Off to Greece and off the grid!

Goodbye! I'm heading to Greece today for a week. My house over there has no electricity and is only accessible by motor boat or hiking, so needless to say, I will not be blogging. I will, however, be cooking lots of yummy Greek food (tzatziki, saganaki, moussaka...), reading a lot, and hanging out with 12 of my nearest and dearest. I am so, so excited. Have a wonderful 4th of July!

 Cliff jumping

 The view

Vegetable Garden Week 14

Hello! Another garden update. Everything looks good and we had more snap peas than ever. We still haven't finished eating them! I also had some beets and made beet chips - super tasty. And made our first fried zucchini blossoms of the season. More below.

Carrots in love!!

Beet Chips

Look at my pretty chioggia beets! Aren't they so cool looking? I made beet chips with them last night. They're so easy, really quick, and an amazing crunchy, sweet, and salty combination. Highly recommend! The bullseye pattern is harder to see once they're cooked, but they still look cool.

Ingredients:
Chioggia beets (or any beets) thinly sliced with a mandolin
Oil
Salt

Snap Pea Pesto

I could have sworn my friend Kara told me about snap pea pesto and I'd been dying to try it since last summer and have been anxiously waiting for my snap peas to come out. When I asked her about it, she had no idea. Maybe I dreamed  it? Either way, I tried it out last night. Yum! It's really simple and fresh and summery.

Serves 2-4
Ingredients:
2 cups snap peas (pull off the strings)
4 basil leaves
1/2 large or 1 whole small clove of garlic, mashed into a paste with some kosher salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 cup-1 cup grated Pecorino Romano or Parm
pasta (I used gemelli)

Chili Lobster

As you may know, I love Fatty Crab, and their chili crab is one of the signature dishes. When Jamie sent me this recipe from the New York Times last week, I was happy to make it. Though it's totally a labor of love and you need to set aside about 4 hours for the whole process, it's really delicious and special. We had it for a little Father's Day dinner with my parents. You'd think the chili sauce might overpower the lobster, but the super lobstery broth prevents it. The whole dish is totally lobstery and the chili sauce has just the right amount of heat, and so much flavor. If you need to serve a lobster-lover something special, this is it.

Serves 4

Veggie Garden Week 13

Everything is looking good!

I pulled out a couple more beets that were too close to others so that the others can grow. Aren't they pretty/cool looking?

Fancy Birthday Cake

It's my dear friend Charlie's 25th birthday so I wanted to make him a special birthday cake. I rarely go on Pinterest, but there are fancy cakes all over the place. I love the look of the ombre cakes - where there are like 8 layers inside going from one shade gradually lighter, lighter, lighter. I saw this one and thought I could try to copy it, but make it a little easier. I loved the look of the sprinkles all over the outside. I opted for just three layers, and a simpler color scheme - red, orange, yellow. I think everyone liked it!

Ingredients:
2 boxes white cake mix (and whatever they require)
2 containers frosting
Food die
Rainbow nonpareil sprinkles

Easy Linguine with Clams

Our adorable intern brought in a whole slew of clams yesterday from her dad's fishing company - thanks, Shannon! I wanted to make an easy dinner because I was a little pressed for time so I did a simple linguine with clams. It's delicious and easy, I just wish I'd bought some good bread to soak up the broth!

Cook linguine in well salted water until al dente. Then pour into a strainer and toss with a little olive oil so it doesn't stick together. Immediately return the pot to the burner and add olive oil, a minced garlic clove, and some red pepper flakes. Saute the garlic for about a minute (less if it starts to brown) and then add the clams, carefully so they don't crack, and a tablespoon or two of water. Put the lid on the pot and let the clams steam until they open - about 5 minutes. Once open, turn off the heat, return the noodles to the pot, and if you have it, add a fresh herb like parsley or basil. Toss it all together and serve! Easy. Make sure to have a bowl on the table to throw the shells.

Fried Chicken and Waffles

So, being engaged is great. I keep getting all of these wonderful presents! My awesome future sisters-in-law threw me a shower last weekend (thank you!) and one of the lovely gifts I received was a waffle iron. Jamie was so excited and insisted on having waffles for dinner one night this week. I saw this as an opportunity to finally try fried chicken and waffles. I'd heard about it, but never actually had it. Boy was I missing out! Not exactly wedding-diet material, but if you want a really hearty, really delicious dinner, this is it. And we topped it off with some Champagne because, why not?

I got the fried chicken recipe from Cook's Illustrated and it's safe to say it's the best fried chicken I've ever had (and certainly ever made). It does require some time (and I even cut back from the 5 hour prep they suggested to 2 hours because it was after work). The brine is incredibly flavorful and really soaks into the chicken, and the crust is unbelievably crispy - with juicy, juicy meat inside. Home run! Jamie loved the combination of the maple syrup and the crispy fried chicken.

Garden Week 12

Everything looks awesome, and we had tons of peas! (I also yanked another carrot with overcrowding as my excuse. It's just too fun to pull them out.)

Those on the left are the Organic Pea Wando and on the right are the Sugar Snap (both Burpee). The Wando are not as tall and a little flatter and the Snap Peas are like 7 feet tall.

Easy Spring Bruschetta

Tomatoes aren't great yet in the spring, so bruschetta isn't always terribly appetizing. The trick to dodging mealy tomatoes is just using grape tomatoes. They're always firm and flavorful. For this bruschetta, I used the garlic scapes I accidentally pulled out last week and they gave a great fresh garlic flavor to the mix. We also forgot to buy a baguette, so we just used regular sliced bread toasted with olive oil and salt - surprisingly delicious and less messy to eat!

Just cut the grape tomatoes into little pieces, mince the scape (or garlic) and toss with salt and olive oil to taste. The secret it letting it sit a while to let the flavors mingle. Then spread some bread with olive oil and salt and put under the broiler. I tip I learned somewhere along the way is rubbing the toasts with a clove of garlic. It gives them an extra hit of it. Then top it with the tomato mix. Yum! (And feel free to change it around or add mozzarella or basil or anything - it's not a science.)

Strawberry Shortcake

Nothing really tells me it's summer quite like eating strawberry shortcake for dessert. I've always just made what my mom makes - the classic Bisquick recipe. The whole thing takes about 20 minutes and it's so sweet and tart from the strawberries and the syrup from the mixture soaks into the bottom piece of shortcake. Yum! (I actually just ate another helping for breakfast! I'm stuffed, but couldn't resist.) Usually I would use homemade whipped cream, but we already had ReadyWhip so I just went with it.

Serves 6
Ingredients:
4 cups sliced strawberries
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/3 cup Bisquick
2/3 cup milk
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp melted butter
whipped cream

Week 11

The garden looks amazing! Everything is really starting to grow quickly. There were some peas (it seems the "pea wando" peas I planted in the first bed are actually snow peas not snap peas because they're flat). Next weekend we should have a lot more, and there were some babies forming.

I was impatient and pulled out a beet and a carrot. It was so satisfying! The chioggia beet had these beautiful circles on the inside, and the little baby carrot was crunchy and tasty.