Peaches in the summer are to me what pumpkin is to others in the fall. They are, by far, my favourite summer fruit and I’ve been very lucky to live in two States that grow peaches. Getting a locally grown, red hued peach, ripe off the tree has been fairly easy for me. Continue reading
Having taken an unexpected 15 days off from blogging, you would think I’d have an excuse or even a good reason to have neglected my little space…I don’t.
I’m not sure what happened, I got to have some time free from work and was excited to get a move on with some summer recipes and piling up a back stock of posts for when I’m not so free, then…poof…laziness set in.
Well, not entirely true. I’d like to say I spent the days away lazily in bed with a good book and a steaming cuppa or parked in front of my tv eating bonbons but that didn’t happen either. The children volunteered to help at camp and my son participated, so everyday I was dropping them off and picking them up. Then mundane tasks at home that needed to be done and then such things as actually cooking dinner also had to take place. Sometimes, I just want to eat my food, I don’t want to share on Facebook, write a post, flip out my camera or Instagram anything. I went on social media fast of sorts. It’s incredibly freeing!
My free week ended and then I was slammed with work, and that explains the last few days. I’ve been trying to get this post out for the last 4 days!
I have been cooking though. Between work and home, I’ve done quite a bit, but like I said, sometimes you just want to cook and eat. I love my blog and I love what I do, but I do feel some days, that I just want to cook for the joy of it and not for social media. Am I the only one? How about y’all?
Well, I couldn’t stay away for too long. Even though I think life would be easier without sharing, I cannot imagine life without it now! Besides, without this blog, I wouldn’t have the opportunities I have now, doing a job I love and the wonderful blogger community.
A trip to the farmers market or my local farm stand is all I need to bring me back to reality! Summer and its beautiful, abundant bounty is spilling over. The vibrant colours and textures, all perfectly imperfect straight from the fields.
Strawberries, stone fruit and tomatoes are always eagerly awaited, but you know? The true star of summer is all always squash! There’s always plenty of it, so much so that we struggle to find new and unique ways to use it all. I have to admit, I always end up making the same thing. I always buy it, but it always ends up in a curry with potatoes, grilled for a vegetable salad or with grilled meats. It never makes it into a cake, muffins or fritters. Of course, there’s nothing better than grilled zucchini with a touch of vinaigrette. That’s summer.
Squash is growing really well here and my farm stand has had plenty of all different kinds of summer squash and also their flowers. The squash blossoms are beautiful. They are delicious and make for a gorgeous dish as well.
I didn’t want to overwhelm their flavour too much or destroy their general shape, so I picked a tart to showcase them. Tarts are great to show off delicate favours because the filling, most of the time, is quite unassuming. They will let the star shine, in this case, the blossoms and the goat jack cheese I found.
Wandering the aisles of Whole Foods, yes, I still go there despite all the hoopla because I still find them to have what I need and quite competitive here in Colorado. I also know what to buy and what not to buy. Honestly, people can use their heads once in a while, maybe think and use a wonderful thing called maths and work out when something just isn’t a good deal! My local Whole Foods is wonderful, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been given stuff for free because it didn’t scan or I had the wrong SKU, and they are always willing to let me sample anything. I will always pick Whole Foods over Trader Joe’s. The quality is far superior. Anyway, mini rant over.
So, while wandering the cheese coolers, I came across this goat cheese. The very friendly and knowledgeable cheese lady told me that Haystack Mountain Goat Cheese dairy, a local goat cheese dairy, mixes Hatch chiles into a goat jack cheese exclusively for Whole Foods. Oh my, is this cheese good! It shreds beautifully like a cheddar jack and melts just as beautifully. If you can find some at your local store, try it!
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Serves: 1 Tart
Hope everyone is enjoying the summer. For us, the nights and mornings are already becoming cooler and autumn is in the air methinks (yay!) We all know I’m not a summer person 🙂
School starts for my children next week. I’m still digesting the fact that I will have two in university this year, goodness. I do feel old.
Enjoy the week everyone!
