A few years ago when I was still teaching at the cooking school, we had a summer camp program for kids. It was really fun teaching a room full of young people the joy of cooking and food. Inspiring them to eat with their taste buds, and not worry about whether they thought they liked something or not based on principle, but to expand their horizons. Little foodies in the making. As part of this teaching we tried creating dishes with unique flavor profiles, that packed a wallop, a real flavor sensation!

One of the dishes we made up covered all the basics – super sweet, salty and savory. We stuffed dried dates with parmesan cheese, wrapped them in bacon and broiled them until the bacon was nice and crispy. We called them bugs – because that is kind of what they look like if you are a kid. For me, I easily looked past their outward appearance, this was one of the most amazing flavor combinations! One of those bites that you really can’t wrap your head around, until you have tried it! For me, it was love at first bite.

It has been a while since I last had these, but recently I got a craving for them. We had just picked up some dried dates from the health food store and I had some turkey bacon in the fridge that needed using up – and of course we always have Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar in the fridge (what kind of displaced Vermonters would we be without it?), so a plan started coming together in my head. We also had some nice peppery arugula in the fridge, straight from the farmers market and I thought that would marry nicely with the sweet and savory date bites. Topping everything off with some thick, black balsamic glaze, and it really was heaven on a plate. The stuffed dates are great on a salad, but certainly can be served alone as an hors d’oeuvre . They are so quick to put together, but the taste is totally amazing. Sure to impress anyone. Go ahead and make some – you know you wanna try them!

As I have discussed a few posts ago, summertime is all about simple, laid back fare, getting together with friends and family and just relaxing. We live very close to the beach now. We could walk there, but sometimes it is fun to take the car so we can bring our big cooler, a blanket and other goodies for a beach picnic.

While Rachel and Gwen were here, we went with our friends Lela and Bubba to have a beach picnic. Everyone met at our house, we made sandwiches with whatever was in the fridge and both Lela and I brought something to share. She made a delicious pasta salad with asparagus and red peppers and I made what I called a “New World” veggie salad – it contained 2 ears of corn on the cob, a roasted sweet potato, black beans, tomatoes, red bell pepper and zucchini. I tossed all the veggies in a light mustard vinaigrette and sprinkled with lime salt, cilantro and a pinch of chili pepper.

I also baked a batch of gluten free blueberry muffins for dessert. I used a gf muffin mix I found at the health food store. I topped the muffins with some cream cheese icing I had in the fridge leftover from when I made Lela and Bubba’s wedding cake!

We all had a great time enjoying the food and keeping away the sea gulls who really were hell bent on joining our party! They were some serious party crashers! But we didn’t let them stop of from enjoying surf, sand and each other’s company!

This is a dish I made a while back, that I have yet to blog about. It is so very simple, but the taste was just so bright and summery, I thought this would be the perfect time to share it – in the height of summer. These are my favorite kinds of salads – “leftovers salads”, where you pull a bunch of stuff out of the pantry and out of the garden, and make a simple masterpiece. I do a lot of these “leftovers salads” and they are always the best because they are always so unique.

I had half a box of orzo pasta that I cooked up and then cooled. I drizzled it with some sun dried tomato dipping olive oil that I received via FromTheFarm.com from Sierra Olive Oil Company. Then I chopped some heirloom tomatoes and garden tomatoes and some fresh mozzarella.

I stirred that in with fresh chopped herbs from our garden: basil, oregano, scallions and lemon balm. A little salt and pepper for the top, and a final drizzle of organic Meyer lemon vinegar.

I brought this to a potluck dinner and there was nary a piece of orzo left! Now that I am writing about it, I am craving it again!

I made this salad with leftover shredded carrots I had from making the Carrot Wedding Cake. I over bought on carrots because I wanted to make sure to have enough for the cake…so I had leftovers of course. Which IS ALWAYS a fun challenge for me. That is the beauty of cooking with leftovers – endless inspiration and ideas because you never have the same combination of ingredients – exactly. Which makes me think outside the box and just have fun experimenting!!!

I don’t normally buy pre-shredded carrots, so this was a new ingredient for sure . In reality, I can’t take credit for this recipe though, as I found it on the shredded carrot package. I did tweak it a bit, but the inspiration came straight from the label. Sometimes those on the package recipes are actually great! I served this with grilled organic chicken cutlets that had a Jamaican Jerk spice blend rub. For those of us counting calories/fat/protein ratios and the like, I do have nutritional information at the bottom of the recipe!

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I am lucky enough to be part of a great little local ladies supper club. I was introduced to this club, and great group of women by my friend Erin (that’s her there in the front, striking a pose in the little dress) of The Olive Notes. I met Erin through the world of blogging, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that she and her husband Chris live about 10 minutes away from us. They have a great group of friends here in Saint Augustine, that have really welcomed Roberto and I since we moved here.

Well the ladies in this circle of friends started an awesome supper club. There are eight of us currently, and we all get together each month. It is kind of a dress up event. Sometimes people just show up in jeans and a nice shirt, which is totally allowed, but there are also party dresses and high heels. It is a very girly event – and no boys allowed!

We all take turns hosting, and each month, the hostess gets to pick the theme, then everyone brings a dish to add to the dinner. We always have a welcome cocktail and appetizer to start, which usually finds us all in the kitchen chatting, laughing and catching up with each other. Then we move on to the table and have soup or salad, and then the main course with a vegetable side and a starch side. There is always wine to accompany the meal, and of course we end with something sweet. It is always a great night and something we all really look forward to each month.

