Acorn Squash Recipe

These are so sweet and tasty they can even be served as dessert!

Wash, cut in half, remove seeds and strings, make foil ring so halves will stand upright. Place inside cavity 1tbsp of butter, and one box of raisins- sprinkle one tbsp of natural sugar over the surface and cavity of the squash, gentle sprinkle pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon over all. Wrap entire squash half and foil ring and place on hot grill for approx an hour- or till tender when tested with fork.

You can also cut and place the halves cut side down in an inch of water at 350degrees for 45 min, then do the foil ring and and butter and sugar and raisin- place back in oven for 15 to 20 min uncovered.

Figgy Cookies!

The finished cookies! All pretty and cooling

Rolling up the figgy goo in the sweet dough.

Popping them in the oven!

My Huge mixer that my Dad fixed up for me. It was my Grandmothers - and he christened it "The White Bat."

Figs, honey and spices ready to be blended in the Cuisinart.

Food Porn

Just a pretty dinner plate from the other night....

Strawberries and vanilla yogurt, Horseradish chicken wrapped in a cresecent roll and topped with cheddar, Peas from the garden, and a veggie medley of mushrooms, tomatoes (from garden) squash and zucchini! Yum!

Super Cupcake!!

I'm falling behind again - aren't I? I'll have to do another couple of catch-up-super posts pretty soon here. I have hiking pictures, and caving pictures and just cool stuff to report, but its pretty late and should totally be in bed already - so for now I'll leave you with a tantalizing treat! A Super Cupcake!



I bought this great cake pan a while back from William Sonoma and finally had a chance to use it for a joint birthday/anniversary on Thursday for the folks at BakerWoodard. The recipe included with it made a fantastic pound-cake type yellow cake. I decorated it with 1 - 1/2 cans of vanilla frosting - some of it tinted and some oversized sprinkles (thanks Laura!) Oh and - it tasted as good as it looked!

Granola Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Yes, I'm still stalling on the Christmas pics. But I wanted to share a great recipe that I modified into something pretty delicious. The original recipe I pulled from Martha's Baking Handbook. But since I completely didn't have a few ingredients and didn't have enough of some and different types of others - I winged it by adding and changing some thins and came up with something pretty tasty. So here's a new recipe for Oatmeal Raisin Cookies! Click on the recipe below and you can print an 8.5x11 page. Enjoy!

Its in the Sauce

Last night our wheat spaghetti was topped with sauce straight out of the garden. We're just now picking copious amounts of Roma and grape tomatoes and with so many ripe at the same time - they were just begging to be simmered down with sautéed onions with our fresh basil, oregano, and a few banana peppers for flavor. A few hours after I shot this photo Paul and I were sprinkling my favorite Pecorino Romano on our spaghetti and punching play on the last disc, the last episode of the original Battlestar Galactica.

Pretty Plate Palate

Baked butternut squash with butter and sugar, fresh peas from the garden with a touch of sea salt, fried plantains and strawberries from Reeves strawberry patch with vanilla yogurt.

A Weekend Above Ground (with gratuitous tree hugging)

Spent the weekend above ground. Missed the mud - but the weather rewarded me with brilliant blue sky days and nights that begged to have the windows left wide open.

Saturday was filled with a hike, yet more strawberry picking which has/is yielding a plethora of strawberry recipe cooking, and a trip to a local nursery for some more vegetables.

This cedar tree was really cool. It had decided at a very young age to go into the rock moving business.

(a bit of gratuitous tree-hugging)

The strawberry plethora

Ventured out on Sunday to the Tennessee Renaissance Festival. I was the only fool in the group that arrived in garb - but it was cool - I got back at everyone by tickling them with the feather in my cap, poking everyone with the fletching on my arrows and jabbing them with my long bow. I didn't actually do any of these on purpose - really - I just had various items that seemed to lash out everywhere if I didn't keep them in check. Paul had to be my weapon bearer so I could control my arrows and be sure they didn't poke any one's eyes out in the crowds.

The "garbed fool"

The future people - Paul, Phillis, Tommy and Michelle

(some more gratuitous tree hugging)


Took a tour of the festival owner's real house - a castle that's been under construction for about 20 years so far. On memorial day weekend they are planning on lifting this timber framed copper rooftop with the largest crane in the world to the top of their other tower. The owner of the castle said to watch for it on the local news and then said with a laugh he hopes it doesn't show up on the national news, because something will have gone wrong).

The copper was blinding and I can't imagine how much this whole thing weighs!

