Day Fifty-three--Fruit, Cheese and Bread

Once in a while we have a night where no one is particularly hungry and we go for the light dinner. Tonight was one of those nights. The inspiration for our dinner came from our day.

It was a beautiful day. The highs were in the high 60's (which is great for June) and the sun was high in the sky. Early in the morning, I had gotten everything done in the house that I wanted and I didn't want to just burn the day inside. I did a quick check on the "pick your own" site and found a farm near us that had pick your own strawberries. Since we've gone to mostly seasonal eating, we were dying for fruit.

The boys and I walked to Tim's office to pick up the car and then headed out to the hills. We went back roads all the way, had the windows open and the music loud. It was so much fun. We spent about an hour picking until our fingers were stained red. On the way home, we passed a little farm stand at a local orchard so I stopped to see if they had anything available. I was able to get a big bag of apples and some local cheese. It was so funny because as we were driving home the boys and I shared one of the apples. We were all so appreciative for the sweet juicy fruit. This apple had been grown on a tree close to our home. It was so delicious and we tore through it.

We got home and had a huge mess to clean up after our dog had gotten very sick. After cleaning that up and giving Patchy a bath, Tim was home from work. So, I through a loaf of bread into the oven and we cut up a couple of apples, some strawberries, some fresh cherries and the cheese. That was our dinner. And you know what? It was perfect. It was all local. It was all fresh. It was just what we needed after being out in the fresh air all afternoon.


A light delicious dinner.

After dinner, Tim went to aikido and I made some shortcakes to enjoy some more of the berries. As for the rest of the berries (we came home with three very big bowls of them) they are destined to be jam today. It's supposed to rain all day so I can't think of anything better to do today. I'll hole up in the kitchen with my Glee soundtrack blasting and jam jars getting filled. Life is good.

Day Thirty-eight--Friends over for dinner

What an amazing dinner we had last night. I'm sorry I'm posting later than usual but I'm slow moving today. Our good friends came over yesterday to spend the day. We spent a couple of hours wandering around looking at various artistic endeavors on display out our Fine Arts Fiesta. We had fun explaining to our boys the point behind "punch bug" punching...it's NOT just picking a color of a car and then punching, but when you see a VW. We came back to the house and I got a couple of loaves of bread rising so that we could have fresh bread with dinner.

Around 4 pm we started getting things ready to roll. I had made a big batch of couscous salad earlier and the bread was baking. Tim got the steaks all ready and then he and the boys head out to the grill. Carrie and I set the patio table and I got the asparagus all dressed with olive oil, salt, pepper and minced garlic. For once, everything was done all at the same time. It couldn't have worked out any easier.

Steak, Couscous salad and roasted asparagus

We ate outside and enjoyed a beautiful bottle of wine. Then we enjoyed an amazing port wine. Then we enjoyed some of Tim's favorite whiskey. Then we enjoyed some tequila. Yes, it was one of those nights. The kids entertained themselves and let us adults have some "play" time. We stayed out until it was dark the mosquitoes were swarming. It really was a perfect evening shared between good friends and we all enjoyed some great food. Who needs anything more than that?

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. It's time for me to now figure out what will be on next week's menu and figure out when I want to get out of my pajamas and go to Wegmans. That might be tomorrow. Until later, happy cooking!

Day Thirty-six--Beans and Cornbread

I'm back in the saddle again. I am posting right after dinner instead of passing out and blogging the following morning. *fist pump*

Seriously though, dinner was a keeper. I call it our "cowboy" dinner. It actually worked today for a couple of reasons. The main reason was the weather was crappy today. It was damp, grey and cold. This dinner was warm and comforting. The other reason is because Connor and I worked pretty much all day on a social studies project (the last one of the year) about the gold rush. He had to draw a map of one of the major trails that led to California. He chose the Oregon-California trail. He had to draw the map and then put at least 3 landmarks on it. He put the major stops on the trail and the Rocky Mountains and a couple of rivers. Then he had to pretend he was a prospector riding on that trail and write a journal describing his travels. It had to be at least 2 pages long. It took us all day and he ended up turning in a 4 page journal with pictures. It was a lot of fun though. Both of us learned a lot and we've decided we want to go see some of the ghost towns left behind.

So, now that I've explained why this dinner was perfect for tonight, let me tell you what we had. We had a big pot of beans and cornbread.

Pinto Beans with cornbread

This dinner evolved from a quick conversation I had with my mom last week. I had the misfortune (for them) to call them just as they were sitting down to dinner and I asked what they were having. They were having beans and cornbread. It struck me as really weird because not ten minutes earlier Tim had said he had been wanting some cornbread. I think I've made cornbread 2 times in our nearly 11 years of marriage. It just all came together at once. The universe aligned, if you will.

Remember when I mentioned yesterday when I said I was procrastinating when I was making menus? Well, I googled beans and cornbread and The Pioneer Woman popped up. This is the blog that I knew my mother watched and I ended up pouring over her blog. It's like eye candy. She is so talented and I'm so jealous. Anyhow, I grabbed this recipe and a couple other ones for this week.

This meal was so easy and dare I say cheap? It was two bags of dried pinto beans and one ham steak. I got the ham steak at the dairy and it was from a local farm that raises healthy little piggies. I just chopped up the ham steak and threw it in the pot with the beans and water. It sat on the stove cooking for a couple of hours. I walked by once in a while and stirred it and added water a couple of times. That's it. Oh, I did throw some salt and pepper in at the end, but that was all. The cornbread came together really fast. I made it in my cast iron skillet. Nancy picked us up a cast iron skillet last year at an auction. I had searched tag sales all summer to find one and couldn't and then she scored one. Thanks Nancy. We use it every day. The cornbread was super easy to make and I loved the crazy sizzle it made when I poured the batter into the hot skillet. I imagined my grandmother making her cornbread the same way.

Cornbread fresh out of the oven.

The dinner was enjoyed by most. We all loved the cornbread (although I will admit it was a little too salty and will use less salt next time) and three of the four of us liked the beans. Connor (shocking) didn't particularly care for the beans. I think part of it was because he knew there were fresh brownies cooling on the counter and wanted to get to dessert. I have a ton leftover so I know what I'll be having for lunch.

I also wanted to share my thoughts about the 5 Minute Artisan Bread book that I got. I've only made two batches of this bread so far. The first time I had to tweak the recipe because I didn't have enough white flour and I had to use whole wheat. It still rose and it tasted alright. It was really salty though. It makes me wonder if our tastes are changing. I usually don't have issues with salt. It's starting to bug me when things are too salty now though. I guess this is to be expected though when we aren't eating any pre-packaged foods anymore. For the second batch, I cut back the salt and had enough flour. The bread is amazing. I've made a fresh loaf of bread every day this week. The dough sits in a container in the fridge and you grab a wad of dough and let it rise for about 40 minutes and then you bake it for 30 minutes. Out comes a beautiful crusty loaf of bread. The crust is so crispy and the inside is so soft and chewy. We are finally starting to go through some of my jams that I made last year.

Fresh out of the oven.

So, all in all, it was a good day to have the oven running because it didn't really get warmer than about 52. It warmed the house up and made it smell so good. Dinner was delish. Blogging done same day. Good day!! Until tomorrow, happy cooking!