Tag: Food

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Tomatoes

I bought two tomato plants this year because I figured if we planted any more we’d have tomatoes coming out our ears. I admittedly got a late start on the growing season, then we had a hot, dry summer and I had to remember to water them. It pained me each time I had to buy tomatoes while I waited for my own to grow! But, we started getting handfuls of little guys from the Sweet 100 plant at the beginning of August (even though most of them split before being picked), and yesterday we finally picked the first ripe “Big Beef” (a whopping 1.5″ in diameter, but delicious). Maybe next year I’ll look for a Quick Pick or Early Girl plant.

On the Griddler: Blueberry Wheat Pancakes. For the antioxidants!

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Paninis

My mother never cooked dinner on Sunday nights. We’d usually eat out for lunch and then have apples and popcorn while watching the Disney movie, giving Mom a much-needed day off. Steve’s mom took Sundays off as well, and upon learning that I took it as permission to carry on the tradition.
But exceptions can be made! I couldn’t wait to try out the new panini grill. Today for lunch we had gyros at the Greek festival, so finally tonight we fired up the new grill. All we had available was pita bread, but we did have a fresh rotisserie chicken (I can’t say enough good things about those). Steve’s panini had chicken, cheddar, and BBQ sauce, and mine had chicken, mozzarella, and tomato. I am very pleased, and can’t wait to try things from the recipe book like grilled bananas.

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Just desserts

Still enjoying farm fresh fruit…Peaches & pluots with Bird’s Custard This stuff is from the UK and available in powdered form at Wegmans and on Amazon.com. Sorry I didn’t stop in the middle of dinner with friends to take a photo, but the label says it all: “Made and served in millions of homes where proper custard is at the heart of a good pud.” (No idea.)
Peach-Blackberry Cobbler

…and also Blackberry Pie that my mom got from yet another farm stand. (Sorry, no photo of that either – where are my priorities?!) She also served us picked-that-day sweet corn, another summer favorite of mine.Our panini press was delivered today, around the time I was eating a panini at Panera in Leesburg. Can’t wait to try it out!

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I found my grill

I love panini sandwiches (grilled cheese for big people) and am always looking for interesting things to eat for lunch. How am I to have Frontega Chicken Sandwiches now? There’s no Panera in town, or SFO or SaladWorks for that matter. And what better way to use rotisserie chicken leftovers than DIY paninis?

Oh, and I should mention that my friend got a panini press on clearance from the Williams-Sonoma outlet. So I had to have one. I found a Culinart GR-4 Griddler on eBay over the weekend. It has a temperature control and removable plates (grill/griddle), so I’m hoping we’ll also use it for pancakes and winter grilling.

Steve has been making wonderful things with the gas grill this summer, including Raspberry-Chipotle Pork Tenderloin and grilled peach halves. Just thought I’d publicly say, “You go, boy!”  I happily support any cooking he does.

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Peach Festival

Yesterday Steve and my dad went to the Orioles game, so Mom and I went to a local farm market for peach festivities. I cannot tell you how much I missed having a place to buy local produce! The concept of farmer’s market is lost on northern Delaware. (Oh, they have a weekend redneck mall named “Farmer’s Market” where you can find everything from ammo to wigs, but the produce comes from another country. The only thing it had going for this place was the Amish family selling shoefly pie and fresh sausage. I digress… ) I’m not on the Organic Food Bandwagon either, I just prefer the local stuff. Mom and I had some cobbler and brought home fresh peaches, pluots, veggies, cider donuts, and big mama blackberries. (This year at the cabin I couldn’t find enough to make a cobbler, so these make up for it).

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Wegmans

Steve and I spent the evening in Ashburn getting a mirror for the living room, eating dinner at Old Dominion Brew Pub, and poking around our favorite haunt: Wegmans. We didn’t bring a cooler, so our loot was limited to stuff like toffee chips, tikka masala sauce, heirloom tomatoes, mini scones, and Dogfish Head. I also wanted (but didn’t buy) baby pattypan squash, crab cakes, huge raspberries, cremini mushrooms, tzatziki sauce, hummus, the olive bar, cheese dressed with nuts & dried fruit to look like dessert, olive bread, Irish biscuits, sparkling lemonade and so much more. On the way home we drove through historic Leesburg, which I had never seen before.

It is 10pm on a Saturday night, still 81 degrees outside, and we have just discovered that our air conditioner is broken. We may be sleeping in the basement.

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Thanks, Dad

My dad brought his chain saw over last night to help Steve chop up the fallen branch, so I returned the favor by making Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding with Butter Rum Sauce. As usual, I didn’t follow the recipe; I used our 4 leftover donuts from vacation (instead of 2 dozen) and some homemade cinnamon bread from Val, left out the canned fruit, added sweetened condensed milk in addition to the evaporated kind…

So. Good. You really can’t go wrong with donuts as an ingredient. And rum.

