I Love it When a Plan Comes Together - Anaheim Chiles with Blue Cheese and Bacon

Usually, when I envision a "recipe" in my head, it turns out to be less than thrilling on the plate - flavors don't mix well, the texture is icky, etc.
But this week, I had a stroke of genius.
Anaheim chiles have started making an appearance in our weekly CSA shares, and I knew we'd need to find some new, creative ways to use them this year, aside from the traditional chile rellenos (not my favorite ever).  So I started looking for some inspiration.
And I didn't have to look too hard - the recipe that was attached to this week's share was cheese stuffed anaheims - yum.
But the recipe was more of an appetizer feature - stuff, chill, slice, and serve on crackers.  And while that does sound quite tasty in its own right, crackers aren't really what I'm looking for during dinner time.  At least the recipe got the wheels turning, and once home, I examined the contents of our fridge, and I realized that I had something even better than I had imagined at first.  To say I was excited to make dinner is an understatement.

I slit and seeded those chiles.

And fried up some bacon (making a bit extra for HRH).

Then I mixed some cream cheese and blue cheese with a few green onions and tossed in the bacon, which I'd chopped finely.

I baked the whole concoction until it was done.

And then I ate the whole thing.

Oh, these chiles - they were gooey and creamy and tangy and salty all in one.
You want these.  Now.

Blue Cheese and Bacon Stuffed Anaheim Peppers

• 4 large anaheim chiles
• 4 oz cream cheese or Neufchatel cheese
• 4 oz (or more) blue cheese
• 2 green onions, finely chopped
• 2-4 slices bacon, cut into lardons 
• cracked black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350°.
Set out cheeses to soften at room temperature.  Place lardons in cold fry pan and cook at medium-low heat until crispy.  Drain and cool on paper towel.
While bacon is cooling, mix together until smooth the cheeses and green onions, adding black pepper.  Chop cooled bacon into small pieces and add to the cheese mixture, mixing until evenly blended.  Taste and add more pepper, if necessary.
Slit each pepper, careful to only slice through one side.  Remove all the seeds and veins.  As a note, to ensure that all the seeds have been removed, I like to rinse out the interior of the chile and then pat dry.  If you like a bit of heat, leave some of the veins in - it depends on the chile, of course, as to how hot it might be.
Fill each chile with 1/4 of the cheese mixture.  Using toothpicks, seal up the chile as well as possible in order to keep as much of the mixture from oozing out during baking.
Place chiles on cooking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes, until chiles are slightly softened (you still want them firm enough to have some resistance when you bite into them).
***If you really wanted to, you could wrap each chile in a slice of bacon before baking.  I can't be sure, but it would probably be delicious.
I should also note that you'll want to have whatever balance you desire of the cream cheese and blue cheese, but remember that blue cheese can often be overwhelming, so I'd start with a 50-50 combination and go from there.  Additionally, the taste of the bacon mellowed during baking, so add a bit more (like one slice) than you think you'll want.

I highly recommend serving the chiles with a chopped salad of sorts, in case you get some that are a little warm or inadvertently miss one of the veins (or leave them in on purpose, if you like the heat).  I chopped up some cucumber, canary melon, green red onion, avocado, and yellow heirloom tomato, adding only a touch of red wine vinegar, olive oil, and pinch of salt.  The sweetness of the melon and crisp acidity of the salad overall made a nice counterpoint to the creaminess of the chiles.
Oh - and don't forget the local beer!  I've made a commitment to buying only Arizona brews for (at least) the remainder of the year, and ordering it whenever possible when we go out.  The Oak Creek Brewing Co. hefeweizen (Sedona) was an excellent choice.
This meal was a delicious taste of summer, and while we in Arizona are going to be sweltering for a while more, if you live somewhere that is seeing those summer nights starting to wane, you'll want to jump all over this.
Oh, and as for overall health of the meal, since I'd run 6 miles that morning, I felt like I needed something a bit heartier, and to be honest, I got about 4 ounces of the cheese-bacon mixture - everything else was veggies.  This is a great example of the vegetables remaining as the star while the protein, fat, etc., from the meat and dairy merely accompanied the greens.  Which, if I'm going to do meat, is really as it should be (as I type this, The Husband is smoking 6 pounds of pork butt and some sausages he's wrapped in hojas, so I'll just ignore the irony of that for now).

How hot do you like your chiles - just a bit of a kick or melt your mouth off?
What veggies do you like to throw together for a chopped salad?
Are you a stinky cheese or mild cheese person?
How do you satisfy "the runger"?

Meatless Monday on Training Tuesday

First and foremost, I must say that I am thankful for the crazy monsoon weather that we've been having in Arizona this year.  While it makes for some seriously muggy, sweat-laden morning runs, the temperatures have been kept to within reasonable parameters.  By Arizona standards.
My morning runs with Zooey, which begin with a 4:30 AM alarm - followed immediately by a 4:30:30 coonhound alarm, just in case - have been hovering in the low 80s.  Not my most favorite temperature to run in, but it beats anything hotter.  So while the rains have drowned all by my mint (I think) and peppers (which are thriving), I'm more than happy for them to continue so that we can keep things tolerable.
Today marked my first Official training run to prepare me for my second half marathon, which will be in November.  I have, of course, been running and cross training throughout the summer, but it's been Unofficial, which means I haven't felt that bad about veering off of The Plan for various reasons.  Starting today, though, my heart rate monitor was strapped back on, and instead of just running a "basic" run, I set a time goal (in this case, a mere 30 minutes).
I love the time-based goals.  My training plan is pretty much the half marathon training plan set out in Marathoning for Mortals, by John Bingham and Jenny Hadfield, which I used to prepare for London's Run, and having the weekday runs be time-based is something that I came to almost rely on - it was the promise that I'd be done "soon."  Really, the only alteration I made was to add a few more weeks of training in and switch around the running and cross training weekdays.  Using time instead of distance really helps me focus on my heart rate, stride,and foot strike instead of "how much farther?"
Of course, this morning I had trouble remembering how to start my heart rate monitor, a delay that Zooey found unacceptable.
The Official training run didn't feel much different than Sunday's last Not Official training run (except we were faster this morning; I was tired Sunday), but it's nice to know that I'll be back on The Plan.  When on The Plan, I'm much stricter with myself and have the discipline not to skip/put off days, so I anticipate a solid performance for my second 13.1.

