A few days away...

Gone Fishin' (well, not really) ... but see ya'll in a week!

Burgers & Zin

A great combination - burgers and zinfandel. Tonight I added minced and sauted onion, garlic, and red pepper to the meat.



Served at the best table in town...


Yum.

Maple-Nut Scones

I had made these scones once before, a few years ago. I came upon the recipe again and decided to give them another try. Pretty tasty.

CLICK HERE FOR PRINTABLE RECIPE



Maple Nut Scones

Ingredients
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
2 tablespoons walnuts, chopped

2 cups flour
½ cup butter or margarine, firm
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk

Directions

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Mix 2 tablespoons brown sugar and 2 tablespoons finely chopped nuts; reserve.
- Cut the margarine into flour, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, baking powder, and salt with a pastry blender or two large knives in a large bowl until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
- Stir in a ½ cup of toasted nuts.
- Stir in maple syrup, egg, and just enough milk so that the dough leaves the side of the bowl and forms a ball.
- Turn the dough on to a lightly floured surface; gently roll in flour to coat.
- Knead lightly 10 times to coat.
- Pat or roll into an 8-inch circle on a lightly greased cookie sheet.
- Brush with milk and sprinkle with brown sugar nut mixture.
- Cut into eight wedges but do not separate.
- Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Immediately remove from cookie sheet; carefully separate the wedges. Serve warm and enjoy!

English Muffin Pizza

One of the perks of working from home - homemade lunch. Today's delight, toasted english muffin pizza...

Eggplant Rollatini

For some reason making Eggplant Rollatini has always given me a bit of trouble. Not sure if it was the full moon or meteor shower, but it turned out fantastic tonight. Thin sliced eggplant lightly fried and then rolled around a mixture of ricotta & romano cheeses and fresh herbs.

Here are the rolls almost ready to be baked...


Add some chianti - Yum.


A few day old roll made for a great piece of garlic bread (no chance of vampires here tonight!)

Pucker-licious

After seeing multiple recipes for Key Lime Pie on Food Network this past weekend and then finding a bag of Key Limes on sale at the market, Craig and I decided it was fate and we needed to make one.

We picked a recipe from Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) - her recipes have never steered me wrong in the past. This recipe was fairly easy. First you pre-bake a graham cracker crust and then fill it with a key lime custard and freeze. She garnished it with whipped cream, but we decided to skip that this time.

Here is our crust ready to be baked.


The recipe calls for 3/4 Cup lime juice. Using tiny key limes it took about 20 of them to get the required amount of juice and zest. Here are some of the remnants


Finished Pie...


Click Here for Printable Recipe

No Bake Key Lime Pie
Copyright, 2002 Barefoot Contessa Family Style

Ingredients

For the crust:
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs (10 crackers)
1/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
6 extra-large egg yolks, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoons grated lime zest
3/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (4 to 5 limes or 20 key limes)


Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- For the crust, combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter in a bowl. Press into a 9-inch pyrex pie pan, making sure the sides and the bottom are an even thickness. Bake for 10 minutes until firm and golden. Allow to cool completely.
- For the filling, beat the egg yolks and sugar on high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment for 5 minutes, until thick. With the mixer on medium speed, add the condensed milk, lime zest, and lime juice. Pour into the baked pie shell and freeze.

When life gives you too many ripe bananas...

Banana Bread



CLICK HERE FOR PRINTABLE RECIPE

Ingredients
5 Tablespoons butter
½ Cup sugar
½ Cup light brown sugar
1 egg + 2 egg whites
1½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1¾ Cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ Cup half & half or cream
¼ - ½ Cup chopped nuts (walnuts, macadamias, etc) -> Next time I'm going to leave these out.

Directions
- Preheat oven to 350º. Spray bottom only of a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- Beat butter in large bowl on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add sugar and brown sugar – beat well. Add egg, egg white, vanilla, almond extract and beat until well blended. Add mashed banana and beat on high for 30 seconds.
- Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder in medium bowl. Add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with cream – ending with flour mixture. Add nuts to batter and mix well.
- Pour batter into loaf pan. Bake until browned and toothpick comes out clean from center – about 1 hour 15 minutes.
- Cool bread in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove bread and cool completely on wire rack.

Pecorino & Sage Biscuits

My neighbor gave me a beautiful sage plant yesterday. She assured me she wasn't going to use it and she knows "I-talians" do. I took it in exchange for some of our tomatos.



I decided to use some of the sage today and came up with Pecorino & Sage Biscuits. I started with my Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe and added about 1/2 Cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese and a couple Tablespoons fresh sage.



In case you were curious, tonights tomato dish was angel hair with tomato, basil & garlic.

Fried Green, I mean Red, Tomatoes

We still have tomatoes coming out of ours ears, so I've been trying to be creative in using as many as I can. Here's a take on fried green tomatoes.

Home grown tomatoes thick sliced, dipped in egg, and then coated in a mixture of seasoned breadcrumbs, panko breadcrumbs, and grated cheese. I sprinkled with garlic powder and salt before lightly frying in olive oil.





Craig made the addition of ranch dressing (which by the way he made from scratch!)