Fresh Produce of the Month - Roundup!

Yeeeh!!! It's time for the first roundup of 'Fresh Produce of the Month' themed on lemons for this first time. I'm SO happy: I received many entries, all of them gorgeous! I really want to try to make at least a few of them.. So, let's not waste any more time, and let the show start!

Susan from Porcini Chronicles: Lemon Basil Flan
She says she was inspired by a chef she tasted the recipes of in a small hotel. Following his example of using unusual ingredient pairs, she prepares this flan: "In this flan recipe, I substitute the deep, rich flavor of burned sugar caramel with the bright flavors and colors of lemon and basil."





Sukanya from Hot n' Sweet Bowl: Lemon Cookies with Lemon Glaze
Sukanya loves eating cookies all the time, and her jar was empty.. the cookies "were calling me for a refill since a long time.....Its time now!...."






Meeta at What's for Lunch Honey: Fresh Ginger and Tangy Lemon Ice Cream
She is inspired by David Lebovitz's recipe from "The perfect scoop", attracted by the idea of having ginger in an ice cream, and the combination with lemon was delicious: "In my opinion, lemons and ginger go so perfectly together and combining them in an ice cream is soooo ingenious."




Ruth from Once Upon A Feast:
Even though Ruth never saw a lemon tree growing around where she has lived, she uses lemons in many of her favorite recipes.. and so she shares with us three great recipes with chicken and lemon: "I thought I would just share a few of my favorite lemony chicken recipes......"





Nora B. from Life's Smorgasbord: Zesty torta di ricotta
Nora prepares a cake/pie inspired by the Italian 'Pastiera napoletana' and by another Sicilian dessert recipe. Pastiera is one of my favorite Italian desserts! "The result is a crispy pie-like crust, a moist, lemony filling and a cake-like base."





Anupama from Food-n-more: A delicious summer cooler
Lemon, ginger and orange are the main ingredients of this delicious summer drink that Anupama prepares: "You could say this combination of ingredients was discovered quite by chance by my mother one day as she set about making the ordinary nimbu pani or serbat as we call it in Marathi."










Pip from Pip in the city: Lemony Buttery Bites

Marce fuses together a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's book and one from Pierre Herme's collection, to create this tart version of a lemon meringue pie, with no meringue: "this tart made my wishes come true. It´s a softer, creamier variation of the lemon curd with no meringue. "




Marta (i.e., me!) from An Italian in The US: Limoncello and Marmellata di Limoni
With the lemons I found at my friend's house in LA, I made a ton of different recipes. I shared this lemon jam and the limoncello drink for the Fresh Produce of the Month event.. Limoncello had a great success! "Making limoncello seems like a hard task, because it takes a long time for it to be done. But mostly, it's just waiting time.. so just be patient, and start tomorrow!!!"




And to finish, I need to add that my mom wants to take part to this event!!
I'm really honored and happy :) She sent me a recipe for 'Faraona con salvia e limone', which is what her mom (my grandma) makes in special occasions. I can witness that it's delicious. Faraona is a bird that I'm not sure if it's easy to find outside Italy. In English it's called 'Guinea fowl'. It's bigger than a chicken, but its flesh is tastier. This recipe suggests baking it with lemon and sage. I'll write it down both in Italian and in English in the 'Read more' part of this post. Grazie, mamma!!!!!!!

There we are, this is the summary for this first event! I'm really happy about it.. there is a collection of great recipes! So great to know and be friend with other food bloggers. I hope everyone enjoyed this event as much as I did :)

For next month, the fresh produce is going to be... Apricots! Here in California, they are already in full season. Travelling back from Yosemite to Berkeley, I saw lots of stands of people selling their super local produces, and apricots were among the most common fruits I could find. I was really happy when I tried some of them, they tasted similar to those I used to have in Italy.. we had two great apricot trees in the backyard of our house in the moutains, and they were often loaded with fruits! So, for me, apricot represents the fruit of the summer, and lots of nice memories.
There are plenty of interesting recipes involving apricots: desserts of every possible type, and even meat, for example, in Indian cuisine! So, I'm really curious to see what you will come up with!
The deadline will be in about one month: July 26th. So, make sure to send me the links to your recipes at chemcookit at gmail dot com.. please put a link to this announcement in your post, and if you like it, add the logo:
(This wonderful image of the apricots on the tree is taken from Wikipedia)



Faraona alla salvia e limone - ricetta di Nonna Giovanna
Prendi una faraona di circa 1kg (anche 1,5 va bene, non di piu' perche' sarebbe troppo grassa), puliscila bene dentro, poi passala interiormente con un po' di olio misto con sale e pepe. Poi riempi la faraona con una grossa manciata di salvia (devi proprio riempirla con la salvia, non solo mettere qualche foglia) e infine comprimi dentro un bel limone intero (con tutta la buccia), possibilmente naturale; chiudi il buco cucendolo con un po’ di filo. Spruzzala con un po' di sale e pepe anche all'esterno. Fa' rosolare la faraona a fuoco vivace in una teglia con burro e olio. Continua poi la cottura in teglia coperta a fuoco basso, girandola ogni tanto, per circa 1 ora e mezza. Se la vuoi piu' asciutta, puoi continuare la cottura in
forno, a bassa temperatura (130 gradi) per circa due ore, bagnando di tanto in tanto con un po' di brodo e con il sugo che colerà dalla cottura. A cottura ultimata taglia la faraona, restringi il fondo e spargilo sui pezzi di faraona. E' squisita e profumatissima! Inoltre la salvia e' proprio di stagione.

Guinea fowl with sage and lemon - Grandma Giovanna's recipe
Take a 1-1.5 kg guinea fowl (or chicken, I suppose, if you can't find the guinea fowl), remove the interiors, clean it, and spread some olive oil, salt and pepper inside. Stuff the fowl with sage (really stuff it, not just a few leaves), then add a whole lemon inside, too (including the peel, so use an organic lemon). Close the hole in the fowl by sawing it a little. Sprinkle salt and pepper also outside. Then, heat up a little olive oil and butter in a tall pan, and 'roast' the fowl in it for ~10 min at high heat, turning it every once in a while. Then, close the lid of the pan, and keep cooking it at lower heat for ~1 hour, turning it from time to time. Alternatively, you can continue to cook the fowl in the oven, for ~2 hours, at low heat (270 F) making sure to sprinkle some of its own juices and some broth on the exterior part of the chicken every now and then. When it's done, cut the chicken into pieces, thicken the sauce by heating it some more, and sprinkle the sauce on the meat. It's delicious, and moreover, sage is in season too!