Red, White, and Blue - A Zabaglione Love Story, and 4th of July Round-Up!

Fourth of July!

It's one of my favorite holidays, seriously.  Next to Thanksgiving, that is.  There's a pretty close race between the two.  But the Fourth of July holds many special memories and feelings for me.  My grandmother was born on the 4th of July, and this year will be celebrating her 90th birthday on that day.  The hubs celebrates his birthday less than a week later, so I always relate the holiday to him as well.  We have many special memories together out on a boat watching the fireworks, and the celebratory atmosphere filled with fun and love and food along with the intense sparkle of color seems like a fitting match for our relationship.  This year, I've finally attempted to make a dessert that also says a lot about us.

Strawberry Bonanza Part 5 - Strawberry Gin Fizz

So, remember that roasted strawberry syrup?  No?  Oops, because I haven't posted it yet.  Have to fix that...

So, toss a couple of cups of chopped strawberries with 2-3 Tablespoons of sugar and the seeds of a whole vanilla bean.  Spread them out on a parchment-covered baking sheet with edges, then bake at 375 for about 20 minutes.

CSA Share - Summer Week 1 and Asian Pesto

It's finally summer season for our CSA!  Unlike spring and fall, where we get shares every week, we opt to go every other week through the summer.  With my own garden going so well, and my addiction to farmers' markets, it seems to be the right choice for us.  Although the way my kids are eating and growing lately, next year may be the year we go to weekly summer pick-ups.  So this is our first week of summer shares, but it's the farm's second summer share...for the sake of my sanity, I'm just going to number them on my own.  So, share number one:

We've got romaine lettuce, snap peas, bok choy, zucchini, summer squash, komatsuna, green onions, garlic scapes, and Tokyo Bekana, which is totally new to me!  It's an Asian green, that tastes very similar to cauliflower to me.

Strawberry Bonanza Part 4 - Basil Angel Food Cake with Strawberry Sauce

I am a total sucker for homemade angel food cake.  And lucky for me, the hubs is as well.  Angel food cake is one of those super-impressive-yet-not-impossible-to-make dishes that I love to whip out on a special occasion.  Like, say, a Thursday.  The week's worn you down, but you still have to get through more before the weekend...Thursdays should totally be angel food cake day.

Pesto for Dessert? Absolutely!

My kids are well aware of the weirdness that dances through my head, and sometimes, they are my best sounding boards.  So when I brought up the idea of a dessert pesto to them, I was expecting some good feedback.  What I got went a little like this:

"Hey guys, what do you think about me trying to make a dessert pesto?"

"Ew."
"Yeah, ew."
"Like with cheese?  Ew"

"No, not with cheese, sillies!  I was thinking of making it with mint."

"Mom, mint is NOT going to go well with garlic!"
"Yeah, totally ew."
"I'm not going to eat that."

Strawberry Bonanza Part 3 - Strawberry Pineapple Salsa with Black Beans

Again with the culinary mad science.  Faced with that 54 pounds of fresh strawberries that I may have mentioned before, my brain has been spinning out of control with ideas about how to use them.  It started churning as we were in the fields picking, and it continues to spin like a whirling dervish.  Last night, I started playing with the idea of strawberries and black beans together.  Because I really enjoy black beans.  But it didn't seem like a natural fit at first...until I started to think salsa.  Strawberries, black beans, cilantro, pineapple, green onions, and a little kick of pepper...awwwwww yeah.

Strawberry Bonanza Part 2 - Strawberry Rhubarb Blondies

You know that something is good when you see people's eyes sparkle when they first taste it.  Well, when my kids first tasted these Strawberry Rhubarb Blondies, not only did I see that sparkle, I also got tackled with hugs and praise.  Now if that isn't a seal of approval, I don't know what is!

Blondies are some of the simplest treats to bake up, and adding the trusty duo of strawberry and rhubarb makes them just irresistible!

Strawberry Bonanza Part 1 - Quick and Easy Strawberry Malts

This post is going to be short and sweet.  You see, the kids and I went strawberry picking today, and I may have been a little greedy...we picked 8 buckets of berries, roughly 54 pounds in all, in just under an hour out in the fields.

Turns out, 54 pounds is a LOT of strawberries.  So I've spent most of the day in the kitchen, trying to get them taken care of, because fresh strawberries don't keep well for very long.  So I'm pretty beat.

But after we got home from picking, I made a special treat for the kids.  All right, it was as much for me as it was for them.  Strawberry malts.

CSA Share - Spring Week 4 and Carrot Top Arugula Pesto

It's the last week of our spring CSA, and while endings make me a little sad, it also makes me excited to think about the upcoming main season share we have to look forward to!  Plus, this is one of my favorite hauls yet:

Spinach, carrots, beets, arugula (double, because the hubs traded our lettuce for more!), snap peas, and garlic scapes!

Overnight Waffles

I've talked before about my love of Mollie Katzen's overnight waffle recipe.  The waffles come out just perfectly: crisp, light, full of flavor, yet able to take on whatever we want to throw on top.  At some points of the year, it's almost a weekly thing.  And while "overnight" would imply that it's time consuming and labor intensive, it is simple and (except for the overnight sit) quick.

The only problem with the original recipe is that we needed more waffles!  But a double batch was too many.  I found that a batch and a half worked out about right, and we still have a waffle or two to freeze for popping in the toaster another morning.  So, here's what I did, recipe adapted from Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe by Mollie Katzen.

Brown Butter Basil Caramels

Oh my yum.

I want to write something witty, I really do, but my brain is not quite all there today.  Long story involving giggly third graders sleeping over and sleep deprivation, and, quite possibly, sugar overload from sampling this recipe of caramels I just made.

Brown butter basil caramels.

CSA Share - Spring Week 3 and Unlimited Potential Spinach

In this week's CSA, we're starting to see a bit more color!  Along with a ton of green, that is.  And I was so excited for the new veggies!

We got massive bags of both spinach and lettuce, radishes, bok choy, beets, and sugar snap peas.

Purple Pesto

Some divine hand has been practically desperate for me to notice chives.  They keep popping up everywhere.  More specifically, chive flowers.  Amy had some flowering chives on her truck last week when she came to drop off my milk and eggs.  Then I noticed more of them being sold this weekend at Green City Market.  My kids keep bringing them in from our yard.  Today, not more than a couple of hours after I gave a friend a split of my chive plant and told her how yummy the blossoms were in salads, there was a posting on a Facebook page that I follow about chive blossoms in salad.

Party Time - A Brainy Party!

So, if you follow me on Facebook, you might have noticed that I pretty much went off radar for the weekend, because we had a big framily (close friends and family) party for my little two...who I guess are getting to be not so little anymore.  Sigh.

My youngest two have birthdays a week apart, so we just have the party for both of them, but sometimes, deciding on a party theme is rough.  This year, my son wanted Thomas the Tank Engine, and my daughter wanted zombies.  They discussed amongst themselves and told me that they had decided that we should have a Thomas the Zombie Tank Engine Party.  Ummmm...

Yeah, I was not up to that creative challenge this time of year.  So I started showing them ideas of cool projects we could do, things that I thought they might like, and we decided on this "Use your Brain" party.  A little art, a little science, a lot of fun.

And I mean a LOT of fun!  We had so much fun, that I decided to share the activities with you here.