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I had a dough still in the fridge that was now six days old so needed to get it baked. It is going to be hot here today so I wanted to get baking done early so rather than bake a few baguettes, I baked two focaccia. Both topped with cherry tomatoes, Kalamata olives and rosemary sprigs. Drizzled with garlic infused olive oil. I'm working today so dinner is going to be something simple like a antipasto platter served with the focaccia.

@Jim D. I don't disagree, but it strikes me that plated desserts like this are meant less to be eaten as a whole with each element in every mouthful. One can mix and match... except for the lovely smooth ice cream, which now can't fail but to have crumble attached. Of course I might also be the nerd who just wants to check the ice cream for ice crystals. ;-)

"Contaminating"? I think of it as providing a contrast for the mouth. The inexplicable but undeniable pleasure of biting something crunchy and another something unresistingly smooth at the same moment must count for something. It's what chocolatiers aim for when they combine a ganache of cream, chocolate, and butter with a layer of crunchy cookies.

Smoked chicken - tender, moist and not overpowering with smoke flavour. Had corn on the cob, cut off for hubby, and sweet tater fries. I love the Apple, Orange,Cranberry Chutney that I make with chicken or pork. This was hubby's plate. I thoroughly enjoyed the wing and other bone bits

Red Cabbage Risotto with Roasted Pork Tenderloin and Caramelized Onions from “Risotto Risotti” - pork tenderloin pan-seared and finished in the oven at 450F. Vidalia onion simply caramelized with some olive oil and salt. Risotto done with carnaroli rice, onion, red cabbage, white wine and chicken broth and finished with butter, parmesan and parsley

Unfortunately I don't have the will power to build any inventory!

Good for you, Nancy. Explorations of a recipe or a particular dish are often an evolving process with progress being made by experiencing failures and the elimination and adjustment of various ingredients.

Elder son requested grilled five-spice chicken for his last dinner. Drumsticks were slashed and marinated with ginger, garlic, 5-spice powder, turmeric, soy sauce, oil, and toasted and ground star anise. Somewhat over-enthusiastically grilled over charcoal, but stayed nice and juicy after resting. Since I had the grill going, I quickly marinated zucchini with fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, oil, salt, and black pepper

Do you ship?

Our local produce market had these really nice Chilton County peaches on the quick sale rack for $8.00 for about ~15-16 pounds. I'll buy a flat or two each summer and freeze for smoothies or cobbler. The peaches are usually bordering on over ripe or ding up and I' have to cull some. These were pretty flawless. As much as I love a peach cobbler it's hard to beat a galette or tart made with great fruit.

Guardian cartoon

I cooked a corned beef yesterday and cut the slice sizes I want. I used my panini press (yes) on a sandwich comprising the corned beef and slices of gouda and havarti (no Swiss cheese in the house, and I don't like it anyway). The bread is a special bread I've been hoarding in the freezer from a recent California trip. Mayo and mustard on the inside slices; butter for grilling; generous amounts of sauerkraut added after the grilling. Definitely better than what I bought and showed a few days ago (top photo in this post). There's still room for improvement. This bread, as much as I like it, was missing some sort of kick that the sandwich needed: rye bread, or sourdough bread would have been better. This corned beef wasn't as good as I'd expected either, but that's my fault for keeping it (in its original package) unfrozen well past its best-by date. Still. I've started scratching that itch!

This chicken recipe said Ina Garten liked to make this when she was too tired to cook. Well I felt too lazy to cook so I tried the it. She peels back the skin, brushes it with olive oil, salts and peppers it, spreads goat cheese on, tops it with a fresh basil leaf, replaces the skin and bakes it at 375º for 30-40 minutes. Then she covers it with foil to rest 10 minutes. She said her kids were not crazy about goat cheese but they liked it in this dish. I kinda feel the same way about goat cheese. It was good. Charlie said he liked it too even though he also was skeptical at first. The mushrooms were cooked in sesame oil with some salt and pepper. The tomato was halved, salted, dotted with butter and topped with bread crumbs and broiled until it was browned and bubbly on top. Corn was cooked on the cob and cut off. The broccoli was from a frozen package.

Tomato pesto galette with burrata and arugula.

fun fact: 😘

I hope you'll share details of your harvest with us!!! 🙂 I start peas from seed, they tend to be pretty easy to grow here on Vancouver Island as it's not usually very hot.

Correct, I have some nasturtiums in there too. I will probably move a couple of them to the backyard where they will have more space to spread out! I do not know the variety of cherry tomatoes. This was from Walter Anderson, a local nursery, and it was the only one they had (although they had dozens of varieties of regular and heirloom tomatoes). It’s my first time ever growing tomatoes so you can imagine how excited I am! I looked for snap peas when I was there but they didn’t have any. Probably a good thing as my space is very limited! i just harvested some chard, parsley, and sorrel for my lunch. It’s so nice to have all these fresh greens available.

It will be so pretty as it fills in! Looks like some nasturtiums in there also? What variety of cherry tomato, do you know? I have "Husky Cherry Red", a few "Sweet 100", "Sugary" grape tomato, and several "Sweet Million" cherry plants. I would have had more of the "Sweet Millions" but some of the ones I started from seed didn't fare very well. So I'm glad that I bought a few plants at the nursery when they were on sale. I picked the first strawberries yesterday. I just have two hanging baskets with plants but they have quite a bit of fruit for their size. Not enough ripen together to do a full dessert usually but enough to enhance a fruit salad or have with a bit of yogurt. I have some snap peas too but lost some as I discovered that my cat likes to munch on pea shoots. And not just dainty little nibbles either, ha. 🙂

Dream fridge for sure - especially around the holidays. My husband call our fridge door shelves "condiment hell." He can never find things but I can - and I consider the fridge my territory.

I got a raised planter which I am having fun with. I started in February with various herbs, plus arugula and chard. I made a few small salads and sandwiches with the arugula (it was fun to harvest it for my lunches). The chard produced more leaves over the weeks but has not grown taller for some reason (I suspect overly compacted soil). Here it was shortly after planting everything in February: The arugula is gone now (I got rid of it after it bolted and stopped producing new leaves). I planted a cherry tomato with a variety of basil last weekend, together with more herbs (an assortment of basil varieties, summer savory, more parsley). The cilantro from February bolted and I planted its seeds; fingers crossed that I will get a second generation. It's been fun and gives me an occasion to spend more time outside enjoying nature and listening to the birds. It's usually the first thing I do in the morning and it brings me a lot of joy!

Probably one of favorite summer meals. Catfish, potato salad and coleslaw. I fried about four servings of fish which turned out to be three portions for me and one for my wife😋. Served with a quick dill pickle tartar sauce and lemon.

That is a fine, fine article. Thanks for the link!

I made fluffy sourdough by over proofing it. Then she cut it up and smeared with butter that had a load of garlic in it. Freeze in bags. reheat/toast in a airfryer for about 7 mins.

That's the name I couldn't remember.

Toasted Tots in the Toaster Oven