Chicken and Egpplant Parmesan

We're leaving for Montana and I needed to use up some eggplants and decided to try this for the first time. Betsy and I will be gone for about 10 days so, see you later!

Red velvet cake, whose destiny is to be made into a gigantor red iPod.

Fortunately this means I had to lop off a whole bunch of it, and fortunately this means CAKE SCRAPS. Mmmmm.

Unfortunately, this means lots of dirty dishes.

Delicious, juicy, home-grown tomatoes (in a photo which I just can't quite get edited nicely and it's driving me crazy)...




... broken down and composed in a dish which is beautiful...




... and tasted absolutely horrible. :-) 'Tis the week of cooking flops. ¡Olé!

Georgia Peach Cobbler

Fresh peaches from Lane Packing (in Fort Valley) made delicious peach cobbler and peach ice cream.

First Figs

Our lovely first figs made into a salad with olives and cantaloupe, tossed with balsamic vinaigrette.

Sweet and salty, deep brownish black and pink tones, the fig & olive play well together. I would guess they've been paired up in dishes for eons.

K. grilled chicken & corn, I made spinach pasta & a green salad

for a summer feast. With sweet tea, of course.

Crab Cakes

John convinced me to get Lump Crab Meat to try to make crab cakes. These remind me of the cakes you get in Savannah, minus the $15.00 price tag :-). Super easy too, not much more work than tuna salad.

Dark Chocolate Cherry Frozen Yogurt

My favorite one so far. The cherries are nice and tart and this may actually rival the gelatto I had in Florence, with the added bonus of not having milk in it!

'Tis the season for garden pics!

Five of my top-ten favorite Savannah vacation pictures.

Little girls and sweet strangers

Girl on a balcony

The River Queen

Random little girls again

Waiting for the fireworks on the Riverfront

Pre Gazpacho

Pre Gazpacho
Originally uploaded by Betsy Lerner

We have a bumper crop of tomatoes and cucumbers, so some variation of that recipe stays in our fridge. I substitute fresh cilantro or oregano for the basil, rice vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, stir in seasoned bread crumbs for croutons, add red pepper flakes. Yesterday, I floated thin round slices of cuke, slivers of onions, and halved cherry tomatoes instead of dicing. An endless recipe for an excess of tomatoes.

Homemade Ice Cream

John and I have made ice cream two weeks in a row. Last week we made peach ice cream, and strawberry this week. I prefer the strawberry, but it may be my improved technique :-D





John and I have made ice cream two weeks in a row. Last week we made peach ice cream, and strawberry this week. I prefer the strawberry!

New Red Shoes :-)

Gazpacho

Betsy’s Gazpacho

2 lg cucumbers
6-8 tomatoes
1 beef bullion cube dissolved in 1 cup water
3 tbsp olive oil
¼ cup red wine vinegar
2-3 crushed garlic cloves
¼ fresh basil chopped
Pinch of salt
Fresh ground pepper
Pinch of cayenne pepper
(maybe onion, I didn’t use any)

Seed and peel cucumbers and chop
Skin and seed tomatoes. To skin the tomatoes: cut an X in the tomato skin and douse them in boiled water for a few seconds.

Use a blender or food processor to blend about ½ of the tomatoes with the bullion water. Chop the rest.

Combine the chopped tomatoes, chopped tomatoes, blended tomatoes and bullion, and the rest of the ingredients.

Serve cold with croutons.

10 servings 64 calories per serving (without croutons)

All I have time for lately is cake. :)

Specifically pink cake. This'un is vanilla butter cake with slightly-almond buttercream for a baby shower. If you guess the baby's gender, I'll give you ten bucks. Or maybe just a high-five.

Happy Birthday to Brandon. Heh heh heh. A quickie cake.. chocolate, with cream cheese filling and pink buttercream.

Birthday cuppycakes.. for a 24-year-old man. I would have to explain.... (the recipe is the one-bowl chocolate cake recipe mentioned in a previous post.)

Pizza with homemade dough and sauce

I think this is the winning combination of crust and sauces! The roasted tomato sauce gives it a bit more kick than other sauces and this dough recipe is a lot moister than the other recipes I've tried.

Blueberry Muffins with Crumb Topping

I was ambitious today, a woman at work made these, but I don't know where she got the recipe.

Grilled Stuffed Portobellos and Bell Peppers