Blog Hopping: Easy Family Recipe

Good Morning! I'm excited about this new Blog Hopping series that Hannah and I will be hosting on the 20th of each month. Today we're talking about an easy family recipe and I'm featuring one of my all time faves: Fish Tacos.

I fell in love with fish tacos right after N8tr0n and I got married. We were living in Bellingham, WA and there were fish tacos aplenty. It didn't matter if the fish was battered and fried or grilled and smothered in chutney; I was in love.

Now that we live in Idaho fish tacos are less...plentiful. These that I make for our family are not quite as good as the ones that I had at the tiny restaurant on Mt. Baker Highway, but they give me an excuse to fire up the grill, which is really all I'm looking for from May through October.

So I have to say, the picture? It's not amazing. But that is basically because when I make fish tacos we just want to eat them. NOW. And the fact that I need to take a picture for the blog is like, nobody's concern. So, the lighting was bad, the presentation was rushed, and the focus was off. But the tacos? The tacos were delicious.

Fish Tacos
Adapted from: My most favorite grilling cookbook of all time: Weber's Real Grilling

Makes 8 Tacos

Slaw:
8 oz. red or green cabbage
1 medium carrot, shredded
1 small red onion thinly sliced
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 T. fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. cumin
salt and pepper to taste

Toss and combine all ingredients in a bowl and let sit while fish is being grilled.

***
Fish:
4 Halibut fillets (or whatever happens to be your favorite fish) approx. 8 oz each
extra virgin olive oil
chili powder
salt and pepper

Brush or spray fish on all sides with oil; season with salt, pepper, and chili powder. Grill over direct high heat until the fish begins to flake (about 6-8 minutes; turning once). Remove from grill and break into 1 inch pieces.

***
Sauce:
1 Cup sour cream (you can substitute Greek yogurt here but I wouldn't recommend it. To me, if I add Greek yogurt to something it starts to taste less like Mexican food and more like Greek food. You know?)
juice from 1 lime
1 clove garlic finely minced
1 T. cilantro
salt and pepper to taste


Combine sauce ingredients and adjust according to taste.

Heat corn or flour tortillas on direct high heat for about 20 seconds per side. Wrap in kitchen towel or put in tortilla warmer to keep warm. For each taco layer a warm tortilla with fish, slaw, and white sauce.

(Psst! If you have a non-fish eater in your home, black beans are a quick and delicious substitute.)


Please be sure to hop over to the other rad blogs that are featuring easy family recipes this month. Dude. It's like we've planned your menu for the entire week! Huzzah!

Hannah
Cathy
Dianna
Jaime & Emily
Jessie
Jessica
Lindsey

Orange Ricotta Pancakes

I've been trying to make good on a previous resolution while our family is visiting. These pancakes certainly helped.

With the majority of the batter made up of ricotta cheese, these are not as bready as a traditional pancake. They're creamier—more like a dessert. They're wonderful topped with powdered sugar, maple syrup, freezer jam, or (my personal favorite) lemon curd.

Orange Ricotta Pancakes
Adapted from: Martha Stewart Everyday Food

1 3/4 C. part-skim ricotta cheese
1/3 C. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
zest of one orange
2 Tbsp. milk
2/3 C. all-purpose flour
Canola oil as needed

Whisk together ricotta, sugar, eggs, zest, and milk. Whisk in flour until just combined. Heat oil in a non-stick skillet on medium-low. Add batter using scant 1/4 cup servings and add oil as needed. Cook until browned (4-5 min. per side). Serve warm.


The sun is shining but there's rumors of rain on the way. I'd better get out there and get my hopscotch on.

The Epic FREAKIN' Cake

It's time to tell you about the Epic Cake, mmmkay?

This cake, I am so very sorry to say, is not for the novice baker. Had I made this cake when I had less experience under my love handles it would have undoubtedly ended up smashed against the kitchen wall. There would have been much throwing and flinging. It would not have been pretty. Those of you with a genetic predisposition for fits that involve throwing: consider yourself warned.

You can find the recipe for The Epic Cake here (Feel free to watch the video if you need a visual, and if the sound of Martha's voice doesn't cause you physical pain. Yeah, I said it.), though I think it is important to remember that it comes from this book—one of my all time faves.