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Weekend

First of all, I lost my fiddler-ring and I don’t want to talk about it. I had been wearing it on my little finger because it was tight on my ring finger, and sometime on Thursday it slipped off unnoticed.

On Thursday I visited Arabella, a women’s clothing boutique that just re-opened in Winchester. They are now stocked with fall clothing and jewelry, so go take a look if you’re in Creekside. I was making jewelry up until I left for my appointment, so I don’t even have pictures to show you what they have. I did update my necklaces and bracelets pages with some newbies, though.Friday night I met a couple friends at Gourmet on the Go, which is the local meal assembly place. The idea is to put together freezable meals while hanging out with your friends, and it was fun. I’ve been to My Girlfriend’s Kitchen before and it’s the same thing. I’m really looking forward to trying the Raspberry Chipotle Pork Tenderloin. Saturday Steve and I tackled the studio swap, and it is lovely to be writing to you from this bright room across the hall from Steve’s office (read: no more yelling when the phone rings). Look at all the space! In the middle of the room! You have no idea. On the left is what used to be our wardrobe (historic home in Delaware=no closets) which I retrofitted with shelves for storage. Next to it is my metals bench (the torch is in the garage) and in front of the windows is my beading station. The black chair is sitting in front of my desk over to the right, where I can update my website and answer email for hours at a time without the need of a jacket (as I did in the basement). I’m going to use the basement room for non-jewelry crafts, like sewing slipcovers for the rattan furniture and making Christmas reindeer cards from Riley’s hair. Just kidding about the cards. Reminds me of that circulating email about Martha Stewart’s calendar (French braid lawn, install plumbing in gingerbread house).We had friends over for dinner last night, and are taking it easy today. The main event (other than lunch at Outback) was a tremendous thunderstorm that caused this tree damage. I guess we’ll be borrowing Dad’s chain saw and having lots of fire-pit parties. My little yellow maple is now bald (in JULY!), but fortunately the wind took away all the leaves. Notice Riley standing in Command Post 2.

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My weekend

This weekend I was hanging out with my friend Cheryl in Delaware again. Friday night we went to the Greek Festival in Wilmington – gyros, honey balls, suvlaki, Greek dancing, etc. Saturday we had breakfast at the Newport Restaurant, my favorite hole-in-the-wall home cookin’ joint in Delaware. Then we visited my friend Bertie in Old New Castle and realized when coming into town that it was Separation Day and they were getting ready to have the parade. So we found parking and waded through the onlookers, not to be deterred from handmade bags and monogramming from Bertie’s shop.

The main reason for my trip this weekend was Saturday’s WXTU anniversary show at the Tweeter Center in Camden.

C&A3

We didn’t make it for the tailgate party at 10am or the gate-opening at noon, but we did manage to spend about 8 hours listening to live country music from Sarah Buxton, Dierks Bentley, Bucky Covington, Clint Black, and Gary Allan with our friends from Just Mugs (the dive bar where we go line dancing). We had lawn seats, which was kinda like being at Virginia Beach on Memorial Day without the ocean or sand. I’ve seen enough tattoos and sunburns to last me all summer!

If you haven’t noticed, my weekends tend to be the only noteworthy times in my life. Maybe this week that will change…

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DelaWeekend

On Friday Steve and I took an early weekend and went kayaking with our friends Dave (pictured) and Carl in southern Delaware. The trip was Dogfish Head Brewery’s Pints and Paddles, so we basically paddled for a while on the Broadkill River and then took a tour of the brewery in Milton and sampled some of their products. My favorite was Festina Peche, which is indeed fermented with peaches. After the tour we headed up to Wilmington for dinner at Iron Hill, which I personally like more for its food than its drinks. Our trips are often centered around our favorite restaurants, so during this trip we also hit Cheeseburger in Paradise, the Newport Restaurant, Jake’s Hamburgers, and Panera Bread (nope, Winchester doesn’t have one!).

Yesterday Steve and Cheryl and I got in touch with our inner redneck and went to our first Nascar race at Dover Speedway. Not knowing anything about Nascar, I got the Saturday tickets because they were cheaper and the race was shorter (I wasn’t sure how many Monster Miles I could take). But last week I read Nascar for Dummies and learned that the big race (the one with drivers we’d heard of) is the Nextel Cup, held on Sundays. But we still had a good time, the cars were loud, there were plenty of crashes (that’s really why people go to these things), the winner did his celebretory backflip, and the people-watching was plenty of entertainment itself. And it turns out the Sunday race was postponed because of rain.