Author Archives: Lucky Rhino

Happy New Year 2015!

I took a few days off between Christmas and New Year’s Day and now I’m more tired than I was on 12/24. Between pizza nights, delayed family flights, the boys first Bulls game:

And then New Years Eve and Guitar Boy’s New Year’s Day birthday brunch, you’d think I’d be too tired for new recipes or tablescapes. But no, the party Must. Go. On.

First, NYE

Made Salmon Pizza as an appetizer for the first event

and Smoked Salmon Dip for the second event:

Thanks to the Borkowskis and Harrisons for a great New Years Eve!

While our absolute favorite breakfast/brunch place is Blueberry Hill in LaGrange (Hi Mr. Chris!), occasionally Kevin and I find ourselves without the boys and the capability of going to brunch at a place that isn’t entirely waffle-based. When that happens, we will go to Prasino in LaGrange

And Kevin always gets the same thing – lox and bagel. Always. Because that way, he knows he will like it. He’s very exciting like that. But, ah ha! they changed it, and now they create it into almost a salad and stands out from your standard lox and bagel. So, inspired by this recipe at SpoonForkBacon, I set out to re-create what Prasino did. It worked as both a pizza and appetizer.

Salmon Pizza (or Prasino bagel breakfast in pizza form, inspired by Spoonforkbacon)

WHAT YOU NEED
1 can refrigerated pizza dough (or make your own if you are not yeast-adverse as I)
6-8 oz smoked salmon/lox
½ cup crème fraiche
2 TBSP chopped fresh chives or 1 TBSP dried
1/3 cup very thinly sliced red onion
Zest of a medium lemon
2 TBSP chopped fresh dill
1 ½ – 2 cups arugula (depending on how much you like arugula)
1 hard boiled egg, chopped
Cracked pepper
Sea Salt

WHAT YOU DO
Cook pizza crust per instructions completely as if the toppings were on it (it’s not going back in the oven), trying to get it as thin as you can. Cool completely.

Spread crème fraiche over top of the cooled crust. Scatter chives over the crème fraiche. Scatter sliced onions evenly over the crust. Top with salmon sliced on the diagonal.Take the little pieces and fill in anywhere there isn’t salmon. Sprinkle dill all over followed by lemon zest. Top with the arugula, chopped egg and cracked pepper to your liking and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Eat for dinner with a nice Prosecco or cut into squares for an appetizer.

Keeping the appetizers thematic (yes, it’s a word), I made this Smoked Salmon Dip from thekitchn.

Now, on to NYD

Did my standard egg casserole from Epicurious, natch. Did a Donut Croquembouche in lieu of a cake for Guitar Boy’s 11^th.

Here is his fiery tower of donuts before:

And after:

Made the Gingerbread Granola from prior post but used gluten free oats and worked just as well. Served over vanilla yogurt.

Also – Epiphany! We were at Blueberry Hill before Christmas and a woman came in and picked up 5 pounds of cooked bacon for a party she was having. Five pounds! At 12 slices a time in the oven and 5 in the microwave that would take about 2 hours at home and a ton of grease to cook that much bacon. And you only have to order it from them 15 MINUTES IN ADVANCE. Done and done forever. Because bacon.

And of course, we’ll need a Breakfast Sangria!

Definitely use either a grapefruit or lemon sparkling water otherwise I don’t think the citrusy kick would be strong enough. But those were some boozy grapefruits!

Bought some 2015 party horns at Target and used them to contain individual silverware sets on the table. By the way, did you know that Target sells both upstairs party horns AND basement party horns? So glad I bought the latter *wink*.

As party favors, I bought inexpensive, little plastic bottles and made Happy New Year labels (filled with either Nerds or mini M&Ms). You can now make labels right here on the Avery label site – just enter the item number of whatever labels you have and they’ll give you a lot of options. It’s really easy.

Here’s everything we made as set forth on my favorite Christmas gift – a menu board!

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2015 for everyone. May 2015 find you:

Fabulous

Funny

And surrounded by friends and family.

Remember, resolutions start only on Mondays!