In Mrs. Obama Arms news, I'm still struggling with my Hundred Pushups Challenge.  After falling off the wagon for about a week and a half, I reset myself back to Week 3, Day 1, in which I did 48 pushups.  They were a little difficult, but that's to be expected.
My frustration lies in the fact that while Weeks 1, 2, and 3 felt like they were gradually moving me toward more and more pushups, Week 4 felt out of control.  I am not one to make excuses (most of the time), but I can't help but wonder if a woman's upper body strength limitations - I really don't like that word there, but I'm not sure what else to say - were taken into consideration with this program/app.  That's not to say as a woman I CAN'T do this, but I think some resetting and careful cross training will need to be taken into account; I might have to do Week 4 three times in a row before I think I'm ready for Week 5.
What I need to do is remind myself that this is OK.  I'm still working toward a great goal, and as of last night, I have completed 843 pushups since beginning the Challenge.  That probably brings my lifetime total to about 900, so I can't complain.
I mean, I CAN complain, but there's not really anything tangible for me to stand on there.
Besides, if it were easy, it wouldn't be called the Hundred Pushups Challenge.  It would be called the Hundred Pushups Easy Thing.

One more thing - I've started the Plank a Day Challenge as well.  This one is fairly simple to follow.  Each day, I do a plank for as long as I can.  That's it.  The goal, of course, is to be able to plank longer and longer, improving my core muscles.  I'm not gonna lie - I'm really tired of crunch/pushup workouts, so I'm game to try this.
My inaugural plank wasn't bad:

Now it's time to up the game and see where this can take me.  The good news is that, unlike my Hundred Pushups Challenge, I don't have a set time that I have to hit each day.  I just need to challenge myself at my level.  And, apparently, watch out for the Plank Police.

So how am I fueling myself?  Lots of plant-based proteins.  I'm not one to say "never" to anything, but I don't foresee myself our our family going 100% vegan, and I think that may not be the best route for me.  But I am doing my best to cut down on animal products when I can.
I've moved from half-and-half to coconut milk in my coffee.  While both have saturated fats in them (that's the " really bad juju" when it comes to reading the fats label), I've been reading up on the stuff, and studies are suggesting that the saturated fats in plants, such as coconuts, have less of a detriment on one's body than those found in animal products like butter or cream.  That being said, I am careful to have only 3 spoonsful in each cup, and I generally have two cups of coffee each day.  That's my "splurge" each morning.
And while I moved on to agave nectar for a while, I'm a little concerned about the process by which the "nectar" is made, so I'm trying out coconut sugar, which is gotten by a process similar to how maple syrup is obtained.  It's still got calories - my coffee is my morning splurge, remember? - but the coconut sugar is lower on the glycemic scale than white sugar, so there are no spikes in the blood sugar.

I still can't believe I've come this far, considering it wasn't long ago that I had to have a splash of coffee with my CoffeeMate.

I'm also having fun with vegetarian and vegan versions of my favorite dishes, like korma.
Last week, the okra in our CSA bag gave me a craving for Indian food that would have impressed even the most pregnant of women.  I thought about it morning, noon, and night, and I kept thinking about ordering take-out or suggesting that we go out.
The problem - HRH.  I'm perfectly happy to "force" her to eat certain foods, but I'm not going to take her to a restaurant that serves fare that far outside her comfort zone (we're still working on quesadillas, people).  I want to be allowed out in public with her again.
But if I were to make it at home, I could serve her similar ingredients like brown rice and carrots, and I could still get my korma fix.
Now, I love love love love (freaking) LOVE lamb korma; it's my go-to item when we go out to an Indian restaurant.  But unlike Aunt Voula, I understand that lamb doesn't fit into my plant-based focus, so I opted to make a vegetarian korma with tofu and fresh veggies, including that okra.  I just needed a recipe.

Thank you, Interwebz.

So, last Monday night (maybe Tuesday - I don't remember), I tried a recipe from Vegetarian Times.
It was good.
But it wasn't the korma I was thinking of - that creamy, spicy, sauce that you can literally sop up with a biscuit bit of naan.
So the craving?  Still there.
My poor husband - it was like I was pregnant all over again, but I didn't have a pregnant belly that he could rub like it was a freaking genie lamp.
So I searched and found one that would be better - perfect, even - one that used not only coconut milk and tomato but a cashew cream to give it a silky, creamy texture.  Thank YOU, Post Punk Kitchen, for delivering!
Of course, I didn't follow the recipe exactly (you know I have a hard time following directions) - I made my own garam masala earlier this year, since I am sensitive to ginger, anise, and turmeric.  So I played around with everything to get something that would still be savory, although I think I still needed to amp the spice and garlic when we have our next go round.
End result - this recipe was a lot of work (I'm sparing you pictures of the aftermath in the kitchen since this post is already so dang long), but it was totally worth it, especially when paired with some homemade naan that was already on the right track (it's hard to duplicate the flavor and texture when your kitchen is lacking a tandoori oven).

As far as naan goes, it was good, but The Husband and I discussed how we can improve it so we didn't use so much oil in the process.  We determined that some terra cotta planter bottoms (the flat parts that hold the water in) on the grill will probably be the closest we can get, so next time you see me at the hardware store, it's probably because I'm thinking about dinner.
I've gotten my korma fix, but we still have a jar full of the leftover korma sauce, so I'm thinking of making a korma pizza later this week.  I can toss some roasted veggies on top of it and call it a meal - the perfect training food.

Do you need to be on a training plan to be disciplined?
What is your favorite way to strengthen your core?
What food cravings have you had recently; did you indulge?

Oooh, Heaven is a Place on Earth

Lovely little bundles of sunshine

Today was one of those just wonderful days.  Not like a "OMG I WON AN OSCAR" type wonderful - wonderful in its simplicity.  I'm not sure what transpired to bring such a fantastic set of waking hours after such a rough semester, but I am still reveling in it before I head to the Land of Nod.
First things first - HRH let me sleep in this morning.  All the way to 7:30.  Granted, she did wake me up screaming bloody murder at some point in the middle of the night, and when I raced in there to see if she was OK, she was in the throes of some night terror, hollering "I just want my grass to grow!"  Not sure what transpired to upset her about bare patches in the lawn, but I'm just glad that she was able to calm herself and return to a regular, peaceful sleep so that I was able to do the same.
After getting up, we made big plans.  In order to get a peaceful shower, I started her favorite, Beauty and the Beast.  Once I was clean, we slathered on sunscreen, got dressed, and got in the car.
First stop - Bergie's to pick up our CSA veggies.  And a lavender lemonade for me.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.......
Makes 92° feel like a mere 85°.

