The summer is arriving! Tonight Rick and I are attending our first evening concert of the summer season. In our family, this has become somewhat of a ritual event. We watch Shakespeare on the lawn, big band music, fireworks, Beach Boys and tonight an review of the Cycles: The Songs of a Lifetime…and we’ll find out what they are. We have eaten on blankets, in chairs,underwaterfalls, by rivers, oceans, parks, stages and also been eaten by bugs (uggh!) This is one of our favorite ways to spend the evening. We think we’re even pretty good at it! We have a little rolled up table in a bag (from Crate and Barrel) that keeps nature away from dinner, and we just eat our way through the bounty of summer.
5 Steps to a Great Picnic
Picnics should be easy and fun. In ours we always try to feature the bounty of summer as it ripens – so our menu changes some depending on the month and the temperature – but the good news is that fresh food is usually healthier too! First there are some rules:
1. Almost all food should be finger food. You never know how you will be surprised by your locale and you memory!
2. Have some favorites but try something new!
3. Don’t pack more than you can carry!
4. If you have a group, let everyone contribute – keep life easy!
5. Make anything you can disposable so there’s no clean up at the end.
Seafood Supper by the Sea
Tonight’s dinner is in a park by the ocean in North Carolina so we’ll be having dinner to celebrate the time and location. It will be about 3 hours so we’ll do three courses.
What’s fresh right now at the end of May? Those go on the list first and then I build around them. – Strawberries (we pick our own), Peaches the early crop from Georgia, asparagus and fresh local seafood.
1. I start with the main course, it sets the tone of the meal. In this case seafood. My favorite in the summer is ceviche – a seafood dish that actually cooks itself in lime juice so it’s cool and refreshing and doesn’t heat up the kitchen. Regardless of your recipe, I can pretty much use whatever is local and add the fresh herbs from your garden. If you want to try variations you can explore a world of ceviche varieties. Here in the Carolina’s there will also be shrimp on the menu, in the ceviche, but probably also with appetizers to just dip in cocktail sauce and enjoy the sweetness. Since I like the ceviche more than Rick, there will probably be some salmon too topped with yogurt blended with Over the Edge Herbed Spinach. Then I’ll either roast some red potatoes or make a couscous salad for the side.
2. Appetizers – grazing gone wild! Lot’s of crisp cut vegetables to dip or munch straight. Make a dip from your favorite seasoning using your favorite base, sour cream, yogurt, may or a combination. A little steamed asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. And a big bowl of the fresh strawberries with Snickerdoodle Sweet Cheeseball Mix blended in whipped topping as a dip.
3. Dessert – Here’s where my peaches (and a lot of other fresh fruit) go. Believe it or not, Rick will tackle these this afternoon. He will grill the peach halves and pineapple spears brushed with a little brown sugar melted with balsamic vinegar . Or you can eat them fresh with a little balsamic vinegar topping(the really good stuff) and some biscotti for texture. If my daughter were here, we’d flip it around and have chocolate dipped strawberries instead – but that will be next weekend.
Wear comfortable clothes, take a good book and a citronella candle and enjoy!
Hmm! Cold gray day! No one home! Too much travel! A good book is calling!
Sounds like a day for comfort food. Mac and Cheese or Chili! Grilled Cheese or Butternut Squash soup! These are some of the things that come to mind immediately.
Comfort food by definition is a simple food, usually home made, that has an emotion significant to a person, frequently tied to childhood memories. They are also usually creamy, hot, and frequently fattening! So who cares- you can’t deprive yourself all the time!
So I sent an email out to family and friend to see how we mirror the rest of the nation. In the US, peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese sandwiches, mac and cheese and meatloaf are right at the top of the list. ( Top 25 comfort foods) In our family, we did have a lot of votes for mac and cheese, but then we had some other for hot dogs and beans, pepperoni pizza and We also had our share of outliers like raclette (melted cheese and potatoes from Switzerland, Nasi Goreng (see Scoop and Nuke night post) – but those will have to wait for other posts.
OK – my personal favorite is mac and cheese. It’s hard to make a change when the family gold standard is a 99 cent blue box. But with age, improvements can be made! For starters, you can just add Outrageously Garlic to the finished product. If you want to get fancy, though, my family has now voted Mac and Two Cheese with caramelized shallots as top of the heap.
What are some TSG versions of the American Classics
Want comfort food, but don’t want to pay the consequences for all that good stuff – figure out how to take some of the calories out of your regular favorite. Substitute some of the key ingredients, like milk for cream, or low fat versions of sour cream, lean meats. Roast that skinless chicken instead of fry. If that doesn’t work, look here for some low fat comfort foods.
Remember though – comfort is the operative word. You can indulge, just occasionally.
I’m cruising through the blogosphere looking for inspiration (my favorite hobby) and came across a blog with a title and claim I can relate to called, Working Girl’s Kitchen . The description went on to read, “a corporate girl finds balance and fulfillment through her culinary journeys.” I know what she’s talking about!
The Working Girl posted an article, “10 Things Cooking Taught Me About Life” by Kim O’Donnell that not only touched her, but resonates with the cook in all of us. BSVCZRN9VZA6
What Cooking Means to Me:
It made me reflect on what cooking means to me.
1. I find it therapeutic. If I’m cranky I will chop a little harder. If I’m moping around I can conjure up smells that take me to the happiest of times – a fresh apple pie to remember apple picking afternoons filled with smiling faces.
2. Cooking connects me with the cycles of nature. Think about the day-long pot of spaghetti sauce project necessary to soak up that whole case of tomatoes from the farmer’s market (what was I thinking!). The trip to the Farmer’s Market was a delight – a warm sunny Saturday, pouring over fresh produce, seeing friends and neighbors, and knowing that the piles of tomatoes will bring summer memories during a cold evening.
3. Cooking gives me time to step out of my daily routine and think. When I get to cook on one of these leisurely sessions, I turn on classical music and contemplate the more important things in life. I’m frequently thinking about the kids visiting for a holiday, when I can see my Mom 2,500 miles away and how lucky I am to have family who loves spending time together.
4. Cooking let’s me show I care. To me and to many, cooking is a universal display of love and concern. Sometimes words just aren’t enought. There’s always the “cheer you up from the lost game” dinner or a “friend hurt your feelings, so here’s comfort food” dinner. One of my favorites is “let me fix your favorite meal to bribe you to come home” dinner. The fact that they come and are cheered up are my greatest rewards.
What have you learned about life through cooking? Or describe whose life you have touched with your cooking. After all, cooking is all about bringing friends and family together!
The summer is arriving! Tonight Rick and I are attending our first evening concert of the summer season. In our family, this has become somewhat of a ritual event. We watch Shakespeare on the lawn, big band music, fireworks, Beach Boys and tonight an review of the Cycles: The Songs of a Lifetime…and we’ll find out what they are. We have eaten on blankets, in chairs,underwaterfalls, by rivers, oceans, parks, stages and also been eaten by bugs (uggh!) This is one of our favorite ways to spend the evening. We think we’re even pretty good at it! We have a little rolled up table in a bag (from Crate and Barrel) that keeps nature away from dinner, and we just eat our way through the bounty of summer.