Getting Ready for the Holidays? Better Call Skunk

Our cat Skunk has offered to help you get ready for the holidays any way he can. He will help with:

Setting the table

#nothelpful (and Ewww!)

Ordering presents online

#nothelpful

Wrapping the presents

#nothelpful

Changing the sheets:

#nothelpful

Perhaps some baking?

#nothelpful

Setting the other table

#nothelpful (and Get down!)

Getting the kids to stop playing video games and help pick-up

#nothelpful

Well, at least when all is said and done, you can relax and read a good book:

Non-Cat Stuff

Here are some recent recipes that we’ve made for the various parties or just because:

Rainbow cookies from How Sweet It Is

I’ll be honest, these were way too sweet for me but Guitar Boy gave them thumbs up. Mine needed more cooking time than the recipe states as the first batch wasn’t quite done. I made the small ones (yes, those are the “small” ones).

Soft Gingersnaps from Two Peas and Their Pod

These were delicious. I definitely preferred them flattened with the bottom of a glass rather than puffy. To keep the coating both sparkly and crunchy, I used a mix of white sugar and Demerara sugar (also known as Turbinado sugar. Also known as cheap at Trader Joe’s.)

Gingerbread Granola from Minimalist Baker

Well, since I opened a jar of molasses, might as well find other things to do with it. This is granolatastic. Every time either Kevin or I walked by it, we would grab a handful. And the house smells great while it is cooking. I used one extra tablespoon of sugar and you could probably use another tablespoon of maple syrup if you want it more maple than ginger. Either I didn’t use a big enough pan or my oven runs cool, but I cooked it about 25 minutes before it started to brown. So check it at 18 but if it still feels really wet, leave it in for 3 minute intervals. It was great over vanilla Greek yogurt for breakfast. What is not great? Pieces of granola in my work keyboard.

Oh and one other thing:

hats

#notregrettingthispurchaseatall

Merry 3 days to go!

Welcome to Middle Christmas

So here we are midway through the festivities, with Neighborhood Pizza Night and McNamara Christmas behind us. Let’s review, shall we?

Neighborhood Pizza Night was a fine time with many food gifts made. I made this Sriracha Salt, Middendorfs made all sorts of chocolate bark, Madly Pop’n sent Chicago Mix popcorn and the Coluntuano’s gave everyone their famous hand made tomato sauce so we have something to look forward to. I had planned to serve this Cake Batter Chocolate Bark from How Sweet It Is, but by the time I got home from work on Friday, this is all that was left:

Looking at you, Guitar Boy!

Fortunately, our neighbors from Pastries So Tasty make cake pops!

For the record, Baker Boy made lots and lots of cake pops, but by the time I could clear the children out to get a picture, this is what was left!

And they also did this with a Christmas wine topper. Cute!

Every year since we’ve moved here, which is also the year we acquired a digital SLR camera in an attempt to capture ANY picture of baby Drummer Boy smiling, we have created The Block book of pictures through the year. It forces us to actually create a yearly photo book and it makes a nice gift for the neighbors. Here is the 2014 edition on top of all the others:

Speaking of gifts, in honor of this here blog, the Borkowskis gave us these awesome lucky rhino bookends. And a gift card to TJ Maxx. Borkowskis are enablers.

In other gift news, when you make a joke saying the boys’ band should be called Turkey’s Furcula and you have a friend like John with immense creativity (see Fake Sister’s costume in Halloween posts), a touch of OCD and a love of music, you get this from the Rehors:

That’s right, Furcula concert t-shirts. For the whole family. Here’s the back:

Turkey’s Furcula, with the special guest, The Cranberries. Oh wait, such a gift would’t be complete without an magazine cover (bonus Furcula poster inside!):

In the end, all 34 people had a lovely time, and Kevin ordered…

…just the right amount of pizza.

Next day was McNamara Christmas. At the last minute (since Thursday I was flying from LaGuardia to Chicago, so it was anyone’s guess whether I’d be home by Saturday) I made this Smoked Salmon Dip from thekitchn. It was yummy and it tastes great with Trader Joe’s Everything Bagel Chips.

