BeeZee

I made pickled celery. Farmers Market celery had thin, stringy/tough stalks and I realized I wasn't going to eat it, it was starting to go limp after a week. Makes nice pickles, good for a Bloody Mary garnish. Basic recipe found online with white vinegar/water mix simmered with salt/sugar/mustard seed/whole cloves/bay leaves/black pepper.

favorite mid-morning meal this time of year...toasted multigrain bagel (perfect for this application, it's hole had closed during baking) with a very thin layer of cream cheese and thick slices of locally grown tomato. Eaten open-faced, so as to make sure I maximized tomato consumption.

To the "hoarders"...did you do anything similar as a kid? I have some vanilla beans stashed away from a couple of years ago (double wrapped in saran, ziploc bag, in a glass jar) because they are "special". A jar with several whole nutmegs brought back by my parents from some island vacation several years ago, just cracked one to grate recently. Remembered that as a kid, I "saved" my favorite color Crayola crayon so it would last longer, wouldn't use it except sparingly...and it was my FAVORITE color!

I agree its a fun theme, I can tell you there is a sandwich shop in NJ called sub contractors, so I don't know if it is going to be a trademark issue, it may depend where you are geographically...

there's been re-posting on various sites recently (as it is in season) of a "polenta" made with fresh corn which sounds delicious http://www.bonappetempt.com/2012/06/sweet-corn-polenta.html

when I was a kid, my Mom made a macaroni salad with tuna (canned, of course, this was the 70's after all) where you put French dressing on the noodles while still warm (then after it cooled, some sour cream and other stuff was added) as the first step of dressing it. Makes perfect sense.

not growing them, but bought some ugly ones at the Farmer's market last night. Farmer at this stall usually has a few of those huge, scarred, blobby ones (heirloom varieties) in a box separate from the cartons of round slicing varieties and egg-shaped romas...he seemed pleased that I bought the misfits. Ate one last night chopped and mixed with some leftover grilled zucchini and celery. Held true to my theory that uglier tomatoes are tastier. I want to make sure he continues to bring whatever heirloom varieties he can grow, since most of the farmers give up on them due to low yield. I'm still kicking myself for not buying the Purple Cherokee that he had last week.

I can't cook with my husband. He's messy and has no attention to detail when it comes to food safety. Example: last night I was handing him plates of items to take outside to grill (I prep, he's allowed to grill). He was getting ready to put the plate that had his raw steak on it onto the platter that had veggies and it was starting to tilt, all I saw was the imminent event of raw meat juice getting all over everything and he wouldn't have cared. At least he's learned not to put the cooked items back on the plate that had held raw, without bringing it in for me to wash first. And I'm definitely a "clean as you go" kind of cook, which is a foreign concept to him as well. I guess I'll admit to being a control freak in my kitchen.

Pocketless whole wheat pita (so, more or less a flatbread) warmed in toaster oven, smooshed some mild goats cheese all over it. Topped with sliced yellow tomato and a few drips of Trader Joe's balsamic glaze. It was very Calder-esque, sorry I didn't take a photo. But very yummy.

when hubby is away, I eat...less. Seriously, I think about the (few) things he turns his nose up at, and have at 'em (Indian food comes to mind). Or, I indulge in something that's really pricey which I can savor in a small qty (ie, I'm OK with one small lobster tail, but if I were making lobster for both of us, it would get really pricey because of his appetite).

Put in a lot of cheese, fat people and kids like a lot of cheese Classic

Don't know if this would work, but riff on arancini. Since they look to be sort of golf ball size...cut in half, scoop center out with melon baller, put a cube of mozz in, stick halves back together and toothpick to hold. Egg wash, bread crumb, deep fry. Serve with marinara. Eggplant parm in a ball!

classic "ants on a log"...peanut butter (or if peanut allergic, sunbutter or creamcheese) smeared into celery sticks with raisins stuck in!

I like to make my lunch from the self-serve salad/cold prepared food bars at Whole Foods. I can control the ingredients, I know exactly what I'm eating, fresher fruits/veg are in the offering, and I'm willing to pay a premium for that. It usually costs me in the neighborhood of $9 for the container - and no way I'd pay that much for a plain garden salad, I'm making a bowl with all kinds of veggies, grains, tofu, etc. However, I will balance that expense by bringing leftovers from home on some days to have for lunch. I am fortunate in that I can afford that "luxury" because for people of limited means, it's hard to eat well, affordably.

I will only warm things in microwave safe plastic, well below boiling. Right or wrong, it is my opinion that if it is labeled microwave safe, I won't be doing much harm if the temp stays moderate. I don't do it often, I prefer to use Corningware or Pyrex.

Shelby, you are so right, nothing can comfort like Italian food (I see you snuck in some zucchini with the spaghetti). I had a rotten day Wed and comforted with pizza...great minds think alike!

"Zoodle" salad...fresh summer squash, halved grape tomatoes, mozzarella, some leftover lettuce, vinaigrette.

I did make my raw summer squash noodle salad today. Used a regular Y peeler, took off skin (its a little tough when raw) and scraped down until I got to the seedy core. Note for those looking to reduce volume of squash...two nice sized ones yielded a very big bowl of "noodles"...so you won't feel like you made a dent! Anyhow, the yellow summer squash was terrific and sweet, I didn't cook it at all. Mixed up a basic vinaigrette with garlic/EVOO/half balsamic and half cider vinegar/dijon, some fresh chopped parsley, and halved grape tomatoes, S&P. Really nice, light salad. Curious how it fares after a night in the fridge, if the squash will break down too much. Leftovers slated for lunch tomorrow, maybe with some cubed mozzarella added.

It could be said, as a gross generalization, that a "foodie" is someone who thinks about the food they eat. How much they think about it, is for the grading scale of obsessiveness.

I know the sugar isn't "traditional", but in my case I was making more of a "quick preserved" version so I guess they figure the sugar mellows it when you don't have time to allow the full marination. Just a guess. The bonus is that I think I'm able to use the lemons in more (non-traditional) applications because they aren't as salty.

Soba, I added sugar to some preserved lemons and I have found it enables the juice to work well as a dressing addition. The lemons which I cut into smaller pieces, are good for bloody marys, too.

co-worker gifted me 2 beautiful yellow squashes, I think I'm going to make ribbons with the veg peeler and cook them very briefly, cool, then dress with vinaigrette and fresh herbs.

the one and only time I had to return something, I took it to the courtesy stand/CS area, and they gave me my credit slip. I then went ahead with my shopping. What if, for example, you only came to the store to return an item, you wouldn't get to the checkout line at all. And frankly, considering my ability to forget things 15 minutes later, I'd likely buy my groceries and totally forget to mention the credit being due to me.

I make it a soft goal to buy/prepare something I hadn't done before every year. Often it's a minor thing (bought white miso, made miso marinated fish). More ambitious goals (ie, bagels from scratch) have to happen when the stars align. Yesterday I bought fresh fava beans at a local farmer's market and prepared them, I had never done so before. I may have only had fresh favas once before in a restaurant, so it was nice to experience the unadulterated grassy flavor.

no pic, but definitely more "rustic" than mm's beautiful plate...mostly local products tonight on the grill...Barnegat Bay swordfish, bicolor corn (prob not local, too early for NJ corn), and salad made with lettuce from my co-worker's garden (variety unknown, but it was a hearty leaf similar to romaine). Made a vinaigrette using some of my "quick" preserved lemons.