The bounty of August: salsa

Ok. I fell off the face of the earth. I got a new job! I've been trying to clean my house and work on various projects and prepare for some big changes in my life. Oh, and eat as much August produce as possible. So I made a number of things that I just didn't post. So get ready. I know it's the end of August and I'm going to get everything in!

I received a box of tomatillos from my CSA a few weeks ago, and as they started to look a little past prime, I whipped up some salsa.

8-9 tomatillos, husks removed, rinsed and cut in half.
1 large tomato, chopped
3-4 small peppers, (pick your hotness level)
1 onion, chopped
1/4 cup lime juice
salt and pepper to taste

Cover a baking sheet with tin foil and place tomatillos on it, along with peppers. Roast for about 30 minutes until the tomatillos look a little charred.
Place tomatillos, peppers, onion and tomato in food processor and pulse several times.
Add salt and pepper to taste.

The bounty of August: BLT

When my mom or dad would make BLTs growing up, no one every felt like they got enough bacon. My mom would stand at the range, listing to the news as she cooked the it. She'd place the crispy slices on a paper-towel covered plate. Someone would always walk over and steal pieces of the bacon, running out of the room before she noticed.

BLTs seem like a perfect summer meal to me- featuring amazing home grown tomatoes and limited preparation time. Don't use grocery store, imported tomatoes for this. Please find some heirloom tomatoes from a farmer's market. There's a huge difference!

If you made the cobb salad yesterday, you might have leftover bacon. Put that to use by whipping up some BLTs. (Please note, I ran out of "L" for mine in the picture, but it was still delicious with the B and the T!)

Ingredients:
Bread - toasted
Tomatoes - sliced (either get a really big one or use 3-4 slices from a small tomato per sandwich)
Bacon- go the healthier route with turkey bacon or use your favorite  bacon
Lettuce- I prefer something with some crunch.

Directions- toast bread, spread with your favorite topping like Mayo or peanut butter, layer lettuce, tomatoes and bacon, top with other bread piece.

BLTs are a key ingredient in the perfect picnic meal.

Fresh corn needs just a few moments in boiling water and the merest hint of butter and salt to be incredible.

Slice up cucumbers and throw them in a mason jar for easy portability.

There you go. A no-cook meal (technically, you could microwave the bacon). Enjoy!

The bounty of August

August is the worst of the summer months in Missouri. July can be steamy, with temperatures reaching in the 90s. But it seems as though the 100 degree days are strung together more frequently in August. When that happens, I can barely roust myself to make anything for dinner, much less something complicated or that involves a grill or an oven.

Luckily, August provides us with a bounty of options for simple meals, without much fuss or complication. Friday night I got home from work and Chris and I realized we had no food in the house. We went to Winslow's Home for dinner, the place that does our CSA - community supported agriculture. We pay a set amount at the beginning of the summer and each week pick up a basketful of interesting produce.

Anyway, I had an amazingly simple dinner dish - tomatoes, fresh ricotta cheese and spinach gnocchi. It was so fresh, it made me think - "This is what I need to be making every day!" Sometimes I need a little inspiration from a restaurant or friend to get me out of a cooking rut.

So each day this week, I'll be bringing you a simple recipe each day that showcases the best of August produce in hopes that you will be inspired. Check them out and let me know what you think!

This salad needs no dressing. It's a twist on the Cobb salad. Makes enough for two, or three or four.

• Lettuce ( 3 cups, ish)
• Tomato (2 medium, chopped)
• Avocado ( 1 chopped)
• Green Onions (handful, chopped)
• Ham chunks ( I bought these precut in a bag)
• Turkey bacon ( I know Turkey bacon can be gross and weird, so the trick is NOT to buy "extra lean" but buy some that talks about how it has half the fat of regular bacon. That way, it'll have enough fat to crisp up nicely, but you don't have to feel guilty).
• Hard boiled eggs (3 or 4, chopped)

 

Assemble. It's good with blue cheese dressing or none at all.

An Interview with a Creative Few: Jenny Larson

I know so many creative people and talking with them about their projects often inspires me to try new things. So I've decided to introduce them to you in a format that I like: an interview.

Jenny Larson is a full-time mom to three kids with a fourth on the way and part-time photographer. She started taking pictures to document her children's lives and has turned the hobby into a career.

She photographs families, children, seniors in high school, moms-to-be and does birthday parties.

Digging through the past

Mom had left me a phone message.

I checked it as I climbed in the car to drive home from work last week.

"Logan is moving into Shannon's old bedroom and Dad emptied the closets. You had some things in there and I'd like you to come get them."

Great. My childhood stuff.  I took a mental inventory of what she was talking about.