Now. Let's break this down into three obvious parts: The Cake Layer, The Caramel Layer, and The Frosting Layer.

The Cake Layer:
I was singing the praises of this as a basic cake layer with every piece I ate. I thought the crumb was nice and the flavor delish. On the other hand, my dear friend—and expert baker—Katie, baked this same cake and declared it to be dry and crumbly. Dear Katie, I have no idea why that happened. Don't you live in a place where nothing ever dries out? I hope you give the cake a second chance. If it happens again I recommend banishing it from your repertoire.

I cut the leavening by half (altitude! are you getting sick of hearing me mention that? well too bad, I'm not going to stop) and I watched it closely when it was getting done. I tend to bake my cakes for less time than book recipes call for. The best time to start paying attention is when you can smell the cake and you might notice it barely pulling away from the sides.

The Caramel Layer:
Four times. FOUR TIMES I had to make this freaking caramel. If you're lucky and don't burn the sugar repeatedly you will only have to make it twice. One batch goes in between the cake layers (drool) and another batch gets incorporated into the frosting (double drool).

The caramel sauce is salty and rich and burns really really easily. Keep a constant eye on it and remember that candy recipes are written for sea level. If you don't live at sea level you won't need to get your sauce as hot as the recipe says to.

Also, I would recommend squirreling away a little of the sauce instead of putting all of it on the cake. That excess sauce can then be eaten with a spoon. Late at night. By yourself. Just sayin'.

The Frosting Layer:
You guys, this frosting is not screwing around. It has a pound of dark chocolate and a pound of butter and it knows how to use them. It whips up like a dream and spreads nicely. I LOVE THIS FROSTING. Make it and be brave. And adored by all.

***

You assemble the cake by layering cake + caramel + frosting + cake + etc. Yes. The instructions say to sprinkle a bit of salt in between each layer but I chose not to do that. I was worried that my caramel sauce was already too salty and wanted to play it safe. I deeply regret that decision. Remember, if you're going to make this cake, you have to be brave. Oh, and use the fancy schmancy salt.

Okay! Are you so ready to make The Epic Cake? I know you can do it. It's going to be great.

High Five.

Happy Weekend.

Menu of the Week

This week I accidentally spent two weeks worth of grocery money. So...no grocery shopping next week. Yay! It will be a great experiment in making it work. Here's what we're eating this week:

Lemon Pepper Chicken + roasted Brussels Sprouts—N8tr0n and I ate this every couple of weeks when we were first married. It was the first "new" recipes that I tried after we got married and we both fell in love. Even though we don't eat it as often now it is still one of our faves. I've posted the recipe below.

Quinoa with Black Beans—fast, tasty, and gluten free (because I love you, gluten free friends)! I top it with Feta because we usually have some on hand.

Homemade Pizza—topped with pepperoni and pineapple; my all time favorite pizza topping combo. It's what I ordered on every single Book It pizza ever.

Breakfast frittata—made with onions, potaoes, and bacon. High five for Brinner!

Spiced yellow rice with chicken and veggies—a variation on a dish we had a couple of weeks ago.

Desserts: Joy the Baker became my BFF (0nce again) this week when she posted her Tangerine Lemon Curd. Dessert became more of a mission to find a vehicle for this stuff that wasn't just a spoon. I made scones using this mix which my mother-in-law buys in bulk and brings to us whenever she visits. I know. I would be jealous too.

Lemon Pepper Chicken Pasta
2 chicken breast halves; cut into strips
1 red onion; halved and thinly sliced
1-2 cloves of garlic; minced
2-3 tsp. Marjoram
2-3 Tbsp. lemon juice
salt and pepper
zest of one lemon
olive oil
penne pasta (I adjust the serving size according to the number of people I'm feeding.)

Begin by boiling a large pot of water for the pasta. Add your pasta when the water is boiling rapidly. Cook according to package directions.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in large sauce pan on med-high heat. Add onions and garlic to oil and saute briefly. Do not let garlic burn. Add the chicken, salt, pepper, and marjoram. Cook until chicken is cooked through and the onions become tender, stirring occasionally. Add the lemon juice and use a wooden spoon to scrape any brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Turn down the heat and allow the lemon juice to cook down for a few minutes.

