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Archive for July, 2010

Jul 29

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BLTs and Homemade Mayo


Summertime evenings that are as hot as they are in Minneapolis during July, I routinely look for dinner options that won’t make us feel too full after eating and to our advantage lately, can be pulled from the vegetable garden. The veggies are full blast these days, needing to be picked at every night, which means a lot of pepper, lettuce and tomato eating. BLTs are created in short order, and help us get through the abundance. It’s also a really, really good excuse to eat bacon.

Food styling by Frank


BLTs:
Ciabatta bread (which I get from New French Bakery and keep well if refrigerated) – we fry these in the same pan that the bacon was in to get them crispy
6 slices of thick bacon
Tomato, thinly sliced
Handful of lettuce
Mozzarella (if you’re into that, we place on one of the ciabatta halves and place under high broil for 2 minutes until softened)

And if you’re into Mayo, which I am, here’s Jamie Oliver’s recipe:
1 egg yolk whisked with 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard; add 1 cup of good Olive oil in slowly (think drizzling) while whisking until pretty thick…then one pinch of salt and pepper, and fresh squeezed lemon. Whisk again and serve up.

Jul 21

DIY Front Porch Style

When it comes to a project, I estimate the amount of time it takes to complete it in its entirety so I can finish in a day, or over two days, because I simply do not like half-done projects. The porch, while we spend a significant amount in it, has been a half-done project for nearly a year. There are no excuses for it, except laziness of having to get out the painting supplies and upset Luda’s front porch time (because he’s an indoor kitty, this is his version of going outside). Here’s a picture of the Green Bay colors when I moved it:

Hobbled together, partly done, which is good representation of what we’ve looked at for a year:

And finally, our finished project…clean lines and matching colors:

(Chairs and chair pad from Ikea, outdoor collection)

Jul 16

printable-recipe-cards

Roundup: Hat Stand, Customizable Recipe Cards, Tesla Dress, Peach Blueberry Cobbler, Menu Planner

A roundup of some favorite things I found… Read more

Jul 14

DIY Art & Coasters


I wrote a while back that I was in the market for some coasters. Well…I took a lunch break and popped over to Patina in NE Mpls and came across this Charley Harper Memory Game that consisted of small 2″x2″ tiles of different Harper prints and paintings. I thought to myself, “Putting the tiles together in a large frame would be kinda cool!” So, I purchased and this Monday started putting it together:

I ended up with a few leftover tiles, so thought putting four tiles together and making coasters out of them was pretty clever. So that’s what I did. It’s a little on the cheap, somewhat creative but really, really practical.

Pretty simple: take the four tiles, scotch tape the back to secure the lock up, then wrap them in packing tape.

Jul 13

Ode to Jamie Oliver and his Gorgonzola Gnocchi


On the prowl recently for a new cookbook/cook to read and follow, I picked up Jamie Oliver’s latest cookbook, Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook. While I hesitated over the years that I’ve cooked (yes, all two of them) to pick up Jamie Oliver (also known as “The Naked Chef”) I did watch a few episodes of Food Revolution and found myself intrigued. A fan of Alice Waters and the Slow Food Movement, I became rather enchanted by Jamie after doing a little more poking around in his history: Jamie’s School Dinners where he attempts to radically change British dinners for kids in school; Fifteen, the charity restaurant where he trains disadvantaged youth to give them a chance to enter in the restaurant business; and his tv show Jamie at Home, where he elevates the kitchen garden, cooking from scratch and all so effortlessly. These were the reasons that prompted me to buy this fantastic cookbook, emphasizing flavor and fresh ingredients in pared down recipes that one feels could be easily dished up in no time. If you’re looking for more Jamie Oliver, watch an episode or two of his cooking show, Jamie at Home, or pick up this cookbook the next time you’re at the bookstore. His cooking technique, recipes and teaching style are so accessible. Peruse his website, or see for yourself.

Jamie Oliver’s Gorgonzola Gnocchi
2 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons heavy cream
6 tablespoons Dolce Gorgonzola
1 lb/package Gnocchi (or make from scratch)
(And, if you want, fry or grill chicken breasts or tenders)
Melt the butter in large saucepan over medium-low heat, add in heavy cream and when warm, add in Dolce Gorgonzola and melt (break up bits with the back of a wooden spoon). Meanwhile, bring salted water to a boil and add in gnocchi. Once cooked, remove from water and add into the gorgonzola sauce. If you have a little marjoram, add on top of servings.
*The second time I made this, I used egg tagliatelle instead of gnocchi and added chicken.

Jul 7

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Vegetable Garden: First Pepper Harvest

Frank and I had our first pepper harvest of the season. The bananas are coming in fast, jalapenos right behind them and then the slowly growing habanero and green bell peppers. One of the more interesting aspects of the pepper patch is that Frank’s nephew (3 years old) helped plot and plant the peppers, which means all the pepper plants are randomly mixed. This is troubling because we can’t tell the difference between the bell pepper and the habanero (or, at least I thought I knew the difference, but Frank disagrees with my conclusion). We decided to let them sit on the counter and ripen, with hopes the habanero would show its true colors and would not force us to do a taste test. The rest of the garden is coming in nicely with few surprises (yes, we knew there would be a bunny eating the lettuce, but the entire bean patch? Hungry little guy…). The peppers, lettuce and basil are all we’ve been able to take at this point, but the tomatoes are looking great and the cucumbers should be coming in the next few weeks (once they do, you’ll know because I’ll post about making Tzatziki).

The tomatoes coming in:

A month ago, early June:

As of early July:

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