Some Quick Summer Meal Ideas

Summertime means time to put those big ceramic pots on the shelf, and use the freshest produce in the simplest ways possible! Here are a few recipes I've used to get summer started.

Veggie Kebabs!
Since we are still in the throws of apartment life, we do not own a BBQ. I do, however, own a George Foreman Grill, which has been put to use regularly on these warmer summer days. Pictured above are some quick veggie kebabs - tofu, mushrooms, peppers, onions and tomatoes marinated in garlic, ginger, and soy sauce before being 'grilled'. Easy, light and tasty - especially when served with some sliced avocado with sea salt and basmati rice (my new favorite) with chopped fresh parsley. They are also pretty!


A lovely light breakfast
I found an adorable 'demi baguette' at the Breadfarm stand at the Farmer's Market. It was the perfect size for two and only $1.50! I decided to use it for a breakfast inspired by the breakfasts I had in Paris when I visited. I was 17, and was enchanted by the simplicity and quality of the food. This is actually a little more elaborate than I had at the hotel, but c'est la vie!

Menu
Sliced 'demi' baguette
fresh butter
goat cheese
homemade raspberry jam
cantelope
coffee

This is truly lovely on a morning when temperatures are climbing quickly!


Upside-down Taco Salad!
OK, so really it's nachos. We had taco salad the night before, and I was planning on just serving the same thing, but then I decided to try to use the same ingredients in a new format. So instead of putting tortilla chips on top, I started with them on the bottom. I learned how to make great nachos in college - nachos with the works! So I used some of those tricks in this recipe:

Corn tortilla chips, spread with refried black beans
Pepper Jack cheese
sliced olives and green onions
corn
Put those in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or so (hint: lining the baking sheet with foil makes clean-up super quick)

Then top with...
a squeeze of lime juice
a dash of chili powder
shredded lettuce
salsa
fake sour cream (in my case)

And drink with...
cold beer

Summer food is fun.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ever

I don't know about you, but to me there is nothing more frustrating than being all excited to make homemade chocolate chip cookies, and then open the oven to find greasy cookies spread all over the baking sheet, puffy cookies that didn't spread out or any other disappointing variation. After countless attempts to find the perfect recipe, I have succeeded. This recipe makes the most perfectly consistent cookie. They are light and slightly cakey, but still a little dense. And the flavor is perfect. I think the key is adding more brown sugar than white sugar. I got the recipe from Food Network's Tyler Florence.

My Big, Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 (8-ounce) block dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

Place the butter, sugar, and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer; cream together on medium speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Beat in the vanilla and eggs. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and continue to mix until a smooth batter forms. Turn off the mixer and fold in the chocolate chunks using the spatula.

To form the cookies, scoop about 1/4 cup of cookie dough into your hands and roll it around into a ball; place them about 3-inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets; you should get about 4 cookies on each pan. Press down the tops of the dough slightly and bake until the cookies are light brown, 12 minutes for chewy cookies, or about 15 minutes for crispy cookies.

Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough/cookie sheets.

My adaptations:

• You can make these the size that is called for above, or smaller. When I make them more like tablespoon size, they take about 9 minutes and 30 seconds in my oven.
• I usually use dark chocolate chips, and sometimes add half a cup of walnuts or pecans.
• Often, I replace the butter with Earth Balance nonhydrogenated margarine.
• I also sometimes replace each egg with 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce mixed with 1 teaspoon baking powder.

These adaptations make the cookies vegan and don't really effect the consistency, although you can taste the real butter if that's what you use.

Key things:

• The butter has to be exactly at room temperature. This can take a couple of hours. Do not microwave it! Also, if you are making a double batch and it is super hot (like it was when I made the cookies in the picture above), put the bowl of dough in the fridge between batches.
• It also helps if eggs or applesauce are room temperature.
• Don't skip mixing the wet and dry ingredients separately. The moisture activates the baking soda.
• Cooling on a wire rack is essential. Also, do not store these until they are completely cool. Ever had a sticky, sweaty cookie? It was covered too soon.
• For best results, use good vanilla.
• Eat the dough.

This may sound fussy, but the results are worth thinking about a few details! Enjoy.

