Striped Bass, Beans and Greens

This was a quick and easy weeknight meal.

Ron sauteed some purple spring onion from Greensgrow and added cannellini beans, salt, and pepper. I sauteed the kale (also from Greensgrow) in olive oil with garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper flake, and some red wine vinegar just until it was tender but still bright green. Ron seasoned the bass with olive oil, salt and pepper and threw it on the grill. I topped mine with a few cherry tomatoes from our tomato plant.

That's it! Quick, easy and super good for you.

Birthday Cake!

I'm always looking for a good reason to practice my baking because having giant cakes and whole batches of cookies in the house when it's just me and Ron can be dangerous! But special occasions like birthdays are the perfect excuse. When we got invited to a friends birthday BBQ this weekend I immediately volunteered to make a cake. I've been wanting to make this Pink Lady Cake since I saw it on Smitten Kitchen. I'm not a huge cake fan but this batter has a whole cup and a half of pureed strawberries in it - taking it from ordinary to perfectly summery. I even decorated it a little bit without making a gigantic mess!

Deb suggests adding some dye to make the cake pinker, I didn't mind the not-so-pink color because the strawberry flavor was so great. But if you're going for super pink, by all means add a few drops of food coloring.

The birthday girl really liked it and so did everyone else - this recipe is a keeper! Here are the remains:

Bring this cake to your next birthday party but be warned - this makes A LOT of batter. Like, cake batter spilling over the top of your mixer a lot. You might even curse a little bit and throw the parchment paper on the floor in a mini-fit. Not that I did that, but I just wanted to warn you that it's a definite possibility. I want to try adding a different fruit puree next time - maybe blueberries? Would that make it a Blue Lady Cake?

Froggy Chicken

We recently stumbled on a new way to make chicken on the grill. I think it's technical name is Leaping Frog Chicken but we've been calling it "Froggy Chicken" for short. We got the step by step instructions from Last Night's Dinner.

Ron used a chicken we had from our CSA share a few weeks ago to make this guy:

But...he didn't take a picture of the finished product. Oops. Believe me it looks like a frog - a delicious, evenly cooked, giant frog. Make your next grilled chicken a froggy chicken.

**UPDATE: Here's a picture of the finished product!

CSA week #4

This week was the best yet! Yum...corn season.

Basil - Greensgrow Farms and Spring Thyme Herbs, PA
Peaches - Fifer Orchards, Wyoming DE
Blueberries - Hasmmonton, NJ
Romaine Lettuce - Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
Cucumbers - Lancaster County, PA
Corn - Gaventa Farms, Logan Township, NJ
Red Scallions - Landisdale Farms, Jonestown, PA
Onion Rolls - South Philadelphia, PA
Cheese - Mozzarella Balls - South Philadelphia, PA
Dairy Option - 1 dozen Free-Range Eggs
Meat Shares - Angus Burgers - Buck Run Farm, Chester County, PA

Ron made blueberry ice cream, we had lots of cucumber salad and those peaches were so good in my morning yogurt.

We used the mozzarella and basil in this salad:

Eggplant dredged in egg then bread crumbs and baked for 40 minutes at 350 until it's crunchy (or...fry it!). Layer the eggplant with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella and sprinkle with balsamic and basil. We've made this twice recently - one time with the addition of grilled zucchini. It's a nice twist on the regular tomato mozzarella salad - not that there is anything wrong with a plain old tomato mozzarella salad!

A Very Belated 4th of July!

I've been neglecting my blog again. Sorry! I've been meaning to write about our 4th of July tailgate since, like, July 5th. Like last year, we had a huge tailgate party at the Phillies game with way too much food and plenty to drink.

There was the normal cast of characters - hot dogs, burgers, sausage, beans (made by Mike), potato salad and pasta salad. A few not so normal additions - bean dip and layered taco dip (made by MB), stromboli (from Gary), and rice krispy treat (by Katie).

