Steve Irby

A simple breakfast of very good seasonal fruit served over yogurt and granola with a drizzle of local honey. The coffee is a flat white made with Sweet Maria's Espresso Monkey Blend.

I thought you focaccia was sticking out it's tongue and taunting me then realized it was the tomato!

After spending too much money on mediocre food while dining out recently I decided splurge on a few treats to enjoy at home. Repurpose my dining dollars so to speak. After a lifetime of buying generic olive oils I decided to get a selection of monovarietal olive oils to experiment with. I enjoyed the vibe from https://oliveoillovers.com/ and ordered a selection of oils. They offer free shipping on orders over $100 and offered a free 100 ml sampler for orders over $125. I think I got out the door for $136 with an assortment of very promising products. I've only tried the Grumpy Goats coratina oil so far but it is very tasty. BTW Olive Oil Lovers did a great job packaging the order.

A cooling sandwich for a hot day. Marinated artichoke hearts, confit tomato's, cucumber, sweet onion, mushrooms, kalamata olives, muenster cheese and a generous splash of coratina olive oil on a bagel.

My flat of marked down peaches has made a lot of neighbors happy. I made four galette's which I gave away except for a couple of slices. The flavor of the peaches, as @Smithy and @OlyveOyl commented, matched the flavors of our memories. For eight dollars I got four galette's, ~10# of prime sliced peaches in the freezer and a whole lot of love.

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

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.

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.

I was heavily influenced by Jeb Clampett!

Looks like it's been a good week for pasta! Tonight's dinner was homemade cheese ravioli with Italian oyster mushrooms topped with parmesan reggiano.

I started to make a greek salad for lunch but it looked pretty boring. I decided to gussy it up a bit by adding some fresh mint, basil, oregano and garlic chives along with domestic feta that I cubed and rolled in calico spice blend from Worldspice and includes purple sumac, mild red chile, dill weed, black sesame, and sea salt . I dressed the romaine prior to assembly with oil and vinegar and finished the salad with a feta and goat cheese dressing. The dressing was made by adding feta with brine, goat cheese and a clove of garlic to my almost empty mayo container and emulsyfing with my stick blender.

Another protein from the freezer. Fried catfish seasoned with Zatarain's seasoned fish fry served on cuban bread from BJ's. I cut the filets into fingers so there's a lot of crust. Finished with a generous swipe of mayo and Tony Chachere's creole seasoning.

Lunch was smoked turkey breast, fresh roasted green chilis, bacon and pepper jack cheese on a toasted sesame seed brioche bun. Topped with sweet onion, avocado and tomatoes. I had forgotten that I smoked two breasts on the grill last November and then froze them. The chamber vacuum sealer does a phenomenal job in maintaining food quality. The breasts were smoked using a Smokai smoke generator with pecan pellets. e

Not the most photogenic plating but this shrimp and chicken karahi dish was delicious. It's loaded down with fresh garlic and ginger with quite a generous amount of kashmiri curry powder. Served on spiralized zucchini which helped to temper the spicy gravy.

I stuffed them with a fresh Spanish sausage that I have been making for years. http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Longaniza-Spanish-fresh.pdf . The stuffing was bulk sausage leftover from the linking up process. Next time I'll add some bread crumbs to bind the mixture and give it a better mouth feel.