For the last two years, I’ve served as the vice-president of our HOA. I decided not to run again so yesterday my term ended. On Monday night, I hosted our annual meeting to vote on new board members.

I love my neighbors and I love my neighborhood, so it’s always a joy to cook for them. These next few days I’ll share the dishes I made for the meeting, beginning with this easy and yummy dip.

Pictured above are the main ingredients, less than one package of the Boursin. Boursin comes in this three-pack at Costco and I made the recipe to use it up before the expiration date. I had bought it back in December, thinking I’d use it in some holiday cooking and entertaining, but no. Any savory flavor of Boursin would be just fine in this recipe.

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My dear friend and colleague, Kim Howard, sent me this recipe from the NY Times for my week’s worth of slow cooker recipes. I was very grateful for the recipe since it was for a pot roast. I had a serious need for a new pot roast recipe because my dad loves pot roast and had already requested it for our Sunday supper.

My “go-to” slow cooker roast recipe for my dad is This One, I was beyond excited to try something new. A huge plus was that it is by far simpler and even tastier than the old standby.

I minimally changed the original recipe, but the change I made was a major health change. How I did that was to remove a majority of the fat after cooking.

Kim, I thank you!

My dad thanks you.

Basically, we all (Dad, Dave, Connor, my visiting brother-in-law, Roger, and I) thank you for the great recipe! xoxo

By the way, the recipe for the lovely asparagus you see on the plate above will be posted later this week. It is A. MAZ. ING!

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Ropa Vieja translates to old clothes.

Not the most appetizing image, but it’s in reference to the torn or shredded beef and the slices of onion and peppers, so no worries about it all being too literal.

After I made this pot of deliciousness, to my taste, it wasn’t spicy enough. I don’t know if it was because my homegrown jalapeños weren’t hot enough or if I should just up the number of jalapeños, so I did up it from 2 to 3. If that still doesn’t do the trick, you can always serve it with some hot salsa, such as Trader Joe’s Hatch Valley Salsa. Or add a jar of it to the slow-cooker from the start, your choice.

One more choice to make is the color of your bell peppers. I like to use red, yellow, and orange for the color variety and the sweetness. But if green bell peppers are more economical or if red bells are on special, do what works for you.

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Kim made a delicious and beautiful assortment of four bruschettas for Marissa’s bridal shower. All flavors in the variety are inspired by the bruschetta menu from the ever-popular (since its opening in 2001) Postino Wine Cafe. Kim didn’t have recipes to give me, since she just throws these babies together organically and naturally. But don’t worry, I’ve written up recipes for you. There are no specific quantities, make as many or as few as you need.

At Postino, French bread is used as the base and then the slices are cut in half after they are topped. For the shower, Kim used baguettes to make smaller, more individual-sized pieces.

Bread

• 1 baguette, cut into 3/4-inch-thick slices
• Olive oil
• 3 peeled garlic cloves, flattened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Drizzle bread slices with olive oil and bake at 350 just until warm and slightly crisp.  Remove from oven and rub with garlic cloves let cool for a few minutes before topping.

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Here is the recipe for Barb’s delicious tart…. enjoy!

Asparagus and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Tart

Pastry

• 1  1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 2 tablespoons ice water

Filling

• 1 pound fresh asparagus
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 cups grated Gruyere cheese
• 1 red bell pepper, roasted, seeded, peeled, and diced
• 3 ounces cream cheese
• 1/2 heavy cream
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 whole egg
• Salt and pepper to taste

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My dear friends, Barb and Kim, made the most delicious food for Marissa’s bridal shower. Kim made four different bruschetta and Barb made a beautiful salad and savory tarts.

I didn’t get any photos of the individual dishes, so I’ll do the best I can cropping from the few buffet photos I do have, my apologies ahead of time because the photos won’t do the recipes justice.

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The main course for the Fall Picnic was two types of sandwiches, the first, a pressed sandwich, the recipe is here today. The second, a chicken sandwich … I’ll post tomorrow.

Pressed Italian Sandwiches

• 4 ciabatta rolls, cut in half horizontally
• 1/2 cup black or green olive tapenade
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 8 thin slices Genoa salami
• 4 thin slices prosciutto
• 8 slices fresh mozzarella cheese
• 2 roasted red, yellow, or orange bell peppers, sliced
• 8 large fresh basil leaves

Then spread the bottom half of each ciabatta roll with tapenade.

In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil and mustard and season with salt and pepper Drizzle the cut side of top half of each roll with the dressing.

Arrange salami on top of the tapenade, followed by the prosciutto.

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Do you remember your first artichoke?

I do!

I was about 10 years old. There was an Italian family who lived across the street, three doors down from us. The family consisted of a very handsome dad, a seriously gorgeous mom, and an only child daughter who was a year or two older than me. I idealized the girl. She was pretty and nice and very well-mannered. Their home was calm and quiet and they were polite.

At my house, we were loud and there was always at least one of the four of us kids crying, screaming, yelling, or getting in trouble at any given moment of any given day.

Their family and home were like a perfect rose among a bunch of thorns. They only lived in our neighborhood for a year or two. No wonder with all that crying, yelling, and screaming going on!

Anyhow, one summer afternoon, the girl invited me to have dinner at her house. I was so excited. I remember being on my very best behavior and minding my manners. When the mom brought dinner to the table, there were the strangest looking, yet somehow intriguing, green thorny-looking things on one of the platters.

All three of them could see by the perplexed look on my face, that I had never seen an artichoke before. Of course, they were very kind and helpful in teaching me how to pull off one leaf at a time, dip it in the melted butter and scrape it with my teeth. I remember that when I had finished all the leaves, the mom expertly cut out the artichoke heart for me. I was hooked, I was enamored, I was in love with artichokes!

We lived a block away from the intersection of Chaparral and Pima, just down from Scottsdale Community College. A year or two after my introduction to the artichoke, Artie the Artichoke was adopted as SCC’s mascot to express a difference of opinion between the students and the administration concerning budget priorities. I remember that even as an 11 or 12-year-old, I felt a special kinship with those students and was thrilled by their mascot choice.

Strange what you cling to as a kid!

I use bouquet garni for my steamed artichokes. You may recall that we made bouquet garni at last winter’s craft party. If you don’t have any one hand, just throw in a few sprigs of fresh parsley instead.

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Roasted vegetables are one of the most versatile foodstuffs to have on hand.

Case in point – I roasted up a bunch of vegetables last week for a meeting I had here at the house.

I used a few cups of the finished product for mini-pita sandwiches, which were devoured between the meeting attendees and my guys, after the meeting.

A couple of nights later I used them to make enchiladas for dinner.

And all week long, I added them to scrambled eggs for breakfast.

No need for the sandwich or egg recipes; just stuff mini-pita halves and warm in a skillet before stirring in a couple of beaten eggs. The enchilada recipe is below.

The link for how to roast the veggies has three more recipes using roasted vegetables. The only difference in how I roasted them this time, was instead of using olive oil, I sprayed the foil-lined pans with Pam, placed the vegetables on the foil, and then sprayed the vegetables again with Pam before seasoning with salt and pepper and place in the oven.

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Here, as promised, is the second salad I served on “Dinner and Cards” night this past Friday.

Another super quick and easy main course salad that is perfect for summer. It is especially easy and summer-friendly if you start with a purchased rotisserie chicken.

I was too lazy (or maybe it was just too hot to make another stop while shopping) to get a rotisserie chicken – since they don’t sell them at Trader Joe’s, which was the only stop I made.

So, I started from scratch and roasted a little organic free-range hen instead.

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