The back view of the castle and the tower they are planning on capping this coming weekend


A joust with lance is way up there on my list of cool things to watch. Charging horses, sticks, and full armor - what could be better than that? And perhaps one of the only real things left of the old world that isn't "play acted." (other than the falconer exhibition which is way cool too!) They add extra neck and chest protection to their armor and the scoring is real with certain points for broken tips, shatterings and unhorsing. You pretty much can't fake a lance breaking from contact and you can't fake a horse at a gallop either. The Gath of Baal National Combat Jousting event is held at the TN ren-fest every year on Memorial day weekend with full contact jousting in three divisions for a real cash purse. And going back next Monday for the finals is pretty darn tempting.




Next time though I know I will not be the only one in garb. Paul finally "caved in" and bought an outfit. When we got home he did a fashion show for me so I could see the hat, shirt and pants all together. And its brilliant on him! I told him I'd have to make a nice cranberry colored sash for him to complete the outfit.

Strawberry Pickin'

Last Sunday Paul and I drove out to Reeve's Peach Orchard (and Strawberry Patch) to pick some of the most delicious strawberries I've in in quite some time. Ripe & red all the way through and sweeeeeeet . They were ranked up there with Plant City strawberries. I ate a bunch of whole strawberries and then we chopped up the rest with a sprinkling of sugar so they'd make juice. We ate some of the juicy batch and froze two ziplocs for later. We're planning on going back this Saturday for some more. I have a cookbook amidst my 50+ called Stawberry Sensations that has all kinds of strawberry recipes. There are strawberry pancakes and a strawberry pound cake that I'm definitley going to try out, and I might even try my hand at preserves too!

Spring is in the Air, and the food.

Had a little dinner party. Gerber Daises - the quintessential flower - adorned the table.



And my slick plates, 1950's Russel Wright Residential - melmac were set at each place. The colors are always bright and cheery - so fun to mix and match. Table cloth and napkins courtesy of Target. Silverware by IKEA.

We dined on Paul and I's own recipe:Salmon Veggie Crepes

Cookbook Review

I seem to have somewhere become addicted to cookbooks - especially ones with nice photos of what the food is supposed to look like. Pretty food presentation invariably can make things taste even better than they already are. Because the "layout" looks nice - it makes you want to eat it. A pretty plate with accoutrements of bright green veggies, and a dash of strawberry or cherry tomato red tantalizes your brain, making it a feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds.

I have 56 cookbooks (not including my 3-ring binder collection of individual recipes) - and I just added 5 more! Mikes Merchandise usually has excellent prices on their books and being a bit weak when it comes to books caved-in on the following:

1. Indian Home Cooking ($32 - Mikes price $8)
2. The Silver Spoon ($40 - Mikes price $10)
   
3. The Panera Bread Cookbook ($18 - Mikes price $6)
4. Wok ($20 - Mikes price $8)
5. Meals Made Easy ($25 - Mikes price $8)

The Indian Home Cooking book is really user-friendly and provides quite a lot of information on substitutions, with each consecutive recipe getting more complicated as the chapter goes on. The majority of the dishes are vegetarian which I really like for a change of pace, or if you want, you could use many as a side dish. There is an explanation for all the different styles of particular Indian dish at the beginning of each chapter and more before each recipe. The author encourages experimentation, suggesting to make recipes even it you don't have all the ingredients. So far Paul and I have made our very own dal - which is a thick bean dish. We substituted lemon as suggested, left out the ginger, and did not have or chillies, so I added red pepper flakes instead. (We had all the other spices thanks to the lamb sag Sabrina B. fixed for us when she and Noone and Dustin and Maya came to visit us) The chickpea dal was quite good - very unusual flavor - nothing like I'd ever fixed before - but I've never fixed Indian at home. Then again, I've never added so many spices to any dish before either. It smelled fantastic as it was cooking! I've included the recipe below if anyone would like to try it out - its big enough to print and read:


The Silver Spoon is an Italian Cookbook. Let me rephrase - it seems to be THE Italian cookbook. They translated from Italian to English - so its the real deal - so no swimming in heavy recipes of spaghetti and meatballs. Each page has about 3 to 5 short concise recipes on it. And the book itself has 1199 pages (the index of 64 pages brings it up to a whopping 1263). There are various full-page photos and merry illustrations spattered throughout and then two ribbon bookmarks built into the spine (bonus points there folks!). Each section is color coded and covers the following: sauces & marinades, antipasti, first courses, eggs & frittata, veggies, fish & crustaceans, poultry, game, cheese, desserts & baking - and then goes on to list quite a number of full up menus from famous chefs for about 70 pages.

