Vegetable Garden June 22 (Week 14)

Garden's looking great! We have a ton of snappeas and lots and lots of zucchini blossoms. (Fried zucchini blossoms are one of my very favorite summer treats.) Also got our first zucchini, and our first cherry bomb pepper (but it's still green, so I'm waiting on it). Some deer have been nibbling on the tomato and zucchini plants, which has never happened, so I sprayed extra deer spray on. Hopefully this week they'll be okay.

Cherry Bomb Pepper

Instagram and Happy Hours

To celebrate the launch of the new Laforet Chardonnay and Laforet Pinot Noir, Joseph Drouhin is hosting Happy Hours across the country where the wines will be poured at $5 a glass. They're also running an Instagram contest and the grand prize is $5,000! All you Instagrammers out there just need to take pictures that are in the spirit of summer and tag #summeroflaforet. The Insta with the most likes wins.

Good luck!

NY Times Lamb Sausage with Grilled Onions

I made this a few weekends ago and it was a huge success. I love lamb, and the sausages have such great flavor. With fresh lettuce, grilled onions, good tomatoes, and the spice dressing all topped with cilantro, it's an excellent summer dinner. It was supposed to have zucchini, too, but I totally forgot to buy zukes. Turned out great anyway!

Ingredients: 
For sausage

3 pounds ground lamb, or a mixture of half lamb and half beef or veal

2 teaspoons toasted cumin seeds

2 teaspoons toasted coriander seeds

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

6 allspice berries

2 teaspoons salt, more as needed

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

Pinch cinnamon

4 tablespoons mild paprika

8 large garlic cloves, smashed to a paste

Spicy Linguine with Clams

This is a great dinner. The spicy sausage goes really well with the briny clams. Jamie and I devoured it.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 spicy Italian sausage link, casings removed

2 lb clams, scrubbed thoroughly

1 large shallot, minced

4 cloves garlic, minced

Olive oil

3 plum tomatoes, diced

Red pepper flakes

1 cup white wine

Linguine

Parsley, minced

Battersby

Wow! This was amazing. My wonderful sister-in-law, Katie, sponsored a nice dinner out for me and Jamie and we tried the tasting menu at Battersby on Smith Street. We were totally blown away. The food was incredible, and just perfectly, perfectly seasoned. I felt so full leaving after five courses and a few amuses bouches, but I would go back any night. Can't wait to try it a la carte. Highly recommend the 5-course tasting menu for a nice dinner. It's $65 per person.

Here's how it went...
1st amuse bouche: a shot of vichyssoise

2nd amuse bouche: an incredible little toast spread with chicken liver mouse and a thin slice of mushroom

Bread: this amazing rosemary focaccia and fresh ricotta, wow

1st course: spring pea salad with snap peas and fresh peas with lemon and pecorino

Fried Scallops

Did anyone else see the Fried Scallops recipe in the Times? It's great! So simple. I quartered it to have it as an appetizer and it was a huge success. I will definitely be making them again. I also mixed up a quick sriracha mayo for dipping.

Ingredients:
1 lb sea scallops
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup corn meal
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup canola oil

mayo, sriracha, and a squeeze of lemon for dipping

Vegetable Garden June 1 (Week 11)

Everything is growing! I can't wait until we have some tomatoes. I planted some marigolds and zinnias this weekend, so now there's a little color. All of the tomatoes, especially those we plated first in the wall-o-waters are growing and are about 2 feet already. The peas are almost three feet high. The lettuce is huge. Everything just looks great, except for one pepper plant that was being eaten by bugs a little. I sprayed it so hopefully it will recover.

 Rhubarb

 Garden (the pie tin apparently scares the deer)