star, a buckle strikes a happy balance between cake and compote. Every bite delivers tender, buttery crumb soaked with vibrant fruit juices, punctuated by pockets of jammy sweetness.

Fig-ment of Your Imagination

Gifted with tiny fresh figs from a neighbor’s tree, mine didn’t even need to be chopped. You should have seen how cute they were before disappearing into the abyss of batter. At least the flavor speaks for itself, imbued with a mellow honeyed sweetness, amplified by ribbons of fig jam that pool at the bottom in a gooey caramelized layer.

Designed to Fail

If this is your first buckle, take a moment to admire your handiwork before it goes into the oven. The fruit will sink, the cake will rise, and your carefully composed masterpiece will exist only in memory. Far from a flaw, it’s exactly what makes this dessert a keeper.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)12 Comments

Greens of Resistance

Texas is not the place to grow tender salad greens. Sure, the seeds will sprout, propelled through the soil at the barest hint of moisture and warmth, and that’s where they’ll wish they stopped. No amount of water or shade will protect the defenseless little leaves from the ambient heat, bearing down mercilessly and indiscriminately on all those below. The sun does not negotiate. It does not care how carefully the beds were prepared or how faithfully the gardener tends them. It simply arrives each morning with renewed intensity, turning cool-season dreams into compost.

Yet there are still plants that meet this punishment as a kind of blessing. Where delicate baby spinach would wilt in seconds, Malabar spinach thrives. The same heat that sends tender greens into panic coaxes this tropical vine into exuberance. Unfurling thick, succulent leaves on thick red or green stems, they would survive under the most dire conditions.

Granted, despite its name, Malabar spinach, also known as alugbati, Ceylon spinach, Indian spinach, and vine spinach, is not a true spinach at all. It belongs to an entirely different plant family and bears little resemblance to its cool-weather namesake beyond its culinary use. Native to the tropical regions of South Asia, particularly the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, the vine evolved in climates where extreme heat and humidity are par for the course. For centuries, it’s been a vital, dependable source of greens when more temperamental vegetables falter.

Thick and glossy, almost waxy to the touch, I would describe the leaves as being distinctly juicy. The flavor is mild, and while they can be eaten raw, most people prefer to cook them due to their subtly slimy texture, similar to okra. It’s exactly the inspiration, and addition, I needed to make a quick and satisfying soup, as boldly green as the whole garden, condensed into one bowl. Surrendering only to the heat of the stove, those succulent leaves blend into a velvety mixture, brightened with jalapeño, cilantro, and lemon, with a touch of cashew butter for richness. Now, this is what summer tastes like to me.

I’m not a skilled gardener and the climate is less than accommodating. Malabar spinach is one of the very few plants I can trust will feed me well, no matter what. A single plant can transform from a modest seedling into a sprawling curtain of foliage within a matter of weeks. Hope you like spinach, because there’s more where this came from.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)8 Comments

Shout It From The Rooftops

Some experiments are born from necessity, others from unbound curiosity. Then, there are those born purely of heatstroke-induced insanity, or so it would seem when the idea first struck me. With forecasts hovering at a scorching 106 degrees and the sun pounding down without an ounce of mercy, I had to do something with all that heat. If I could fry vegan eggs on the sidewalk, bake cookies in a car, and cook lasagna in a mailbox, could I go bigger? Could I bake a whole pizza… On the roof?

Getting Baked

Sure, conventional ovens are reliable, fast, and hygienic. However, when the summer heat sets in, baking the entire earth itself, why waste more energy and jack up the temperature inside the house, too? Let nature do the heavy lifting, especially when the ambient heat is already intense enough to melt the soles off your sneakers.

While 106 degrees is impressive for a forecast, it isn’t even close to hot enough to bake a whole pizza from scratch. Professional pizza ovens can easily reach 900 degrees or more, while a home oven tops out around 500. If this was going to work, I was going to need to bring in the heavy artillery, in the form of cast iron.

Cooking Time 0:00

Heavy Metal Pizza Party

Did you think I was about to just toss a whole pie up there a la Breaking Bad? I was originally planning on using a sheet pan just to keep things clean, but then I realized my trusty cast iron skillet could do more than just contain the mess. While direct sunlight delivers a steady stream of radiant energy, a dark, sturdy cooking vessel can absorb and retain some of it.

