Lillies

There is a sea of lillies in my front yard. At last count there were around 60 and they just keep coming. And then there is the special one. The only one with smell, but you can smell it from the street. I love lillies.

I don’t think that I shared with you last week the present that I got from my mother. Well… this is it….

Its a spice grinder.

Ok… its not just a spice grinder. Its lovely. Ceramic grinder and easy to clean.

I love this thing. Thanks Mom.

I realized that we had a ton of meat in the fridge and with it being such a nice night yesterday, we needed to grill. I ended up making a wonderful seafood patty. I took store bought crab cakes and mixed them with 4oz of raw salmon chopped, bread crumbs, 1 egg, and miscellaneous herbs from the kitchen. Oh they were so good. We also cooked up a large steak, some chicken, and a cracked rosemary infused pork loin for Bill. It was a good dinner.

Well, I am off to enjoy the beautiful sunny day that is Sandpoint.

Lunch with Bill

So… I was in one of those spaces this morning where I wanted to cook (and avoid doing laundry). I am there now too – hence the blogging in the middle of the day. But I just had to share what I made, ’cause well, yummy!

Take 1/2 walla walla onion and 6 crimini mushrooms and chop into rough pieces. Saute in 1 tbsp butter with a pinch of sea salt and 7 rosemary leaves torn into small pieces on med heat.

While you are letting this cook, slice 1 sweet potato into “chips” and add to a pot of water with a pinch of sea salt. Bring this to a boil. You cannot over cook this since you are going to whip it anyway.

You will need 1 pie crust for this recipe. Pie crust is one of the simplest things that you can attempt to make, but I like to keep a few ready made pie crusts in the fridge since I like to create food “on the fly”. Roll the crust out into the size that you desire and top the center with ricotta cheese about 1/4 inch thick.

Top this with a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and regular pepper and cover with mushroom mixture.  We like to have a few already cooked chicken breasts in the fridge to use in recipes or for snacks, so take one of these and chop roughly. Place on top and cover with shredded parm.

Bring edges of dough up, pleating as you go and brush with an egg wash. Place in a preheated oven at 350 for 35 minutes.

Drain potatoes and put back into pot. Add 1/4 cup heavy cream, 1/4 cup milk, 1 cup shredded mixed parm/romano/asiago cheeses. Whip with hand blender until desired consistency. Top with more cheese and a few basil leaves chopped.

Galette should be coming out of the oven soon. Let it rest and it will look like this when you are ready to serve it.

Dress in your cute new top and go surprise your hunny with a picnic lunch at work.

Ahhh, I love summer. Ok… now I am going to do laundry. By-eee.

Adventures in baking

So… I decided that I wanted to bake today. I picked up the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook from the library yesterday. But being that we are almost out of white flour and brown sugar, there are not very many things that I can make in the book. Then I decided to experiment. I have fresh strawberries, canned pineapple rings, almonds, etc… I guess I have a lot to bake with.

I settled on a Galette – a free form tart. Of course the one in Martha’s book is exquisite. She has practiced for many years. Well, that and professional bakers probably make the things that are photographed for the book.

I started with the basic ingredients for Frangipane. This is a buttery sweet almond paste. I substituted almond butter for some of the real butter- both to save calories and I was out of butter after making the dough.

I then rolled out the dough in 3 pieces and put them together with the last of the stick of butter in between. After this I piped the Frangipane onto the dough 1″ thick and layered with sliced fruit.

I folded the edges and put it in the preheated to 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. At 15 minutes I applied an egg wash to the crust and put in the oven for another 20 minutes.

I wish you could smell this. Well, this is the galette as it was coming out of the oven. I put it onto a plate and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Ohhhh… I can’t wait to eat this tonight. I am also cooking Spatchcocked chicken tonight. I’ll post pictures of the yum-fest tomorrow.

No-bake Chocolate Goodness

After visiting many websites, I am starting to think that this raw thing may not be that bad.  I am seeing a bunch of recipes for “raw balls” with may different flavors. Well, I decided to make up my own.

since I am new to this eating these types of food, I don’t have a whole lot of “raw” prepared foods in my house. So I used the almond butter that I have and went from there. Bill is in love with Dark chocolate and he deserves a treat so, I made these.

No-bake chocolate goodness

1 & 1/4 cups sweet shredded coconut and 1/4 c unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 c maple syrup (all I had to use is smuckers sugar-free breakfast syrup)
3/4 c cocoa powder (cocoa powder a bit bitter for me so I added 4 packets of splenda to the mix)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 c almond butter
1/4 c chia seeds

Mix dry ingredients and wet ones separately then combine.

Roll into 1″ balls and place on cookie sheet. I will warn you that this is messy and if you just rinse your hands, you will smell like chocolate all day.

Place in freezer for one hour. Serve in glass, on plate, right out of freezer with a glass of almond milk and enjoy.