Oatmeal Pear Scone

 

1 cup flour

1 cup oats

1 Tablespoon baking powder

3 Tablespoons sugar

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ cup of butter or 4 Tablespoons butter

4 pears, peeled and sliced

2 eggs

1/3 cup cream

Directions: Mix together all the dry ingredients, stirring to mix. Cut in butter. Cut pears into pieces and add to mixture, including any additional juice. Break eggs into a separate bowl. Add cream to eggs. Mix with a fork. Add the egg and cream mixture to the oatmeal pear mixture. Grease a 9.5-inch pie pan with butter and dust with flour. Pour mixture into the greased and floured pie pan. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes. Scone will be golden brown; let cool so that juices may be reabsorbed.

Serves 6-8 people.

Notes: This is a nice way to use late summer produce. 

Chunky Garden Tomato Soup

 

1 Tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic

5 medium slicing tomatoes

2 cherry tomatoes

4 inches dried baguette

4 Tablespoons grate mozzarella or Parmesan cheese

Directions: Pour olive oil into smaller sauce pan. Slice garlic and add to olive oil. Sauté until golden. Slice tomatoes into chunks and add to the olive oil and garlic. Stir and cook until hot or just boiling. Remove from heat. Add pepper. Tomatoes and cheese are naturally salty so it is fine to omit salt. Slice dried baguette into chunks and divide into bowls. Ladle soup over bread and then top with cheese.

Serves 2 people or 4 servings as a side or cup.

Notes: Thank you to the brother and sister-in-law for the garden tomatoes.

Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

2 medium slicing tomatoes, approximately 8 ounces

8 ounces of mozzarella, approximately

1 Tablespoon olive oil

Lavender Pepper

Directions: Slice the tomatoes into cubes. Slice the mozzarella into small cubes. Combine the tomatoes and mozzarella in a bowl. Toss. Add the olive oil and toss again. Both tomatoes and mozzarella are naturally salty so it is not necessary to salt the salad. A couple of grinds of lavender pepper, make the mixture delicious. The measures in this salad are estimates. The ratio of tomatoes to mozzarella is roughly 1 to 1.

Serves 4 people

Notes: Thank you to the brother-in-law for the gift of garden tomatoes.

Parsley Salad with Red Onion and Mandarin Dressing

 

1 bunch of Italian or flat leaf parsley

3 cherry tomatoes

1 small red onion

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 fresh sweet mandarin or tangerine

Salt and pepper

Directions: Wash parsley in cold water and pat dry. Using a sharp knife cut the leaves from the stems, until you have approximately 2 cups of parsley leaves. Reserve the stems for another use. It is not necessary to dice the leaves as they are in bite size portions. Wash cherry tomatoes and dry. Slice the tomatoes. Place parsley and tomatoes in a salad bowl and toss.

Red onion and mandarin dressing

If onion is recently from the ground wash and remove outer skin; otherwise simply remove the outer skin. Dice onion. Place olive oil and onion in small pan and sauté. Cut the mandarin in half. When onion is limp, squeeze the mandarin juice into the onion and olive oil. Stir and cook for a minute longer; cool slightly and pour on greens and tomatoes.

Serves 2 people.

Notes: This is a refreshing summer salad.

Cake visual

Happy Birthday to one and all!

This cake was drawn in response to the prompt, parma purple from Colour Collective

Cheers!

 

Summer Turkey Sandwich

 

8 slices pumpernickel bread

12-16 ounces turkey, grilled, smoked or roasted

Sprig of fresh dill

Sprig of fresh parsley

Mayonnaise

Dijon mustard

Directions: Wash and pat dry the dill and parsley. Remove softer dill leaves from the fibrous main stem. Then, assemble the above ingredients into four sandwiches. Do keep the mayonnaise refrigerated as well as all the other ingredients.

Serves 4 people.

Notes: The fresh parsley and dill make this one of the finest turkey sandwiches. It is especially important to keep anything with mayonnaise well chilled.

Hummingbird Nectar

 

¼ cup white sugar

1 cup water

Directions: Pour water and sugar together in a small pan; stir over heat until sugar dissolves; continue to heat until just boiling. Remove pan from heat and allow to cool completely.

Pour sugar water into a very clean hummingbird feeder. Hang the feeder outside. Change the nectar or sugar water every couple of days. Please do not add dye or food coloring to the water.

Hummingbirds will also eat gnats and fruit flies which they can find on their own.

Enjoy the feathered friends.

Please see below for additional information on hummingbirds:

Backyard hummingbirds in the Rockies

Hummingbird habitat in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota This is an informative booklet from the USDA with information on plants for hummingbirds and interesting facts such as the male calliope weighs as much as a penny and is the smallest bird in North America.

Audubon

Smithsonian National Zoo 

Grilled Cheese with Olive Tapenade

 

1 slice wheat bread

Jarred olive tapenade or a chopped olive condiment

1 slice Provolone cheese

Directions: Spread olive mixture on wheat bread. Top with slice of Provolone cheese. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes.