Which ended up being for both of us.  Mmmmm.... I love lavender lemonade.  So much in fact that I want both a lemon tree and large lavender plant just so that I can indulge whenever the heck I want.
Once veggie-fied and quenched, we headed across the street to the Gilbert Farmer's Market, where I picked out a few purple and orange cherry tomatoes while HRH made friends with a gorgeous Rhodesian Ridgeback (who was only too happy to offer her a few kisses in return for her affection).  His owner and I discussed how much we love the market, especially for tomatoes.  His comment - "I hate buying them at the grocery store.  They're dry and taste like cardboard."  Amen, brother!
We also picked up a few peaches and some gorgeous squash blossoms.
Now, I've only had squash blossoms stuffed with cheese and deep fried.  Delicious; I can't lie.  But really, not the best option out there.  Surely there had to be another, healthier option.
Thank you, Tasty Kitchen, for not disappointing with your avocado salad stuffed squash blossoms!  You had me at avocado, and then I read that there was no frying involved.  The freshness stays in tact!
Ironically, another Gilbert Farmer's Market afficionado, Inspired RD, found the exact link I did and prepped them for lunch today and has already posted about how lovely the recipe is.
In other words, when you get your hands on some squash blossoms, make this recipe.  You will not be disappointed.
Since The Husband is out of town visiting his parents and baby brother (text: "Cracken rum and cream soda is amazing!" - glad you boys are having fun at the lake), I texted my girlfriend Danielle and asked her to come for dinner, which she gladly did, bearing wine (I love her) and a gift for HRH (HRH loves her, too).  Danielle follows a gluten-free diet, so I wanted to make sure that I didn't have anything that would have gluten in it but would feature those amazing tomatoes and the summer squash that I received in the CSA share for the week.
Basically a no-brainer: tostadas.
Before I prepped dinner, though, HRH and I had to test drive the new kiddie pool that I had promised her for ages.  Once re-slathered with sunblock, we spent about two hours splashing about, jumping into and out of the pool, and spraying Zooey down with the hose.  There is something magical about the combination of a preschooler and a basic plastic pool.  I think I had more fun in that 5-foot diameter pool today than I have in those pools that allow me a floating chaise with a drink holder.

"Splash, Momma!"

I think that Devil Dog probably drank about 8 gallons of water throughout the day, but at least she is sleeping hard after a day with no walk.  I can happily say the same about HRH, except sub nap where I wrote walk earlier.  I love it when I can have fun with both my girls at the same time.

So, about those tostadas....
I picked up some sprouted corn tortillas and toasted them before piling them with black beans and cheese.  This was placed under the broiler until the cheese melted.  Then I piled those tortillas high with some avocado creme (avocado and Greek yogurt with just a touch of salt, whipped in the food processor until smooth and creamy), lettuce, tomato pico de gallo (see below), and the rest of the avocado.
Hey, since this was a vegetarian meal, the least we could do is load up on the good fats in the avocado, right?

Can you see the goodness that is the colors of the rainbow,
in veggie form?????

I have to tell you.... there is nothing better in the heat of summer than fresh vegetables all over the plate.  All of the veggies were picked fresh this week and traveled mere miles to get to my plate.  The freshness came across on the plate; while I added some salt to the pico de gallo, there was no need for salt or other flavorings, since the freshness of the veggies gave us sweet and savory, which matched the different textures - crunchy, chewy, and more - so perfectly.
Just as a note, after I cleaned the squash blossoms, I left on the stems to serve as a "handle."  They were easier, in my opinion, to pick up and eat in one bite that way.
After a lovely dinner, my girl - who was SO tired after such a big day - and I talked with The Husband via video chat before a final snuggle.  She was asleep in two minutes.

So, to review... here is the list of veggies that were on our plate this evening but were still growing last weekend:

• Orange cherry tomatoes
• Purple cherry tomatoes
• Yellow summer squash
• Squash blossoms
• Onion blossoms
• White onions
• Basil
• Mint (from my own plant)
• Red leaf lettuce

And in case you wanted to throw together a chunky pico de gallo that was more than tomatoes, onion, and cilantro....

Rainbow Pico de Gallo

• 1 cup mixed color cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters (I used orange and purple)
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced yellow summer squash, cut into mini matches
• 1 onion blossom
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp mint, cut into thin ribbons
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp cumin

Toss all ingredients gently in a bowl; let sit at least 30 minutes for flavors to mingle.  Serve over tostadas or use to dunk sturdy chips.

What is the best combination of fresh vegetables that you have had?  
What is one veggie dish that screams "summer" to you?
What was the last "perfect" day that you reveled in?

Run for the Roses... or Run to the Dinner Table

I love the Kentucky Derby.
No.  Actually, I love love love LOVE the Kentucky Derby.  When I was a wee philistine, my parents had to explain to me multiple times the many, MANY reasons that we were not able to have a horse (the least of which was that our property didn't have fencing).  I imagined being a jockey and schemed to move to Kentucky.
The Husband, of course, takes great delight in taunting me over my obsession, which is somewhat at a crossroads with my normal philosophy that we must be kind to our animals.
I'm not going to say that the Derby - and horse racing in general - doesn't give me a lot to think and cringe about, but when you've been obsessed with an event since you can remember, it's almost a separate thought process.
That and I have convinced myself that if I were ever to own such a gorgeous creature as a thoroughbred, I would treat it like gold.
Since I have yet to have the means or the opportunity to make it to Churchill Downs, I have to make do here.  That means decorating my own Derby hat with HRH, something we've now done for two years and hope to continue as a Momma-daughter activity as she grows.
Last year, I went with a monochromatic fuchsia, while HRH told me which flowers to glue on.  At two, she wasn't ready to do it herself, and I may be something of a control freak, so I made sure that her hat looked "proper."

2011 Decadent Philistines Derby Hat Collection

The hat was a little big for HRH.

This year, I let that need for control go.  I let HRH pick out her own art supplies for the dollar store hats my mother-in-law picked up for her.  She had so much fun that she actually decorated two hats.  Parents - if your kid likes craft days, I can't recommend this enough.  I actually did some hat decorating with my friend's two girls this weekend as well - HRH was supposed to decorate yet a third hat (she had wanted to when we headed over there), but she threw a fit and sulked on the couch instead.  I guess the idea of three amazing Derby hats is a lot to take in.

I did help with the glue.

For all the pimps out there who read this blog, I'm sure she will be happy to whip something up for you, too, for a reasonable sum.
For my own chapeau, I wanted something sunny and bright - so when I found this picture:

I tried to find the original credit - I believe it's Associated Press.
If not, I will be happy to correct.

I knew I had to try and copy it.
Three trips to Michael's, five bunches of deconstructed daffodils, two sunflowers (one gold, one orange) and one bottle of glue later, I had it.  Or thereabouts.

Since The Husband was off at a game, I have no pics of me wearing the hat,
as I am one of those people who doesn't like to take pictures of herself.
It's just this thing I have.