I Bought Too Many Flowers

I have been so excited for the Everett Farmer's Market to open, and today was finally the day! I was so excited that I forgot it opened at 11 and went at 10. Oops! Oh well. At 11 o'clock I was ready with my reusable shopping bags and cash. I was captivated by some pretty red, white and pink radishes, Russian Kale and purple scallions. At my favorite stand, the merchant let me try lots of different greens I had never heard of (and thus can't remember) raw right off the table! They were spectacular! My favorite was the leaves of baby broccolini, it's related to cabbage and the real name starts with an 'm'. The oyster mushrooms were right next to it and I thought they would be great together in a stir fry. Spring lettuces and spinach were also abundant.
And then I bought way too many flowers! I was enchanted by all the poppies, irises, snapdragons, daisies, etc! I bought so many that I had to buy a new vase on the way home to hold the largest bouquet. So many that even that vase was too small and I ended up splitting them into two bouquets. So many flowers that I now have 6 vases of flowers in my house. I have no bouquet arranging skills, either. So I ended up splitting them up by color (sorry about the purple and yellow, Tori). I guess I'll have to give some away!

I Love Pie

Yesterday I received my Pampered Chef order at school (thank you Holly, Becky, Ellie and Kate!). So of course I had to run home and make a pie immediately. I ordered a pastry cutter, stoneware pie dish and a pastry mat just like my Grandma Koester used to have. I have vivid memories of making pies with her, and was happy to find out that I still remembered a lot of her tricks!
Did your grandma do this? We took the leftover pieces of pie crust, rolled them and cut them into shapes (I skipped that yesterday) and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on top. Bake them until you smell them, and then you don't have to wait so long for something sweet.

I got the pie recipe from Betty Crocker's 1983 edition (sans lard). Ben requested a mixed berry pie, so I used frozen strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries. The dough came together perfectly in the food processor. It was SO FUN rolling it out on the mat. Jayne Stallons had suggested using Sophie's egg (the little chicken) for an egg wash, and it was the perfect size! I don't know if you can tell how tiny that egg is, but it was sure adorable!

Some more of Grandma Koester's tips:
- cover the edges with foil until the last 15 minutes of baking, so the edges don't burn.
- Use the thumb and pointer finger of your left hand and pointer finger of your right hand to create the scalloped edge.
- Make pie often.

So Much to Love

Memorial Day weekend was full of lots of fun things! We started Saturday off with a state soccer game... Ben's brother Brady's high school team beat Issaquah in a shoot-out on a sunny afternoon. Here's us reading about it in the paper the next day. Our friends Megan and John joined us for the game, and for Happy Hour at Lombardi's afterward! Here is my Bloody MMMMMMary. Sunday started out with a SURPRISE for Ben's dad! We went on KZOK's Breakfast with the Beatles Argosy cruise. The breakfast was delicious, but I ate it before I could get a picture, sorry! After the cruise we walked up to Pike Place. What a treasure. We also stopped at DeLaurenti's Italian market where I scored some San Marzano tomatoes and individual servings of Nutella! Don't forget the Mexican Cokes for Ben and his bros... no high fructose corn syrup! After the market we headed down to my dad's house to help him pot an enormous amount of plants. I can't believe what a kick a get out of that! More on planting pots with dad later.


Monday was the grand finale... A Parade! It only lasted about ten minutes but I love any chance to see a marching band.









The wonderful Stallons family invited us to the parade in downtown Arlington, followed by a cookout at their farm. This lovely little farm has everything a girl could want: horses, donkies, ponies, chickens, cats and a sweet dog. The chickens are the famous 'happy chickens' who provide our eggs. Thanks, girls!

We had gardenburgers, macaroni salad, grilled asparagus and mushrooms (delicious!!!). The avocadoes with zucchini corn salsa were about the only thing I made this weekend. I found some adorable cocktail avocadoes at Pike Place Sunday and filled them with a version of salsa/ pico de gallo that was pretty much just stuff we had in the fridge. Jayne made us some homemade strawberry frozen yogurt to finish off the meal. A perfect finish to a perfectly sunny weekend.