It takes a 12-inch cast iron skillet to contain the average frozen pizza, which is what we’re working with here. It can’t have a rising crust or start from raw dough for this to work at all. A thin, already par-baked frozen pizza is the best candidate because we’re really reheating and finishing it, rather than asking the sun to perform the considerably more demanding task of baking raw dough from scratch. A prepared shelf-stable crust could work in a pinch, too, although I personally find most of them about as appetizing as cardboard. Flavor may be a secondary objective here, but it still counts.

Don’t Be Like Walter White in Breaking Bad

Sun-Kissed Skillet

By placing the empty skillet in direct, unobstructed sunlight, it can effectively preheat while the sun reaches its peak. The shingles underneath play an important role, too. A dark roof sitting in direct summer sunlight can become dramatically hotter than the surrounding air, effectively turning the entire surface into a giant solar collector.

I chose a reasonably flat, level section of roof with maximum sun exposure. A sloped roof might be more architecturally interesting, but it’s a terrible place to balance several pounds of screaming-hot cookware. If your skillet starts slowly migrating toward the gutter, the experiment has officially gone too far.

Once the skillet had spent some time soaking up the midday sun, I added the frozen pizza and covered it with a clear glass lid. Heat-safe plastic wrap would work as well, if you don’t have a matching set. The idea is to create a miniature greenhouse, allowing sunlight to pass through the clear cover, while the enclosed air and accumulated heat can’t escape as readily. It also provides a critical secondary function: keeping the flies off. Even rooftop pizza attracts freeloaders.

Cooking Time 0:50

Let There Be Light

Timing is crucial. I started the experiment around noon, when the sun was approaching its strongest point. A clear day is essential; clouds may not lower the air temperature much, but they can dramatically reduce the radiant energy reaching your setup. This is also where patience becomes mandatory. An oven can cook a pizza in minutes, while the sun will take hours.

After about an hour, the cheese had begun to glisten, starting to sweat under scrutiny. After 2 hours, it was reasonably liquefied. Given how notoriously difficult it is to melt vegan cheese to a reasonable degree, this marks a huge success. The crust, of course, remained pale as a ghost, but at least it looked dry, if rather floppy.

The roof itself reached over 170 degrees, and with the combination of direct sunlight, dark cast iron, and the greenhouse effect from the clear cover, the enclosed cooking environment likely climbed to around 200 degrees or more. That’s still nowhere near standard cooking temperatures, but it was enough to gradually heat the pizza through.

Cooking Time 1:55

Notes From the Field

A few things became very clear over the course of this ridiculous experiment:

  • Peak sun matters. Start around noon and take advantage of the strongest sunlight between roughly 12 and 3 PM. Don’t expect the same results if you start late in the afternoon, even if it’s still brutally hot.
  • Clouds are the enemy. This experiment depends on direct solar radiation, not simply hot air. Wait for the clearest day you can find.
  • Flat is not optional. A level roof keeps the skillet where you put it. A pitched roof turns your solar oven into a potential pizza sled.
  • Use a dark, heavy pan. Cast iron absorbs and retains heat far better than a lightweight, shiny baking sheet, making it much better suited to this slow solar bake.
  • Give the skillet time to preheat. Put the empty pan out before adding the pizza, ideally for at least 1 hour, allowing it to absorb as much heat as possible before the pizza enters the picture.
  • Keep it covered. The clear lid or plastic wrap traps heat and creates the greenhouse effect while keeping insects, dust, leaves, and other rooftop debris out of your lunch.
  • Choose your pizza carefully. Thin crust and already par-baked are essential. Skip raw dough, rising crusts, deep dish, and anything heavily loaded with wet toppings. The sun has limits.
  • Use an infrared thermometer. The weather forecast tells you the air temperature. The thermometer tells you what your pizza is actually dealing with. Check the roof, pan, and pizza itself periodically.
  • Be patient. Commit somewhere between 2 – 3 hours for this project. Conditions will vary, so think of the clock as a guideline rather than a guarantee.
  • Don’t leave it unattended. This is a heavy, hot piece of cookware sitting on a roof. Keep an eye on the setup, especially if there’s any wind, and only attempt the experiment somewhere you can safely access and where the surface can support you and the equipment.
  • Protect yourself. Always use potholders, even after the lower-intensity preheating stage. That also means to apply sunscreen liberally, stay in the shade when you can, and drink plenty of water! Spend too much time out there with your pizza, and you’ll start cooking, too.