Orzo, lavender lemonade and bruschetta

As I was planning my deck party, I knew I wanted to serve something easy to prepare and seasonal. The first thing that comes to mind for me is orzo. It's a dish that's so easy to customize depending on your individual taste and what you have on hand. My mom loves it with roasted zucchini, mushrooms, tomatos, feta cheese and pine nuts. My version had parmesean cheese, tomatos and basil.

Deck Party: The food

Sorry to have disappeared on you all last week. After weeks and weeks of nonstop crafting, cooking and building, Chris and I took a few days to just relax!

A deck party

To celebrate the completion of our deck, we invited a few friends over this past weekend. Chris spent much of a very warm day outdoors mowing the lawn and building an 8-foot table out of wood scraps. He finished just in time!

Weekending

This weekend we...

                        

- played games with my siblings

                        

                                           

                        

- Made pizza

- Made lavender lemonade (recipe to follow this week!)

- Built a table in an afternoon

                                   

- Threw a dinner party to celebrate the completion of the deck! (more on that event this week)

- Ate lunch with a friend (Kalen) and with a sister (Chris)

- Bought a box full of vintage sewing stuff for $2

                                                          

- Visited the Botanical Garden

- Reorganized my craft room.

                                                        

- Had a diet vanilla coke and cherry ice cream float.

Now I'm gearing up for another week of July. As the temperature soars to 98, I'm doing my best to be thankful for the heat, the sticky air,  sweet, juicy tomatos, long days, weekly musicals, fresh fruit, good friends, summer beer, sweat, flowers, sleepy kittens, air conditioning, fresh lemonade, handy husbands, happy dreams, NPR, dry shampoo, pedicures, sandles and owning a dishwasher.

Ahhh summer.

What are you loving right now?

Off to the weekend we go...

I hope your weekend is carefree!

source

Some things I'm loving...

source

source

source

source

An Interview with a Creative Few: Chasity Gunn

I know so many creative people and talking with them about their projects often inspires me to try new things. So I've decided to introduce them to you in a format that I like: an interview.

Chasity Gunn was my roommate during a six-week a summer journalism fellowship at the Poynter Institute for recent college graduates. We became friends during the program, bouncing ideas off of one another and talking about everything.

She taught me about  southern cooking, serious goal-setting and having an adventurous spirit. In the years that have followed, we've kept in touch and held each other accountable for doing good journalism.

build-it-yourself benches

Tuesdays

Tuesday mornings, I go into work late. I have this glorious window of time to do anything I like. It's different than after work time, when I feel compelled to make dinner, clean up dinner, do something with all the projects I have going on, make lists, pay bills, etc, etc.

Corn Chowder

I've been trying to work my way through a couple of great cookbooks that people have given me. I think the best cookbooks are accessible. Instead of pages and pages of recipes stacked atop one another, a good cookbook should have pictures, description, anecdotes. My mom got me the Momentum Cookbook from Weight Watchers one year and it has lots of interesting, healthy options. You might hear the word "chowder" and think: Winter, but this features fresh corn so nicely, it's great for summer.

Corn Chowder
adapted from a recipe in the Weight Watchers Momentum Cookbook.
3/4 pound potatoes

1 fennel bulb, chopped.
1 large shallot or small onion, chopped

1 cup chicken broth

2 tsp olive oil

4-6 pieces corn on the cob, kernals cut off  (you need about 3 cups)

1/2 cup red or green pepper diced.

3  cups skim milk
1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

Saute fennel, onion and pepper for about 5 minutes. Dice potatoes and add them to a pot with corn kernals, green or red pepper, fennel, onion, broth, salt and pepper and ring to boil. Reduce to medium heat and simmer, covered, for 10 mintues.
Combine 1 cup of milk with 1/2 cup vegetables in a blender or food processor. Pour the puree and two cups skim milk into the soup. Cook about 5 minutes longer. Serve with crackers, crumbled bacon or sour cream.

Weekending

The summer of 2010, I think will be the summer of the deck and of canning fruit in my mind forever. We finished the deck this weekend, 48 days after we started. It looks so lovely. It was nice to have just a few things left to finish up. It felt like we had a bit more time to accomplish things. We crammed in lots of activities, which leaves me on Sunday evening feeling satisfied and tired.

This weekend we:

• 
  
  had a lovely meal with Chris's parents, his sister and her husband to celebrate my birthday belatedly. They just returned from a trip to Germany, Bosnia and Croatia and brought back wine, beer steins and beer glasses for us.
• 
  
  finished the deck with the help of my dad and brother.

• 
  
  started several new projects.