Prepare the pasta: In a large bowl combine 1-2 tsp. olive oil, pepper, and lemon zest. Add hot pasta to bowl and toss to coat with olive oil. Add chicken/onion mixture to pasta and stir to combine. You may add a little pasta water if necessary.


I'm so excited to see so many of you participating and sharing your menus! Keep it up and be sure to let everybody know in the comments if you're posting your menu. Thanks and have a happy weekend. February is on its way!

photo 1: Miranda Walker; 2, Martha Stewart; 3, Pinterest

Menu of the Week

Howdy! Here's what we're eating for dinner this week:

No Knead Bread + fresh mozarella + tomatoes—I have been craving this bread hard since reading this.

Chicken stir-fry wraps

Easy Sole Meunier + brown rice + roasted broccoli— I used Tilapia instead of Sole.

Homemade Pizza—toppings: pesto, red onion, artichoke hearts, red pepper. You're going to see that pizza is a weekly standby.

Zuppa Toscana + Caesar Salad

Dessert: Angel Food Cake—this isn't the recipe I use, but it looks good.

What are you eating this week? If you're posting your own weekly menu ideas, please link to it in the comments. I could always always used more ideas for dinner.

Image 1: Miranda Walker, Image 2 & 3: Martha Stewart

Menu of the Week

Happy Friday everyone! I'm excited to be sharing our weekly menu with you. I feel like a few disclaimers are in order before we get started:

:: The menus I post are what we hope to be eating this week. It is what I grocery shop for and try my best to plan for. That being said, there are often weeks when I can't make it happen. For example, last week before our kitchen was really up and running we ended up eating frozen Costco lasagna, frozen Costco pizza, frozen PF Changs, frozen you get the idea.

:: I try to make one vegetarian meal per week. My arsenal of vegetarian meals is growing all of the time, but when I first started doing this, it was a stretch. Sometimes we eat vegetarian more than once a week, especially if we have run our to meat.

:: Speaking of meat, all of the beef that we eat (unless otherwise noted) is from my dad's feedlot. He gives it to us for free and we are incredibly grateful because it frees up a huge amount of money for our food budget. The beef is not grass fed, free-range, organic, or antibiotic free but it is delicious. And as far as being close to the source of our food, I can't think of anything closer.

:: Speaking of organic, we tend not to buy organic food, but we do try to buy fresh, quality, in-season produce.

:: Okay! Is that enough disclaimers? On to the menu!

BLT's (no explanation needed)

Spinach Pie (recipe below) and roasted beets + goat cheese

Pioneer Woman's tomato cream pasta and roasted broccoli (Fast and delicious. I've made it with shrimp, chicken, or no meat at all and loved it every time. I consider this to be one of those pantry meals. That is of course, if you consider cream a fridge staple, which you should.)

Chicken and rice with broccoli and scallions (one pot meals, at least one night a week, always seem like such a relief.)

Homemade Pizza (toppings: pesto, bacon, tomatoes, red onions or scallions)

Dessert: Sweet & Salty Cake (aka: The Epic Cake—more about this later)


Spinach Pie
(Courtesy of Rachel)

Crust
1 cup cheese
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/4 cup melted butter

Mix well. (I pulse in food processor) Pat into a greased 9 inch pie
plate and set aside.

Filling
1 frozen 10 oz package chopped spinach, thawed
1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup half and half (I just use all milk)
1/4 cup chopped onions
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 eggs slightly beaten
1/2 C. Feta (optional)

Cook spinach, drain well, combine other ingredients

Pour filling into crust. You may want to put the pie plate on a
cookie sheet to make moving easier, and it catches drips. Bake at 400
for about 45 minutes.

Image 1 & 2 via Martha Stewart, Image 3 Miranda Walker

Aunt Sassy Cake

Right now I should probably be loading boxes into the Subaru. But if I don't tell you about the cake right now, I'm afraid I never will.

