Tonight we had Drew’s pizzas—5 different kinds—and two salads, followed by movie night! (The Lego Movie)
The pizzas were caprese with pesto, artichoke and pepper, mushroom, olive and roasted garlic, sausage, & another meaty one that I didn’t make note of.
Tonight’s dinner of pasta with brie, tomatoes and basil, grilled sausages and salads, was preceded by cocktails on the beach with a gnat-deterring bonfire. It doesn’t really get better than that. See photo captions for more.
Tonight was fresh-caught clams with spring herbs, two salads, crusty bread and white bean spread. I didn’t try the clams but by the way everyone was swooning, I’d say they were pretty amazing. Here’s the recipe.
For the non-clam-eaters, I made a white bean spread with lemon juice and zest, fresh tarragon and fresh thyme, to have with two delicious salads and bread.
For dessert, there was ice cream from Smittys, following an extensive dessert survey.
On day 1 of vacation, we were having such a jolly time that I didn’t do a great job of documenting a lovely Mexican-ish meal. There was ceviche, posole, beans, tortillas, guacamole and salsa. All made from scratch, all delicious.
After dinner we opened the giant chocolate Easter egg, summertime piñata style (see video below).
Tonight I was able to prep dinner in nearly one go, thanks to crackers and a bowl of water. In the past several months, dinner has been made in 1 to 5 minute spurts. I’ll chop half a carrot and then stop to tend to Sid, then chop the other half 30 minutes later etc. You get the picture.
Thanks to a thing called baby led weaning—and possibly thanks to the salt on the crackers—Sid was able to occupy himself for a good 20 minutes. Enough time for me to get the Parmesan Chicken Goujon egged and battered. Woo hoo!
When he lost patience with his crackers, I gave him a bowl of water to play with. That occupied him for another 5 minutes, long enough for me to make a salad, and just in time for him to hurl the bowl across the kitchen floor.
Hooray for baby led weaning and almost sitting up.
Every year we get garlic scapes in our CSA box, and they are beautiful, and we don’t know what to do with them. They usually end up in a vase—an old glass milk bottle to be precise—and they look pretty on our sideboard until they don’t.
That’s kind of sad.
This year I vowed to actually cook and eat them. Last night I made Red Rice Salad with Roasted Vegetables and Fontina, and substituted nearly every ingredient for something else. The good news is that it’s a very forgiving and flexible recipe.
The substitutions were as follows: Cherry tomatoes roasted with chopped garlic scapes (which is makes a heavenly smell, btw), for the roasted veggies. Fresh chopped spinach added in with the parsley at the end (the warm rice wilted the spinach nicely). Gouda cheese instead of fontina. It was delicious.
We will make it through our CSA box this week, thanks to this pie (and the fact that we brought some greens to the Cape last weekend).
The pie was loosely based on this Torta Verde, which is a favorite of mine. I mixed it up a bit by using spinach in addition to swiss chard. The prep time was cut significantly by using store bought pastry sheets, and by not measuring any of the ingredients, at all.
The kind of pastry sheets I used were from Turkey and promised “ultimate eating pleasure” on the package. Really! The sheets were big enough that I probably could have added another bunch of greens to the filling.
I don’t know if I’ll ever find those sheets again but I’m thinking any thin pastry sheet would do. Phyllo, for example, might be nice.
For Shane and Rose, we had grilled pork chops and rice. I don’t think either of them touched the pie, but that’s okay because it makes good leftovers, especially cold on a hot day like today.
Shane got a gorgeous steak from Wayne for Father’s Day. After a grueling drive home from the Cape, it was kinda perfect for him.
For me, it was arugula salad with an olive oil fried egg. Happy Dad’s Day!
I was off my game this weekend and either forgot to photograph meals, or didn’t photograph them well. Nevertheless, it was a glorious cape weekend, with abundant family and good food.
Click or hover over photos above for details.
