Grapefruit Salad with Ground Cherries and Mint Sugar

Title sounds all classy, doesn't it? Well, I already had the mint in the fridge for something else, so this dish was prompted by my officemate leaving me a message on a Friday that she was out of the office, imploring me to find some use for a grapefruit and ground cherries that she had left in her desk drawer, since they wouldn't make it through the weekend and she didn't want them to go to waste.

The ground cherries are to the left, below. I had no idea what they were, but they come from my officemate's garden and she explained that they look like tiny tomatillos, but taste kind of pineappley. They also have little tiny seeds built in, giving them a subtle crunch like figs! Yum.

As per my usual, I didn't make this recipe up: epicurious has something similar that uses grapefruits, oranges, pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries (I used dried currants), and no ground cherries.


Anyway, there's not much to describe. I peeled the grapefruit over a bowls so that I could save any drippiness. I pulled the sections out of the white stuff as best I could. I took the ground cherries out of their husks, washed them, and cut them each in half.



Then I ripped up a bunch of mint leaves (but not as many as you see in the first picture - maybe 8-10?), and smashed them with the leftover grapefruit juice and some sugar in my mortar and pestle.

The currants went on top.

This picture is really shaky!

(Fresh) Pea and Ham Soup

It sounds like regular (delicious) old split pea soup with a ham hock or bone thrown in, but actually, it was a little lighter than that. I got it from a new cookbook I picked up off the clearance cart outside St. Johns Booksellers while I was waiting for the bus this morning. It's called Seasonal Food, by Susannah Blake. It progresses through the four seasons based upon what's growing during that time of year. This soup was filed under "summer," and I know we're not actually there yet, but - close enough.

The recipe calls for prosciutto, but I don't really go for that prosciutto/pancetta stuff unless the recipe screams Italian and/or I'm feeling flush. We had a little leftover "root beer-ginger ham" (in quotation marks because I have no idea how those ingredients were incorporated into the ham, but it does seem to have a little "bite," much as Barq's does) from Sheridan. So I used that instead.

I also used chicken broth instead of vegetable stock. I just don't really like vegetable stock or broth much.

The recipe calls for creme fraiche (you can add the accent grave and hat yourself) or sour cream. Needless to say, I used sour cream.

So, here's the recipe:

Summer Pea and Ham Soup
Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 2 T olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 18 oz shelled fresh or frozen peas (about 4 cups) [I used mostly frozen, but a handful of fresh thrown in as well as for garnish]
• 4 3/4 cup vegetable stock [or chicken]
• 6 T. creme fraiche or sour cream
• handful of fresh mint, chopped, plus extra for garnishing
• salt and pepper
• 4 slices prosciutto, cut into bite-sized pieces [or your cured-tasting pork product of choice]

Heat the oil in a large pot, add the onions, and fry gently for about 5 minutes, until soft. Add the peas and stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let simmer gently for about 5 minutes.

Let the pea, onion, and stock mixture cool slightly, then pour into a blender or food processor [or by all means use an immersion/stick blender, if you have one] and blend until smooth. Stir [more like "whisk," if you're using sour cream, at least] in the creme fraiche or sour cream and chopped mint and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Heat through, then ladle into four warm serving bowls. Sprinkle the ham and the fresh mint garnish over it, and serve.

Of course, you can't see the ham because it sank.

The most labor-intensive part was chopping the onion. On a ridiculously humid day like today, I can live with that.