Weekend Patio Makeover

Before

After

The furniture, rug and hurricanes are all from Target. The mismatched pots are ones I had sitting unused in our storage area. We went to Sunnyside Nursery for the plants. I drive by the nursery every day on the way to school, but this was the first time I really spent time looking around there. I had no idea choosing plants would be so overwhelming! Our patio is southern exposure, so we mostly got full sun plants. I chose some Shasta Daisies, Black Eyed Susans, and Ben chose two blueberry bushes. I guess you need two to cross pollinate. Our front porch is northern exposure, so we got a shade plant, bleeding hearts, for there. I also couldn't resist the herbs. I was planning on getting all flowers but when I smelled those herbs...oh! I just couldn't resist. So now we have some Thai basil, red basil, golden oregano and Italian flat leaf parsley. Now I just have to convince my squirrell not to leave peanut shells all over!

Our first meal on the new patio,inspired by this month's Vegetarian Times.

Enchiladas with zucchini-corn filling, Follow Your Heart vegan monterey jack cheese, homemade pico de gallo, guacamole
AND
chayote, watercress and radish salad with chili-lime dressing.
Don't forget the gin and tonics.
Cheers!

Menu Planning

Every weekend, I take some time to plan our weekly menu. Since I love cooking, it's usually exciting. On those weeks when I'm lacking inspiration, it can be slightly painstaking. Usually I have heard of some new recipe or ingredient I want to try (this week was chayote squash). I peruse my favorite blogs, cookbooks, magazines and websites for ideas. I also look at the Klesick Farms website to see what will be delivered to our doorstep Thursday, so I can incorporate it into meals for later in the week. I'd like to think that all of this planning saves time and money. We're never left hungry at 6:30 with nothing in the fridge for dinner. Since there are only two of us, I recently started serving the same thing for dinner two nights in a row. I used to send leftovers as lunches. Now I am making two less entrees a week which has been saving us about $25 on groceries. I make salads for my lunch and Ben has sandwiches, and sometimes salads. It's nice to plan ahead. I use a 5" by 7" index card to make the menu and list. On one side, I list the days of the week I need to cook for, and the recipes I plan on making. I also note where I found the recipe, with an abbreviation of the name and page number:


This week I primarily used my recent issue of Vegetarian Times, Vegan Express and Veganomicon. On the other side, I make a shopping list which I usually organize by category to make shopping faster:



Taking this time once I week saves time, money and headaches later in the week. It's also nice to know you have a balanced menu. I can make sure we aren't eating too many similar items in a row. We can mix it up with foods inspired by different ethnicities, and in different forms. So, for example, we aren't eating too many tomato products in a row or something.

Once the shopping is over, it's time to relax and enjoy cooking and eating.

Saturday Morning Smoothies

The current issue of Vegetarian Times has an article with some unique smoothie recipes. The one pictured above is called Beta-Carotene Barrage. Here is the recipe. I made one minor adjustment... the recipe calls for 1/2 teaspoon of salt, but just a pinch will do ya.

3 large carrots, sliced
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup OJ
1 2in piece of ginger, sliced
1 Tablespoon lime juice
pinch of salt
Boil the carrots for about 7 minutes. Drain them and cold shock them in a bowl of ice water. Drain again, when cool and add everything to a blender!

Drinking this makes me feel like I'm spending Saturday morning on a beach in Thailand.

Necklace Tree!

My first non-food post! This may be totally silly to you, but this idea changed my life! At least it changed my jewelry organizing life. I wanted a way to keep my necklaces from getting tangled AND be able to see what I have so I can wear them. So I went on a walk. I found a big stick with lots of little branches, stuck it in a glass vase from Value Village, and poured rocks in the vase. Viola! Necklace Tree. It's pretty, too.

Thai Vegetable Salad

My favorite thing this spring has been to make a whole bunch of salads Sunday evening for our lunches during the week. This week I made a Thai Vegetable Salad. Here is the basic recipe:
Spinach
Green Beans
Sugar Snap Peas
Carrots
Yellow Pepper
Tomato
Green Onions
Cilantro
a few fresh basil leaves (tear 'em up right before you eat)

For my salad, I added some sliced baked tofu. My husband is not such a fan of tofu, so his salad included some rice noodles tossed in our favorite chili sauce.

The Dressing:
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon lime juice
red pepper flakes and salt to taste
The dressing was supposed to have chopped red chili pepper, but alas, the store was out that day.
We take the dressing to work in a separate container and keep it in the fridge until we run out.
This makes eating a healthy lunch really easy and tasty.