Feelin' Saucy

Yes, I have some tomatoes. And peppers. And tomatillos.
So listening with one ear to the wise Miss Holly,I decided to make sauce. Tomatoes, check. Hmmm, plenty of Poblano & Serrano peppers as well. What else is lurking in my larder? Onions, check; garlic, check. What is growing in my garden? Cuban Oregano, Hmmmm. Let's check the spice rack: tasty, a little cumin; perhaps a little chili powder.
Ok, now that I have my 'meez,' it's time to get cookin'.

First off, get the grill going, preferably with some smoky wood chips in there, then I slowly roasted my tomatoes along with a couple onions, some garlic cloves, and my pairs of poblanos and serranos (and only lost one serrano through the grill grate). While they are roasting a way, I turned on the crockpot and added a little olive oil. When the oil was warm, I added a couple teaspoons of whole cumin seed and a little more garlic. After I peeled the roasted veggies and added them to the pot, I added my oregano, along with a little ground cumin (ok, I like cumin, what of it?) and some chili powder with the obligatory salt & pepper. Then I gave it a whirl with the stick blender and left it for the night. This morning I woke up and look, I have enchilada sauce. Fantastic! Now to get some chicken, or some beans & make enchiladas...

This weekend was the last weekend that we had The Boy over to visit before he goes off to college. (I guess I should call him The College Man now, but I'll have to ease into that). We celebrated with family activities such as him showing his Father how to load an Ipod with music. Also, as we know, no College Man is ready for school without new clothes for school. We got socks and a baseball cap. They started out white, then a short time later they looked like this:

And then, finally like this:

Well, the family that tie-dyes together, ummm I'm not sure how to finish that one.

Back to the family activities. We also ATE. I know that will come as a shock to some, but that is considered a family activity around here.
Friday night was Fish Taco night. I know that sounds gross, but really they are quite flavory. The fish were fried in a beer batter and served with HP's homemade salsa (fresh from the garden), Kiki's guacamole with roasted garlic, and plenty of queso fresco. Fish Tacos, who knew?

Saturday was our annualish Crab-Fest. I love Maryland crabs, and look forward to eating them every summer. Unfortunately, as they need to be imported they are a little pricey, so I only get them once a year. This year's fest was served up with the freshest corn-on-the-cob I could find and a loaf of Homemade Pesto Bread. (I love The Herbfarm Cookbook and all the wonderful recipes I've found there!)

Somehow, we did end up with a few left over crabs at the end of crabfest, so Sunday's brunch was this:

Crab & Thyme Souffle adapted from The Herbfarm Cookbook. Now that is TASTY!

The other thing I love about The Herbfarm Cookbook, is that after having it from the library for about a month-and-a-half, I decided to splurge and buy it (after all, I'm worth it & besides, I was worried about spilling something on the book!) Unfortunately my splurge budget is not what it once was, so my solution? EBAY!
That's right, winner bidder kitchenkiki at $4.99. Now that's TASTY!

And a final image, Sunday's dinner (I didn't want it to feel left out)Pizza on the grill! (ok, I had some dough challenges, so one of the pizzas was cooked in the oven)
A perennial favorite: Pizza with caramelized onions, shrimp and alfredo sauce.

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elbow deep in tomatoes-post finished if you looked at it earlier

At the beginning of gardening season the following conversation was heard by our magnolia bush:

HP: Ya know I was thinking of signing up for the garden tour.
Me: I love our garden & I love the tour, but we really can't afford to spruce up the yard for people to come through.
HP: We can do it on the cheap, I'll plant that herb & salsa garden I promised you for your birthday last year.
Me: The birthday that you didn't even get me a card for? NOW you want to start on that? We are even more broke now than we were then and that was your excuse for not getting me anything.
HP: Umm, yeah, sorry about that. But think how much we'll save if we only spend a few dollars now on herbs instead of $2 a pop when you buy them for recipes. I'll even start with the seeds you bought for the garden last year.
Me: Ok, we'll start the herb garden, if we can do it cheap. But I don't think we can afford to do all the fluffing for the garden tour.
HP: uh huh. I hope I can grow tomatoes, I've never had any luck with them before.
Me: Umm, isn't it hard to have a salsa garden without tomatoes?
HP: What are you making for dinner? I'm hungry

So after smuggling free bricks out of York in the trunk of a convertible, a few at a time (funny how he could do it when he wanted to). HP started planning out the herb garden. It began a little like this:

Now, it is looking much more like this:

So, where he had failed in the past, he is more than making up for now. We have tomatoes, and tomatoes and tomatoes. And we are eating them. I have made something resembling this (and mostly using this recipe)
but it didn't really look that pretty. It sure tastes good though!

In a fit of too many tomato paranoia, my husband asked me to so something with the green tomatoes. So I found a soup recipe, and changed it to include fresh herbs, vegetable broth* and creamy goat cheese. The original said it was good hot or cold, but mine was kind of unexciting warm, yet rich and velvety cold, it was smooth & refreshing, and much better cold! HP thought it would be extra-tasty with a red pepper & chipotle mousse I once made, (ok it was supposed to be just red-pepper, but I didn't have enough and thought a little zip would enhance. I was right!) but not having enough time to make said mousse before packing the soup in his lunch box I did a quick chipotle crema that added just enough heat to contrast the cool. His suggestion really made that soup a stand-out!

We also had plenty of ripe tomatoes this week so I made some of my semi-famous gazpacho. It features both fresh and roasted tomatoes, peppers, garlic and onions along with fresh herbs and cucumbers and what ever else I managed to put in there.

Well along comes Sunday dinner and I was tired.
I spent the majority of my day volunteering here. Which included some demos on the wheel, some cleaning up and a kiln unloading & sale of works from the gas kiln reduction firing (as opposed to the "neutral" electric kiln we normally use. I had only a few pieces in the kiln, but I donated one to the ceramic shop (proceeds of the sale were benefiting the shop) gave a plate and bowl as a very late birthday present to my husband, gave another bowl to a friend I don't see often enough and kept a bowl for myself. I am very proud to say that the bowl I donated sold within hours of being put up for sale. WooHoo, my first sale. Even though I didn't get any of the $13.50 selling price, I was thrilled and hopefully we are on our way to more exciting toys for the ceramic shop!

Anyway, back to Sunday dinner that I was too tired to cook. (But if I don't, who will?) So I pulled out a chicken, smothered it in garlic and a little rosemary and some lemon. Shoved the old beer can up it's end and put it on the grill. That is pretty easy, but HP does not live on chicken alone. So I had to have something to go with it.
Out came the green tomato soup. Out came the chipotle crema. Out came the gazpacho. Put them all together and it looks like this:

And boy-howdy was it tasty!

Although, it probably would have tasted better in this bowl...

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