Our tomatoes are starting to come in. Right now it’s just a trickle but in a few weeks we’re going to have so many, it’ll be time to be creative. We make salads and sauces and soups. Today I’d like to share a wonderful recipe for gazpacho. It took me a long time to try gazpacho. I love tomato soup, but the thought of eating it cold didn’t sit well with me. Once I tried it I was hooked, I hope you’ll be too.

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My daughter had to work and didn’t have time or money to buy her father a gift for Father’s day.  So I suggested that she make one of his favorite treats and then let him eat it.  Usually she likes all the same things he does and then they both work on it.  That means that neither is thrilled when the other finishes it off.  She made him a big bowl of hummus, and some pita chips, and then let him have the whole thing as his father’s day gift.  He loved it and is still loving it, since my daughter let him have it all. Since the first time we tried making our own hummus, we’ve never gone back to store bought.  Hummus is so cheap and easy to make - once you get the tahini and delicious.

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Grilled Peppers Stuffed with Black Eyed Peas (more…)

I didn’t think I would be making soup this late in April but we’ve had a cold snap. I just got home from walking the dog and freezing like an icicle. Time to de-thaw with my favorite soup; I have a pot on the stove right now!

This healthy soup is made up of inexpensive, simple ingredients and relies on spices and herbs for flavor. It’s adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks and has been in my cooking repertoire for years. (more…)

As I type this, my husband is making my favorite salad in the world. It’s also one of the most simple. We take zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, onions and red and green peppers, slice them, brush with a little balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper and put them on the grill. That’s it. Throw them in a bowl and toss them together. I especially enjoy the grilled zucchini and yellow squash. Grilling them brings out their inherent sweetness and that combined with the balsamic vinegar is a flavor that just knocks our socks off. Asparagus and corn on the cob are also terrific grilled.

Today we’re serving the salad with burgers but many summer nights we have this grilled veggie salad by itself. It makes such a nice light meal -especially on hot nights because we cook it outside.

Really, it’s making my mouth water just thinking about it. Try it and see what I mean!

Image: stock.xchnge

As you all know I am a true blue carnivore, but every once in while the mood strikes me to not eat meat at every single meal.  Like today.  Sure, I had some chorizo in the freezer that I could have used, but went for something decidedly different - vegetarian chili.  Now had I entered this recipe in a Texas chili cook-off I’d be disqualified for two reasons - no meat and it has beans.  I dedicate this meal to our fellow blogger Robin.

Ingredients

• 1 pound red beans
• 4 28 ounce cans of petite diced tomatoes
• 1 pound mushrooms - chopped
• 1 Vidalia onion - chopped
• 1 large green pepper - chopped
• 1 jalapeno - finely chopped
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 2 TBLSP ground chipotle
• 4-5 stalks of fresh cilantro
• 1-2 TBLSP of salt - depending on your own taste.  If you want to reduce the amount of salt, use vegetable broth instead of water.  Or add vegetable bouillon.
• Water

Method

1. Put the beans in a large pot and cover with water.  Over low heat, simmer beans for about an hour, make sure the pot is covered. 
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and 2 cans full of water
3. Bring to a boil, stir occasionally.
4. Lower heat to bring it to a simmer
5. Cook until the broth is thick, stir often.

I like to serve this with a nice hearty bread and an ice cold beer or a glass of wine!  Taking some tips from the book, He Said Beer, She Said Wine, I would recommend a double IPA such as Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA and a South African Pinotage Rose.

Grain is the cornerstone of great civilizations. Wheat baked into daily bread fed the Romans and Greeks, while rice was a staple for the great dynasties in the East. Native Americans in the North used corn in lieu of a grain from the grass family.

Lesser known grains have enjoyed favor in other parts of the world. The sophisticated Incans harvested quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wa.)

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I’m all for that Sneaky Chef stuff. My 5 1/2 son can be a real challenge when it comes to getting him to eat vegetables. He loves salad, but I don’t always have fresh salad veggies on hand. My friends all cover their kids’ veggies with cheese, but my son hates melted cheese. So I’ve been getting creative. Yesterday I ran some carrots, spinach and peppers through the food processor and put it in the slow cooker along with the tomato sauce I was making for lasagna. I also grind up veggies real fine and put in meatloaf, meatballs and, once, mashed potatoes.

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This is one of my favorite recipes and it generally goes over pretty well, especially when the weather is not so great. Since it’s one of those foods that cooks all day, it permeates the house and makes you hungry for it all day — not IT — the food, you knucklehead. This is the food that forever converted my good friend, Renee, to eating spicy food. She loves it and that’s a great endorsement. I’m canning the bulk of this for her and for me sometime later!

If you want to serve this as a vegetarian meal, just don’t put in the sausage and remove a cup of the broth.

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Granola goes way back. It makes you think of the birkenstock people, the hippies, the natural world embracing types. Granola is not only their food of choice but a fitting adjective: Madison’s grandmother smuggled weed in her bra to Woodstock back in the day, how granola!

The granola set wisely held tight to unprocessed, natural foods during the latter half of the twentieth century while the rest of us were eating Wonder bread. The virtue of the whole grain has since fallen back into the favor of nutritional scientists. Grain is refined by the removal of two outer layers. Because these layers contain fiber, phytochemicals, and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), processing a whole grain into a refined grain renders it less nutritionally useful.

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