Tomatoes and Peaches

I am really enjoying both tomatoes and peaches this summer. For the last several nights Lee and I have started off our dinners with tomato bruschetta. It's like summer on a plate to me.

The picture above features bruschetta we actually grilled, but most nights I just toast up the bread in the toaster oven and get it in my mouth as fast as I can. It's real simple:

Slice some crusty bread and toast or grill it. If grilling it, use low heat and brush the bread with olive oil first. It only takes a minute or so on each side on the grill. Slice a good tomato (by good I mean a tasty one from your own garden or the farmer's market and not a supermarket tomato that tastes more like water than a tomato...heirlooms are great). I squeeze out most of the seeds before slicing. After slicing season with salt and pepper. Spread a thin layer of mascarpone cheese (ricotta, goat cheese, or a nice slice of fresh mozzarella would work too) on the toasted or grilled bread. Top with a slice or two of the tomato and then add some fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil.

I have run across peach-tomato salsa in the past while searching the web but never tried it. Since I had tomatoes and peaches I needed to eat I decided to try it. It was pretty good. I'm not gonna lie...I was a bit skeptical. We ate it on top of grilled tilapia. I added onion to the salsa which turned out to be a mistake. Here is what I mixed together for the salsa minus the onion:

1 peach, peeled, pitted, and chopped
1 tomato, peeled, seeded and chopped (I used a yellow heirloom tomato)
1/2 to 1 jalapeno pepper, chopped finely ( I used a few rings from a jar)
1/4 to 1/2 tsp garlic, minced
1 tablespoon or so of chopped parsley (I'm sure cilantro would be very good as well)
drop of lemon juice
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients and place in the fridge until ready to eat. My tomato and peach were both very juicy so I had a very juicy salsa. It went very well with the grilled fish. Very light and summery.

What did I have for dessert that night? One yummy, juicy peach in all it's glory. I've been eating at least one peach a day. I bought them to grill and top with balsamic glaze and mascarpone cheese, but they are so good just as they are that I don't tamper with them.

Blackberry and Baby Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese

Blackberries are one of the highlights of summer for me. Sure they taste good, but they also remind me of my childhood. My dad's parents owned a farm, which is still in our family, and we would go there almost every weekend.

Every June my mother, my grandmother and I would pick blackberries from around the fishpond and off the fence that separated a field of cotton from a dirt road. I would sit in the kitchen nibbling on the fresh berries as the two of them made blackberry jelly, which they would then "put up" into numerous jars. I would wait in anticipation the rest of the afternoon for dinnertime to come around so I could eat some of my grandmother's blackberry cobbler. It is still the best blackberry cobbler I have ever tasted. It is one of the few recipes of my grandmother's that I have. My Aunt Jimmy gave me a copy of the recipe at my bridal shower along with a recipe cardholder. One of these days I'll attempt to make it.

I got some blackberries from the farmer's market Saturday and last night I tried something a little different...a spinach salad with blackberries...and it was delicious. Lee really liked it also.

Blackberry and Baby Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese

Baby spinach
Plain goat cheese
Fresh blackberries

For the dressing:
Balsamic vinegar
Balsamic glaze (optional)
Honey
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

I rarely measure when I whip up a salad dressing, especially when I make it up as I go along. I just eyeball it to make sure I have enough for the amount of salad I'm making.

The basic formula is the same, though. Mix your acid (in this case the balsamic vinegar) and seasonings. And then, as you whisk that mixture, slowly drizzle in the oil. You have vinaigrette. Don't be scared of it. Just get in the kitchen and bang together some dressing.

I really wanted a sweet dressing, which this was before I even added any honey because the balsamic glaze is on the sweet side. If you don't have balsamic glaze, just use more honey. I think the sweet balances nicely with the spinach. Overall the dish was nicely balanced. The slight sweet tanginess of the berries and the lush, creaminess of the goat cheese was perfect. Yum.


I had another salad with goat cheese and fruit a few weeks ago, and it was equally delicious. There will be a lot more fruit, salad greens, and goat cheese in my future. It is a great summertime combination.

I had some romaine lettuce from the farmer's market and a few dried apricots left from another cooking adventure. I couldn't look at the apricots without thinking of the peaches and creme fraiche I had during my 2007 visit to Chez Panisse. So that led me to apricots and the creamy goat cheese.