HRH and delighted in wearing our hats (even though, my pick, Bodemeister, fell short in the last furlong or so, losing out to I'll Have Another), but The Husband decided that watching some EPL soccer game (the FA Cup) was more interesting, so he opted out once again.  Maybe next year I'll get him into a straw boater.
Probably not.
He did, however, completely buy in to dinner.

Our menu:

• Buttermilk biscuits
• Sauteed Swiss chard with green onions and red chile flakes
• Fried green tomatoes
• Grilled pork chops with a bourbon-peach glaze (recipe below)
• Pecan pie (recipe linked below)
• Champagne juleps (recipe below)

Some people will tell you to eat dessert first.  However, you should also note that most times, it's just as important to make dessert first.  Since a pecan pie has to set and cool, I knew that the second HRH and I got home from our crafting/dress-up play date (crafting for me, dress-up for her), I'd need to get started on the pie.  I had planned to make it the night before, but I gave blood and then promptly had two glasses of pinto grigio with dinner.
Oops.
The only thing I made before dessert was the drink.  I looked through many many different yet similar champagne julep recipes, some of which used superfine sugar, some of which used sugar cubes (or "loaf sugar"), and some of which didn't use any sugar.  What's a girl to do?
Make up her own recipe.

Champagne Julep

• Two large sprigs of mint (preferrably organic or plucked right out of the garden), freshly washed and dried - probably about a dozen or so leaves
• 1 teaspoon sugar (ideally superfine, but granulated is fine - that's what I used)
• 1/3 cup bourbon (or Jack Daniel's - see my "disclaimer" below when I discuss the pie)
• 1/8 teaspoon water
• Champagne (or your bubbly of choice - we used an American sparkling)

Place the mint leaves, sugar, and water in a shallow bowl and muddle.  Or, if you are a fancy pants, use your drink muddler.  Add the bourbon and crush mint further.  Cover and chill at least 4 hours.
(This is what I did before making anything else - the rest I had The Husband do right before we ate, which is when we wanted to drink the juleps)
Strain the bourbon.  Add two teaspoons or so to a champagne flute.  Fill the remainder of the flute with champagne.  Garnish with a fresh mint leaf.  Enjoy.

A fancy Derby dinner means
I break out our wedding flutes.

I am still not a lover of bourbon, so I think next time I'd prefer to use a heavily minted simple syrup with the bourbon.  But this was good.  I'm just a wuss when it comes to hard alcohol (case in point: I could hardly manage the wine the night before).

Despite the fact that I wasn't having the world's best Pie Crust Karma yesterday, I managed to whip up enough of Kirsten's No Excuses Pie Crust (with my usual sub of whole wheat pastry flour for the AP in her recipe) to roll out into my mini-pie pan (I usually use it for pot pies round these parts).  I had thought of making a full pie, but it's just The Husband and me who will eat said pie, and that means I'll eat it all week while he's gone at work.  A mini pie is my version of self (waist) preservation.

Before going into the oven

Now, my biggest concern was that The Husband wasn't going to like it.  He likes "good" pecan pie, but he has said many times that he's eaten his share of "bad" ones.
No pressure, right?
Which recipe to use? Should I put bourbon in it?
There were really too many questions swirling around my head about this pie.  Thankfully, I managed to shake them all off and make a few important decisions.

1. I used The Pioneer Woman's pecan pie recipe - and not just because I met her and gave her a bagful of Arizona candies and goodies last weekend - I knew it would fall under the category of "good" pecan pie.
2. To her recipe, which I cut in half save for the amount of vanilla, I added a tablespoon of bourbon.
3. Since we didn't have any bourbon, any time you see that word in this post, just mentally sub in "Jack Daniel's."
4. The difference between Jack Daniel's and bourbon is that JD goes through a sugar maple charcoal filtering process that bourbon doesn't.  But they are both whiskeys.

All of this information is important.
Even though I halved the recipe, I had some leftover pecans, filling, and dough, so I made itsy bitsy pies in a mini muffin tin as well.  And then I dunked pecans in the rest of the filling, salmonella risk be damned.
I like to live on the edge.

These were purely for quality control purposes.
And snacking purposes.
But mostly quality control purposes.

As the pie(s) cooled, I was able to hang out with HRH for a little bit, and I texted The Husband to ask him to bring home some red roses for a centerpiece.  I'm pretty sure he thought I was just angling for him to bring me flowers.  Whatever.  It worked.
Before he had left for the day, The Husband hand thrown some beautiful pork chops into his brine.  He was kind enough to share his recipe with me.  And you.

The Husband's Bourbon Brine

• 2 cups water
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup bourbon
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon thyme

Boil the water and add the ingredients; stir until the salt and sugar are complete dissolved.  Allow to cool completely  Place items to be brined into a large zip-top bag.  Pour in cooled brine and allow to sit, refrigerated, for at least four hours, turning as necessary.

The last part of dinner making was going to the most tricky: we had to coordinate the chops (grilled by The Husband - he wanted to be able to grunt and be manly), the biscuits, the greens, the glaze, and the tomatoes to be done at the same time.
This required my mise en place to be Perfection.

(Deep breath in.....) I, in no particular order, set out my pans and added the right oils, re-assembled Julia (my Cuisinart), chopped green onions and chard, found my red chile flakes, took the garlic out of the fridge, had TH open a very stubborn jar of peaches, chopped said peaches (ate some, too), preheated the oven, got out baking sheets, mixed my biscuit's dry ingredients in Julia, threw peaches, maple syrup, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and garlic into a pot to reduce to become the glaze, added the butter and buttermilk to the dry ingredients, sliced and salted the green tomatoes, set out shallow dishes of cornmeal and beaten egg, heated the vegetable oil, rolled out and cut the biscuits, threw biscuits in the oven, breaded the tomatoes and let sit, heated the oil and onions, added the first batch of tomatoes, took biscuits out of the oven, added the chard to the onions, flipped the tomatoes, added chile flakes to the chard, drained the first batch of tomatoes and added the second, stirred the glaze, turned off the heat on the chard, flipped the tomatoes, remembered I'd left the oven on when I took the biscuits out, asked TH to strain the bourbon and make the juleps, drained the tomatoes, and then plated.
Whew - where's that julep?
I am here to tell you that these pork chops were excellent.  The brine was fantastic at keeping them tender even with the heat of the grill, and the glaze on top went so well with the flavor of the brine (I've got the "recipe" to the glaze below).  The chard had a nice kick to it (I was liberal with the chile flakes), and the tomatoes were just fantastic. We need to make these more often.  It is amazing how much more wonderful fresh-from-the ground veggies taste - the chard and onions were from our CSA, while I picked up the tomatoes from another local farm at the Gilbert Farmers' Market; the peaches were canned by Yours Truly in May last year at the Schnepf Farms Peach Festival.