The night before Thanksgiving, I baked a cake with my sister-in-law, Laurel. I should mention that I really lucked out when it comes to sister-in-laws. Laurel is the best. She knits, she sews, she bakes, and she has impeccable taste in music. Plus she gave me this book for my birthday, forever securing her title of "Best Sister-In Law Ever." I brought my new book with me on our Thanksgiving trip so that Laurel and I could actually bake something together instead of just talking about it all the time for crying out loud.

We chose the pistachio cake. AKA: Aunt Sassy Cake

I should say right now that I consider this cake a triumph. Not only was it as delicious as we knew it would be, but it was beautiful. First of all, we actually used 8 inch round pans instead of 9 inch pans, or square pans, or whatever was lying around the kitchen that could constitute a pan. Yeah, I've done that. Second of all, I actually cut the round tops off of the cakes so that they would stack nicely on top of each other. Third, we put on a crumb layer of frosting first. You know, all of those things that you know you're supposed to do but never actually do because you're lazy? Well we did them. We figured it was worth it since it was a Thanksgiving cake after all. We were so right.

Laurel and I contained ourselves within a tiny corner of the kitchen. The place was packed that night. GrandmaG + GrandmaJ preparing the stuffing; Brother-in-law+ GrandpaB making 1,000,000 sweet potatoes. We measured, laughed, tasted, and cut corners when we could see that Matt and Renato were micromanaging their recipe.

As I've already said, this cake is delicious. And that's coming from a girl who likes her cake to be dark and chocolaty. The frosting? Honey Vanilla Buttercream. A-maz-ing. I wish I were eating some right now. The cake was a hit with the Thanksgiving crowd and I won't pretend that Laurel and I weren't very proud of ourselves. It's always so satisfying to have people oohing and ahhing over your food.

Want to make this cake too? I'm pretty sure you do. You can find the recipe here. I would re-type it but dang, it's long. And of course I highly recommend the entire cookbook from which this recipe came. Matt and Renato, if you're listening, you're welcome to pay me in baked goods. Thanks.

Happy weekend everyone!

XOXO

Tutorial: My Mom's Caramel Apples

Before I get into this giant picture-heavy tutorial let's talk numbers from this Halloween:

76 = the number of caramel apples made.
3 = the number of caramel apples remaining at the end of the night.
40 = the number of sugar cookies made.
3 = the number of sugar cookies remaining at the end of the night.
60 = the number of candy bars purchased
10 = the number of candy bars remaining at the end of the night.

Can you believe it? 76 caramel apples? I have to admit that when I was helping mom with the Halloween prep I was skeptical. I thought we were making more than enough goodies and that we would have leftovers coming out of our ears. Clearly I was wrong and my mother knows just what she's doing. Her house is definitely the place to be on Halloween. That is, if you like a crowd. And if you don't mind parking your car at the end of the line of minivans in her driveway. And if you don't mind waiting in line for your caramel apple or sugar cookie. Which you don't.

Enough chatter then, let's get to the recipe!

Mom's Caramel Apples
Yields: About 12. Batch can be doubled, tripled, or quadrupled as necessary.

Apples should be washed and cold. Sometimes we put the sticks in them and keep them in the fridge overnight. My mom keeps hers in the cooler at the convenience store a few miles away because you know, she has connections. If you get your apples as the grocery store be sure to wash them well to remove any wax they may have on them.

Combine 1 C. light Karo syrup, 1 lb. light brown sugar, and 1/4 C. butter into a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and cook until all the sugar is dissolved.

Remove the pan from the heat and add 1 can of sweetened condensed milk. Put it back on the heat and cook—stirring constantly to prevent burning—until it reaches 230 degrees on your candy thermometer (be sure to calibrate for altitude!).

Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit. If the caramel is too hot it won't stick to the apples (and if it gets too cold you can warm it back up on the stove). At this point you can bask in the heavenly smell of caramel that has wafted into every part of your house. But not for long! You have a lot of apples to dip!

While we're waiting for the caramel to cool, we like to crush rice crispies in a Ziploc bag. We use these to dip the bottoms of the apples in to keep them from sticking to the pan and to make them more awesome.

From here it's pretty easy:

Take your apple,

dip it in the caramel,

turn it a bit to let the excess drip off as the caramel cools,

dip the bottom in the crushed rice crispies,

and place in the fridge on a WELL BUTTERED pan.