These last two weeks have been unexpectedly carefree and relaxing. I took a day off from work for Eid ul Fitr and two of my classes got cancelled because people didn’t sign up soon enough. Of course, on the day of the class itself, we had about 3 or 4 phone calls from clients wanting to come to the cooking class that evening. Uhhh…I need time to shop, prep and plan! There’s a reason for a RSVP. Oh well, the no classes meant I had some free time I wasn’t expecting.
My days off from menu planning and shopping aren’t any different from my regular days. I still plan menus and shop, but for the blog. Cooking for the blog is a lot more stress free and open to pretty much anything. Right now, I’m insane over all the fresh produce.
My mind goes into over drive when I’m at the farm stand or at the produce section of the grocery store. I search out Colorado grown produce as much as I can and we are very lucky to have many farms just within driving distance from us who supply their goods to Whole Foods and other grocery stores.
I often think that I may look a tad strange as I stand there amongst the produce aisles with my little pink notebook and pen and a faraway look in my eyes. I’m thinking, planning, imagining and tasting all in my head.
How about y’all? Do you like to create, improvise or follow recipes?
I’ve always had a problem following recipes as such. I think in my life, I’ve followed maybe a handful, and that was when I wasn’t a very good cook. These days, I skim a book or recipe and then completely change it. I think I enjoy coming up with my own flavour profiles these days. Maybe it’s because of the cooking events I do and the demos; I have to plan a menu that can showcase the many features of a brand and sometimes that means changing a recipe or method.
Last night for dinner, I threw together an idea of something I had in my head. I had a pile of turnip greens and beet greens that were leftover when I roasted beets. I threw them on a sheet tray with some olive oil and baked them, some turned crispy, some were still soft but they had a lovely chewy texture to them. I had two little turnips so I sliced them up and threw them into a quick pickle. Sautéed some broccolini with roasted garlic, boiled some pasta, opened a tin of garbanzos and fried up some Halloumi cheese.
The garbanzo beans were mixed with the broccolini and then tossed with the pasta with a few generous glugs of olive oil. I topped the plates with some baked beet and turnip greens, fried cheese and turnip pickles…..oh my goodness…SO good.
Coming up with dishes like this is what’s fun about summer and summer produce. I may not like the sun and the heat but I appreciate all that it produces, like this beautiful, stone fruit pavlova.
Pavlovas are great to make because I always seem to have egg whites left over. Whip up a meringue shell and fill it with seasonal fruit. This is summer right here. I filled mine with Colorado apricots and peaches, and some blueberries and strawberries for some berry colour. Plums would be great in here too, or some cherries. I didn’t want to make a trip to the store so I used what I had in my fridge.
Instead of filling it with cream, I filled the meringue shell with a great local, yoghurt we get here. In fact, I buy the milk from the dairy they use to make the yoghurt. I chose a cherry flavoured Noosa, and Noosa yoghurts are AMAZING. They are so creamy and dessert-like that you can definitely use them in place of cream in your desserts. I wanted the passion fruit flavour but they were out so I thought cherry would go well with the stone fruits. It did, it worked perfectly.
The stone fruit pavlova was pretty amazing too. We had no problem polishing if off.
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Serves: Serves 6
Sunday had three of us packing a picnic and heading up to Rocky Mountain National Park for a spot of hiking. It was quite hot in Denver so we relished the thought of the cooler temperatures at the higher altitudes. We headed off only to get stuck in some festival traffic that was moving at a snail’s pace right outside of Estes Park. We took a longer route around and still managed to make our picnic.
Bierstadt Lake
So, this hike…yeah….we wanted to try a new trail to discover some of the hidden lakes of the park and all went well and we made it to the lake. It’s a pretty lake, quiet and calm. We ate our picnic swatting bugs and watching a mama duck lead her duckies across the lake. The dragonflies were out skimming the foliage with their fast moving purple wings, they are so beautiful. The hike to the lake was about an hour, through mountain forests and some rocky terrain. On our hike back, we decided to hike over to another lake that was a mile out and then catch the shuttle back to our car from there. Yes, my husband the navigator turned us around and we walked, and walked and walked….close to 2 hours through some of the worst rocky terrain. I just wanted to cry. It was exhausting, and all the good exercise I had had earlier for my knees was now replaced by the worst pain imaginable.
