Friends

J and I were lucky enough to sneak off to Chicago for a weekend where he was finally able to meet two of my best girlfriends in the world!

Mals and Britt. Love these two!

My mom and I.

My guys!

Back on the home front, J and I love having friends over and trying new recipes. We have made a handful of great meals, all of which I've been terrible at recording. Bad news because some of them have been spectacular.


Before we had our table we did a meal served on our rug from Morocco that Jeremy made, it's this amazing chicken with pesto gravy and greens dish. We enjoyed lots of red wine too. ;)

Our first big meal included prosciutto, artichoke, and chive fritatta with minted peas and spiced potato salads (and some world-famous iced tea!) ...


I also enjoyed cooking an all-out farmer's market meal when we had a friend visiting from Cincinnati. Yummy salad greens with balsamic vinaigrette, pesto-alfredo pasta with farm-fresh veggies (including purple bell peppers!), olive bread with herbed balsamic and olive oil dipping sauce, and a peach cobbler (which is served topped with vanilla ice cream and a pinch of cinnamon...

Married. (A Month and a Half Later...)

So this is a little late, but better late than never. ;)

We are still waiting on our official photos, but for now just a small few from my sister and father-in-law!

Orange-Mango and Strawberry Granitas with Condensed Milk

When Jeremy returns home from a trip later in the evening (when it's too late to cook dinner) I like to try to make a dessert (see Blackberry Cobbler). Since we try not to eat too many sweets this is the perfect, occasional chance to be creative.

One such summer evening gave me the idea of making granita for my dessert. Granita is a slushy, icy Italian deal that is tasty and refreshing. I decided that I didn't want to have just one flavor though, so I want to the store for more inspiration. I decided on a strawberry granita, because fresh strawberries were on sale, as well as a mango-orange granita that would be made from a mango-orange juice blend I could already buy pre-made.

To top it off I got creative with the typical Italian treat and added a twist based off of the snow cones they serve in Louisiana, which are served with a generous helping of sweetened condensed milk that is poured (not drizzled) over it. I prefer drizzled on granita, but to each his own. ;)



Orange Mango Granita
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 cups orange-mango juice blend

Strawberry Granita
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice
3 cups fresh strawberries, pureed in food processor until smooth.

As you can see, the ingredients and rations are pretty similar and very simple so be creative! There is an awesome recipe for grapefruit and champagne granita out there somewhere, as well as coffee granita as well.

Anyway, the directions are pretty easy, you just need time.

1) Add the sugar to the boiling water until dissolved. I chill mine after this so that it is cool.

2) To the chilled simple syrup add the lemon-and-orange/mango-juice or lime-and-pureed-strawberries.

3) Pour into large, flat baking dish. The more surface area the better because it will set faster. Place in freezer.

4) Every twenty minutes use a fork to scrape and mix the granita as it is freezing. This will result in a rough, slushy sort of texture and will not allow the liquid to freeze into one solid cube.

5) When it has reached the desired frozen consistency, spoon into fun glasses and serve drizzled with sweetened condensed milk, slices of strawberry, or sprigs of mint.

:)

Yay! We're engaged!

This past Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010, Jeremy asked me to marry him and I said yes. :)

Blackberry Cobbler

Jeremy has been busy with his volunteer training this month. On days when he does his training in the evening we can't really eat dinner together, but we can have a late dessert. :)

The last time he had training I asked him what he would like for dessert, since 1) he's not much of a dessert guy and 2) when he had last participated in training I had exhausted the one dessert I knew he liked. (Brownies.)

So when I asked him what I should make this time around he said, "Blackberry cobbler!

I gave it my best try, researching "blackberry cobbler," "high altitude cobbler," and "defintion of cobbler." For the record, cobbler has a more biscuit-like topping made with flour and sugar where as a crisp has more of a crunchy topping made with oats, sugar, and butter.




Anyway, I finally took three of my favorite recipes and combined them together to make my cobbler. I made one Tuesday night for Jeremy and my roommate, Adam I also made one last night for a barbeque we held at the park by my apartment.

I have an issue with recipes that call for an exact amount of sugar to be added to the fruit or an exact amount of salt in the batter. Try the fruit first and than see how much you need to sweeten it. Determine whether or not you even want to add salt to the batter. My first cobbler had a lot more sugar on the fruit as the blackberries weren't very sweet, and in my opinion it also had too much salt in the batter. The second cobbler I made barely needed any sugar on the fruit (I added a little just so the blackberries would juice) and I used barely a pinch of salt in the batter.


Blackberry Cobbler

2 c. blackberries
1/2 c. butter
1 c. flour (all-purpose)
1 c. sugar, plus some to sweeten the blackberries, to taste
1 T. baking powder
2/3 c. milk
Salt (for the batter, to taste - no more than 1/8 tsp. no matter what!)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Sugar the blackberries to taste, let stand.

In a 2 quart baking dish, melt the butter.

In a seperate bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, milk and salt (if needed). Pour this mixture into the baking dish, on top of the melted butter, but DO NOT stir together.

Take the sugared blackberries and place on top of the batter. Once again, DO NOT stir into the batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Let cool then enjoy with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. :)

Summer Cookin' - Summer Veggies with Sun-dried Tomato Polenta

The other night (after Jeremy had made this fantastic chicken dish with rice and a light, summery pesto gravy, and just ridiculous amounts of goodness) I thought to myself that I really need to start keeping a record of some of the amazing meals we cook. From fish with caramelized onions and peaches (my recipe) to Asian-barbecued chicken on the grill (all Jeremy), we eat pretty well around here.

Especially so these days, as summer is right around the corner! I thought it'd never happen but flowers are in full bloom, the trees and the land are green, and the farmer's market starts back up this Saturday in Golden. I am so excited to go and grab some of the freshest veggies to blocks away from where I live.

I digress, this post is about the first meal I'm writing about: Summer Veggies with Sun-dried Tomato Polenta.

I have to start by saying that Jeremy is an awesome, adventurous cook. He's a lot more brazen about jumping into a recipe and trying something totally new. In this case the something new was polenta (basically corn meal). I know he wasn't too much of a fan of it, but the recipe came out great. Because out humble town of Golden doesn't sell the kind of polenta you can slice and broil, Jeremy made his from a box of instant polenta and then broiled his own hand made polenta cakes! The finished product was tasty: