Sunday Supper

David & I are trying to make a tradition of having supper with my family on Sunday night since we have breakfast every Sunday morning before church with David's parents. It is so nice have both our families so close and even though we are all so busy throughout the week, it's nice to slow down and spend some time with them on the weekends. I'm hoping Sunday Supper becomes a permanent feature of this blog along with Menu Monday (although this week there won't be any because of a busy week with only a few suppers at home).
Last night we all pitched in at my parents house to put together a wonderful, if not eclectic, supper last night.
My contribution to supper was bruschetta. Tomatoes from my parent's garden, basil from ours, onion, garlic, balsamic vinegar & olive oil all chopped up and placed on toasted roasted garlic bread and topped with feta cheese.


David & Hanna made pesto with my recipe:

4 cups garden basil
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup pine nuts (or walnuts)
course sea salt & fresh cracked pepper

In a blender or food processor combine all ingredients together to make a paste. Mix with pasta, use as a spread on sandwiches or paninis, or make your own creation.


They added it to bow tie pasta, sugar snap peas & white beans for a hearty pasta dish.

Dad made fruit salad and BLT sandwiches. Mom oversaw the whole production and we all enjoyed our family supper. We finished the peach/raspberry pie and some zucchini bread for dessert.

Chicken and Corn

Oh how I wish I could bottle the smell in my kitchen right now! Even though it's 90 degrees and 65% humidity, my oven is screaming hot. Last week we picked up 2 roaster chickens at The Fresh Market. This great grocery store sells anti-biotic free & 100% vegetarian fed poultry and is the only store that I will by chicken from. We do have some local organic farmers that do poultry, among other things, but this will do for now. Because I don't eat meat, but David does, I decided to cook both of the chickens, let them cool, then freeze the cooked meat off the bone. This way I can add chicken to soups or other vegetarian dishes I make.


With the first chicken I used olive oil, minced garlic, onion, celery, rosemary, basil, course salt and pepper & Penzey's Bavarian seasoning. For the other I just used olive oil, garlic, onion and celery, course salt & pepper. I'm planning on doing some chicken breasts on the grill sometime with Southwest Chipotle seasoning (Mrs. Dash) for when we do fajitas. I love preparing these sort of things in advance so I'll have them on hand when I need them. Now I just have to remember that they're in our tiny freezer!
Another addition to the freezer today was another 4 1/2 quarts of sweetcorn. For a total now of 9 quarts (most in pint containers). Our garage freezer is filling up with freezer containers. To date we have: blueberries, strawberries, cherry pie filling, TONS of peaches, green beans, cucumber salad and sweet corn. I hope to add green peppers, butternut squash and applesauce.

Cooking with Kiddos

Ever had one of those days that just isn't what you thought it was going to be? Well that was my day. Got up at a decent time to try and take advantage of cooler temps to go pick sweetcorn. Well the heat beat me and it was already about 80 degrees and humid. I was expecting to come home with about 6 dozen ears, but only came away with 2. Then I ended up with a pal for the rest of the morning and afternoon. My 5 year old nephew Ryan helped me mow and get gas for the Gator. My mom and sister came around 1 to help with corn (thinking that there would be a ton) but instead kept Ryan occupied (a difficult task, I assure you) while I did the corn.

My nieces and nephew LOVE to "help" in the kitchen, but I don't always have a patience required to cook with kids, especially in my tiny kitchen. By God's grace I felt that we were able to have fun today and turn it into a learning experience for Ryan-and me! One thing that I have come to realize when cooking with kids is that you will have more dishes to do than normal. Inevitably, a spoon will get dropped, they will lick something they aren't suppose to and this could turn into a very frustrating experience for the one doing the washing up. We played it cool today and used what dishes we needed to and made sure his hands stayed clean. This was another BIG challenge for a 5 year old. I made him wash his hands about 50 times while making cookies. Hands on the floor, in the mouth, up the nose, the list goes on and on. He learned though that if you pick your nose, you have to wash your hands if you are making something that other people are going to be eating. I learned that 5 year olds pick their nose a lot. :)
All in all, it was a fun, if not exhausting day. We made a batch of snickerdoodles and some muffins. I sent my mom and sister home with 6 pints of freezer corn, since there is much more corn coming and I already have 4 1/2 quarts. I'll probably be out again Saturday to pick more and might be freezing more if necessary. I hope you enjoy the pictures...I couldn't resist putting Ryan in David's kilt apron!

e

White Peach & Raspberry Pie

Ingredients

• 4 cups fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced
• 1 cup fresh raspberries
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 (9 inch) pie crusts
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened and cut into pieces
• 1 tablespoon coarse granulated sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Place peaches and berries in a colander for about 15 minutes to drain any excess fluid , then transfer to a large bowl. Gently toss with sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Transfer to a pie crust. Dot with butter, and top with remaining crust. Cut vents in top crust, and sprinkle with coarse sugar.
3. Bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven, until crust is golden brown.