Please don't forget to squirrel away an apple for yourself or for a loved one. These suckers go fast and I would hate to have you miss out on all of your hard work!

Oh! And one more thing! There is always a little bit of caramel left in the pan when you run out of apples. We use that to dip marshmallows in. Marshmallow + Caramel + Rice Crispies = Bliss. I think my brother likes the marshmallows better than the apples.

Enjoy!

I like it now

I've never cared that much about coffee cake. Do you hate me now? I guess I always figured I'd rather have a muffin or you know, cake. Like with frosting. But N8tr0n has always liked coffee cake so I would occasionally try to be a nice wife and make it for him. I had a recipe from Sunset that called for approximately 1,000 ingredients and required every single bowl that existed in the kitchen. There were multiple steps, multiple layers, and a springform pan involved. The results were good but obviously not worth all the fuss since I can count on one hand the times I've made it. With that recipe my opinion of "coffee cake: meh" was further reinforced.

I can't exactly say that I was searching for a new coffee cake recipe when I happened upon this one. It was more that I was searching for something to do with the apples that were staring me down from the fruit bowl. Or maybe it was the fact that I noticed the recipe called for sour cream and everything is better with sour cream you guys. Whatever made me dog-ear this recipe, I'm so happy that I did because now I get it. I get coffee cake. And it's about time.

Before I share the recipe with you, I feel like this pie needs another shout out. Have you made it yet? My goodness what are you waiting for? Make this pie while you're waiting for the coffee cake to bake. Or vice versa of course.



Apple Coffee Cake
Adapted From: Everyday Food

Topping:
1/4 C. unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
1/2 C. packed light brown sugar
1/2 C. toasted pecans, chopped
1/4 C. old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. course salt

Preheat oven to 35o degrees. Combine dry topping ingredients and cut butter into it with pastry cutter or your hands. Refrigerate while you make the cake batter.

Batter:
1/2 C. unsalted butter, room temperature
2 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda (adapted for altitude)
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. course salt
1 C. granulated sugar
1/2 C. packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 C. sour cream
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and diced
1 C. toasted pecans, chopped

Prepare Bundt pan. Whisk together dry ingredients. In separate bowl combine butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Add sour cream and beat to combine. Gradually add flour with mixer on low and beat until just combined. Stir in apples and pecans with spatula. Transfer to Bundt pan and sprinkle with topping. Using a butter knife, gently push some of the topping into the batter. Bake at 35o degrees for 60-70 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Turn out and let cool.

I'm declaring

If I were to declare an official meal for October it would be chili. Especially if it is topped with lots of sour cream and cheese and eaten with Fritos instead of spoons. I'm so glad that N8tr0n has recently decided he likes chili so that I didn't have to miss out on the official meal of October.

And if I were to declare an official cookie of October it would be these. Connie's Pumpkin Cookies. Light and fluffy + maple frosting. Mercy. Connie happens to be the mother of my bestest friend Jen and her cookies may or may not be the glue that kept my friendship with Jen alive. Okay, that's not true, but the cookies are still amazing. I recently got to spend the evening with Jen and Connie whipping up some pumpkin cookies and watching Connie make the maple frosting that has eluded me for years. Apparently I was making it harder than it actually was—story of my previous baking life.

Any time I get together with Jen it is just like old times. Except now it is our two toddler daughters running in circles giggling and screaming instead of us. And yes, we ran in circles giggling and screaming well into our college years.

Okay but back to the cookies. They're the best. They're perfection. They're the official cookie of October. I'm declaring it.

A few notes:

Left to my own devices, I shaped the first batch of cookies and they were way too big. These are best if they are about the size of a Tablespoon when you're spooning them out. Plus then the recipe makes gobs and gobs and cookies that you can share with your neighbors and friends.

The frosting needs to be put on when the cookies are warm. I like to start making the frosting, put the cookies in the oven, and then have the frosting ready and waiting when the cookies come out of the oven.

If the frosting tightens up in between batches you can put it back on low heat and add a tiny bit more milk to thin it out a bit. And then you'll probably have to add a little more powdered sugar. And then...well, you get it.

