Fresh Tomato Summer Lasagna

This lasagna dish will have you yearning for end-of-summer garden fresh toatoes and basil!  It's simple ingredients and fresh flavors are perfect for a summer evening.  Think lasagna meets caprese salad meets margarita pizza.  Wow, right?!  Your taste buds will agree.  Here's how Mama makes it:

Fresh Tomato Summer Lasagna

Ingredients:

- 1 box lasagna noodles (I used 9 noodles, but always make more just in case)
- 4 oz. prosciutto
- 2 c. cherry tomatoes, halved (half red/yellow makes it very colorful!)
- 1 T. olive oil
- 1/2 c. pesto
- 2 c. ricotta cheese
- 1 c. grated parmesan cheese
- fresh mozzarella (about 6 slices)
- fresh basil, for garnish
- balsamic vinegar, for drizzling
- salt and pepper, to taste

Crockpot Red Curry Lentils

Here's an amazing recipe from Pinch of Yum - Red Curry Lentils.  The flavors and texture are excellent and the smell is divine!  Not to mention, it can all be thrown in a slow cooker and feeds an army.  Like most curry recipes, it's great as leftovers and Annalyn LOVES it!  This will definitely become a regular at our house.

 

Crockpot Red Curry Lentils

 

 

Ingredients:

- 4 c. regular brown lentils

- 2 onions, diced

- 4 cloves garlic, minced

- 1 T. minced ginger

- 4 T. butter (optional)

- 5 T. red curry paste

- 1 T. garam masala

- 1 1/2 t. turmeric

- 2 t. sugar

- a few good shakes of cayenne pepper

- 2 cans tomato puree (29 oz. each)

- 1 t. salt plus more to taste

- 1/2 c. coconut milk or cream

- 1 bunch cilantro, chopped (keep some for garnish)

- rice for serving

Patriotic Porch Season

I just love this time of year.  At our house, Memorial Day through Labor Day is patriotic porch season.  Michael and I hang star-spangled buntings from the top of the porch, and enjoy the beautiful red, white, and blue view from our big picture window in the dining room.  I just love it.  It really brightens up the porch from the outside, and my windows from the inside.

On a side note, I can't believe it's almost the 4th of July!  Where did June go?  Probably my second favorite holiday of all time (next to Christmas).  Hope you all have a wonderful holiday and make the most of patriotic porch season!

 

Love,

Mama



Baked Apple Pancakes

Here's a fun breakfast idea from my favorite Betty Crocker cookbook.  Puffy oven pancakes with sliced apples, brown sugar, and cinnamon.  The whole thing is turned out onto the plate right out of the oven, so you get this warm, beautiful, carmelized, crispy exterior with a luscious and fluffy interior.  It's heavenly, friends.  And ever so simple!  On a whim, I whipped up two of these bad boys for Michael's (aka my) sister and her hubby last weekend when they came to visit.  Which also means, I made these at the last minute, with ingredients on hand.  Aaahh, I just love that!  Here's how Mama (and her "friend" Betty) makes it:

Baked Apple Pancakes

Ingredients:
- 2 T. butter
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 c. flour
- 1/2 c. milk
- 1/4 t. salt
- 2 T. packed brown sugar
- 1/4 t. ground cinnamon
- 1 medium apple, sliced & peeled

Spinach Pesto Polenta

Here is my version of this Savory Polenta recipe by Alton Brown.  By adding pesto and a little spinach, you can incorporate some beautiful color, great taste, and a few important nutrients.  The best way I can describe polenta is cornmeal risotto.  Like risotto, it requires lots of stirring to make this grain into a beautiful creamy dish.  Here's how Mama makes it:

Spinach Pesto Polenta

Ingredients:
- 2 T. olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 6 c. chicken or vegetable stock
- 1.5 c. coarse ground cornmeal
- 5 T. unsalted butter
- 1/3 c. basil pesto
- 3 t. kosher salt
- 1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
- 3 oz. parmesan cheese, grated
- 1 c. chopped spinach

Peanut Post: How Mama Makes Grocery Shopping Fun (& Educational!)

When Daddy & Peanut come to visit me at work, I almost always have a list of groceries for them to buy.  Yes, I do work in a grocery store, but by the time I get off work, shopping is about the last thing on my mind.  Lucky for me, I have an awesome hubby who doesn't mind grocery shopping once in awhile (or quite often during the summer when they're bored, I'm jealous, and we're all missing eachother). 

One of Annalyn's favorite parts of shopping is trying to grab/eat/destroy the aforementioned list.  So, I learned a long time ago to write one list for Michael and one for Annalyn.  Of course her list usually consisted of a picture of a baby or a puppy, or an "I love you,"  but recently, it dawned on me - this could be a great learning opportunity!  She's hit that "I want to point and label everything" stage, which definitely lends itself to list making.  So, I went to work, sketching cute little pictures of items she could help Daddy find in the store (then labeled everything to help Michael decipher my less than stellar drawing skills).  Amazingly enough, as soon as I handed her that list, she pointed at the apple and said "apple!", then "nana", then she pointed at the milk and signed "milk", and so on for most of the items, either saying or signing each one.  Gosh, was I proud! 