I apologize profusely for the poor quality.
The lighting in our house sucks.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.........

My only complaint was the biscuits.  Our oven is so incredibly not accurate to temperature that it's not even funny. Knowing that, I kept a close eye on them, but they still got a little too brown (but thankfully not burned) on the bottoms, and they were thick enough that the insides were still kind of gummy.  But they still tasted good, and I'm sure I'll find a stomach-y home for them this week.
As for the pie, well, we didn't eat it first.  Or last.  We were so full that we had it instead for breakfast this morning.  It was a Good Idea.

Peach-Bourbon Glaze for Pork Chops (or other grilled tasty item)

• Butter
• Peaches (preferably fresh or fresh-canned)
• Maple Syrup
• Brown Sugar
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Bourbon
• Salt
• Pepper
• Water, if needed (I suppose you could use a stock, too)
• Cornstarch, if needed

I canned the peaches last year.
They still tasted fresh.

Chop the peaches into smallish pieces.  Melt butter in pot over medium-low heat and add garlic.  Stir until fragrant.  Add peaches, syrup, sugar, vinegar, bourbon, salt and pepper.  Increase heat to medium and allow to boil for a few minutes.  Reduce heat and simmer, adding water or cornstarch to either thin or thicken as needed.  Remove from heat and spoon over pork chops, loin, or whatever you've just taken off the grill.

I didn't measure anything, again, choosing instead to go by "this looks like enough" or "uh-oh, I'd better add some more."  It turned out fine.  Just how I wanted it to taste.
I should also note that when I made the glaze, I had NO idea what The Husband had put in the brine.  I guess when it comes to making amazing chops, we're just on that wavelength.

Oh, and what if you make too many fried green tomatoes?  I know - totally sounds like a rhetorical question, but It Happened To Us.  And you know how much I hate throwing things out.
No problem - lunch today was a grilled cheese with the leftover 'maters.  You will want to have leftover fried green tomatoes to have this sandwich.  In one of those "do-it-now-walk-don't-run" type of wants.  Add these to your sammy, and you'll wonder why you ever put regular red tomatoes on your grilled cheese.  It probably also would not be terrible as part of a BLT.  In fact, I think I need to test that theory next weekend - hope the farmers' market has more green tomatoes then!
Next year, I hope that I can finally throw that Derby party that I've been dreaming about for a good while.  We'll probably have a similar menu, although who knows what will sound good between now and then.  Maybe next year, too, I'll finally pick the winning horse.

Chirpy joined us for dinner as a nod to Kentucky
(the cardinal is the state bird).

Monday Meal Planning (Week 8)

Since weeks 6 and 7 were a total bust, I wanted to hop back on the wagon this week while I'm on Spring Break.  In discussions with The Husband, we both agreed that not planning the entire week out was probably a good idea, especially since he has plans with some fraternity brothers on Thursday.  I'm assuming that the plans will involve something like this.
Anyway, all toga party and goat sacrifice jokes aside, I'm trying to achieve two goals with this week's menu:

1. Remember that keeping it simple is perfectly fine and delicious.
2. Remember that the plan is fluid and subject to change.

And speaking of change, I know that I'll already have to modify Tuesday night's plan, as we ate all the primavera-appropriate veggies yesterday in the stir fry I made, so... oops.  This does detail the whole week, but I'm pretty sure that this week I can swing a pasta dish even if The Husband gets called into a late running meeting.

• Monday - vegan Swiss chard and collard green pie- I've never used the stems before, so it will be an interesting addition, and I'm looking forward to that much less "waste" (compost).  My thought for having this Monday, too, was that in the case of leftovers, I have a few lunches or even an addition to a salad at dinner later this week.
• Tuesday - pasta primavera - like I said, I already have to modify this plan, so I'm thinking of taking the spinach that we got with our CSA and pureeing some it with the tomato sauce and then adding the rest in, wilted.  The puree might sneak in a few more veggies into HRH's belly, too, since she is suspicious of all things leafy but loves spaghetti with tomato sauce (I also got her whole wheat angel hair - just because I'm a sneaky bizzle).
• Wednesday - fish tacos - this plan is really for the night that The Husband works late without planning it, which I know will happen.  So I'll use up the leftover lettuce sauce (my new favorite condiment - I use tofu in place of the egg in the recipe) instead of a traditional white sauce, and I need to use up the rest of the head of cabbage that I've been working through this last week.
• Thursday - Peas and Thank You's Hugh Jass Salad - with of course her lime-tahini dressing, because I am nothing if not predictable.
• Friday - TBD - The Husband will be smoking the pastrami all day, so he may not really want to do anything.  Thankfully, there are plenty of pizza places nearby, just in case.
• Saturday - The Day of Reckoning - homemade corned beef and cabbage, homemade Guinness mustard, brown soda bread, black and tan brownies, and perhaps some ice cream.  Because we will need dessert.  Oh, and beer.  I'm a sucker for a black and tan.  Just ask Zooey.

Of course, the black and tan coonhound is a more
positive use of the term than the black and tans of Irish history.

What are you eating this week?  Any big plans for St. Patrick's Day?  I hope no one is going to be drinking green beer or - even worse - Protestant whiskey (that's a reference from The Wire).  Anyone doing a St. Patty's Day dash?

Monday Meal Planning (Week 3)

This week's meal plan is somewhat delayed.  I'm blaming our friends who are in town from DC and the Superbowl party at said friend's parents' house yesterday.  Because we were busily noshing, running after wee ones of various sizes, and watching the game with varying degrees of interest (I had to ask who won), I didn't get in my Sunday afternoon ritual of sitting in bed surrounded by cookbooks and the internet to scope out recipes that will make great use of our weekly allotment of delicious veggies.
So this week - I'll be honest with you - has been kind of thrown together with little consultation on The Husband's work week plans.  Bear with me - I found some fantastic sounding stuff, but I'm not sure it will all come to fruition the way I'm envisioning it.