Double Pie Crust


Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 plus 2 Tbsp butter flavored stick shortening
• 5 to 6 Tbsp ice water

Directions

Combine flour & salt; cut in shortening with a pastry blender until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle ice water, 1 Tbsp at a time, evenly over surface; stir with a fork until dry ingredients are moistened. Shape into a ball; chill until ready to use. Cut pastry dough in half. Roll each half and fit 1 half of pastry into pie plate. Roll out other half to place on top of filled pastry.

The pie just came out of the oven. Since my husband reads this, maybe it will be an incentive for him to come home early! :)

Enjoy!
e

It's Compost Time!

I've been wanting to try out composting, mostly because I use so many fruits and vegetables and the scraps just seem to go to waste. In doing a bit of research, it seems that there are many different ways to compost out there. Some sites "do nots" that contradict others and some get really complicated with the ratios of things you need in your compost. I'm just going to try it out and see how it goes.
We found this cute, red bin at World Market in St. Louis, along with some compostable bags to line the bin. My Aunt Elissa told me about these bags. I think they are pretty awesome myself and would love to buy the bigger ones for our kitchen and bathroom garbage bins. They are pretty pricey compared to the traditional plastic bags, but are much better for the environment. If your budget can take the hit, I think it's worth it. amazon.com has them in many different varieties.

In other news, peaches still abound in our kitchen because of our stop at Eckert's in Belleville, IL. eckerts.com It's a great orchard, family farm that, although they have gotten more commercial in the last year, still didn't disappoint with the quality of their peaches. We went for a 1/2 peck of white peaches this year.
By Tuesday they were all very ripe and we still have a lot left, even though we've been eating them with just about every meal. So a pie is in the oven! Never a bad thing! I'm sure my husband would agree. :)

Gnocchi w/ zucchini

Ingredients:

• 2 medium zucchini (roughly 2 cups, more if you would like), shredded

• 2 tsp. minced garlic-more or less depending on your tastes

• 2 tsp. canola oil

• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 1 package of frozen gnocchi pasta or homemade if you're adventurous-I want to try this sometime

• course sea salt & fresh ground black pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. In a medium skillet, heat oil to medium/medium-high. Add shredded zucchini. Cook for a few minutes until the zucchini skin turns a brighter green. Reduce heat to medium/ medium-low and add garlic (garlic burns very easily and can ruin a dish-trust me). Sauté for until zucchini is tender. Add parm, salt & pepper to taste. Cook gnocchi as directed (only takes a few minutes to cook) and drain. Add zucchini sauce to gnocchi and toss to coat the pasta.

*Just a quick note from the cook: by no means am I a professional cook, so with a recipe that I created like the one above, the measurements should all be qualified with "about." A lot of times I don't measure things. I go by sight and taste mostly-which highly annoys my mother who measures everything. :) Love ya Ma! Feel free to tweek this recipe on your own and I'm sorry if I got my guesstimates wrong! :)

e

Manic Monday Menu

I'm hoping this will be a permanent feature of my blog, since I'm trying to make it a permanent feature of our home. As soon as we got back from our honeymoon in Ireland I decided I wanted to start planning out meals for the week so it would be easier to cook and to shop. I've been doing this for about 7 weeks and it has saved us so much time...and money too! By making a menu first then making out my shopping list, I can make sure I get everything I need for the week and any stock up things. Monday is our usually our shopping day, although the past two weeks it's been Tuesday so I can stop at the Normal Farmer's Market. David (my husband) and I usually like to shop together. Although it's not a date, it is still great bonding time...for us...I realize this isn't always the case. :)
I found what has to be the coolest shopping list and menu planner for the fridge. These "What to Eat" & "All out of" paper pads came from Anthropologie in St. Louis, where we were this weekend, but I think the Garlic Press in Normal might carry them too. You can order them online from knockknockstuff.com, but as much as I like the pads, I cannot say I condone some of their other products. So I'm going to check with Garlic Press about carrying them if they don't already. Best of all, they match my kitchen! They are just too fun!

OK, so, onto our menu for this week:

Monday- Gnocchi w/ zucchini; romaine lettuce salad, peaches
Tuesday-Paninis w/ pesto; vegetarian baked beans; sweet corn
Wednesday- French toast; oven roasted new potatoes (from our garden!); peaches
Thursday- Lentil-barley burgers; organic onion & garlic oven fries; sweet corn
Friday- Eggplant, zucchini, pepper stuffed shells; romaine salad; garlic bread

*I've left out Saturday & Sunday because we usually are off somewhere or I don't cook as much. If I will be cooking on one of the days, I'll add it for some ideas.

You'll notice that the menu this week is heavy with sweet corn, zucchini & peaches. I'm trying to cook as seasonal as I can. This week I'm using what we have in abundance right now.

Every week I'll try to post one of the supper recipes, but not all of them. I hope that this will give you some inspiration and if you want some of the other recipes, I would be happy to supply them. Just shoot me an email or contact me on FB.

Happy Monday & Happy Cooking!
e