Pizza

It was a very relaxing and restful weekend. Stay tuned this week for beef fajitas, Greek salad, and orecchiette with mozzarella pearls. All three will feature produce from our garden.

Dinner tonight: Margherita pizza and Pugliese pizza from Mandola's. We're big fans.

Summer fun, and yummy steak

Garden! Watermelons are getting bigger, peppers are actually starting to change color on the plants, and tomatoes and cucumbers continue to produce. Our tomatillo plants are going crazy – we’re just starting to see fruits on them. Herbs continue to please, and our poor grapes are recovering slowly from the deer munch fest a couple of months ago. Until this week, temperatures have been relatively mild (at least, mild from a Texas summer standpoint) but we are now seeing those 100 degree days and no rain, which will dry everything out and slow or stop production on most plants. However, I am not complaining, by this time last year we had almost 50 days over 100 degree or hotter weather, so this year has been substantially better for the garden.

Meanwhile, the summer continues to progress! We have discovered a new way to cook steak, courtesy of Gordon Ramsay (video on YouTube). All I can say is YUM. No pictures, but last night we used an herb butter on the nice rib-eyes from HEB instead of plain butter that Ramsay calls for, and it was fantastic.

Mix with ½ stick butter: 1 T chopped fresh parsley (Italian, from the garden), 1T chopped fresh chives, and 1 clove pressed garlic. Add the herb butter as instructed in the video, when it calls for plain butter.

We served this delicious piece of meat with steamed broccolini and garlic smashed potatoes.

Garlic Smashed Potatoes

Boil 2 potatoes (or however many people you want to feed) with 5 peeled gently crushed cloves of garlic until potatoes are soft. Remove from heat, let potatoes remain in the garlic water for a few minutes. Move the potatoes to an oven-safe dish. Gently push down on the tops of the potatoes until lightly smashed, enough so that toppings will seep inside. Drizzle the potatoes with a bit of olive oil and lay a pad of butter on top of each one. Salt and pepper. Broil for 10 minutes or so until the tops are crispy. Top with a small spoonful of crème fraiche and a sprinkle of chopped fresh chives.

Dismal Summer Bloggie

Apparently I have fallen off the blog wagon this summer. 

(Yum, slow cooked beef tacos. Even though you can't see the beef.)

And yes, this dock had something to do with it.















It also might have something to do with the enormous amount of work I have to do, at, well, at work, which renders me useless and exhausted every evening, or the multiple weddings and vacations occupying the weekends (we're in St. Louis this weekend), so that free weekends mean house cleaning, laundry, yard and garden work, and generally not doing too much else.
However, we have still been cooking, and taking pictures, so it's all a matter of time before I select the best recipes and have a "best of summer" post. Or several.
Highlights to look forward to include a Canadian chicken wing cook-off,

piri-piri chicken,

our garden's progress (huge, because of the two tropical storms of late), and I'm sure many more things that I will remember once I see the pictures. Like sunrise over Georgian Bay, courtesy of the Husband.

So please, folks, bear with me, and know that more is in the works (or already happened, but actually posting it is in the works).

Dinner tonight!

Stay tuned: Grilled Asian Chicken with Bok Choy, Shiitake Mushrooms, and Radishes (from our garden)
with Mango-Sesame Dressing

 (photo from Bon Appetit)

Spring Garden

The spring garden is coming along quite well. We have tomatoes with fruits, broccoli, cucumber plants climbing the trellises, radishes poking up, eggplant and more tomatoes in the ground, bell peppers and spicy peppers, strawberries, a few stalks of corn, carrots, and a little watermelon plant. In the back garden we have our two grapes and many herbs. The garlic harvest was very successful, but the drying process was slightly interrupted by the torrential downpour of the other evening. It should be fine.

The broccoli is suffering from inchworm infestation. We cleared the first round of them from the plants but missed some eggs, so a second round of removal took place. We'll see how they do. I have a feeling it might be too hot for much more good production from them.

Dinner tonight!

Soup soup soup. It's getting so close to summer, my nights of having soup and having the Husband agree that soup is reasonable are rapidly decreasing in number. As a welcome to summer, and in appreciation of the yummy summertime vegetables now available, tonight we enjoyed our take on this soup:

The Husband absolutely loved this soup. He has multiple helpings. I did too, but that's nothing new for me. The soup itself is very flavorful and the vegetables simmer into loveliness, and the pesto gives it a kick and boost. It serves 6 as a starter or 4 as a main course.

2 slices bacon (omit bacon for vegetarian, use olive oil instead)
1 large onion, chopped
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 leek, chopped (I use the white parts and the soft green parts)
3 carrots, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 potato, peeled and chopped
4-6 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 28 ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes with juice
1 cup finely chopped leafy green, like spinach, kale, chard, etc
1 9 oz package of tortellini
store-bought pesto, or make your own
Parmesan cheese for garnish

Chop the bacon into little pieces. Cook in the soup pot until crispy. Add onion, garlic, and leek, and cook, stirring occasionally until tender and starting to brown. Add carrots, celery, zucchini, and potato, and stir for a few minutes. Add broth, start with 4 cups and add more later if needed. Add tomatoes, breaking tomatoes up with the back of the spoon. Let the soup cook for 30 to 45 minutes so the flavors blend. Taste, and add salt and pepper as needed. Add leafy green and tortellini and cook until tortellini is cooked. Serve, with pesto and cheese as a garnish.

Insanity

On an unrelated note (unrelated to food, that is) I have signed up to run the half marathon (yes, that's 13.1 miles, 10 miles further than I have ever run at one time) in November in San Antonio. So far, the planning and preparation to run has been more fun than the actual running. Mapmyrun.com and I are good friends. However, since this is Texas and it is May, the majority of the training will now take place inside, with air conditioning, on my grandparents' treadmill. Weekends I may be able to put in some miles outside, especially if I get up early, for the next month or so, and then again in October. For those of you unfamiliar with a central Texas summer, and maybe thinking that I'm crazy and I can keep running outside if I get up earlier or run at night, such things may be possible but definitely very uncomfortable. Come summertime, I will be very lucky if it drops below 85 degrees before 10:00 at night. Likewise, if it is below that same temperature when I leave for work at 7:15, it will make for a very pleasant morning. So, in summary, Texas is hot during the summer. (I know, duh.)
My current running ability is in the Couch to 5K Week 3 range. So I am building back up SLOWLY. But it also means anyone can do it with me at this point, because I am a beginner. Beginner beginner.

Anyone want to join me in San Antonio in November?

(I was originally planning to run one in February in New Orleans but a training knee injury prevented that from happening.)