The boys went with ugly Christmas sweater theme for Mac Christmas:

And here is the whole crew:

it was basically your standard McNamara Christmas, with Irish dancing demonstrations, the cousins grab bag, and the children gathered around:

one kid playing Minecraft on an iPhone, while the rest of the family gathered around the traditional…

Danimals tree. Yep, your basic Christmas celebration.

I hope you’ve all made a dent in your shopping and will have time to relax and enjoy the rest of the month I just finished making the 5th batch of Chex Mix to create teacher gifts today, will move on to cookies next weekend.

Happy Middle Christmas everyone.

We Need a Little Christmas

Christmas is UP! So let’s take a look. In order to save us all time and effort, let’s just assume that if I don’t state where something is from, you can know that it is from TJ Maxx/HomeGoods. It’s either that or we turn this into some kind of “Hi Bob” type drinking game.

The Sparkly Trees

Many years ago, a former colleague at Merrill Lynch and I took an epic lunch trip to the Tag outlet store called the 1730 Outlet on the north side of Chicago which had no sign, no parking, was in the back of a warehouse and was only open for about 3.2 hours a day. But in this glorious space were items you normally see from Tag at Crate & Barrel, Macy’s or the Container Store at ¼ of the price. Now, this was before the Internet allowed Tag to sell to just anyone, not just to those with the stamina to forego lunch and race up the Kennedy to save a bunch on housewares, and then lug them, piece by piece, home on the train over the course of the next two weeks. But it does explain why I have Easter napkins, Halloween appetizer plates, Thanksgiving napkins, 67 napkin rings, seasonal doormats, and these:

I put Starry String Lights from Restoration Hardware inside them on timers. They are tiny little lights on copper wires so you can bend them. Looks cute in mercury glass too.

The Santas

Once again, I find myself with a collection of things that I don’t actually collect. It started with one wooden Santa that Marge and Dad gave me, then I found another in an existing Christmas bin, then someone else gave me one as a hostess gift, then I saw another at *do a shot*. And so on, and so on,

In honor of this non-collection, we also decided to do the family room tree as a Santa theme:

The Christmas Art

I love this Christmas Motawi tile that we purchased at The Art Stop here in town.

Favorite Christmas pictures of Baby Guitar Boy:

And Baby Drummer Boy. Frames from Exposures.

As an aside, here is Guitar Boy performing at his first gig at a bar yesterday with the Hinsdale School of Rock band. They played Tom Petty songs:

Ok, so it was at 3:00 p.m. on a Saturday, but still, pretty cool. Drummer Boy has just been promoted up to the performance group as well, so he’ll join his brother on stage later in the year.

Back to this business of Christmas.

Other Stuff

Front Room Tree

Went with a turquoise and red theme on this one. Turned out cute, huh?

The White Elephant Party

This is a great group and we always have a blast. The gifts are always ridiculous and we each collect stuff throughout the year/run to Walgreens 5 minutes before the party to come up with the most irrelevant items you never wanted to own, but yet somehow were mass produced anyway.

Here is what we gifted:

The Date Night In Package consisting of a Big Bang Theory fleece blanket, a White Castle scented candle, (Yep, scented like a slider. Yep, it smells as disgusting as it sounds), bacon lip balm and a yodeling pickle.

The Dessert Package consisting of a set of Presidential Pez, blue rock candy that looks like meth from Breaking Bad (was supposed to go with Kevin’s Halloween costume but we forgot) a chocolate zombie Santa and a unicorn shaker where sprinkles come out of its butt. Happy birthday baby Jesus.

About 10 years ago, the white elephant gifts would lean towards inappropriate adult gifts. This year, 5 of them were toilet related. We received two humorous toilet paper roll holders, including one that looks like a Polaroid camera with toilet paper that looks like Polaroid pictures. We are old.

To close, we present one of many awful pictures that Drummer Boy took with Santa at the mall over the years. Even the presence of Fake Sister could not cheer him up.

This has a “let’s re-create this picture when we’re in our 30s” written all over it.

Happy pre-Christmas everyone!

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Cheers!

Oh relax, its a pomegranate/apple juice spritzer. But Cousin Minecraft’s face does have a Dorothy Parker Algonquin Round Table “bored with you all” kind of look to him.