We made it back finally, but after taking a short cut where we saw the main road! After some leftovers for dinner, a hot shower and a much needed hydrocodone for me, I climbed into bed and was out!
Monday was a little slow moving after the rough Sunday 🙂 How was your weekend? Any gruelling hikes for you guys?
Hope your week’s off to a good start! Have a great one!
We’re over half way through Ramadan now and the tiredness and a bit of weakness is setting in. The hot days make for a tough fast, and it’s been hot almost everywhere.
In Pakistan, there were experiencing a heat wave a right as Ramadan started and over 700 people died because of the heat. Many also tried to fast during the heat wave and were taken ill. If placed in life threatening situations, then we are allowed to break our fast or not fast at all. I’m not sure why then, especially during a heat wave, people thought it was a good idea to fast.
The weeks have gone by pretty quickly and I can’t believe we’re almost at the end of the month. The very sacred last 10 days of Ramadan will start tonight. These last 10 days are the most important as far as increasing our worship goes. We try and pray into the night and increase our good deeds and charity. It’s a true test of faith because the last 10 days are quite hard. Definitely by this time we are tired of the early mornings and late nights. The fasting and the lack of water also drains the energy a bit and to amp up our worship when we feel totally drained is the true test.
The month does seem to have gone in a blur. I haven’t felt at peace this Ramadan. My mind is in a scatter and and the feelings are flustered. Nothing seems gelled. It’s been hard to get to the Islamic Centre to join in the congregational prayers so I’ve felt disconnected. A lot of the holiday atmosphere comes from being with friends and family, and opening our fasts together. It’s been really just us at home, eating and then pretty much heading to bed.
I have been so preoccupied with work, writing menus, studying manuals, shopping and cooking. I’m so exhausted by the end of this that it’s hardly leaving any time for me to pray extra prayers or to pick up the Quran to read a verse or two. I’m missing out on the true spirit of the season.
Fasting brings out more than just the hunger pangs, it helps you be more grateful and more aware of others around you. You watch your actions a bit more closely and increase your good deeds. For me, my mind is so busy with other things, I’m missing out on all these feelings.
I haven’t even cooked anything festive. We’re eating leftover food because so much food is leftover when I cook one day or we end up eating out because the daughters have their own plans.
I did host my dinner last Friday and as far as the food goes, it turned out well. The evening itself, well, it was a bit frantic. We had some energetic and vibrant littl’uns and by that I mean, naughty, very naughty.
I have never felt so overwhelmed and out of control at my own dinner as I did that evening. It was just loud and everyone seemed on edge by the antics of these kids. We managed to eat and they left in one piece but that’s not how I like my dinners. I like my guests to eat in peace and enjoy their time at my place and feel like they’re pampered. I know I had no control over the evening, but I hope everyone enjoyed themselves despite the noise and drama. Well, it was a learning experience, that’s for sure!
On top of all that’s going on here at C and C headquarters, I’m trying to keep up with all this beautiful, seasonal produce. Our markets and farms stands are bulging with gorgeous, fresh Colorado local produce. It honestly feels so good to eat food grown here. I don’t have my own garden yet but back in Texas I did and one of the most fulfilling things was picking your own food from the backyard. I get the same feeling eating produce grown in Colorado.
I’m kind of torn between posting traditional Ramadan recipes and some summery seasonal recipes. This week I just had to post a summery recipe of local Colorado cherries grown out in the Western Slopes. I love cherry ice cream so what better use for local Colorado cherries. I added a touch of cardamom for some interest and boy, was it good! Sweet Colorado cherries, warm cardamom scent and flavour against a cold and refreshing ice cream. It was SO good.
I made one batch of ice cream and split the custard between 8 Popsicle moulds and ran the remainder through an ice cream machine. I got about 4 generous servings out of the ice cream maker.
The cherries are cooked a little to concentrate flavours and reduce the liquid so make sure to get a syrupy consistency with the cherries, I was impatient and so I had more liquid then I should have in the cherries. My ice cream was great though maybe a little bit too ‘icy’. We still had no problem finishing it off.