• Monday - mac-and-cheese style cauliflower, courtesy Vegetarian Times magazine (it was this month's cover model) - since dinner is already over, I'll let you know that since our head of cauliflower was smaller than what the recipe likely called for, I also threw in a head of broccoli that we had leftover from last week (how I missed it, I have NO idea).  I loved the nutritional yeast in this recipe, and I think I might start adding that to my original recipe to make up for everything else that gets added.
• Tuesday - I'll be honest - The Husband has a late meeting, and I have an all-day meeting, so HRH and I might just have a Momma-Daughter dinner out.  By dinner I mean ice cream.  But whatever.  I'm not planning anything on this night, as we have plenty of items in the fridge that can be eaten instead (like the leftover mac-and-cheese style cauliflower; yeah, I planned that).
• Wednesday (or Thursday) - baby bok choy in coconut milk with slow cooker rice and lentils - doesn't that just sound GREAT??????  I love bok choy, but I've been getting a little tired of just finding stir fry recipes, so I'm anxious to see how these combos - marked with cumin, turmeric, and other Indian flavors - turns out.
• Thursday (or Wednesday) - baked tilapia with lettuce sauce and turnip greens - we have some red leaf lettuce that I'll use for the sauce, which will go over, I admit, pre-packaged, pre-breaded tilapia.  I know that if I look at the ingredient list again I might have a panic attack, but it needs to be eaten, and the addition of a fresh sauce and some nicely sauteed greens will definitely boost the nutritional value.
• Friday - vegetarian bibimbap with broccoli, turnips, and mushrooms - Autumn at Food Wise Nutrition  (she's in Seattle, my friends - look her up!) mentioned this via Instagram when both of us dined on Korean food in the same evening, and I happened to stumble across this recipe, for which we have nearly all the ingredients (or appropriate substitutes).  I've never had bibimbap (its literal translation is mixed meal), but it's certainly intriguing enough for me to want to try it!

Of course, with friends in town and possible "surprise" late meeting nights on the table, this is a "I have my fingers crossed that we can at least get three of these in" menu.

Now, the only issue with this menu is that it does not take into account the spinach, kale, carrots, or cilantro that we also received this week (OK, OK - I bought the kale extra, as I'm still loving the smoothies).  My thoughts on those are that the kale and spinach will be good additions to smoothies throughout this week, and HRH usually eats carrots (the one veggie she will allow to cross her lips), so I don't want to waste them on silly little things like a salad.  The cilantro, as many herbs will, poses the biggest problem.  Thankfully, Vlad, my dehydrator, is still sitting out on the counter, so Wednesday I'll set out to dehydrate both the dill and cilantro that are hiding in the crisper.
So... what's on your menu this week?

Broc-N-Cheese (A.K.A. the Post that Goes Against Every Fiber of My Being)

After another week of feeling completely crummy, hacking up what I am convinced it 5/8 of a lung, and starting yet another round of antibiotics for yet another upper respirator/sinus/ear infection (jealous yet?), I'm back on the blog.
Being sick makes me hungry.  Not that, you know, I generally shy away from food, but when I'm sick, I want just about everything that you can think of, including every food product presented to me during commercials (even if I am loathe to admit what those commercials were).  Of course, I go through my "I want matzo ball soup" phase (generally I whine to The Husband, and he goes to get me some - ahhhhhh), and I have of late gone through a few "Hmmmm, pho sounds really tasty, too" phases.  That's natural - soup is practically the perfect food for sick days, whether it's chicken noodle or miso.
But what might not be "normal" is my insane need for macaroni and cheese.  That's right - dairy (butter), dairy (milk), and more dairy (cheese) is soooooooooooo perfect for those with stuffy noses.
I try to stay away.
OK, I really don't.  The Husband tells me to stay away from it, but I have to have my half-and-half in my coffee, and when a girl wants herself some mac-and-cheese, there's not much that can be done except to get said girl her mac-and cheese.
Thankfully, my tenure as a Catholic school teacher left residual guilt on me, and I felt extremely really sort of bad about making myself my favorite casserole dish while The Husband was out watching the Patriots prove that Jesus really isn't a Broncos fan.
So I took a page out of my most recent issue of Vegetarian Times and made a big, fat dish of Broc-N-Cheese.

Running to Save the World, Knitting to Save my Sanity (Plus a GIVEAWAY!)

When we were still living in Michigan, one of the magazines that I acquired had an ad for Nike® of a female runner, standing there, looking all bad-a$$.  The caption was something to the effect of "Yeah, I could be a knitter, but then I wouldn't be a good runner."  I'm totally paraphrasing.  I can hardly remember the Pledge of Allegiance, so I surely can't remember, verbatim, an ad from pre-2007.  Anyway, I was, at the time, not a runner, although I did go to the gym regularly and workout with weights, cardio, and pilates classes.  I was also already knitting, so I remember taking great umbrage at the ad.  Why can't I be in shape AND knit?  Heaven knows that, in Michigan, one can never have too many knit scarves during the winter months.

Fast forward to last fall, when I actually began running for the first time since high school.  I learned that I really do enjoy running (even when someone whose name rhymes with Schmooey trips me because she saw a cat on the other side of the street) and that my knees can handle it (amazing what happens when one stops wearing high heels every day of the week, right?) and even feel great afterwards.  I signed up for my first run - the Colon Cancer Alliance's Undy 5000 - and had a blast.  Then I signed up for London's Run, Dakota's Run, and more.  This year I've signed up for the Undy 5000 again, and I'll be signing up for several more in the next few weeks.

All of my runs have this in common: they help raise money for organizations dedicated to helping others.  Whether that is finding a cure for colon cancer, the cancer that took my dad from me, or helping out military families like the Tillmans, I run even more happily knowing that my entry fee went to more than the pockets of various racing companies.  I am able to run; I need to utilize that ability to help those who might be so weak from chemo a walk to the bathroom is a challenge or who are struggling to make ends meet because their loved ones perished fighting for the freedom I so enjoy.

2 Meals, 1 Post

This is the beginning of the school year for me (already? yikes!), so it's crazy at our place.  The other night I finally went to bed when I realized I had fallen asleep at my work computer (fortunately I didn't do a face plant into the keyboard; imagine explaining THAT computer malady to tech support).
So, this last week, I didn't do much in the kitchen other than make a mess.  I made up for it this weekend, making some tasty suppers for the hubs and myself (HRH is choosing to stick to a diet of peanut butter & Nutella® sandwiches, Pepperidge Farm® Goldfish, and Craisins®).

Shameless plug:
couples - get this book!

Friday, I picked up some lamb shanks.  I just love lamb, but we never make it at home, as usually it's a little too pricey for this cheapskate.  However, I was, a few months ago, the fortunate winner of Table for Two, a cookbook by Warren Caterson.  It's a cookbook designed to make 2 servings of the dishes presented, which is nice for our family, as someone (I'm not gonna name names, but his title rhymes with shmusband) doesn't care for leftovers, leaving someone else (this person would be me) to try to fight her way through eating the same meal for about a week.  Anyway, he has some lovely braised lamb shanks recipes, and, well, those shanks at the store just kind of sang to me - like the sirens did to Odysseus.
I elected to make the red wine version, as we had almost all the ingredients (I substituted dehydrated orange slices for the lemon wedges, but that was my only sub).

