Slice and halve a baguette, spread maple, honey or agave syrup lightly over the top. Place chunks of brie on top of each slice and toast in oven for a couple minutes until the brie has slightly softened. Top with pieces of fried bacon and serve.
Also shown, farm fresh eggs from the Steven’s farm, scrambled with havarti dill and salsa, seasoned with salt. Topped with flat leaf parsley.
In our house, lunch is frequently prepared by frying a flour tortilla in some butter, layering leftovers and cheese and topping it with another tortilla. Frying it until lightly browned, and flipping it over to brown the other tortilla. Sound gross? It’s really very good. We’ve done all sorts of cheeses; swiss, sharp cheddar or gruyere. Leftovers have ranged from prepared tuna, or leftover roast beef, or chicken in spaghetti sauce. If there are no suitable leftovers, we simply dip our cheese quesadillas in ranch dressing. You’d be surprised how much the kids love having a hot lunch and you’ll love a one pan meal that puts those pesky leftovers to good use.
Not to worry, we aren’t going vegan or anything. Ben and I have just been contemplating the amount of meat we consume. Questions along the lines of, yes, God gave us permission to eat steak, but still some cow has to die and shouldn’t we show respect by not eating beef every night of the week? That’s another tangent, but my point was, that we are cutting back on meat. We have been finding other places to gain protein through food (I’m not a big fan of vitamin supplements). Lots of legumes and cheeses. I’ve learned to soak the beans in salt water to add flavor and to slow cook lentils for 12 hours to make very filling and delicious soups. But sometimes life gets in the way of meal prep and I’m stranded at 6 o’clock with no dinner on the table and not an idea of what to do about it. Yesterday was one such night. I’ve been reading a lot of Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food, in which she provides a list of food to keep on hand for such emergencies. It is because of that inspiration that I did have potatoes, olive oil, thyme and frozen asparagus on hand. I prefer red or little golden potatoes, which have so much flavor and are easy to quarter into bite sized pieces, but you could just as easily use russets. I washed and quartered my reds and spread them into a glass cake pan. I laid full sprigs of thyme (stripping them takes so much time and I didn’t have it!) on top, and poured a generous amount of olive oil on top of the whole she-bang. Fresh ground sea salt and pepper topped it, of course. I baked it at 375′ turning the potatoes occasionally, which allows for the cooking thyme leafs to fall off and mix in. Once the potatoes were soft, I turned up the heat to 425′ and placed some frozen asparagus spears on top of the potatoes. I kept it in there about 10 minutes until the asparagus had heated through. Ben and I like to dip our roast potatoes in prepared horseradish for an extra kick.
Approximate cost for serving 3 (1/2)
Optional prepared horseradish will make each serving about 15 to 20 cents more.
In prelude to Autumn I give you my favorite seasonal smells:
I am feeling a bit under the weather today so for breakfast I just asked what Ophelia wanted. She asked for yogurt with honey and cinnamon. We usually buy Brown Cow Maple yogurt, but they didn’t have it at Trader Joes last week so we have Un-flavored Greek Yogurt. We added a bit of local honey and a pinch of cinnamon. Not only did Ophelia love it, so did Mira and I!
Over our summer holiday, Ben’s mom bought the girls a really adorable butterfly garland during our layover in the Seattle airport. We kind of fell into a butterfly theme for their room some time ago and it stuck. Since their bedroom has no overhead lighting, and the idea of putting standing lights in there made visions of crashing stands and broken light bulbs dance in my head, I opted to hang colored Christmas lights instead. We also found some cute patio butterfly lights at Target that fit right in and Ophelia is rather partial to them. The only downside to the arrangement was the single unsightly cord hanging from the corner. It’s tucked out of the way of the children’s reach, but still, there it was. Ben had the ingenious idea of wiring the new garland so we could wrap it around the cord to hide it. I had some craft wire on hand, and tied the garland tight in between a door knob and a cabinet to hold it still. After locking the cat in the laundry room (she thought it was all a fantastic game), Ophelia and I spiral wrapped the wire around the fishing line that suspended the butterflies and tacked it to the ceiling before wrapping around the offending power cord. Tada!
(Side note: Ophelia does not sleep in the crib. It’s in there for Mira, but since Mira hasn’t graduated out of the pack n’ play yet, Ophelia makes good use of the crib as a trampoline.)
We’ve been busy. I promise. But we did find the time to try out these babies taken from Nigella Express and they are mmm, mmm, good! I couldn’t find the pumpernickel bread anywhere in Moscow (Idaho) where I was making them, so I just used a regular old baguette and toasted slices in the oven prior to making the avocado/pea mixture. I may have also topped them with some fresh ground pepper. I can’t help it, pepper is the best season out there! My father in law (we were visiting them) was teasing me about making “Scarlet Lillie stuff” as I prepared these. I told him that they were way to simple to post. In retrospect, I knew that is exactly why I needed to post them.
Spoon out the flesh of the avocado and put it in a food processor; add the lime juice and the garlic.
Add the drained peas and salt and then process until you have a Kermit-colored puree.
Spread the pumpernickel rounds softly with the avocado and pea mixture and arrange on a large platter for serving.
In the process of launching my own etsy shop, I commissioned a seamstress to help me out with the projects that were beyond my sewing capability. Pacy James just created her own etsy shop featuring her women’s clothing line (men’s clothes coming this autumn). Her style is absolutely fantastic and the pricing is very conservative. Check out her storefront….
The Tagger is Beloveds answer to the cliche of tacky and bulky comfort items. They don’t think children need to be over stimulated to be entertained and comforted. They have chosen quality fabrics that are interesting, elegant and texturized for maximum motor skill development without offending your sense of aesthetics.
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