mkertoni

Summer is the season for picnics and BBQ’s, dropping around at friend’s houses and having guests at your own. The weather is beautiful, the days are longer, and when the sun does go down its still gorgeous sitting outside with a glass of wine and enjoying the mild evening. With all of this relaxing my thoughts inevitably turn to food. There is nothing quite like packing a hamper and escaping for the day, or throwing some gourmet tidbits in a basket and watching the sun go down with a bottle of champagne You beauty. With this in mind I am going to create a simple “mini menu” every week to try and tempt everyone into loading up the picnic basket, and taking advantage of those extra hours of light at the end of each day mask house. For the first week of “Alfresco” the dish I wanted to start…

“Dead?” “Yas’m,” said Prissy, expanding with importance. Talbot, dey coachman, tole me. He wuz shot—” “Never mind that.” “Ah din’ see Miss Meade. Cookie say Miss Meade she washin’ him an’ fixin ter buhy him fo’ de Yankees gits hyah. Cookie say effen de pain get too bad, jes’ you put a knife unner Miss Melly’s bed an’ it cut de pain in two Beverly skin refining center.” Scarlett wanted to slap her again for this helpful information but Melanie opened wide, dilated eyes and whispered: “Dear—are the Yankees coming?” “No,” said Scarlett stoutly. “Prissy’s a liar.” “Yas’m, Ah sho is,” Prissy agreed fervently. “They’re coming,” whispered Melanie undeceived and buried her face in the pillow. Her voice came out muffled. “My poor baby. My poor baby.” And, after a long interval: “Oh, Scarlett, you…

I’m a lucky gal. We have family that lives along a Puget Sound inlet. So……….. we are clam eaters. (Get your head out of the gutter you guys!) Winter is one of the best times for these littleneck clams around here. We just head out on the beach in rubber boots during low tide, do a bit of digging, and BAM – a meal for the next day has already begun it’s course. Littleneck clams with lemon, thyme, and parmesan Littleneck clams with lemon best travel tea mug, thyme, and parmesan A few things to keep in mind when digging for clams. 1. You want your clams to be ib math hong kong slightly smaller than the palm of your hand. Inspect the shells for any holes or cracks. 2. Let them sit in their own salt water for about 4 hours, allowing them to “spit” a lot of sand out of the shell. Transfer to fr…

If you are looking for a dessert recipe that is as easy as can be, give this Peach Slow Cooker Dessert recipe a try! It’s a great use of the frozen peaches you may have left over from the summer! I know what you are thinking… peaches in October? Kristen! What’s up with that? I know, I know… peaches are totally not a fall food, but I love them! I love them so much that I over purchased peaches this summer and ended up having to freeze a bunch. If you have peaches you froze and are looking for a nifty way to use some of them up, I’d like to suggest this Peach Slow Cooker Dessert recipe. I will tell you up front that this recipe is not going to win any beauty awards. Slow Cooker desserts in general tend to be ugly, but for a dessert that is as simple as dumping in a bunch of ingredients into…

Today’s new recipe is Thai Rice Noodle Seafood Salad but before I talk about this recipe I have some huge news. I QUIT MY CHEF JOB! Yes, I handed in my notice on Saturday, packed all my belongings, handed in my keys and left. I haven’t had a chance to say goodbye to all of my colleagues who were really kind to me so I decided to use this blog post to tell them “thank you” for looking after me and for tolerating me during my “silly” moments at work. I’m proud to say I’ve made some real friends at work and will miss a lot of people. It was a really interesting 4 years, 6 months and 4 days (OCD side showing itself) and there were a lot of great moments I’ll remember. However, I have been unhappy working as a chef for some time (not necessarily because of the place I worked at) and with recen…

My poor daughter is sick for the first time. This is the first time I’m experiencing taking care of a sick child, and as a mother, it is so hard to watch her suffer. Luckily, it’s nothing big, (no H1N1), but even if it was only a few sniffles, it would still be hard to watch. I’ve spent 90% of the last day and a half with her in my arms. I know that when I am sick, cuddling always helps Retail Displays!! Needless to say, I haven’t done much cooking in the last 2 days. It’s a bit difficult to do anything when you’ve got a 20 pound child in one arm! But these brownie coconut macaroon cookies – they would seriously be easy enough to make one-handed!! I do have to say, I’m not a big boxed brownie lover. I think from scratch is almost just as easy and a lot tastier. But I will seriously keep b…

Early mornings, spent chasing the light, camera in hand, and a rumbling stomach calling out. I crouch in a field, hidden by the tall, browning grass as it starves too. We wait. Later, as I click through the shots on my camera, parked in some empty parking lot as the sun finally begins to scrape the ground, my stomach calls out again. What’s even open this early diabetes? I roll down my window. A wave of freshly-baked, just-out-of-the-oven scents hit me. I look around. A lonely doughnut shop amongst a sea of dark strip mall shops calls out. I wander in to see an old lady hitched over a pot. Her red stained hands and a pile of pits nearby on a red-soaked cutting table tell me all I need to know. “What will you have?” a young assistant asks. “Whatever she’s making.” I nod to the old lady wor…