Nothing New Under The Sun

Unsurprisingly, this method will never produce the best pizza you’ve ever had. It won’t even produce the most acceptable pizza you’ve ever had. It will, however, give you an edible pizza-like substance, albeit completely lacking in structural integrity. Similar to the effect of tossing a day-old slice in the microwave for 30 seconds, but with a few hours of work and the risk of heat exhaustion, it’s objectively one of the least satisfying ways to prepare dinner.

At least I’m not one to be deterred by impracticality. If anything, the sheer absurdity of the whole concept is what made it so appealing. Once I got it into my head, I simply had to see the plan in action. What else am I supposed to do when it’s too hot to leave the house, after all? I’m sure my neighbors already think I’m a little strange, but crouching on the roof in the middle of a heatwave with a cast iron skillet and a camera probably didn’t do much to dispel that notion.

Maybe next heatwave, I’ll have a better idea, or at least one that doesn’t require explaining myself to the nice people living next door.

Hannah (BitterSweet)14 Comments

Cold as Ice

Serving food that’s still frozen is a capital offense. Serving food with whole ice cubes in it, however, is an asset rather than an error. After literally drinking through gallons of chilled soups over the years, pouring them into insulated mugs to sip on like savory smoothies, it’s staggering that the thought didn’t occur to me sooner. Gracefully maintaining their composure while other bowls start sweating, there’s nothing more refreshing when sweltering heat bears down midday. Gazpacho is an obvious, well-qualified candidate, but I was inspired to look further afield to another cool contender.

Drink Your Vegetables

Okroshka is sometimes described as a liquid salad, and with the tart tang of buttermilk or kefir that’s evocative of a creamy vinaigrette, it’s an apt comparison. Grassy and milky, light and soothing, it tastes like the sensation of stepping out of the sun and into shade. Finely chopped cucumbers, radishes, and potatoes are essential, swimming beneath a marsh of fresh dill and green onions. Traditionalist may include ham, while vegetarian versions opt for hard boiled eggs, which brings me to the other white meat for my version: tofu.

Melt Down

Worried about ice cubes watering down your soup? Don’t be silly. This particular blend is meant to be brothy, not the sort of thick stew that would suffer from the intrusion. If you’re the type that likes to crunch on ice, you get the bonus of added texture, and if you prefer to spare your teeth, just spoon around the cubes as you go. It doesn’t have to be bland old frozen water, either. Make custom soup cubes using:

  • Vegetable or mushroom stock
  • Tomato juice
  • Unsweetened non-dairy milk
  • Diluted pickle brine

Cubed Crusade

I’m well aware that the most American thing to do is add copious amounts of ice to everything. What can I say; I can’t outrun my cultural conditioning, even when crafting a Russian staple. Look, if Jacques Pépin says it’s okay to put ice in red wine, then surely, we can start putting ice in soup. Okroshka, cool, calm, and composed, can withstand the perceived faux-pas. If we’re adding tofu in anyway, I think we’ve already passed the point of offending the purists.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)7 Comments

Eternal Summer

Inspiration isn’t a commodity that can be bought and sold, nor is it a punctual visitor dutifully keeping an appointment on the calendar. Untamed, fickle thing that it is, it may show up late, early, or not at all, and there’s no way of knowing which. I can never begrudge it, frustrating as the dance may be, because eventually, albeit sometimes painstakingly, it does always grace me with its presence. I’m not sure if that completely explains why I was dispatching a whole summer’s harvest of fresh produce in the dead of winter, but I can be equally unpredictable, too.

This recipe has been a long time coming. Suggesting that others defy seasonality as carelessly as I did would seem irresponsible. I was simply following my muse, you see, and in a dearth of color and warmth, all it wanted was to paint the kitchen in the vibrant, sun-soaked hues of July. Just picturing the juicy tomatoes hanging heavily on their vines began to thaw my imagination.

All it took was one extra eggplant, leftover from another project, to light the creative spark. Channeling my future self, I made a one-pan meal I knew would be just the ticket in a few months. Simple, fresh, bright, and balanced, it’s exactly the sort of thing I would make with peak summer produce. Aside from slicing and dicing, the oven does all the work. 