I bought the Panera Bread book because #1 - it had a recipe in it for Kalamta Olive Loaf - which - if you've never had it - is amazingly wonderful. And #2 when I finally build my mud oven(this summer!) I will need some bread recipes. Basically this book gives you all the yummy things you can buy at Panera (or St. Louis Bread Co. for Paul's family).

The Wok book is definitely eye candy - lots of beautiful photos of wok prepared dishes, with just a handful of recipes. We have a new wok and would like to fix something other than "shelf #1 and 2 stir fry" - not that there's anything wrong with that - its usually fairly good - just trying for something a bit more authentic. The majority of this book is fairly specialized - and will require quite a few exotic ingredients and special trips to the store. Most likely a special occasion will be needed to try out some of the time-consuming recipes.

The last book is from the magazine - Real Simple, and is called Meals Made Easy. This book has a beautiful, very clean layout with lots of air around the text and a photograph of every single recipe, and a built in bookmark also (bonus!). The instructions are very good and they give estimations on preparation time (hands-on) - and total with cooking. Topics include: One-pot meals, No-shop meals, 30min Meals, No-cook meals, freezer meals, shortcuts, and reliable sides. This book is compiled around FAST and simple tasty meals, and will be very handy for hectic evenings.

The Herbs of Summer

Ever want to have fresh picked herb flavor for dishes in the winter? Here's a handy little idea to do just that!

Herb Cubes

1. Pick and wash fresh herbs before first frost

2. Chop and strip preparing the herbs as you would normally

3. Fill ice cube trays half-full of herbs
4. Top off with water
5. Place in freezer overnight
6. Pop herb cubes and double bag in freezer zip-locs
7. Don't forget to label them

When you need a pinch of herbs for a dinner dish throw in a single herb cube and it'll thaw while your dish cooks. I harvested a full ice cube tray's worth each of Sage, Rosemary, Spearmint and Basil. You can also combine commonly used herbs into a pesto and freeze them too.

Slacker Salmon Veggie Crepes

So I have been such a blog slacker of late because work has been so crazy hectic and I just haven't wanted to even touch the computer when I get home in the evening. Or I'm not home at all in the evenings. Last Monday my boss sat us down for a staff meeting and then told us we all needed to slow the personal email and internet use. Hence - I've kind of felt bad about sneak blogging at work, so I haven't done it. Believe me - its not a lack of fun things I doing - that's for sure! So I'm going to try to make it up to all of you with lots of updates of what I've been doing in the next few days.

The first step of which will be to dazzle you with my culinary genius! (HA HA!) No really, Paul and I made up this recipe a few weeks ago - and when we realized just how tasty it was we wrote it down really quickly so we could share it. If you like salmon - its simply divine. So if anyone is brave enough to test it out - you'll have to let me know how it turned out and if you'd recommend it.

Salmon Veggie Crepes

Makes about six crepes

Over medium heat in an iron skillet saute the following in extra virgin olive oil:
1 / 2 white onion coarsely chopped
1 / 2 container fresh mushrooms - sliced

While the onion and mushrooms are sauteing, prepare the following by chopping finely:
One-handful baby carrots

Add the carrots to saute and stir.

Wash and scrub one yellow squash and one zucchini squash - do not peel.
Coarsely shred the two squash

Finely chop the following:
Three sprigs fresh thyme
Three fresh basil leaves

When onions are clear, add 1 / 2 cup milk to pan with mushrooms, carrots and onions.

Add zucchini, yellow squash, thyme and basil tosaute saute, stir.

Add to saute:
1 / 8 teaspoon coarse garlic (dried)
1 / 4 teaspoon coarse black pepper
1 pinch all purpose seasoning
2 Tablespoons capers
1 / 4 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Mix in a bowl, 1 can of 15 ounce Pink Salmon and one 8-ounce Philadelphia cream cheese.

Once milk and vegetables begin to bubble, place salmon and cheese in pan.

Stir continuously until mixture is smooth.

Prepare ready to eat crepes (We found some Melissa's brand in the fruit and veggie section of our local target) at room temperature on plates. Arrange a handful of fresh spinach leaves lengthwise in the middle of each crepe.

Spread 3/4 to 1 cup of Salmon vegetable mixture on top of spinach and crepe.
Sprinkle with finely shredded mozzarella cheese.
Wrap crepe and stick together by slightly wetting surface.