Posts from — July 2019

Until it cools off, I am going to be lucky to get one post up each week. Between my work on Harmony Boards, driving around town with deliveries and family commitments, I have zero energy or desire to cook. That’s the greatest thing about living alone, you don’t have to cook if you don’t want to!

With that in mind, I haven’t cooked for weeks, so I had to go back nearly two months to Father’s Day to dig up this recipe and photos.

Of course, there was a Father’s Day Harmony Board. I kept light and fairly healthy since steak was on the menu.

I wasn’t certain what I was going to make for Father’s Day dinner until I went to Costco and saw the special Father’s Day Roadshow they had in the meat section. It was there that I found this beautiful U.S.D.A. Prime cut of meat.

To be honest, I’d never seen or heard of a Beef Ribeye Cap Steak before but it looked beautiful and impressive, so I snatched it right up.

The helpful and kind butcher told me it was his favorite cut and recommended that I grill it over medium-high direct heat for about 7 minutes for this thickness. “Thank you, will do!”

Remember: Be sure to always rest meat before cutting. Especially when using it in a salad like this was. Resting the meat gives time for the juices to get back into the meat. You will lose less juice when you cut it and when you eat it the meat will be juicier and tastier. If you cut it too soon, the juices, which will look like blood, will flow out and that is not a nice look on a salad!

I haven’t been cooking much. It’s just too hot! But over the weekend, I put my big-girl pants on, braved the heat and hit the stove. I’ve made this pasta before and added shrimp to it. It is refreshing and tasty both ways.

Of course, dinner was served inside. I can not wait to eat al fresco again. October can not get here soon enough! How are you all coping with the heat? If you have any fun ideas or tips, please leave them in the comments, I really need ’em.

This recipe was supposed to post last week two days after the Peach and Pluot Caprese Salad recipe. I thought I had it correctly scheduled in the queue but turns out I dated it for 2020. Oops!

Oh well, although the peaches from my tree are long gone, at least there are still peaches in the markets. You’ll notice in the photos that I was using very small peaches that were just cut in half and pitted. That is what my tree produced this year. I’ve written the recipe to reflect using regular size peaches and cutting each into 8 wedges.

TIP: You have probably noticed that when you are reading a recipe, it often states to cut an ingredient into 1-inch, 2-inch, or some other size pieces. Maybe you get out a ruler or maybe you just guess. I have another way for you to do it and get the correct size without fishing around for a ruler. I use my finger as a measurement tool. For instance, for this recipe, the onions are cut into 2-inch pieces. I know that the length of my pinky is 2-inches. So I use it as a marker to cut the first piece and then use that piece as a guide to just the rest. Yep, it’s as easy as that.

It was about 15 months ago that I had a new little peach tree planted. No, that is not it in the photo above. That is the peach tree from my last house that got so large and so loaded down with peaches that nearly all the branches broke off. That tree was removed when we remodeled the backyard and a new smaller tree was planted.

It was a dwarf peach and as little as it was, it was mighty. It produced the most lovely perfect peaches.

This is my newest peach tree. I stripped it clean of all the ripe peaches over the weekend.

As you can see, the peaches were very petite for this first harvest.

But there were lots of them! I decided that there was too much skin to flesh ratio to be used in desserts, so I used them in savory dishes instead.

The first dish is a salad. A twist on the classic Caprese. I threw in some apriums, also known as pluots. Apriums and pluots are hybrids of apricots and plums.

A pluot is mostly plum, it looks more like a plum than an apricot. The flesh is soft and grainy, unlike the firm flesh of a plum. The aprium, on the other hand, has skin covered with slight fuzz and tastes like a sweeter apricot with a hint of plum.

Two recipe notes: I used balsamic vinegar for my vinaigrette, but I strongly suggest using white balsamic vinegar instead. The dark dressing made the salad less attractive than it should have been. It tasted great, but the dressing covered up the beautiful colors of the fruit, tomatoes and basil. It did nothing for the mozzarella either. I also had a log of sliced fresh mozzarella on hand, so used it instead of the mozzarella balls listed in the recipe. If you have to go out and buy the cheese, get the cute little rounds.

I believe this is the last of the recipes from Anne’s birthday dinner. Don’t you love dragging out birthdays for a month!?!

The peas I used are the same that I used in this recipe for Easter. I found them in the fresh produce section of Trader Joe’s. Since they are only available for a limited time, I bought a few packages and froze them for the long hot summer.

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Independence Day.

Happy 243rd birthday USA! Are you old enough to remember the bicentennial? Doesn’t that number make you feel old!

Berries and lemon curd are one of my absolute favorite desserts. And the red white and blue of it all make for the perfect patriot dessert. Mixing whipped cream into the curd mutes the yellow color and passes for the white needed for that RWB combo. I made this trifle for my final series at Les Gourmettes. I was not able to snap a photo of the finished product, so above is a similar photo I swiped (and gave credit for) from the internet.

Tip: When whipping cream in a standing mixer, place a towel over the mixer to prevent splattering.

When I went in search of a prepared pound cake, I found this package at Costco. I used both the lemon and the raspberry for my recipe. Usually, I use a plain pound cake so this was a fun and tasty twist.