Farmer's Market Find #1 - Swiss Chard

On Saturday mornings, we like to head in to the farmer's market in Union Square in Somerville. We plan our meals for the weekend based on what we find fresh that day. Last weekend we bought radishes, sugar snap peas, swiss chard, Tazo chocolate, zucchini, and some pickling cukes. Neither of us had ever had swiss chard before and we used it in a Swiss Chard and Salami Frittata. I left out the salami, but added some shredded zucchini that I had leftover from making Amy's Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread. It was really quite tasty!

Smolak Farms Strawberry Festival

I had been wanting to go strawberry picking sometime this summer and was excited to find out that a strawberry festival was going on at a local farm on the day I had been planning on going! Smolak Farms is only about a 20 minute drive from where we live, but it was the first time we had ever been there.


By the time we got into the strawberry field to start picking, we found that almost all of the strawberries were already gone! There were a lot of people in the field and a lot of empty baskets. Craig decided to head to a corner of the field that was a little unkempt and weedy, but where no one else was picking. That was where we hit the jackpot! We were whispering and trying not to appear too excited so that no one else would notice what we had found. We went home with over six pounds of strawberries!




I made strawberry jam for the first time in my adult life. I have made it hundreds of times before, but not since I was about twelve years old and not without my mother! I ended up with a little over three pints.












I also made this Strawberry Lemon Curd Tart to go with our first smokin' party of the summer. It was supposed to have a different crust than the one pictured here, but I somehow didn't inherit my moms skill of making pie crusts. The original crust ended up in the garbage and I substituted a simple graham cracker crust.

We started out the meal with Dates with Goat Cheese Wrapped in Prosciutto. We had experimented with these the night before and ended up substituting boursin for the goat cheese and putting them on the grill instead of under the broiler. Craig smoked three racks of ribs. Our friends Gordon and Jill brought over homemade cornbread and an Asian-style slaw (that was really yummy!) We rounded out the meal with some corn on the cob and baked beans that Craig put in the smoker with some bacon that he also smoked. Craig's ribs were his best yet!

My First Soufflé...

...turned out perfectly! It didn't fall, it wasn't fussy, it was actually very easy! I made the Grits, Cheese, and Onion Soufflé for our breakfast this morning. Craig loved it, but thought that adding bacon would make it even better (isn't that true about just about everything???) I'm going to be trying out more soufflés...they are so much lighter than the omeletes that I usually make when we have eggs for breakfast.

Bread? Or pizza?

This Georgian Cheese Bread, a bread known as khachapuri in the Republic of Georgia, is the best of both worlds. It is doughy and yeasty like a bread and cheesy and greasy and crusty like a pizza. It is so unbelievably easy to make..you just have to be patient while the dough rises...try it this weekend!

Delicious and Nutritious!

This Mango-Radicchio Caprese with Basil Vinaigrette salad has 'fancy five-course dinner party' written all over it! It is beautiful, delicious and unique. Look for 'champagne' mangos - they are so much sweeter and more flavorful than the regular mangos that you find in the grocery store.

Happy Easter!

I made this scruptious lemon meringue pie for dessert for our Easter dinner. We also had a baked ham, au gratin potatoes, and asparagus w/hollandaise sauce.

I also made these adorable little place cards for our table setting, but we ended up eating in the living room becuase it got so late! (I didn't really want to write our names on them anyway!)

Cinnamon Rolls 101

I'll admit that I have only used yeast a handful of times in my life (and not always successfully!) When I read an article in Bon Appetit by Molly Wizenberg (a.k.a. Orangette) titled "The Trouble with Yeast," I knew that I had to try to make these gooey Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Glaze for myself. I had to put the rolls directly on the heat register so that they would be warm enough to rise, and it took a lot longer than the recipe suggested, but they were a success! I took a picture of the rolls in the pan so that I would know when they had "doubled in size." This picture shows them at the peak of plumpness.