Too Hot To Cook

It is too damn hot to cook. It is also, unfortunately, too damn hot to grill; our grill is in full sun, so even though I'm craving grilled fish, that is not on the menu. Maybe next week.

What we're eating right now is food that doesn't require cooking. Cold sausages. Green salads. and lots of antipasti, which make for a terrific snacking meal. With a cool glass of rose or Prosecco, this is how summer is done right.

Here are couple of my favorite antipasti. Slice, stir, marinate, and enjoy.

Anitpasti dinner. On the deck. At sunset. Life is not all bad...

Date Night In: Ashley Rodriguez is a Genius, or A Marriage Manual Masquerading as a Cookbook

“What I didn’t know was how hard we would have to fight for our happily ever after.”

Strawberry Shortcake Trifle for Two

Spring in Pie Form: Asparagus, Ramp, & Goat Cheese Pie

I’m lucky enough to have a friend with a secret stash of wild ramps that he visits every spring--and sometimes he takes me along. We went out to the woods this past Saturday morning, and I came home with a bag of ramps. Which I then had to figure out what to do with. The answer: Asparagus, Ramp, & Goat Cheese Pie.

Prepping for Pie Season

I love pies. The only thing that can hold me back from whipping up a pie is the crust. What if I don't have enough butter? (I make all-butter pie crusts; no vegetable shortening for me, thank you.) What if I don't have time for the dough to chill? What if I just plain don't have time?

Snacking Dinner On The Deck

There are some meals you cook, and there are some meals you shop for. I'm not talking about takeout, but rather the kind of snacking dinner that requires just a bit of chopping before being arranged on the plate and carried to the table.

While I enjoy this sort of meal all year round, it definitely reaches its apogee as a warm weather meal on the deck.

On my way home from work I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a baguette, a small round of goat brie, a bag of arugula, and, from the liquor store, a bottle of rose. At home we already had plum tomatoes (acceptable, if not amazing, even in April) and an amazing spreadable smoked sausage (from Wursthaus Schmidtz), plus some basics: basil, lemon, olive oil, honey, coarse grained mustard, cornichons.

On Not Cooking

The past few months, I haven’t cooked much. As in, barely at all. I can remember the last meal I properly cooked--an excellent cauliflower and bacon pasta, for dinner on Friday when we had friends over--and before that, I’m honestly not sure. I’ve baked bread every couple-few weeks, and I’ve looked at recipes plenty. I’ve read the serious food magazines that came in the mail, and the email newsletters scattered with luscious photos--every word. I’ve day-dreamed about cooking: standing in the kitchen with the sun streaming in, a little jazz playing, and piles of vegetables yielding under my knife.

But I haven’t actually put knife to vegetable, except to yield the carrot sticks that are the only vegetable Little Z, now 3, regularly eats. Oh, that’s right--a couple weeks ago I also baked Little Z two birthday cakes in one week, one for her school party and one for home. And I attempted to bake crumpets, but failed because I filled the molds too full. I will try these again, soon. I will.

Slow Cooker Dulce de Leche

A confession: before I made it myself, I had never eaten dulce de leche. This was a travesty, because it is clearly the best caramel ever. It's dark and sweet, but not too sweet, and milky and lovely and I have found myself, for the past few days, sneaking nibbles of it straight from the jar. Also eating a lot more bananas because it is amazing with banana and that way I can tell myself that at least part of my snack is healthy.