I made peanut butter cookies and oatmeal, cherry, pecan, white chocolate cookies. I must say the oatmeal ones were a big hit - I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and used a cup of dried cherries, a cup of pecans and 12 oz of white chocolate chunks. These are a new favorite!

My friend Andrea made this Texas Sheet Cake. I've never heard of Texas Sheet Cake before this one but it was chocolaty, nutty, 3 sticks of buttery goodness. Yum.

Andrea also brought popcorn - it ended up being thrown by the handful at Bert! None of it really ended up in his mouth, it was really windy! Hmm...I wonder how all that popcorn ended up in my car?

Good times, good times.

CSA week #3

I know I JUST posted about CSA #2 but that's because I'm horribly behind on my blog. I mean I catered a dinner for 5 last week and I didn't even post about it - sometimes I really stink at this! Anyway, for Greensgrow CSA #3 we got these goods:

Cherries - Lancaster County, PA
Baby Spinach - Graiff Farms, Newfield, NJ (Actually Ron picked this one up and I don't remember seeing spinach in our bag of booty - hmm?)
Kale - Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
Zucchini - Lancaster County, PA
Carrots - Flaim Farms, Vineland, NJ
Turnips - Lancaster County, PA
Cheese - Telford Tomme - Hendricks Farms, Lancaster, PA
Dairy Option - choose one: 1 dozen Free-Range Eggs, 2 Pequea Valley Yogurts, 1/2 Gallon Hormone-free Milk, or 1/2 lb. Amish-style Butter (we got milk this time around)
Meat Shares - Fennel OR Rosemary Sausage - Meadow Run Farms, Lititz, PA

We grilled up some of the zucchini as a side with bison burgers that I had in the freezer left over from CSA #1.

I roasted the carrot and turnips in some olive oil, salt and pepper and put them on top of some lentils. I cook the lentils in salty water until they're tender then toss them with a simple white wine mustard sauce. Make the sauce by just sauteing some minced onion and garlic, splashing in some white wine and adding a tablespoon or so of dijon mustard. To top it off I added an over easy egg.


The cherries were a little bit soft when we got them. I'm not a big fan of just eating them straight up when they're soft so I pitted them (a pain in the butt without a pitter!) and made them into this sorbet:


I pureed the cherries (I used the cherries from the CSA and a bag of frozen ones I had sitting in my freezer) with the juice of a lime and about 3 tablespoons of sugar. The mixture went into my ice cream maker with a tablespoon or so of vodka to keep it from freezing too hard. I love sorbet in the summer - when your fruit is at the peak of freshness you hardly have to add any sugar at all so its boot camp friendly!

I have lots of vegetables starting to wilt in my fridge so I have to finish up these CSA goodies soon! I think I see zucchini bread in my future...

Block Party!

We had a pretty kick ass block part last weekend. Our block was under construction all last summer so this is our first block party in a couple of years and I forgot how great they are. It's a good time to get to know new neighbors and get reacquainted with the old ones - mostly by playing corn hole, washers and drinking games!



We did the standard hots dogs and burgers. Ron grilled a whole chicken that was SO good and I made some veggie burgers and lots of side salads and desserts.

Mediterranean Eggplant & Barley Salad:

Sweet Potato Salad - inspired by this Emeril recipe but I added lots of roasted Anaheim and red peppers:


Spicy Radicchio Slaw with Apples & Pecans - such a nice change from regular slaw, this was really tasty! I used low fat mayo because that's what I always have on hand. Some how I forgot to take a picture, oops.

Now for the not so healthy (boot campers look away!)

Dark chocolate and cherry oatmeal cookies (Joy uses white chocolate in hers - I'll try that next!) and the standard chocolate pecan cookies:

Root beer float cake:


And I must mention these little gems on the blue plate - coconut macaroons made by my friend Jackson. Yum.


A great time was had by all and we had the headaches the next day to prove it!