Peanut's latest list

(does anyone else think my wipes

look more like a shark in a box?)

To prevent it from getting eaten, I even taped over the front and back of the list - think easy, resourceful laminating!  No, it didn't entertain her for the whole shopping trip, but it sure helped. She even found some items off her list and made the connection between the two - awesome, right?!  I think my little Peanut is well on her way to being quite helpful.  (wishful thinking)

Daddy & Peanut inspecting their lists

Happy Grocery Shopping!

Love,

Mama

Apple & Bacon Ciabatta Appetizer

Remember this Apple, Bacon, & Gorgonzola Pizza?  Here's an even quicker version made on ciabatta bread and cut into slices as an appetizer/side.  I have to say, it was awesome!  Here's how Mama makes it:

Apple & Bacon Ciabatta Appetizer



Ingredients:
- 1 loaf ciabatta bread, cut in half
- 2 T. olive oil
- 2 granny smith apples, sliced
- 4-5 slices of bacon, crumbled
- 1/4 c. gorgonzola cheese
- freshly ground pepper, to taste
- 2 T. balsamic reduction, for drizzling

Coffee Steak Rub

Here's an interesting and flavorful steak rub I came across last week on http://thelemonbowl.com.  This recipe combines coffee, peppercorns, brown sugar, and spices for a wonderful flavor, texture, color, and crust.  The recipe author suggested using a sirloin cut, but I just used what we had (honestly can't remember the exact cut I used - it was a big, thin cut that Michael bought).  I don't see any reason you couldn't use it on any cut of steak, though.

 

Coffee Steak Rub

 

Ingredients

- 1½ lb sirloin steak

- 2 T. coffee beans – finely ground

- 2 T. black peppercorns – freshly cracked

- ½ T. salt

- 1 T. brown sugar

- 1 T. garlic powder

- 1(1/2) T. smoked paprika

-½ T. (1/2 t.) cayenne

(I used a little less paprika/cayenne than the original recipe)

 

 

Family Favorites: Mom's Coffee Cake

Here's a family favorite near and dear to my heart - my mom's coffee cake.  I'm pretty sure she would title this the same way, since my grandma used to make it when she was a kid, too.  Oh, how I love those recipes! 

 This one's even under my mom's name in our family cookbook - I believe the couple in the center of that picture are my Great-Great-Great Grandparents.  Pretty cool, huh?

My mom also made this all the time when I was growing up, and whether it was for breakfast or an after dinner snack, we absolutely loved it.  I can't even tell you how many times we got in trouble for picking off the crumb topping and eating it.  This past weekend I was able to take a personal day and make a 4-day weekend, so to celebrate the extra family time, I decided to make this for breakfast one morning.  Peanut was more than a little surprised by the idea of cake for breakfast!  Here's how generations of mamas in my family make it:

Mom's Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
- 1 c. sugar
- 5 T. shortening (my Mom always used butter-flavored Crisco)
- 1/2 t. salt
- 1 egg
- 3/4 c. milk
- 1 1/2 c. flour
- 1 1/2 t. baking powder
for the topping:
- 1/4 c. sugar
- 1/4 c. brown sugar
- 1 t. cinnamon
- 1 T. flour
- 2 T. cold butter

Chicken Fried Brown Rice

Here's one of the healthier fried rice recipes I've ever read or tasted.  I love recipes that cut down calories without sacrificing flavor- genious!  Based on this Brown Fried Rice with Chicken and Vegetables recipe by Liz DellaCroce of The Lemon Bowl, one of my favorite healthy food blogs I've recently discovered.  In the post, she encourages you to use whatever vegetables you have on hand, which is exactly what I did.  In fact, by using frozen vegetables, I was able to make this dish without buying a single ingredient.  Versatile, simple, quick, and tasty... sounds like a workin' mama meal to me!  Here's how this Mama makes it:

Chicken Fried Brown Rice

Ingredients:

- 8 oz. chicken breast, diced (I used 2 out of a 3 pack, so probably closer to 12-16 oz.)

- 1 medium onion, diced

- 1.5 c. frozen broccoli, cooked and chopped

- 1 c. frozen mixed veggies, cooked and chopped

- 3/4 c. edamame, shelled and cooked

- 1 egg

- 2 c. leftover brown rice (preferably cold - making it the night before allows you to greatly reduce the cooktime, too.  I put it on the stove after work and by the time we went to bed it was done!)

- 1 T. sesame oil

- 2-3 T. soy sauce

- 1 T. rice vinegar

- 1 c. scallions, minced (I didn't have these, but I think it'd be delicious!)