The Table

Because this is the smallest of McNamara/Guilfoile/Kuhn holidays, what with people going to various in-laws’ houses, we can, for this one-time only, fit at one table.

These are my new dishes that Kevin got me for my birthday. My other ones are almost 20 years old and are starting to show their age. I’ll still keep the ones that aren’t chipped, but I thought it was time to class things up around here.

The aforementioned salted butter:

The Final Menu

The Gravy While the gravy made with the turkey was good, it was not that different from the gravy made two weeks ago and frozen. Therefore, that gravy wins as it doesn’t require sweating over the stove at the last minute until your previously flat bangs turn into water buffalo horns.

The Turkey from Epicurious. Was done even faster than the recipe said (maybe because I only did one pan, not two).

The Pumpkin Cornbread Stuffing

The Salad. I used the dressing from this Brussels sprout slaw from The View From Great Island but poured it over butter lettuce, toasted walnuts, shredded carrots and dried cranberries.

Also Colleen & Mitch’s cheesy potatoes, sweet potatoes, Mom’s stuffing, corn and fruit. So for those counting, yes, that is 3 potato dishes and 2 stuffings. For 13 people. Irish Thanksgiving.

Dessert Table

Chocolate Pie from the Pioneer Woman. Guitar Boy’s comment: My life has been changed forever. So I think he liked it.

Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats I’d seen so many food bloggers comment on Smitten Kitchen’s recipe that I had to try them. Plus, Drummer Boy doesn’t really like cake, pie, pudding or candy which leaves him a bit stranded in the McNamara dessert oasis.

Apple Pie – from Kirschbaum’s bakery. Why mess with greatness.

Cranberry Orange Scones from Trader Joes – because GG likes them.

And Aunt Colleen brought brownies. Because you can’t have only 4 desserts for 13 people!

Who Was There?

But Really, Who Was the Cutest Person There?

Why it was Colleen and Mitch’s grand-nephew, Sweet Baby D.

So what now?

Christmas is going up. I’ll come back with a post about some of my favorite Christmas items a little later. With respect to recipes on deck, I’ve got to take something to Rob and Nancy’s most awesome white elephant Holiday Party that we look forward to every year. But my company’s party is the same night, so it’s going to have to be cookies that I can pre-wrap on the tray I’m giving them:

And then Kevin can just bring the cookies with him when he picks me up at the train from the company party. Note, the tray is not our white elephant gift as it is not impractical, inappropriate, useless or hilarious. I’ll let you know what we gave/received after the party.

Here are some of the possible choices on the cookies though:

The Pioneer Woman’s Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies

I’ve made them before and they are quite tasty. However, the Chocolate Pistachio Sablés from Bon Appetit look delicious and fancy (you can tell they are fancy because of l’accent aigu over the e). Food always tastes better with an accent aigu or accent grave. It’s a fact. I’m sure it’s on Wikipedia somewhere. Or it will be shortly.

If I find myself slacking off and sleeping more than 4 hours a night, I might do these wonderful, but time-intensive, Lemon Wreaths from Martha Stewart.

Now go get your weekend on!

A Time to Give Thanks

As far as my young children are concerned, Thanksgiving is just a small step between Halloween and Christmas. A step where people eat “gross” food (except for canned, jellied cranberry sauce – that apparently is acceptable). So we were trying to make it more meaningful last week and in talking about what we are thankful for, the main thing the boys agreed we are thankful for is:

Skunk, our cat. Sure, we love our family and friends. Happiness and health – good things as well, both boys agreed. But survey says what we are most grateful for is our cat. That, and Xbox.

Since we cannot show our appreciation and thanks to the folks at the Microsoft corporation, we instead agreed with the boys that if we are thankful for Skunk, we should show our thanks during this season by donating to the shelter that saved him. So the boys gathered up their tooth fairy and the occasional chore money and we took it over to the shelter (Mom and Dad augmented the donation).

The shelter couldn’t have been more gracious. Getting out of there without another kitten may qualify as a Thanksgiving miracle.

