Food diaries: When best friends get together we make my grandmother's peach crumble

What you'll need:

six peaches, peeled and sliced*

one cup of flour

one cup of sugar

tblspn of cinnamon

one egg

one stick of butter

What you do:

- Preheat the oven to 425 and put your peach slices in a pan

- mix one cup flour and one cup sugar, add a dash of cinnamon, maybe more

- Use your fork to make a little hole in the sugar/flour mixture and drop in your egg

- Mix until the batter resembles cornmeal then dump over top of your peaches

- In a separate bowl melt your butter, pour your butter all over the sugar flour mixture

- Throw it in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes (or until nice and crisp)

- Eat with friends on the porch with ice cream or whipped cream. 

* To peel your peaches, boil up some water and drop those suckers in for 45 - 60 seconds. Drain and rinse in cold water and those skins will fall right off! 

October

Oh friends, graduate school is hard! Writing a thesis is hard! I don't have much to say that would interest you so here are some snapshots of my life at the moment!

This is where my weekends are spent. In this thesis mess (and yes those are wedding presents that have yet to find a home in our tiny apartment).

I've been drinking many cups of coffee (luckily out of a pretty tea cup).

Honey from my parent's bee hive is my new current obsession. We've put it in desserts, yogurt, tea, etc (I love this vintage glass jar my mom gave me!)

flowers from my mom's garden

pears are in season! that means pear-ginger pie!

saying goodbye heirloom tomatoes with cream cheese tomato toast :)

eating for one

Wow. That title sounds super depressing- I swear this post is not! Please keep reading! (Also, I promise to do updates on our road trip soon!!)

As many of you know, Jon works out of town these days. He has a pretty long commute and while most nights he makes it home for dinner, on busy weeks he scraps the drive and stays with my parents (who live quite close to his new job). Because the job is pretty busy all the time, I'm usually cooking and eating by myself at least one night a week (note: I do have awesome girl friends who are always up for going out to eat, but in an effort to save money, I'm trying to stay home and cook).

Often, I end up eating leftovers. However, when there are no leftovers to be had, I'm often at a loss for what to eat for dinner. Grilled cheese? PB&J? Eating these fine foods alone on the couch while watching PBS masterpiece mystery sometimes just doesn't cut it- and usually end up still hungry and lonely(anyone else out there watch PBS masterpiece mystery or am I the oldest 27 year old alive?).

While in Atlanta, I picked up and started reading Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, which is a compilation of short stories about cooking alone and dining alone. It is a pretty great book and I would totally recommend checking it out sometime.

One such story focused on the merits of black beans and rice as a dish for one. And how true. Black beans and rice together are the best meal because the are a) delicious, b) healthy and c) you always have leftovers- ie lunch or dinner! And so, last night feeling inspired and a little lonely, I made myself a delicious dinner of black beans and rice (with extra shredded cheese and salsa on top of course). Ahhh...my comfort food, and paired with an ice cream sandwich, this dinner was the perfect way to wind down alone!

Do you ever eat or cook alone? What is your favorite dish for one?

How we tried to be green and save money: the food

I mentioned before that my mom made 35 pies for the wedding, from scratch. They were delicious. Sadly we did not cut the pie. We wanted too but there was a lot of pressure from family members and friends that we cut cake. It was silly and we should have stood our ground, but at this point there were a lot of things that we just let go of to make it through the day without offending anyone, so we cut a very small cake from a local business in my hometownAlbemarle Baking Company and for a cake it was pretty delicious :-)

Anyways, the pies were combinations of apple, apple peach, apple crumble, apple blueberry and apple cranberry. They were made with organic apples and fruit and organic ingredients. Sadly I did not get to eat any pie, but its okay, I've been eating my mom's pies for years and I'd rather my friends.

We decided early on that we wanted the food to be pork barbeque and lots of summer salads. Our family friend Rae who owns a delicious restaurant in Sperryville Virginia was our caterer Also instead of making vats of only 5 salads for 200+ people, she made 10 or 12 salads that served 50, this ensured that there was a wide variety of yummy food! She did an amazing job make the most delicious salads out of the most delicious ingredients- many which actually came from my parents garden. This not only cut costs, but also ensured that we knew our veggies were fresh and where they were coming from!

Sadly, I only got a few bites of food that night but the next morning we found that the caterers had made us the most delicious plate of food! Yum!

(This picture was the only one I could find from my guests photos of food, taken by my friend Curren. I believe she has on her plate a little bbq, some sweet potato salad, bean and corn salad, green beans and feta, bread from albemarle baking company with the most delicious spreads...and much more!

spaghetti pie!

JM's Aunt Janice gave me the recipe for Spaghetti Pie or "poor man's lasagna" at the bridal shower. I modified the recipe some (I made my own sauce) but it was still delicious and fed us lunch for a week!

Spaghetti Pie (I used a large brownie pan)
1 pkg 8oz of spaghetti, broken into pieces
2 tablespoons of butter
1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 egg well beaten
1 cup of cottage cheese
4 oz of Mozzarella cheese
Meat Sauce*

* I made my own sauce, using my mom's homemade tomato sauce, spinach, onions and garlic :)
Cook the spaghetti in boiling, salted water and drain. In separate bowl mix in butter, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and egg. Place pasta in pan and stir in the Parmesan mixture.
Spread cottage cheese of spaghetti layer, top with sauce. Bake in oven at 350 for 30 minutes. Sprinkle Mozzarella cheese over the top and bake an additional 5 minutes or till cheese is melted. Stand 15 minutes before cutting.

the best thing

about the bridal shower the other weekend was all the great recipes friends and family gave me! Maybe it is just because I'm a quarter Italian but I think food is a big part of family and love. JM and I often cook together and I am looking forward to working together in the kitchen as husband and wife!

After our super fun 4th, I decided to make the recipe given to me by my MOH Allie, Spicy Parmesan Green Beans + Kale. Now I never grew up eating Kale, but this was the best! We couldn't stop eating it!
To make:
3tblspns of olive oil
1 onion sliced
1/4 cremini mushrooms (i just used buttons)
1 and 1/2 lbs green beans trimmed and sliced into 1 inch pieces
1-2 tspns salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 cup of white wine (Allie uses dry vermouth, I had neither so I added a little extra water- it was missing the kick that vermouth or wine would have given it but was still delicious)
1/2 tspn red pepper flakes (or to taste)
1 bunch of Kale (rinsed stemmed, roughly chopped)
2 tbls lemon juice
3 tbls finely grated Parmesan (or more if you'd like)

* Warm olive oil in large heavy saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook till translucent (4 minutes). Add the green beans ( and mushrooms if desired) salt and pepper and cook for 2 minutes. Add the wine and continue cooking till beans are almost tender.
Add the red pepper flakes and then Kale and continue cooking till the kale has wilted (4-5 minutes)
Add the lemon juice and Parmesan and toss to coat. Serve immediately!

Thank you Allie (for the pretty bowl I served it in too!) I have so many recipes to choose from, I think next I'll chose JM's aunts spaghetti pie!

Announcement

Not that anyone except my sweet MTW will care, but La Bamba Mexican restaurant has passed Little Mexico* in my list of best Mexican restaurants ever. Especially because Thursday night is $1 taco night (soft or hard!). JM and I had dinner for two for $7.01 (cheese dip was also included!).

*please note that La Bamba still has a long way to go before beating Mix Tec, El Paso and Azteclan.