• 
  
  joined friends at our neighborhood pub for dinner.
• 
  
  laid in bed listening to the rainstorm.

                                            

• 
  
  built two benches.
• 
  
  potted new plants.

'Twas an excellent weekend .

An Interview with a Creative Few: Lannette Guerra

Lannette Guerra is a designer for Exhibit Associates in Kansas City, Mo. She designs exhibits for museums, trade shows, private corporate clients like Hallmark, Garmin and Cerner. For fun, she enjoys taking photographs.

(Vinegar and oil display shelf)

1.What do you create?

First question has already stumped me, what DO I create? Hmmm…. well I create form and space. I house our belongings and make things easier and more organized so we can navigate our life better.

(spice rack made from watch cases and magnets)

A Bowling Party: the inspiration

                           

My sweet husband will be turning the big 3-0 in a little less than one month's time. Since he is a pretty low-key guy, he has left almost all planning of his big day up to me. 

I love party planning. (Just be glad I didn't have a blog when I was wedding planning! It would have been crazy! If you want to follow someone as she plan her wedding, check out my friend Kara's blog.)

I am fairly certain I started thinking about this party last year when Chris turned 29. We could have had a party at our house, which would have been fine, but I wanted to do something cool and interesting.

                                                  

The Corner Bar. photo by Ryan Prewitt

In my job as a reporter, I stumbled onto a place in St. Charles, Mo. called The Corner Bar. It's the last place in the US where you can play a form of three-pin bowling called cocked-hat bowling. They've been playing it in the basement of this cool, grungy bar since 1875.

League play is every Monday-Thursday, year-round. But on Friday and Saturday nights, you can rent out the lanes in the basement. I wrote a story about the bar, and the cocked-hat bowling tradition, for my paper last fall.  A little seed of an idea was planted in my brain.

This spring, I rented out the place to celebrate Chris's b'day. With less than a month to go, the party planning has got to get going. So I crafted a little inspiration board:

I still need to pop into the bar again sometime so I can scope out what kind of space I'll have for food, etc. The bonus is, you can bring your own food you just have to buy drinks upstairs at the bar.

I'm thinking bar snacks like cheese sticks, olives, peanuts, pretzels, cake pops decorated to look like bowling balls, some vintage pins, bowling shirts and perhaps some hats? So many options...

Blackberry Breakfast Bars

Let's say you aren't the type to get up early on a Saturday morning and drive an hour to stand in sweltering heat dodging flying beetles as you try to pick gigantic blackberries. You are in luck! At some stores you can find small half-pint containers of blackberries for just a dollar. It's much cheaper to pick them yourself (at $2.50 a pound) but you do have to think about the time and effort that goes into said activity. After our experience last Saturday, I'm going to have to think about it for next year :)

One thing that's weighing in favor of the UPick farm was the size of the berries. As big as my thumb! So big, in fact, that when I made raspberry breakfast bars with blackberries, I had to cut each one in half or thirds so the bars wouldn't be too chunky.

But I digress. The point is, even if you aren't a UPick fruit kind of person, you can make these bars with raspberries OR blackberries. And you should. As soon as possible. Because they are delicious!

Blackberry Crumb Breakfast Bars

Adapted from a recipe posted by Smitten Kitchen blog, which she adapted from 
Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

Note, these bars aren't particularly healthy but they're probably better for you than Pop-Tarts. They are kind of similar, with a crust on the bottom (with oatmeal!) and a crunchy crumbly topping.

Crust/Topping
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

The Filling (made with raspberries or blackberries. I wonder how it would taste with peaches? Someone try it and let me know!)

1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 pound blackberries (I used about 3 1/2 cups  because I don't own a kitchen scale.)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter melted


Make the crust and crumb
1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 pan. Deb from Smitten Kitchen suggests using parchment paper to line the pan and buttering that as well. I didn't have parchment paper so I went without. It worked fine.

                          

2. Put flour, sugar, oats, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a food processor and pulse until combined. Add butter and pulse until it's crumbly.

3. Put 1 1/2 cups of the crumbly mixture in a separate bowl (this will be the topping.) Pour the rest in the 9x13 pan and press down. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until golden brown.

4. Mix cinnamon, lemon zest, flour and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Add blackberries, butter and lemon juice. Toss until combined.

5. Pour filling on top of crust, spreading it evenly around.

6. Top with the crumb mixture you set aside earlier. Pop in the oven for 35-45 minutes, rotating every 15 minutes. Let it cool on a wire rack completely before you try to cut it.

Serve with homemade ice cream for dessert!  Or for breakfast. Get in that calcium early!

I packaged half the batch in freezer paper and have been taking them for a mid-afternoon snack. They thaw out by lunchtime.