The cherry tomatoes collapse and burst into a rich, sweet jam that acts as a built-in sauce. The eggplant softens into a downright velvety texture, soaking up the olive oil and garlic like a sponge, while the fennel mellows into something deeply caramelized and sweet. Once pulled from the heat, the warm, jammy vegetables are tossed directly on the sheet pan with plump butter beans for substance, briny olives for a sharp pop of contrast, and a generous handful of fresh basil to wake everything up.

There’s no shame in eating it right off the sheet, provided you have a trusted trivet underneath. I found it even more gratifying, however, to spoon it over a big bowlful of soft polenta, letting the corn grits soak in all the juices. Of course, that may owe a lot to the urge for comfort and warming dishes when I made it, which is why I’m very happy to report that it’s just as compelling when tossed with pasta, hot or cold. In fact, you can chill the whole thing and take it outside for a picnic; something I could only dream of in that moment.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that you should never expect inspiration to simply land on your doorstep. If it does, though, you should always answer the door, no matter the time or season.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)4 Comments

Right On Cue

Barbecue is big business here in the south. People worship at the altar of smoke and fire, where pitmasters stand like priests before steel rigs blackened by decades of grease and devotion. It’s less of a meal than a declaration of faith, because in truth, it does take that level of conviction to tend a single slab of protein for 6 – 8 hours and trust that it’s time well-spent.

Devotees are ready to throw down at the barest whisper of dissent, even when discussing the differences between Texas, Memphis, Alabama, Kansas City, and the Carolinas. Tossing a meatless option into the ring would tantamount to treason, ostensibly punishable by law, but I’m prepared to take that risk. That’s how confident I am in Fungitarian BBQ.

Mushrooms Over Meat

Challenging the status quo with mushrooms might sound dubious in a culture built on beef, but the whole art of barbecue has always been about transformation. Founded on taking humble, tough cuts and turning them into something transcendent through smoke, spice, patience, and fire, that ethos can be applied to anything. Fungitarian delivers on that same philosophy, and flavor, all in one ready-to-eat package.

Where There’s Smoke

Give mushrooms the same amount of heat and time to unlock their inherently umami, meaty, almost primal qualities. Charred around the edges, toothsome and supple in the middle, there are no woody stems to contend with, and no gristle, bones, or fat, for that matter, either. Absorbing the heady smoke like a marinade, they carry that flavor all the way through, rather than merely wearing it on the surface. That’s what makes it even more compelling as the crowning jewel on a loaded baked potato.

Potayto, Potahto

A proper barbecue potato is a celebration of excess. Blistered skins splitting open to reveal a steaming, fluffy interior; even without adornment, it’s a mouthwatering sight to behold. When piled recklessly high with cheese, protein, and enough toppings to collapse under its own weight, make no mistake, this isn’t some token side dish. Best of all, when done right, no BBQ sauce need apply. Such sticky, sweet syrup would only distract from the rich flavors of smoke and spice within.

Low and Slow or Fast and Fresh

Baked potatoes are nothing if not adaptable. You have five choices for how to approach the cooking process, all of which creating perfectly delicious results, though the longest wait does yield the greatest rewards.

  • Smoker: 2 hours at 225 degrees
  • Oven or grill: 45 – 60 minutes at 400 degrees
  • Air fryer: 30 – 40 minutes at 370 degrees
  • Microwave: 8 – 10 minutes at full power (cooked one at a time)

If you’ve already got the smoker or grill going, it’s a no-brainer. That extra infusion of smoke and char can’t be replicated and is tough to find elsewhere, even in most restaurants. If you’ve got a squad of hangry guests that need to eat ASAP, there’s no shame in getting an assist from the microwave.

Top That

Likewise, the number of potential toppings to adorn your barbecue masterpiece is limited only by your imagination. Want to add more veggies? Throw in some chopped broccoli or sautéed spinach. Like it hot? Go all in on chilies. Just a few of my favorite suggestions include:

Barbecue For All

Purists may clutch their tongs in horror, but it’s their loss if they can’t invite more diverse options to the backyard barbecue. One bite would end the argument faster than any amount of debate. Smoke, spice, char, and comfort don’t belong exclusively to brisket. That same experience is accessible to anyone willing to put in the time and respect the process. The loaded baked potato simply happens to be the perfect stage for proving it.

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Hannah (BitterSweet)14 Comments