Apricot and Goat Cheese Salad

Romaine lettuce, chopped coarsely
Dried apricots (rehydrated in water for about 30 minutes) or fresh apricots
Fresh goat cheese

For the dressing:

Apricot preserves
Dijon mustard or spicy brown mustard (just a little)
Red wine vinegar
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Spring Cooking and a Little Cleaning

Greetings. I am terrible about keeping up with this blog. I have taken a lot of pictures that I intended to post, but I was just too lazy.

Spring is here (it feels like summer already) and the farmer's market opened a few weeks ago. So, I am again motivated to do some cooking and post about it. My friend Allison and I joined forces last weekend to make some lamb meatballs that we entered in a food competition. We were on a Relay for Life team so the meatball dish was an on-site fundraiser for Relay night as well. We took 2nd place. Below is a picture of our trophy and team mascot, Bubba the sheep. Our team theme was "No Sheep Here: Count Laps Not Sheep." Check out our cute jammies...counting sheep and purple to boot! Several female members of our team were sporting these that night (and morning).





We both made meatballs (a total of about 12 lbs), and she made a lemon rice pilaf and I created a Moroccan-style tomato sauce. It was very delicious. When I'm ready to look at another meatball I'm going to make it again. The meatballs themselves were made from a Cooking Light recipe. Here's the link: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=318994

We made ours with half lamb and half beef to make them more economical. Lamb was about $5/lb. I plan on substituting the mint for oregano and basil and serving these with some spaghetti and marinara sauce.

When the Relay for Life was over about 6:30 am Saturday morning, I had breakfast at Cracker Barrel and was able to stop by the farmer's market right before it opened. I picked up some carrots, Daikon radishes, asparagus, and strawberries.


I've never been a fan of asparagus, but I've read about the magnificence of fresh, spring asparagus so I thought I'd give it another try. I decided to roast them.


I was pleasantly surprised. They were really good. I will buy more next week if they are available. I added them to some whole-wheat spaghetti carbonara with chicken. There is also parmesan cheese, pancetta, cream, mushrooms, and one egg. The asparagus gave it more depth as well as a nutritional boost. It would have been better but I completely forgot to add garlic.

My first thought with the Daikon radishes were to make Korean "kimchee" out of them, so that's just what I did. I added rice vinegar, salt, black pepper, lots of cayenne pepper, garlic, and green onions to the diced radishes and put them in the fridge overnight. I usually do this with cucumbers but I did like the peppery bite of the radishes. Kimchee is usually made of cabbage, of course, but you can create something similar to kimchee out of lots of veggies.

I decided to pickle my carrots as well. I added rice vinegar, powdered ginger, garlic, sesame seeds, and stevia to them. They were quite good. Lee and I ate both tonight with some bulgogi. Bulgogi is a popular Korean beef dish that I have yet to perfect. It was still good, though.

We ate it alongside some steamed rice and roasted seaweed. Here's how I made the bulgogi:

I bought some thin-sliced top round beef for like $2 and sliced it into smaller pieces. I then marinated the beef for about 45 minutes in a mixture of these ingredients:

Dr. Pepper
sesame oil
soy sauce
black pepper
touch of salt
touch of powdered ginger
touch of cayenne pepper

I then cooked it in a pan with sliced carrots, a sliced Asian pear, some chopped green onion (only green part), and sesame seeds. It was a refreshing change to normal dinner fare.

Right now I am making chicken stock. I had celery, carrots, and parsley left over from other meals, so I just needed some spices, an onion, and some chicken to make some stock. I'm going to freeze it in ice cube trays.


So, that is what is cooking at my house. Oh, and I did mention there was a little cleaning. Last week I decided to clean the master bath, so I cleared the clutter from the counter, organized the cabinet below the sink, and then cleaned the mirror (the plain almost 5 ft. wide mirror the contractors glued to the wall). I left the room to get cleaner for the countertops when I heard a loud crash. I went in to find that the entire mirror had fallen off of the wall and broken into a zillion pieces. So there was a lot of cleaning that day. I'm just glad I had not been standing there when it fell.

I feel it is a good time to do some redecorating in there now (painting the walls and cabinets, buying new mirror and lighting, etc...). Lee said we aren't going to do anything until I clean up the rest of the house. So, a little more cleaning is in store. At least I have some motivation. I already know how I want to redo it. Stay tuned.