Connie's Pumpkin Cookies
(makes: gobs and gobs. aka: 3 dozen small cookies)

Cookies:
1 C. Butter (room temp)
1 C. Sugar
1 C. Pumpkin
1 t. Vanilla
1 Egg
2 C. Flour
1 t. Baking Soda
1 t. Baking Powder
1/2 t. Salt

Beat butter and sugar together until well combined. Add pumpkin, egg, and vanilla and mix well. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and add to liquid ingredients.
Bake at 375 degrees for 7 to 9 minuts.

Frosting:
1/2 C. Brown Sugar
1/4 C. Milk
2 T. Butter
Combine in small saucepan and boil for two minutes.

Remove from heat and add 3/4 tsp. vanilla and 1 C. Powdered sugar. Add water or milk to make less thick and powdered sugar to thicken.

Happy Monday Everyone!

What we ate

It seems that every season, I stumble upon a recipe that suddenly become the recipe of the season. I make it once and I'm completely hooked. We eat it multiple times. I rave about it to my friends. I post it on the blog--you know, the usual. I even think about past seasons in reference to the starring recipe.."remember that summer when all we ate was The Salad?" or "no no, that was the winter of Tikka Masala." This year the recipe came a little late, but it came nonetheless.

I found it in my Everyday Food and was mainly drawn to it because it looked like a good way to use up a decent chunk of the bulging bag of cherry tomatoes Grandpa 2 sent us home with.

Truthfully—I didn't think it would be that great. I didn't anticipate wanting to make it again immediately. I was very much mistaken.

I feel like this is more of a method than a recipe, though I'm glad I started with a recipe. Now I know that my heart sings over cherry tomatoes that have burst in a hot pan and that anything I add to them is really just the gravy. The first night I made it I included shrimp. Tonight I didn't have shrimp, but I did have whole wheat spaghetti. The origional recipe calls for arugula, but I used baby chard. Some fresh thyme is a rock star in this dish, though without it I wouldn't be like, "hey...where's the thyme?" Next time I'll add summer squash. If I had cream in my fridge I would add a splash of that too. It would also be good topped with some fancy cheese. It think you get the idea.

This sauce is awesome if "finished" with a pat of butter. If you're into that sort of thing. Which I am.

Summer Tomatoes + Chard

(aka: What we ate late summer 2010)

1-2 T. olive oil

1 C. cherry tomatoes

1 garlic clove, minced

1 lb. large shrimp, peeled and deveined

4 handfuls swiss chard (the smaller/younger the better)

kosher salt + pepper

juice of 1 lemon

1 T. butter

1 t. fresh thyme

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add tomatoes and stir until they begin to blister and break. Add garlic and stir briefly (30 sec.). Add shrimp and cook (stirring often) until almost opaque. Add chard and season with salt and pepper (I used a couple generous pinches of salt). and stir until wilted. Add lemon juice, butter, and thyme and toss to combine.

Garnish with your favorite cheese, toss with pasta, or eat straight out of the pan.

Enjoy

J's Pesto Recipe

When I was in graduate school, my all-time favorite client, hands-down, was an older gentleman who had suffered from a stroke in his mid-fifties. We'll call him J.

J was the client that I couldn't wait to see every week. In a time when I was horribly anxious and worried that I was an awful therapist, J made me feel like a rock star. His stroke had tragically changed his life and left him wheelchair bound and nearly speechless. But with the right amount of coaxing and therapy "tricks," J could tell riveting stories about his previous life as a pilot, business man, volunteer, and restaurant owner. He even told me stories about his father who drove a flank car for Al Capone. True story. J had very few pictures of his former days so we had only the memories in his head to draw upon. Luckily, he had an amazing memory and I had the privilege of helping him access those memories with speech.

When I worked with J he was--first and foremost--a chef. Our love for good food helped us form an instant bond and I frequently planned therapy sessions around recipes and food banter. One hilarious discussion included J trying to tell me about gnocchi and me trying to figure out the actual word he was trying to say...but that is a story for another time. J's condition was best treated with multiple repetitions of sounds, words, and phrases. He would bring in a recipe of his that a friend had typed for him and we would work on reciting the words over and over. At the end of the session, J would let me take the recipe home to keep. Win win.