Well this past Friday, it was my turn to host – and so I chose a Moroccan theme. For one, a lot of my table decor has a North African/ Middle Eastern flair to it, and the cuisine is one of my favorites….plus, did you know I recently got a Tagine!?? LOL!

This supper club was a huge success – the food was delicious and we ended the night by working off some of that food with a little belly dancing! I have a lot of music from this region of the world, and all of the ladies know I used to belly dance, so they asked for me to bring out all my gear and show them some moves. We all got down, and it was a wonderful time! Good music, good friends, good times.

But I know that you are all here for the food, so here we go – We started with Moroccan Pomegranate Martinis – fresh lemon and lime juice mixed with vodka, POM Wonderful and simple syrup.

The appetizer was a Spiced Moroccan Carrot Dip – with fresh cilantro, and green olives, served with pita bread.

We started at the table with a wonderfully spiced Harira (traditional soup of Morocco. It is usually eaten during dinner in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to break the fasting day ).

For the main dish, I did a Vegetable Tagine overloaded with fresh acorn squash, chick peas, onions and kale, dotted with prunes and topped with sliced almonds. There was fresh flat bread and a delicious vegetable curry to go with it, and for dessert,

the Moroccan pièce de la résistance – M’hanncha -”The Snake” (although it kind of broke in the revelry!) – which was very reminiscent of baklava.

Everything was wonderful and I had a great time hosting these lovely ladies!
Click through for the Vegetable Tagine recipe. Read the rest of this entry »

So of course after receiving all those wonderful products from FromTheFarm.com I was inspired to start experimenting with them right away.

Santa Sweet Grape and Ugly Ripe Heirloom Tomatoes

Santa Sweet, the name of the company is also the name of the seed variety of this original grape tomato. The company owns the particular seed variety along with the Ugly Ripe heirloom variety seeds. Therefore they are the first company to bring the grape tomato to the United States. Any other company who sells “grape tomatoes” and are not Santa Sweet- their seeds are a cousin of the original. These grape tomatoes are super sweet and very pop-able. Children love their shape and taste. The Ugly Ripe tomatoes are reminiscent of a delicious tomato fresh from my grandfather’s backyard garden. They may be ribbed and bumpy, but their flavor is delicious and full of pure tomato flavor. Perfect to eat like an apple, or chopped in salads.

I live with a “tomato connoisseur” who just fell in love with both of these varieties of tomatoes. So much so, that all we really did with them was make wonderfully simple salads dressed with balsamic vinegar and and extra virgin olive oil.

My favorite salad was these dressed tomatoes over a bed of spicy organic arugala, mixed with a nice ripe avocado and some smoked cheddar cheese. It was like summer in a bowl. We ate these kinds of salads for 3 days straight!

FromTheFarm.com offers a Tomato Variety Pack that includes 6 Ugly Ripe tomatoes and 2 pints of Santa Sweet Grape tomatoes!

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Sierra Olive Oils and Spice Packets

So everyone has been asking to see how I roast a chicken in my tagine. I love my tagine and I try to come up with as many uses for it as possible. I am a huge fan of roasted chickens, and I usually roast one or two a month and I always make soup from the carcass. So when I got my tagine as a present, I did an experiment and roasted a chicken in it. As with anything you put in a tagine, the chicken came out super tender and falling off the bone – with no basting or liquid necessary. You literally throw it in the tagine, and throw the tagine in a 350 F oven and cook for about 1 1/2 hours. That is it!

This time, I decided to rub my delicious organic roaster with Sundried Tomato and Basil Olive Oil from Sierra Olive Oils. The company had also sent me a variety of spice packets used for dips (which are not available yet, but will soon be), but I thought it would be fun to try one as a rub for the chicken, so I chose the garlic variety.

I had some leftover fresh fennel that I stuffed the bird with. It came out perfectly delicious. Served with peas, it was a delicious and homey dinner, and almost too easy to make!

This is another recipe inspired by my new favorite cookbook,
Dishing Up Vermont.

This particular tagine recipe is perfect for the winter bounty of vegetables that we are experiencing right now. I would not call this a “tagine”, technically, but more of a stew, as that is the way it is prepared, as opposed to the traditional slow roasting method in clay that tagine in known for. However, the flavors are very much reflective of this well known Moroccan dish.

I did not have all of the ingredients in the original recipe, so I filled in the gaps with things that I had on hand, and I must say it was delicious and certainly very easy to make. I would encourage anyone to try this dish with whatever seasonal veggies you have on hand, while keeping the spices the same, and you are in for a real hearty treat. Topped with a nice dollop of strained Greek yogurt and you have a wonderful healthy meal, perfect for staving off the colder weather. It is definitely a dish that I will be making again.
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The other day I talked about what to do with tons of fall veggies! Today there is more. As soon as the weather starts to get cooler I start thinking about roasted root veggies, it is kind of like my signature fall dish. There is just something so satisfying about the caramelization that happens when these beautiful veggies, glistening with olive oil, go in a hot oven together. I could live off different combinations of these veggies all autumn and winter long, and often do. This time I served the roasted veggies with Maple-Sage glazed pork chops and the rest of the greens.

The other thing I love to make when the weather turns cold are squash or pumpkin soups. This delicious pumpkin soup I made from the leftovers of those lovely jack-o-lanterns that we made for Halloween based on a the recipe from Creamy Vermont Winter Pumpkin Soup from Dishing Up Vermont.

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