But enough about giving thanks for the things we should, let’s talk about giving thanks for the little things that make Thanksgiving easier or more fun. After all, this blog is about tabletops and recipes, written at night by someone who works 12 hour days sitting behind a desk and really isn’t physically fit or mentally competent to be offering any kind of life advice. If you want to read some truly uplifting and spiritual discussions about how to live your life, I suggest you try my sister-in-law’s blog at Everyday Faith.

But as for me, on with the material possessions!

Serving Platter/Carving Board

This carving board from Cost Plus World Market:

Isn’t it pretty? I most often use it as a cheese board but this year will use it for the turkey. And right now it’s $29.99 and, if you still have the Sunday Chicago Tribune around from 2 weeks ago, there’s a coupon in there for 10% off. THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE. It’s a newspaper. Yes, on paper. Yes, we still get one.

Wishbones

Given that I have two boys who feel bad about eating animals (but won’t eat beans, kale, spinach, cheese or any other protein or iron based food – so chicken nuggets it is!), I’m not sure how they’d feel about breaking a turkey’s furcula (look it up!). But hey, tradition, so I had them make a bunch of these fun clay wishbones from Oh Happy Day. Added bonus, everyone who comes for Thanksgiving can make a wish.

By the way, I told Guitar Boy and Drummer Boy that I think Turkey’s Furcula should be the name of their band someday “THANK YOU CHICAGO – WE ARE TURKEY’S FURCULA – GOODNIGHT!!!” They did not agree.

Salted Butter on Little Plates

I read this story at TheKitchn about salting butter. Now I don’t usually use butter on bread, but Faith Durand’s story about how this simple act – slicing butter and sprinkling smoked salt on it – would transform people’s opinion on bread and butter moved me to action. And I can tell you, it totally works, everyone comments on it. You know, because we need to find a way for Americans to eat more bread and butter. I’m a patriot really.

I use this smoked salt from Williams and Sonoma.

And I serve on little plates. Such as these. From TJ Maxx/HomeGoods. I know.

Chocolate turkeys:

Because I can. WorldMarket, Dylan’s Candy Bar and Godiva all have some.

Turkey – to heck with tradition

After seeing 3 or so articles from chefs about how we are all suckers for cooking a turkey whole, where the breast is done and dry way before the dark meat was fully cooked, I decided to try the turkey in parts. You show everyone the turkey for like 1 minute and then take it back to the kitchen for slicing, so why all the hype about a whole turkey? *shaking fist at Norman Rockwell in heaven*

The practice turkey from House Beautiful turned out well. The whole turkey, white and dark done to perfection, in 1 ½ hours.

However, we thought it needed a little something-something. So Thanksgiving turkey will be some combination of these two recipes from Epicurious: Deconstructed Holiday Turkey with Sage Gravy or Citrus Sage Roast Turkey Breast.

I’ve made the latter turkey breast before in testing out the stuffing recipe (see below), but kind of think brining could help. I’ve also pre-made the gravy (wha?!) because TheKitchn told me I could. We’ll do a gravy taste-test on Thanksgiving to see if TheKItchn was right. Mmmmmmh, gravy taste-test.

I’ll let you know how everything turns out afterwards – in between cleaning up Thanksgiving and putting up Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Halloween Redux

Here are various pictures of the crew:

at Alvin’s costume birthday party:

carving pumpkins:

and actual Halloween.

Check out the detail on Fake Sister’s home made by Dad Up costume. Amazing.

New decorating idea – cheap snakes from Target dollar section stuck in my flowers.

Green pepper ghouls:

Oranges for the kids – everyone knows that kids DEMAND healthy snacks when they return from trick-or-treating in the Illinois Halloween snow. Yep, snow.

And, best drink from Halloween Pizza Night:

Vampire Blood Margaritas (aka Pomegranate Lime Margaritas from Howsweeteats)

As I had to make 2 pitchers of them, after juicing 12 limes I decided that bottled lime juice is no longer as fake tasting as I tend to think it is. And it tasted fine mixed with the fresh in the drink.

Dipped top of pitcher in corn syrup mixed with red food coloring and let it drip down the outside for spooky effect. But forgot to take a picture, because, well, 2 pitchers of pomegranate margaritas might explain why.

