Friday, July 16, 2010

Sunday Drive

A recent Sunday drive lead us to McMinnville for lunch at Bistro Maison, a charming little french bistro at the end of down town McMinnville. Our lunches were spectacular and our surroundings in the little outdoor garden would be hard to beat. We shared the pate, I had a wonderfully cheese filled potato tart and David had the burger, surprise!



On our way home we stopped by our favorite little farm, Kookoolan, to pick up these beautiful eggs and some chicken for that huge freezer of ours! Look how wonderful all those different egg colors are!
And, just in case you were wondering what our little eggs would look like when paired up to a standard large egg, well...
No wonder it takes 12 of our eggs to make our Saturday morning scramble!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Crackers

I recently made a double batch of homemade crackers that we are still enjoying the last few of. As you know, I try very hard to stay away from processed foods, so crackers have been something that I have been making myself for quite some time now. We love them! I use this recipe and I always make a double batch.

I use my food processor to make the dough and then our pasta roller to roll it super thin (when my mom makes them, she likes them thicker so she just rolls them out with her rolling pin... you'll have to try both thick and thin... we like them super thin around these parts!). I also use fresh garlic instead of the dried and sometimes I even add onion powder if I want even more flavor.

I have been playing with the idea of making a parmesan cracker or maybe even ranch flavored batch... I'll let you know how those go!

Try these, there fun and super easy and really special if you use a cookie cutter to make fun little shapes- Enjoy!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Berry Picking


We recently purchased a very large freezer for the garage and I am in the midst of a frenzy trying to fill it with all the plentiful produce that we Oregonians are blessed with each summer. Thus, my good friend Brittany and I have coined this The Summer of Berry Picking.

We have been very diligent about heading out to pick every Wednesday. Our standing date starts at 8:30 when I pick her up and we load the car with our buckets, baskets, water bottles and flower jars. We then head straight to the James John Cafe for the best savory breakfast muffin in the world (still warm and filled with bacon-y goodness!). We dine on the road as we drive the few miles from St. Johns to Sauvie Island and pull into the Kruger parking lot. We are usually the first ones there so we head in to ask Farmer Don "what's pickin' " that day, grab our wagon and hit the dirt road to the fields.

Brittany and I love this time. Being outside, sun shining and the air filled with the smell of fresh berries and wonderful conversation... I often remind her, "we are making memories here, you know". We usually have the same conversations each week (do all friends do that?), but we love to talk about the same things all the time... "What's for dinner?" "What is new with your family?" "What is growing in your garden?" "How are your pets?"

Once our buckets and baskets are filled we then head down the road to Sauvie Island Farms for our weekly flowers... this is my favorite part of our day! Every week holds a new bouquet of flowers to adorn our homes until we head back to the farm. We fill our jars with whatever flowers happen to be blooming and then it's time to head home.

Once home, I fill my freezer containers with berries, make jam, make berry-muffin batter to freeze for a spot of sunshine in the winter and bake up berry pies. It has been so much fun and so rewarding to see our freezer fill up! I know I will enjoy all this hard work come February when I need a taste of what's to come!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Friday, July 9, 2010

Shrimp Salad


We are in the middle of quite the little heat wave (I do love old movies... well anything old really!) and I have been trying my best to stay out of the kitchen, which is very hard for me! So instead of avoiding the kitchen altogether I have been making no-cook or little-cook dinners for the Mr. and myself.

We recently had shrimp salads, what I consider the utmost of yummy no-cook dinners! They are so simple, yet David raves about them every time :) Our salads are different each time, but this last salad started with a bed of leaf lettuce and then was topped with grated carrot, sliced cucumber, hard boiled eggs, minced scallions, sliced avocado and the shrimp, of course! I made a little dressing by mixing mayo, ketchup, garlic, salt and pepper and worcestershire and we just dolloped it over our salads. We also had some homemade bread and garlic pepper havarti (we visited the Willamette Valley Cheese tasting room that weekend and stocked up on some great cheeses!)

During the dog days of summer I also love making up grain salads and bean salads. I cook the grains or beans in the morning when the house is still cool and then mix up a dressing and toss in whatever veggies, cheese, or nuts we have in the pantry.

What are you doing to beat the heat?

Enjoy it while it's here... it will be gone before we know it!