Serves 1 person

Notes: Grilled cheese variation 5

The Provencal, South of France, word for capers is tapenas. Tapenade refers to a mixture of chopped or pureed olives, olive oil and capers with additional possible ingredients or different main ingredients. 

 Learn more about tapenade here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapenade

 

Renowned Writers and Illustrators on Blogger (blogspot.com)

     Jenn Harney’s bright and colorful illustrations begin with her most recent project and continue back in time. Her words are delightfully sparse and to the point.

    Mo Willems fun blog, Mo Willems doodles! links to his many other blogs and websites. A number of these sites have games or crafts. My favorite is the link to the Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence 2020, Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems! a series of 15 videos which are great for children age 3-12. In these short videos, he teaches doodling and explains how he makes books.

    While Christian Robinson changed hosts a number of years ago, his Moss Covered Blog has colorful illustrations and museum visits.

    A number of successful writers and illustrators use the free, blog publishing service Blogger which Google purchased in 2003; the blogs are published via the subdomain blogspot.com.

Visit Jenn Harney:Jenn Harney

Visit Mo Willems: Mo Willems doodles!

Visit Mo Willems at The Kennedy Center: https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/mo-willems/lunch-doodles/

Visit Christian Robinson: Moss Covered Blog

SCBWI: The Blog: The Official Blog of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators: SCBWI: The Blog

Learn more about Google Blogger – blogspot:Blogger.com

Grilled Cheese with hummus and Gruyere

 

1 slice whole wheat bread

1 Tablespoon hummus

3 cherry tomatoes, red and yellow, sliced in half

2 thin slices Gruyere cheese, enough to cover bread

Directions: Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes or until cheese melts.

Yields: 1 open faced sandwich

Notes: Grilled cheese variation 4

Oatmeal Vanilla Biscotti

 

½ cup unsalted butter

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large eggs

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

2 cups flour, divided

½ cup oatmeal

Cream together butter, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, creaming after each addition. Add one cup of flour and baking powder. Cream. Add the oatmeal. Cream. Add last cup of flour and cream. Grease cookie sheet with butter wrapper. Drop dough by spoonful onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes. For a dryer cookie bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes.

Yields: 2 dozen cookies

Notes: Rinse eggs with water. Dry. Crack each egg, individually into a separate bowl. Inspect. Remove any eggshells and then add to butter and sugar mixture.

Real biscotti are baked twice. In our arid Rocky Mountain climate, these cookies will dry out in 24 hours although they seldom last that long.

Gnocchi with Basil and Pecorino Romano

 

17.6 ounces gnocchi or similar size package

1 Tablespoon butter, unsalted plus an additional tablespoon in reserve

Drizzle of olive oil, approximately 1 teaspoon, plus extra olive oil in reserve

4 Tablespoons, fresh basil cut in ribbons

½ cup Pecorino Romano, cut into matchstick slivers

2 cloves garlic, sliced

1/8 teaspoon lavender salt

¼ teaspoon lavender pepper

Cook gnocchi, according to directions. Meanwhile, on low heat, melt butter in a frying pan. Add sliced garlic to butter. Turn off heat on boiling gnocchi water. Using a slotted spoon, transfer cooked gnocchi to frying pan. Add basil to gnocchi and garlic, sauté until light golden brown. Grind small amounts of lavender salt and pepper on top of gnocchi. Serve in bowls and top with Pecorino Romano.

Serves 2 people.

Notes: The gnocchi soak up the butter and olive oil while cooking to a golden brown without leaving any residual oil in the pan. If the gnocchi stick, please add a bit more butter or olive oil.

To slice basil. Wash and pat dry. Cut leaves from stems. Stack leaves together with the largest leaves on the bottom. Fold and roll the leaves and then slice horizontally across the roll.

Thanks to Wanda for the gift of lavender salt and pepper which I have since replenished.

Visit: A Pinch of Lavender, Palisade, Colorado Nielsen Village

Honey Mustard with Salmon or Turkey and Cheese

 

1/3 cup of honey

1/3 cup of Dijon mustard

With intense honey and mustard flavors; this is great for sandwiches and leftover fish. Stir honey and mustard together in a small sauce pan at low heat until the ingredients are blended thoroughly.  

This is very nice on leftover cooked salmon fillets. The honey tends to burn quickly so it is better to line the pan with aluminum foil or use generous amounts of butter to grease the pan. Place cooked fish in pan. Drizzle the honey mustard on the fish. Cook the salmon at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes. If cooking with raw fish, poultry or other, be careful not to contaminate the honey mustard with raw protein. Then any leftover honey mustard may be used for sandwiches.

Turkey and Honey Mustard Sandwiches:

Pumpernickel bread

Honey mustard

Turkey

Provolone cheese

Spread honey mustard on pumpernickel bread; top with turkey and cheese. Place open faced sandwich on greased pan and then heat for 10 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit or until cheese is melted.