NEW MONTH

But, now that it’s November and Halloween is behind us (other than the 12 hours of putting away all the Halloween décor), I made a mini Thanksgiving. I was inspired to do so when I saw pumpkin/cornbread croutons at Trader Joe’s. Then I found this recipe for Pumpkin Cornbread Stuffing at The View from Great Island.

Use 2 boxes of TJ’s pumpkin cornbread croutons. 3 out of 5 Wileys surveyed recommend this stuffing. But quick, it’s a seasonal item so HOARD NOW. Among other things, I combined it with the Citrus Sage Roast Turkey Breast from Epicurious.

I’ll be back when Christmas season approaches.

Don’t forget to set your clocks back!

Happy Daylight Savings Time everyone!

Welcome to October

Well, it’s official. I have more Halloween storage bins than Christmas storage bins (and I have a loooooot of Christmas storage bins). So it only took 2 days to get all the Halloween stuff up with help from my 10 and 8 year-old Halloween gravestone-placement consultants. I wanted to share some of my favorite décor items.

These are my new platters. I love, love, love them. I would marry them, but I don’t think they could get all the Halloween bins down from the attic with the efficiency that Kevin can. They are from Cost Plus World Market online:

Hello gorgeous! From TJ Maxx/HomeGoods:

Candles from Martha Stewart for Grandinroad a few years ago. Ghostie and pumpkin from TJ Maxx/HomeGoods:

Nosferatu painting in the bathroom – from Ebay, can’t read the artist’s name very well anymore, looks like it says Renee Backer:

Pillows for the kitchen table bench from TJ Maxx/HomeGoods (are you sensing a theme here?):

My favorite Halloween picture of Guitar Boy and Fake Sister (they were 4 & 5). Frame from TJ Maxx/HomeGoods:

My favorite Halloween picture of Drummer Boy. Frame from Kohls:

Here’s what the outside of the house looks like during the day:

And at night:

Soooo, it’s pretty clear that I have a TJ Maxx/HomeGoods “problem” that needs to be confronted.

Moving on.

What food is being made to celebrate this magical season you may ask? Well, it depends. Are we talking about the 9^th Avenue Halloween Block Party? Allison’s Costume-Mandatory 6^th Birthday Party? The High School/College/Old Friends We Never See Halloween Pizza Night Open House? Or are we talking about actual Halloween (on a Friday – woot!)? It is a crowded Field Notes party planner, that’s for sure.

Food on deck:

Crack Dip with Tomatoes from Whiteonricecouple.com

(see picture from prior post)

White Pizza Dip from Howsweeteats (my newest blog obsession)

Apple Cider Sangria from Howsweeteats (see above)

Brown Sugar Oatmeal Cookies from The Pioneer Woman (who is now designing her own line of cookware – jealous!)

Candied Pumpkin Seeds from Healthygreenkitchen

Cheddar Chive Cheese Pumpkin from Jamhands

Creamy Tomato Soup from Howsweeteats (really, I need to stop bothering this woman).

And in case you were wondering, Guitar Boy will be going to various parties as a crypt keeper/angel of death (need to get multiple uses out of our scythe!) and trick or treating as Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy. Drummer Boy will be a faceless specter at the parties and the 10^th Doctor Who for Halloween. Because out here, one costume is simply not enough.

Where could these kids get their sense of Halloween excess from? I wonder.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Too Many ‘Maters

If your summer garden decided to explode with tomatoes (as many of my friends’, family’s and co-workers’ gardens did) I thought I’d share some recipe “hits” from the last week or two of summer tomatoes. All of these work best with fresh, summer tomatoes, but you might be able to pull off the pasta sauce, the tart and the dip in the winter too with store-bought grape tomatoes.

Baked Tomato Sauce from Smitten Kitchen

Made this with both red and yellow cherry tomatoes from my CEO’s garden. It was delicious (not just saying that because he’s my boss)! I also added an additional clove of garlic to the breadcrumb mixture and once it was tossed with the pasta, topped with a chiffonade** of basil and a tablespoon of parmesan.

Sorry, we we’re hungry from being at the pool, so no “after” picture, just “gone”.