Those were also the early days of my marriage and I had a bug to bake bread. This was not going well for me. Honestly, I was turning out some horrible bread. J and I decided that he would help me learn to make perfect bread and one day he brought in his no-fail bread recipe. We talked for 50 minutes about the specific details of this recipe. I will never forget this session because it didn't even feel like actual therapy. It felt like I was just chatting with a dear friend—which I was. I took home the recipe to give it a try with the intention of reporting back the next time I saw him.

I had yet another bread failure. However, I was not discouraged and I told J all about the results. We talked about what could have gone wrong and he made some suggestions. Again I went home to bake bread. Again, I failed. After two more troubleshooting sessions with J, I came to him clearly exasperated. (Are you beginning to wonder who the actual therapist was?)

"J. What am I doing wrong? How am I going to get my bread to work? What do I have to do to get something worth eating?"

J held up his hand with a resolute look in his eyes. He knew exactly what I needed to do. I watched his mouth as he began to grope for the words..

B...Buu....Buu

He stopped and look me straight in the eyes and said:

"BUY BREAD."

J has since passed away and sometimes I'm sad that I never got to tell him that I can bake bread now. Though he probably already knows. This pesto recipe is my favorite recipe that he left me. I make it every summer and it is impossible to mess it up*. I think of him often when I'm making it...and whenever I'm in the kitchen for that matter. I hope you love it as much as I do.

J's Pesto

3 Cups finely cut fresh basil leaves; stems removed

1 Cup Olive Oil

3-5 Cloves of garlic

1/4 Cup pine nuts

1/4 Cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

1/2 Cup softened butter

1/2 tsp. salt

pinch of pepper (white, green, red, or all)

Put all ingredients in food processor and grind, little by little until it is a soft green color with no large basil leaves left. Chill for at least an hour. Can be frozen.

J's notes: Cook quality spaghetti with a splash of olive oil and salt in the water until al dente. Using cold water, rinse and drain the spaghetti. Put into pasta bowl and toss with pesto just before serving. Pesto can also be mixed with softened cream cheese for a creamier sauce. This is good with gnocchi. Every sauce is good with gnocchi.

*Do I need to mention that I'm crazy about pesto? In fact, when people ask me what to do with pesto I usually say something annoying like, "what don't you do with pesto?"

It's very....quiet

:: Grandma N came to pick up Z-cakes this evening. N8tr0n and I are taking a little weekend trip and thought Z-cakes would have more fun at grandma and grandpa's. We don't leave until this evening so I have big plans for my child-less day. House cleaning, maybe a run, a little sewing...I figure that will get me to about 11:00 AM. After that, I have no idea what I'll do. I am well aware that my life would be very boring without Z-cakes.

:: I spent yesterday making this loaf cake. Mercy. It was the perfect end to our end-of-Summer dinner. It comes out of the oven the most gorgeous brown-almost-black color. Paired with my grandma's bread pan, the sight almost got me teary. Jen, I am positive you will love this. I thought of you the entire time I was making it.

:: I also made the best bread of my life. Not exaggerating. It was quite a domestic day.

:: N8tr0n helped me make pizza the other night. It was simple and delicious topped with garden tomatoes hand crushed by my man, garlic + oregano + fresh thyme + fresh mozzarella + fresh basil. Fresh being the key words in that sentence. I couldn't quit telling N8tr0n how nice it was to have him in the kitchen with me. We need to do that more often. I really really like him.

:: I haven't stopped listening to this playlist since Alicia posted it. Isn't it nice when someone does all the work for you? I do love these brothers. I breifly considered scrapping the whole handmade holiday idea and just buying everyone on my Christmas list their new album. We'll see. If by chance you're new to the Avett Brothers (which I kind of doubt) I recommend starting with I and Love and You and then jumping to Pretty Girl from Cedar Lane....then just listen to the whole playlist. Okay. Moving on.

:: The ACTUAL reason I started this post was to tell you about my guest post over at Sherbet Blossom! Hannah has started a new series called "May I Suggest." She has gathered a few bloggers to share some of their favorite things each Friday. Rad right? I'll be there sharing during the month of September. Today: the deep dark secrets of my beauty routine. (quit laughing, I kind of have one!) Go check it out!

Happy Weekend friends!