Posts from the ‘Food’ category

The birthday dinner

I remember, some couple of years ago, Sara…my house/Bob sitter and then friend… after looking in my refrigeratior, commented: “Your refrigerator does not look like a single woman’s refrigerator!”

She was both reacting and teasing. And she is 18 years younger than I, so…different generational perspective.

Bottom line, I AM single, but my frig and pantry are very well stocked and I very much enjoy cooking a wide variety of food all for ME!

And I enjoy celebrating occasions with good food – good food to me. Which is not to say that if on any given “special day” – grilled cheese sounded good, grilled cheese would be my food to celebrate the day with :)!

But yesterday, for my birthday, I had a gorgeous ribeye thawed… The garden distribution provided cherry tomatoes and new red potatoes that I roasted, melted butter over and sprinkled with fresh rosemary…

…dinner.

A dark chocolate walnut brownie with scoops of hucklebery frozen yogurt and a bit of spearmint made for dessert.

The birthday dinner.

Friday breakfast on the grill

Earlier this week, I made homemade Ricotta in preparation for a try at a pastry on the grill. I saw Cowgirl Chef’s Apricot Croustade with Basil Ricotta Crème recipe and after some reading about croustade and galette…went with my current dough, the basil ricotta creme and sweet cherries.

After much experimentation, I have found that baking on the grill works best if I get the grill hot, but not the stone. This goes against almost everything I’ve read except for a contradictory blurb in my stone instructions. Contradictory in that even the stone instructions mostly say to heat the stone in the oven except for the noted blurb that I happened across in the same instructions that said otherwise. Anyway, on the grill, it is working best to prep all on the cold stone and put the cold stone on the hot (500) grill.

This morning, my little pastry and some dough for a pita bread were on the stone.

Close the lid and let them bake…

Meanwhile, Bear had words with a squirrel…

Pita is done but the pastry needs a bit more. The crust is folded a bit and brushed with an egg wash so it will brown nicely.

Perfection! And yes, it tastes as good as it looks…like the best danish I ever had good!

A huckleberry version is up next :)!

Cool August Morning

Kind of an oxymoron, eh??? … cool August Morning…

Thankfully, that is NOT unusual in these parts…in northwest Montana!

A cold front blew through the area last Thursday evening. It was accompanied by a wonderful overnight soak of rain.

The moisture, the rising sun, the cool overnight temperatures = a beautiful, misty morning.

Also, on Thursday evening…a friend picked Huckleberries…and she brought some to me!!!

These huckleberries are truly a gift extraordinairre! This is an hour and a half of picking…not to mention the driving to the picking area and the walking/climbing to the picking spot…AND the fact that the competition for huckleberries is Grizzly Bears!

Fortunately this friend has a bear savvy European Laika … VERY close kin to Karelian Bear Dog. Still…

The berries are absolutely gorgeous. I tried to capture them several ways. Their color is spectacular and varied. The scent is intoxicating. The possiblities for their use…I am considering several…

Eating from the garden (and the orchard!) : week 12

Years ago when I subscribed to an organic vegetable delivery, I learned that it was interesting and fun to plan my meals around the week’s delivery. I’m doing the same this summer and it has resulted again in discovering new ways to use the garden bounty. It is actually easier now with the plethora of food and cooking blogs.

I am not a fan of what odd ingredients can we mix in this week…BUT, then here I am with some unusual – at least to me – combos this week.

Carrots have been in the garden bag for the past several weeks. First there were a few baby carrots. They have been getting bigger but are still wonderfully sweet and flavorful. I have shared some with neighbors and the rest munched as a snack or added to my pasta salad.

This week, though, I remembered a potluck salad of grated carrots, raisins and ??? I looked at a number of recipes and then made a carrot-dried cranberry-chard-walnut mix with a pineapple ginger creamy vinaigrette dressing. Oh boy… I was glad to see in the garden email this morning that there were carrots again this week because this salad was goooodddd!

I paired it with some Copper River Red Sockeye Salmon and raw – fresh from the garden – peas.

Peas…there were still some peas. Fresh peas – so good and sweet.

My recipe searching turned up several variations of sweet pea pesto. You’d think I would have had enough pesto, considering I’ve turned every green thing from the garden into pesto…but no. I took from several recipes and ended up blitzing the peas, lemon juice, sunflower seeds, sunflower oil, parmesan, salt, pepper and garlic. And then… I used that sweet pea pesto on a pizza…

Sweet pea pesto, leftover salmon, Vidalia sweet onion, mozzarella…AND SWEET CHERRIES!

It was so good, I had 3 of the same this past week although the last 2 did not include salmon. The sweet pea pesto and sweet cherries was the bomb!

And last night, Wednesday, August 1…the first full moon in August night…I finished pitting my twenty pounds of cherries purchased last weekend. Some have been blitzed with basil and sugar into syrup and frozen. Some just frozen. Some used on the pizza and some in my cereal and some eaten as a snack. I hope to make either Cherry Preserves or Cherry Marmalade this weekend. The rest I hope are a wonderful surprise treat through the winter.

This Summer has been going well. It got a bit of a late start which is fine with me. Since then, the heat has been moderate and short-lived…broken up by cool spells. Eating from the garden – the research and planning has helped me enjoy a time that is not my favorite.

This morning was cool and beautiful. Bob and I have been having some time together on the front porch as Bear does not like to be out when the sprinklers are going. He has a thing about spraying water…

So, Mr. Bob and I have our quiet time together while Bear takes a morning nap.

The sun rose through a few clouds into a blue, blue sky.

Smile Bob!! Time to start Thursday… well… I think that is his “sit down and drink your coffee and stop pointing that darn camera at me” expression. So, I did. Happy Thursday!

Why did I wait so long???

I don’t know why I waited so long to do container herbs…

These pots…on the front porch…so pretty and they make such a huge difference in how the front porch feels.

I added peppermint and spearmint this weekend. Pay attention to that spearmint!

Oy-vay!!! Crushed spearmint…and ice cubes!!!…in my wine.

I know that if I was a food stylist, I would have plucked a beautiful sprig of spearmint for this photo, but the truth is, that any herb…including spearmint…”leaks” its best flavor when it is crushed.

I.E. – crushed spearmint leaves, a few ice cubes, some Chardonnay = summertime bliss….to me!

And inside??? A sprig of basil, several sprigs of lavendar, a crackle vase from my Grandma Ruthie = heaven on my desk.

The sight, the smell, the taste….why did I wait so long???

Twenty pounds of cherries

This morning, I bought 20 pounds of sweet cherries.

I have plans for these cherries.

I will freeze some, I will freeze cherry-basil syrup, I will make some cherry-basil frozen yogurt.

I will eat some of them fresh on this chocolate mousse.

This is just not any old chocolate mousse. This is Raw Vegan Chocolate Mousse. This is so simple to make. The only “trick” to this chocolate mousse is that the cashews…YES, cashews!!! – need to be soaked for 6 hours. Other than, that…put all in the food processor and process until emulsified into mousse. For the record, I have not a thing against the heavy cream that is typically used to make a mousse. I LOVE heavy cream. But this version??? – it hits a bit higher on the nutrition chart and sacrifices NOT A THING, i.e. NOTHING… flavor-wise.

Top with fresh cherries, or rapsberries or whatever your chocolate-loving heart desires.

YUM.

*** I used Hershey’s Dark Cocoa in place of the raw cocoa….thus losing my place in the “raw vegan” society. Oh, well.