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Hope your summer/winter is going well. What are you all eating? What’s your favourite summer/winter dish or food at the moment?
I will check in next week for the end of Ramadan! Happy eating everyone!
The holiday season officially starts next week with Thanksgiving kicking it off here in the US. Thanksgiving also happens to be, I think, the most anticipated and biggest holiday for food inspiration, new and traditional cooking and baking, and of course, let’s not forget the eating.
I did not grow up celebrating Thanksgiving, obviously, because England doesn’t have that holiday. However, I believe that Thanksgiving is truly a foodie holiday. The whole day is centred around food, family and football, with a bit of thankfulness thrown in.
I really took to Thanksgiving! Now, sometimes when I feel like holding back a bit, I can’t. My children and my husband, are crazy about the food. It’s the one holiday they really look forward to for the particular food that’s served.
Last year we did a potluck with our friends and a 40 pound turkey, 30 side dishes and 12 desserts. We were very thankful and incredibly full. This year it’s the same group but I hope the turkey is smaller!
So, onto this recipe. As you know, I rarely do any kind of sponsored posts on my blogs. It’s not that I’m not open to them, it’s just that I’m very particular about product I endorse. It has to be all natural, preferably organic and even better if it’s Colorado local. I’m a big supporter of small farms and local businesses.
So imagine my excitement when I received an email from MM Local, a Colorado based, organic company that specialises in preserved and pickled fruits and vegetables, and fermented sauces and pickles. I knew about them from the farmers markets and had tried their jarred fruit.
What I love about MM Local, besides the fact that they are from Colorado and use organic ingredients, is that they source their produce and ingredients from local Colorado farms. These are farms whose stands I visit in farmers markets and whose produce I buy.
They were kind enough to provide me with a few jars of my choice of fruit or vegetables. Since Thanksgiving is next week, they were interested in the stuffing/dressing recipe I mentioned. I asked for some of their delicious jarred Paonia pears with rosemary for the recipe. The rosemary and pear combination is fantastic.
I used a hearty, peasant bread from Whole Foods, leeks for a mild onion flavour and some beautiful, crimson pomegranate arils for that burst of sweet tart flavour. Of course, you can use whatever bread you’d like including a good quality dried bread stuffing cubes. If MM Local pears are available in your area, please seek them out and use them! They are of excellent quality and so much better than any tinned pear.
I made the dressing in a pan and this quantity will make enough for a 9 x13 pan. I made a bit extra to stuff some under a chicken I was roasting for dinner so I could taste them both ways.
They are both excellent. Of course, the stuffing had all the chicken drippings so it did have extra flavour from the chicken fat and spices. The dressing in a pan can be drizzled with the turkey juices and some turkey fat to get the same flavour. The dressing by itself has a lot of flavour as well, the sweetness of the pears, the saltiness of the bread, the crunch of the toasted pecans and the tartness from the pomegranate all add great layers of flavour and texture.
If you’re looking for a new stuffing/dressing recipe, I hope you’ll give this one a try. If there is one new recipe I try every year, it’s the stuffing recipe. A new one every Thanksgiving 🙂
To make your holidays sweeter or more savoury, MM Local is giving away a sample (it’ll probably be a MM Local gift card or promo code) of their delicious jarred fruit or vegetables to two lucky people (US only at the moment) All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me your favourite Thanksgiving dish. Is it the stuffing? The sweet potato casserole smothered in marshmallows or the green bean casserole? I want to know (really, I just want ideas for new side dishes) I’ll pick a winner by Thanksgiving and announce by the end of the month.
So, onto this Pear Stuffing recipe, hope you get a chance to try it.
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Serves: 12 servings
Hope everyone’s Thanksgiving prep is well underway. I just finished a big event last night and I can now start my planning. It hasn’t helped that I’m still not better. I have a sinus and ear infection and I pretty much can’t hear anything but buzzing in my right ear. My husband is pretty thankful that I can’t talk either.
The giveaway is now over! Winners announced in the new post.