Oh, the Bounty of the Harvest!

I had my first harvest today:

• four cherry tomatoes
• two (and the only) jalapeños

I know - amazing, right?  Aren't you jealous of the amazing bounty that the Arizona desert offered me?

Thank goodness for our CSA!  Otherwise, we might end up on that Freaky Eaters show on TLC!

Last night we had a belated birthday dinner for my husband  at his mom's.  We had steaks, and there were plenty left over (all of us only ate half a steak), so we devised a plan that incorporated that as well as plenty of fresh veggies.

The red cherry tomatoes and the jalapeños were from the garden.
Everything else, save the large tomato, was from our CSA.
The large tomato came from my mother-in-law's garden.

Best BLT Ever

My favorite sandwich has to be the bacon-lettuce-tomato.  It's true that the salty bacon and sweet acidity of the tomato work so well together.
I am often disappointed by BLTs in restaurants - the bacon is rubbery, the lettuce wilted, or the bread soggy.  But at home, I can make everything to my specifications.

Best BLT Ever

• Two slices (per person) of whole wheat bread made with my friend Christie's recipe
• As many rashers of bacon from The Pork Shop that you think you can fit in your mouth
• Thickly sliced heirloom tomato (from my mother-in-law's garden)
• Green leaf lettuce from our CSA
• Homemade aïoli

The bread must be toasted completely (Scott always says that he likes his toast toasty - it needs to be crispy and crunchy all the way through), and the bacon needs to be as crisp as possible.  The lettuce needs to be washed and then thoroughly dried.
I hate mayonnaise.  It's gross - literally gives me the dry heaves.  But thanks to a Facebook post from Hounds in the Kitchen, I mustered up the courage to try a recipe from my favorite, David Lebovitz.  Now I understand why the French dunk their Pommes Frites in the stuff.
We didn't have any Pommes Frites, but we had a few CSA carrots and some crackers with herb cream cheese on the side, and it was a great lunch for a great day.

Just Peachy!!!

I need to preface this entry by saying that the kerfuffle with Zooey on Monday isn't the reason I have been away from the blog for the week.  It was finals, and I was in a grading frenzy.  As for Devil Dog, who is currently snoozing at my feet, she turned three on Thursday and took her birthday in a barking stride.  Hopefully now that she is officially an adult coonhound, she will settle down, but I have a notion that trash bin diving will always be a hobby of hers.
But she is cute, isn't she?

Snoozing in the sun

Impromptu

We got potatoes in our CSA share this week, and Scott was all over them.  He announced that he was going to make vichyssoise, as we had also gotten leeks.  So off to the store he went for cream (and deodorant, but that wasn't for the soup), and then he got busy in the kitchen, completely ignoring the giant container of chicken stock that was already in the fridge to thaw a bag from the freezer and trying to burn down the house by broiling some bread with herbed feta (HE herbed it; it came "plain").
I had found a very simple bean salad recipe from Mark Bittman that I had planned to have for lunch, but since Scott had his own lunch while I was out donating blood, we saved it for dinner.  I used chickpeas, my favorite, and green red onions (I mean that they are baby red onions; this isn't some homage to a weird PBS series).  This really was simple, and the beauty of the recipe is that it's insanely versatile, so I can use this again a zillion times with new taste combos.  It's a great excuse to start buying my beans in bulk rather than in cans.
Since we were getting all fancy (I mean, come on - vichyssoise - that word just LOOKS fancy), we told our lemon dealer friend Danielle to invite herself over for dinner, which she did.

Anatomy of a Salad

In an attempt to balance my need to not throw any more slimy veggies into the compost bin AND use the anise-scented fennel that we got in last week's share,  I decided to make a hot salad.  Reasons:

1. It would use lettuce
2. I could roast the fennel, diluting the anise-y-ness.
3. Scott had a soccer game, so he wasn't going to eat something very heavy.
4. I was being kind of lazy.

In addition to the fennel, I chopped up some beets and the radishes that I could have sworn we had the other day but wasn't able to find until last night.  All of these were tossed in a little olive oil and thrown in the oven after I attempted to make croutons with the last few end pieces of bread that I had, sitting and taking up space in the fridge.  

I cut the pieces up into little squares and tossed them in a bowl with olive oil, cracked black pepper, salt, garlic powder, and onion powder.  Then I threw them in the oven for about 15 minutes at 400°.

a leeeeetle crispy...

The good news is that I made enough croutons to go on the salad.  The bad news is that I still ended up burning over half of them.

Still terrified that I would suffer through a licorice salad, I roasted the veggies until the fennel was crispy and kind of black.  At least the beets were tender, right?

Then, I constructed.

Lettuce Pray

One of the items we receive regularly from our CSA this season is lettuce.  We've gotten both red leaf and green leaf.

Now, I don't want to complain, as this is fantastic, fresh, and flavorful (you gotta love alliteration), not to mention absolutely beautiful.  And lettuce grows like gangbusters here in Arizona, where there are few pests to ravage the crops.  However this bounty means that this is the one item that we CANNOT go through fast enough.  

I am trying extremely hard to reduce our overall waste, with specificity to our food waste (did you know that the average American throws out 1400 calories A DAY????).  But I feel like I am constantly peeling off the outer leaves of a head of our lettuce because it's gotten slimy and brown, tossing it in the compost bin.  And each time I do, I cringe, thinking of those leaves as dollar bills that I am throwing away.

Here's the thing: there are only so many salads that this woman can consume in a week.  And only so many sandwiches that feature lettuce.  

And that seems to be ALL lettuce is good for.  

We also get Swiss chard, arugula, spinach, collards, mustard greens, kale, etc.  These are fantastic; there is so much a person can do with these different greens.  But lettuce... I mean, really - type "lettuce recipe" into a search engine, and I challenge you to find something that doesn't also contain the words "salad" or "sandwich."  I did come across a soup recipe, but it called for some specialty lettuce, and I wasn't sure how a basic leaf variety would do as a substitute.

I'm desperate here.  If you know of a recipe that calls for lettuce but isn't a sandwich or salad, please send me the link or post the recipe.  A reward may follow.  I don't know what that reward (if there is one other than oodles of praise being sung from the rafters) might be, although the way Zooey has been behaving may result in the reward being a cute but naughty three-year-old coonhound.

But in all seriousness, I'm at the groveling stage.  

Corned Beef, Cabbage, and a Day at the Farm

I had fully planned on a detailed report of our St. Patrick's Day feast, but I'll be honest - we were so busy eating, I completely forgot to take any pictures!

