Cantaloupe and Pancetta Cream Sauce for Pasta

One thing I have loved about summer ever since I can remember is cantaloupe. When the recipe for Cantaloupe and Pancetta Cream Sauce for Pasta showed up on Facebook I started counting down work days till I would have enough time to make it. One bite in and I immediately wanted to make more. My wife commented that it could immediately go into rotation and that I'd better not lose the recipe. While there may be a huge pot full of it on the stove, it won't be enough! How have I lived so long, loved cantaloupe so much, and never come across this? It is indeed a delicious discovery that you should make ASAP!

   
Pancetta is fairly expensive in Bozeman and my preferred grocery store doesn't carry it, so I used ham instead. Pancetta and ham come from the same cut of the pig. They are not treated the same, but the ham was a tasty substitute.

I decided to turn the whole night into a cantaloupe night. I made some grilled shrimp with cantaloupe lime salsa from Steamy Kitchen that I had been saving and waiting to make for a while. The closest I can compare it to is mango salsa, but it still isn't close. Cantaloupe salsa is a garnish, not a chip-dipping salsa, but very delicious. We felt that it would probably be better served with cocktail shrimp in it instead of grilled shrimp with it.

Opo squash curry

This is an Opo squash, which is actually a bottle gourd.

The opo squash was first cultivated over 10,000 years ago in Africa and is now common in Asia. It reminds me of a strange mixture of cucumber and cauliflower. Zucchini is actually the recommended substitute, but they are not the same.

One of my favorite apps I have downloaded is specialty produce. I saw the opo squash at the grocery store and looked it up in the app. The app has several sections: Description and Taste, Interesting Fact, Nutritional Value, Applications, Cultural Information, Geography, History, and Recipes, which has links for baked goods, appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, soup, and dessert depending on the produce you are looking up.

The recipe that piqued my interest and I purchased the squash for is actually a vegan recipe for bottle gourd curry. Here is the recipe from veganlovlie.com, and it is a delicious discovery that needs to be made again and again!

I needed two things for this recipe that I had never used before; fenugreek, and curry leaves. Fenugreek is commonly available I have just never used it. Curry leaves on the other hand are in fact quite rare. I looked for them at seven grocery stores and World Market and still came home empty handed. I was confused when the recipe called for curry leaves because the curry I know is a mixture of spices. Apparently there is a curry tree native to India and Sri Lanka. The leaves are used similar to a bay leaf and can be either put in for simmering then removed, or crushed/ground up fine enough that they are not a choking or digestive hazard and left in. A quick google search showed that there is no substitute for them and recommended either leaving them out all together or finding another recipe. I ordered them on amazon for a few dollars but they wouldn't be here in time, so we're going to see how the recipe is with and without them. I highly recommend this recipe even without the curry leaves and will give an update when I try it with them.

You'll notice some non-vegan protein in the photo. It is grilled tandoori chicken from chef Emeril Lagasse. It is delicious, though I have another marinated Indian chicken I prefer that is part of a Chicken Tikka Masala recipe.

Generaly I would make carrot rice and baked samosas with mango chutney to go with Indian food, but I simply didn't have time this time.

If you can find an opo squash definitely get one and try this recipe or another one. 

Mango Guacamole

That's right, mango guacamole! You could have seen this post half an hour sooner if I had self control and could stop eating it! But now I'm down to the bottom of the bag of chips and have to hold two or three fractions of chip together to get a decent scoop.

The only strange thing I usually add to my guacamole is diced celery. It gives a nice crunch and people always comment that it tastes fresh.

I had  two Ataúlfo mango's, also known as champagne mango's, laying on my counter and remembered that I had saved a mango guacamole recipe to my recipe app.

The recipe is slightly different than what I usually do for guacamole, but I'm all about trying new and different things and discovering something delicious. This was worth a shot, I'm in love with it!!!

The recipe calls for one mango, but I figured since the champagne mango's are smaller I'd use them both. If you don't like it spicy, use a jalapeno instead of a habanero, or just leave it out. Either way you will have something quite tasty!

I'm sure google will give you thousands of mango recipes to sift through, so here is the recipe from Food Network I used. Let me know if you make it.

Kung Pao Chicken with Black Vinegar and bacon cauliflower fried rice

I love vinegar, I can't explain why, but I do. Maybe it's the fifth flavor umami that can't really be explained but isn't sweet, sour, bitter or salty.  Vinegar adds an element to food that I think makes it delicious. Several years ago I saw black vinegar called for in a beef and broccoli stir-fry recipe, which I had never heard of at the time and was curious, so I set out to find some. Six grocery stores later I couldn't find any and settled with the balsamic vinegar substitute suggested in the notes. The recipe turned out fantastic, but left me curious as to how it would be with black vinegar. While grocery shopping a while ago at a local grocery store, I saw some! There are three of the same grocery store in town and I didn't previously check them all. I have since learned that they are all the same store, but separate entities and have different inventory.

According to The Bald Gourmet "Chinese black vinegar is an aged vinegar which is typically made from rice, but can also be made from wheat, millet, sorghum, or a combination of any of the four. It has a deep black color, similar to that of balsamic vinegar." The vinegar I picked up smells similar to molasses, is somewhat sweet, and quite black. Naturally I was excited to try this vinegar and settled on two recipes I wanted to try, the beef and broccoli mentioned above, and a Kung Pao chicken recipe I'd been eying for a while. Unable to decide, I asked my wife, and we decided to make Kung Pao chicken. I have enjoyed Kung Pao chicken on many occasions but never tried to make it. I forgot to pick up the dried red chilies, which is ok as my wife doesn't have a high spice threshold though we are working on it.

Still working on food photography

I decided to do a cauliflower fried rice with the chicken partially because I love it and can't get enough, and partially because I didn't take inventory of my rice supply until I was in the process of cooking and discovered I didn't have enough. I used this recipe for the Kung Pao chicken http://rasamalaysia.com/kung-pao-chicken/2/ I don't have the dark soy sauce and a google search informed me that I was probably using dark soy sauce it just wasn't labeled as such, so I used the same soy sauce instead of two separate ones. I also added a few dashes of chili oil since I didn't have the chilies.

The cauliflower fried rice came from skinnytaste I completely spaced eggs, but it still turned out amazing. In fact, the whole meal was amazing, there were no leftovers! I'll have to make it again.