Crack Dip with Grape Tomatoes from Whiteonricecouple

I had even more yellow grape tomatoes from the aforementioned CEO bounty. This was as delicious as their website advertised.

Before:

Shortly thereafter at the Rehor’s pool (nom, nom, nom):

Tomato Burrata Baguette from Gouda Monster

If you happen to have ombre heirloom tomatoes, which are currently $179.99/pound at Whole Foods, then you will have something as beautiful as the picture. But I’m here to tell you that whatever mutant but beautiful summer tomatoes you have will work just fine (see this interesting video “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” from Intermarche in France and what a difference it makes to not waste non-perfect produce).

Slice the bread a little thinner than just in half, otherwise it is very hard to eat unless you are capable of opening your jaw Jim-Carrey-in-Mask style. Depending on the thickness of your chosen loaf, I might even suggest thirds and then use the middle, non-crust piece to make breadcrumbs. After toasting the bread, I spread the burrata on and put it back in the oven for about 2-3 minutes to get it extra melty. Used sea salt on top of the tomatoes. I’ve made this twice as a starter, and each time Kevin said, “Why did you even make anything else for dinner?”

Grilled Cherry or Grape Tomatoes or just Tomato Vierge Spread adapted from Prasino’s in LaGrange

Grilling Option:

In a large bowl, mix 3 cups whole yellow and red cherry tomatoes, 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, ¼ cup chopped fresh herbs (I use a mix of basil, chives and parsley), ½ teaspoon of onion powder and 1 tablespoon chopped garlic.

Let sit about 30 minutes. While they sit, soak wooden skewers in water. Thread tomatoes on skewers and place on grill (with whatever you are otherwise grilling). Grill about 15 minutes or until charred. Eat as a side or serve with toasted bread and whatever else gets you crackalackin (buffalo mozzarella, goat cheese, more basil, red onion, etc.). You can use the remaining marinade to drizzle over the bread.

Overnight or Baking Option:

In a large bowl, mix 3 cups halved or quartered red and yellow cherry tomatoes, (½ cup extra virgin olive oil, ¼ cup chopped fresh herbs (I use a mix of basil, chives, parsley), 2 tablespoons capers, drained (or ½ tsp onion powder) and 1 tablespoon chopped garlic.

When I have time, I just let this sit overnight in the fridge and serve as a spread for bread (see above). If you don’t have time, I would suggest cooking it in a 375 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes to meld flavors. Then toast some French or Italian bread slices and use the mixture as a spread.

Tomato Tart from The Pioneer Woman

This is a nice little starter when grilling steaks.

Heirloom Tomato Stack Salad adapted from Cooking Light

You know me, if it said “Avocado and Thing” on the menu I’d say, “Mmmm, that sounds good.” However, I am one of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap, so I substitute parsley. I also lay the cut tomatoes on a layer of paper towels to drain a little, otherwise this ends up a really runny mess on the plate. Keeping with that theme, I also use 2 tablespoons mayonnaise and sometimes add an additional tablespoon of sour cream after blending the dressing if it seems too thin. For the record, I have never been able to get the avocado into that cute little dice you see in Cooking Light’s picture. I tell myself that is because the food stylist was clearly using an un-ripe, hard avocado and therefore mine, with my lumpy pieces of avocado, is much more delicious. I am comfortable basking in the lies I tell myself.

Happy end of summer everyone!

**To the haters—back off. It’s not fancy, it just means you stack the basil leaves on top of one another, roll the basil leaves up and slice them into the thin strips. And no, I don’t have a special tool for that.

Happy Birthday America

Happy 4th of July everyone! I wanted to share my new favorite salt & pepper shakers which were a gift from my sister Mary (via Cracker Barrel).

It’s an honor to have you at my table, Messrs. Presidents.

Those that remain on 9th Avenue for the 4th are headed over in a bit, so I tried my hand at Smitten Kitchen’s patriotic galette.

So, not quite as nice as Smitten Kitchen’s. A pastry shaper I am not. Good thing i just learned that Jen from Pastries So Tasty is bringing a cherry pie!

So from all of us to all of you, enjoy your 4th with fireworks, friends or family. Or just relax in your favorite chair – Skunk style.