However, here is the menu.  It was amazing.

Reason to Buy Local/Seasonal #1

I'm sure that somewhere, someone has already put an extensive list together, but this is my list that I'm compiling as we go along this journey, noting the discoveries as they happen.
I often think that my daughter is the world's pickiest eater.  Now, I understand that this is a title that most parents bestow upon their children, so I know that I'm not alone in my desperate search for foodstuffs that she will eat and that I would like her to eat.
After working her way through half of a peanut butter sandwich this evening, she wanted something more but wasn't in the mood to eat the dried cranberries that also graced her plate.
So, I attempted something daring.
"How about a carrot?"
Her response shocked me: "Please."
Heck, yeah!!!!!!  We had just gotten the cutest bunch of carrots from our CSA this weekend - the first ones we've gotten since joining in the late summer, so I grabbed the smallest of the bunch (we're not trying to save the entire world all in one fell swoop, after all) and gave it to her.
She ate it.  The WHOLE THING.
She even deemed it "Delicious!"
Woo hoo!! (insert mommy happy dance)
HRH didn't want more, but she ate that little carrot, and that's a big step.
I had one myself, and it was so good - it tasted like a carrot should taste.  If you have only ever had carrots from the supermarket, you haven't tasted a "real" carrot.  I HATE carrots.  Actually, no.  I hate carrots from the supermarket.  They don't taste good.  They're not fresh.  But pluck a carrot straight from the ground and offer it to me, I'll take it down.  And apparently, so will HRH.

So, reason to buy local/seasonal #1 - my child actually might eat and enjoy it.

"'Get Your Pies for the Great Pie Fight!'"*

Happy (belated) National Pie Day!  When I learned of this (the same way all my other friends did - via NPR), I was furious at not having marked such an important holiday on my calendar with several reminders.
That led to a bit of a scramble.  And not the delicious, eggy kind.
We already had plans to head to Scott's mom's house in the afternoon for a family get together, for which I had volunteered to make a salad.  We had so many greens that we literally did NOT have room in the fridge for them and everything else we already had in there.
There was only one teeny tiny leetle issue.  The outlet in our garage that powered our refrigerator went kaputt, and while Scott managed to run an extension cord to another outlet for the night, he spent all morning going back and forth to the hardware store, trying to get all the necessary items to fix it.  Sadly, it was beyond the capacity at which I was willing to let him risk zapping himself, so we have to call in an electrician.  For the meantime, our temporary fix works, so we didn't have to lose any of the ravioli, stock, or pasties that I had saved.
Of course, while Scott was being Mr. Fix-It, I had to tend to HRH, who was a ball of fire, nearly running up and down the stairs, playing ball, jumping on her trampoline, and generally being full of P&V.  Thus, it wasn't until I was able to put her down for her nap (late, which seems to be her usual anymore) that I could really begin my prep work in the kitchen.
In between stair sessions, I was able to find a recipe for a Shaker lemon pie.  The Shakers were a religious group founded around the time of the Revolutionary War, an off-shoot from the Quakers.  The height of their faith was before the Civil War, and many Shakers (so called because of their practice of shaking when moved by the Holy Spirit), lived in Ohio.
From what I understand, this pie recipe was created after several Shakers made a trip down the Mississippi River from Ohio to New Orleans, where they came across lemons.  Not wanting to waste any of the fruit, they came up with a pie recipe that is not a meringue-like pie but not a custard-like pie, either.  It's kind of a cross of the two, but with a double crust, and the lemons are sliced thinly, as one would apples.

Yes, I totally reused this picture.
But lemons sitting in sugar look
the same as lemons sitting in water.

I didn't want to make a lemon meringue pie (I really didn't feel like tackling meringue in my small window), but I wanted to do SOMETHING, so I thought this was a good plan.
The first step that involves slicing the lemons and having them sit in sugar was easy, and I did that first so that I could meet the minimum time requirement set forth in the recipe that I followed.  Then I made the pate brisee.  I was pretty excited to pull out my new Cuisinart® food processor again, and I was really, really, REALLY pleased with how it turned out.  I mean, I liked this recipe before (I always use it when making fruit pies), but the dough was SO rollable this time, so perhaps my days with the pastry cutter are over (I kind of shudder to think - there is something comforting about such an activity).

Can you believe these are TURNIPS?
How gorgeous are they????

While the lemons were sugaring and the pate briseeing, I threw together the salad.  Everything BUT the green beans (left over from my pickle brine recycling experiment) were from Desert Root Farms.  The star was really the scarlet queen red salad turnip.  This baby came with directions on the label - to serve raw or lightly cooked.  So we followed directions and didn't use them in the latkes the other night, reserving them instead for the salad (they are crunchy and earthy - very nice!).  To that I added dill, and I tossed those three simple items over a mix of spinach, red leaf, and green leaf.

Shake-shake-shake...

Of course, when one is making a fresh salad, it would NOT be apropos to use a bottled dressing (OK, I am a snob; I admit it).  But come on - you already know I have all the ingredients to make a vinaigrette, right?  Lemons, olive oil, mustard, and more dill with just a wee bit of salt, all emulsified with a good dose of elbow grease.
OK, so back to the pie.  Once we were showered and HRH woke up from her nap, we packed up the car (seriously, it was like packing for a three-day trip, and we were driving thirty minutes away) and headed out.  Once at our destination, I rolled out the pate brisee, whisked up some eggs, added them to the lemon mixture, and popped it in the oven.
While it was cooling, everyone ate dinner, and the dressing was used up and the mustard smeared on burger buns.  I am pleased to note that the mustard DID mellow but stayed nice and scharf, a nice accompaniment to a good ol' cheddar cheeseburger.

The air vents were in the shape
of a "T" for Tay's birthday.

I'm not sure how I felt about the pie, but the family SAID they liked it.  It was tart - but it's supposed to be.  I think I might add just a little more sugar AND let the lemons sit at least overnight to mellow out just a little more.  Also, the custard part of the pie didn't totally set up, but I think that's mostly because we didn't let it cool to its optimal room temperature.  All in all, though, this is a recipe I would not mind tweaking to make my own.
The last thing I did before the weekend ended was to make cinnamon sugar, which was not really much of a feat (mix cinnamon and sugar in cannister - shake vigorously - sprinkle on toast/tortilla/spoon), but I was seething from not being able to obtain my precious vanilla beans to make my extract and sugar ("we regret that we are temporarily out of vanilla beans"), so I felt like I needed to do something with sugar to channel that crushed hope in a more positive manner.

*Clearly, I am on a Mel Brooks kick here - this is a line from Blazing Saddles.  If you can't place the line, you need to watch the movie again.