A Word From Our Cooks: Summer Menu Featured Ingredients

It is summer time!  Which means it is time for us to write a new menu.  Our goal for this menu is to open some of our customers up to new items, the ones you see at the farmers market and have no idea what to do with! We chose three items from our first week of the summer menu to highlight, and lend some background information to what we, at Pete’s Paleo, do. 

Chayote

 

Chayote Squash has many names; pear squash, vegetable pear, cho-cho, christophine, pipinola, and as I like to call it “Abuela” or grandma squash due to the bottom of the squash resembling grandma when she forgets to put her teeth in. It is a fruit that is technically in the gourd family along with melon, cucumber, and squash. It is one of my favorite summer squash because of its crisp, fresh, and versatile value. It has the texture of a water chestnut, and a flavor profile of cucumber/apple/zucchini. Its weaker flavor leaves it easy for you to manipulate it into whatever profile you want. Being used in many cuisines such as Asain, Indian, Hawaiian, American and more, its most popular uses are in Latin food.  The entire plant is edible making it a fruit of endless possibilities. When shredded or thinly sliced raw for slaws, salads, or crudité, it makes for a wonderfully fresh and bright ingredient. Cooked chayote can be roasted, boiled, mashed, fried, stuffed, or even pickled!

For our new summer menu, we dice the squash and season it with salt, pepper, garlic, and cumin and give it a fast roast at a high temperature.  This will pare very well with our Coconut Curry Chicken Thighs and Sautéed Garlic Chard.  Enjoy!

 

Jicama

 

Jicama is one of my favorite things to eat during the summer time.  It is light, sweet, crisp and with a basically blank canvas flavor wise, you can use it in multiple applications.  Native to Mexico, Jicama translates to Yam bean.  It is commonly used in salads, fruit bars, soups and stews.  I prefer to use raw applications for jicama, so we can really give you that fresh summer feeling.

For the first week of our new summer menu, we decided to show you a very fresh raw, approach.  We shred the jicama in to little matchsticks, Season with salt, pepper, apple cider vinegar, and thinly sliced fresh Georgia peaches.  This dish to me screams SUMMER. 

Pick up a root at your local farmers market, peel, cut and season with salt, lime and chili powder and have a fresh healthy snack for you and the family!

 

Pattypan Squash

The name Pattypan comes from the identifiable scalloped edges.  Remember the cakes grandma used to use with the ribbed edges, like a perfectly folded pie crust?  The baking dish used to make those is called a Patty pan.  This summer squash just like zucchini, and yellow squash is high in vitamin A and C and has no fat.  Its soft texture and delicate flavor allows you to enjoy the squash as nature intended.  Keep things simple, and roast or sauté with salt, pepper and olive oil. 

For the summer menu at Pete’s we are going to do just that.  Our Pattypan is paired with a very light braised chicken and cherry tomato and spinach sauté.  We are going to roast our Pattypan squash like Chayote, high heat, for a short amount of time.  Seasoned with salt, pepper, and olive oil. 

This meal is the perfect example of using just a few ingredients to make something that is absolutely delicious.

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