Welina!

Today, in celebration of our 10th anniversary, Husband and I did a little North Shore crawl that included a visit to Waialua Bakery for their extraordinary cinnamon buns. (I am going to get that recipe if it’s the last thing I do. I DREAM about these things. They are rather plain — just a hamburger bun-size mounded round, golden brown, moist and dense in texture with a very slight glaze. These buns have absolutely the perfect balance of butter to sugar to cinnamon to salt — rich but not sickeningly so, sweet but not overly so with just enough spice and salt to cut the richness.)

At a mini farmers market that specializes in organic produce, we found some gigantic Rapoza mangoes from Poamoho Farm up the hill (I had actually thought about dropping in on my friend, Poamoho farmer Al Santoro, on the drive down, but his gate was locked.)

After I visited pretty much every dress shop in Haleiwa and Husband visited every bench outside of said shops, we walked in the sand at turtle beach, then stopped at Fumi’s for a pound of live shrimp and at Nozawa Farms for fresh sweet corn and a bag of lilikoi that Husband just had to have.

Tonight, I’ll recreate a menu that brings back lovely memories. Four or five years ago during our anniversary week, we invited chef Mavro and his wife, Donna, over for dinner out at a beach house we were renting. I planned to make a super-simple shrimp dish, Crevettes a la Poele from “When Frenchwomen Cook” by Madeleine Kamman. Busy prepping other dishes, I sent my husband out to get the shrimp. He came back with 2 pounds of live prawns. Large prawns. Gigantic prawns. Prawns the size of squirrels. With bright blue whiskers longer than my arm. And each with a single, wicked, razor sharp claw. I very nearly cried. I was literally hysterical. “I don’t know what to DO with these!,” I wailed.

Then I remembered that the world’s living expert on seafood was coming to dinner. I stuffed the prawns safely into a cooler of ice and left them for Mavro to clean. Which he did with his usual Gallic enthusiasm. I was finding bits of blue shell around the kitchen for a week!

Anyway, he cleaned them. And, gently elbowing me out of the way, he cooked them. But this recipe is so kindergarten easy that I can make it myself. Here’s how:

Crevettes a la Poele
Pan-fried Shrimp
“When Frenchwomen Cook” by Madeleine Kamman

2 pounds fresh, whole, head-on shrimp, unwashed
2-4 tablespoons butter
Pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed (I use 4 cloves)
1 1/2 cups cream

Sort shrimp and remove any impurities but do not wash. Leave whole.
Head a deep-sided frying pan or wok or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add butter and swirl as it sizzles, lifting the pan so that the butter melts and turns golden brown but doesn’t burn. Add shrimp, garlic and pepper and cook just until shrimp shells turn pinky red, tossing every half minute or so, for a total of 3-4 minutes. Remove shrimp from pan with tongs; place in covered pot. Pour cream into pan and reduce by one-half. Return shrimp to pan just until heated through. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

We’re having this with corn on the cob and a couple of thin-sliced Roma tomatoes. The tomatoes looked good in the store but were sadly bland when I tasted them so I have them marinating in glurg of olive oil, the juice and zest of one-half Meyer lemon, a small handful of minced parsley, a pinch of sugar, two pinches of salt and some fresh-ground pepper. I’m hoping the lemon, salt and sugar will help bring out some flavor. I would normally have added minced garlic but with the garlic in the shrimp I thought not.

Happy memories. I wore white to day to tell him I’d marry him all over again. And, of course, I’m happy to make shrimp for him all over again, too!

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The gift of a small sack of guavas last weekend prompted a jam-making session. I was surprised and delighted at how much jam I got.

Jam-making at this time of year was a tradition in the first few years of our marriage: Our anniversary is tomorrow (Sept. 2) and we honeymooned in Hana on Maui. Driving out there, we couldn’t help stopping at every other turn to pick “a few” guavas. By the time we got there, we had dozens of guavas and waiawi rolling around the back seat.

Luckily, we were staying in a condo with a kitchen. I sent Husband to Hasegawa General Store for sugar and cheesecloth, but when he got there, they didn’t have any cheesecloth. “What do you want it for?,” they asked. And when he told them, they said “Oh, you don’t want cheesecloth, you want plastic window screening.” It worked beautifully. We made a few jars of jam and packed the rest of the screened pulp in plastic containers so we could have a jam-making session back at my mom’s house. That year, everyone on our Christmas list got Ua Kea Road jam.

The next year, it was Halfway to Hana jam (we stayed in Ka’anapali and only got as far as Nahiku on our guava-picking excursion).

The following year, no guavas because we didn’t go to Maui. So I made Purloined Pineapple Chutney (with pineapples swiped from Del Monte fields).

Another year, it was Aloha Apple Chutney.

But the last few years, I haven’t made jam and I was so happy to get back to it.

Guava jam is the easiest preserve to make because the fruit is so rich in pectin that the mixture never fails to gel. And both the technique and the proportions are simple. Here’s what you do:

Cut the guava in half and pile it into a soup pot. Add water to about halfway up the fruit — don’t drown it. Bring to a boil, turn down to medium-high and boil 30 minutes. Mash the pulp through a jam sieve (I’ve got my grandmother’s conical metal sieve with its beautiful hardwood pestle; my mom tried to make me get rid of it but it’s one of my most prized possessions).

Measure the pulp, place it in a heavy pot, measure an equal amount of sugar. Stir, bring to a boil, boil 30 minutes. It’s done when a spoonful placed on a saucer “sits up” and doesn’t release any liquid; draw a spoon or a finger through the puddle of jam — the pathway should remain clear.

Pour the hot jam into sterile jam jars with new, sterile lids. Cap. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. If you don’t have a canning kettle and jar tongs (I got rid of mine; they took up too much space), just place the jars in a soup pot, add water to cover by at least a half-inch. Bring to a boil, then start timing. After 10 minutes, turn off the heat and let the jars sit in the water until it’s cool enough for you to remove them. (Do NOT try to use ordinary tongs to pull the jars out; you’re sure to end up with a broken jar.)

Here’s my beautiful jam.

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Don’t know quite how it came into my consciousness but I was craving Thai peanut chicken last week and finally got the chance to make some Saturday when I took dinner to a girlfriend’s house for a movie night. Girls Night In while Husband was working.

Wish I’d thought to take a picture but you’ll just have to imagine it.

This dish is usually made with bits of boneless chicken breast, often skewered and grilled, then just dipped into the sauce. But I wanted to use chicken thighs: They’re cheaper, more moist and flavorful.

This was an easy dish to transport: I made both the marinade and the sauce Saturday morning and packed them into airtight containers. The chicken went into the marinade while we were chatting and having pupu. The chicken and sauce were baked together for the final dish.

I cobbled together the recipe from a number of ideas I found online. We all loved it and Husband, presented with leftovers on Sunday, made the Good Noise.

Thai Peanut Chicken Thighs
1/4 cup peanut oil
1/4 cup shoyu
4 tablespoons lemon juice (I used Meyer lemon because I had some)
4 cloves garlic
1 (2-inch) piece peeled ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
2-3 pounds bone-in chicken thighs
Combine marinade ingredients. Score chicken deeply and place in marinade for 30 minutes.
Make sauce:
1/2 cup natural-style, chunky peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon sambal oelek or other chili paste
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 bunch chives and/or green onions, finely chopped
Taste and correct seasonings as desired. Drain marinade from chicken. Arrange chicken in baking dish. Pour sauce over. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Serve hot with rice and sauteed spinach.
(You can briefly saute the chicken thighs for crisper skin and more attractive color, but it’s not necessary.)

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