 Carondelet Kitchen’s oven has been quiet during the intense heat wave. It does not mean I have not been thinking about cooking and baking once temperatures fall.
Our new puppy has been getting needed attention along with training treats. As I pulled another treat out of the container, I remembered baking treats for my Weimaraner’s. They loved to sit by the oven in anticipation of a hot “cookie” filled with peanut butter and oats. I decided I would like to revisit the idea of baking special treats on occasion for Bonny Doon. It seems that the diet of dogs and the “do and don’t” list is now longer than a decade ago. Does anyone have a favorite go-to recipe?
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 We got our first cucumber! It is the first time we planted them, so I was excited by the size and flavor of it.
Luckily, our Black Krim tomatoes came in too, so I opted for a summery cucumber and tomato salad. I love the freshness of the vegetables with a sprinkle of feta. I tend to use a balsamic based dressing, but this time I found @imospizza dressing in the pantry. It was perfect for a hot day!  Summer is here and our first Brandywine tomato turned red on the vine. It was not a perfect tomato as it grew too close to the vine, but it was the best tomato as it had the honor of being first!
We decided to stop by @rwbgfarmersmarket to pick up bread and fresh fruit. You know we might have an addiction to Chef Amanda’s focaccia when we did a preorder. Thanks @keycakesandco for wrestling up five loaves for us. The first one almost did not make it home knowing it was the star of our dinner that evening. The rest will wait patiently in our freezer, but I suspect another order is coming before the end of June! We also stopped by @weredoughbaking for a soft and fluffy sandwich bread to complement our BLT. It was the perfect bread to stand up to the Brandywine tomato, @fricksqualitymeats bacon, @dukes_mayonnaise with a chiffonade of basil, and lettuce. Summer is here!  Big Guy has worked hard @carondeletgarden this season with plentiful harvests, minus one hailstorm which wiped out our runner beans. We have already enjoyed lettuce and snap peas which really amps up the freshness in our ingredients in the kitchen.
Hummus is a staple in the summer months and the snap peas, and even peppers, were our impetus to make our first batch. More peppers and, yes, tomatoes are on the horizon. I cannot wait for our future summer meals!  I can tell summer is here because I bought cream cheese. I do not normally keep this in the refrigerator until I am ready to make the family recipe, Dill Dip. It is such a simple mix that I have used it to dip pretzels or chips or even as a flavorful spread on a sandwich.
The hardest part of making this recipe is remembering to soften the cream cheese before mixing in two to three tablespoons of milk along with garlic salt and dill to taste. Do not forget to sprinkle dill on the top for the presentation. As my mom would say, “you want to be sure people know it is dill dip.” I admit I was never patient as a child, so I was always up for the challenge of a strong-arm exercise to get the dip to its creamy perfection. Things never change because I still do it as an adult, but the effort is worth it!  Big Guy and I will rarely turn down pizza. While we enjoy it out, we have also enjoyed grabbing a crust and adding ingredients from our freezer and pantry.
Thanks to @carondeletgarden, our fresh vegetables of the evening were two different peppers, Candy Cane and Friarello Sweet, along with basil. Can you believe we are already harvesting peppers? We added meatballs from the freezer and cheese and sauce from the refrigerator and our pizza was ready for the oven. My mouth is already watering as I type this blog. Twenty minutes to go!  Big Guy and I have been experimenting @carondeletgarden. When we first moved to our cottage, our neighbor, Marie, had a beautiful peach tree. We all cried the year it aged out with scab and she had to cut the down the tree. Thanks to that experience, we focused more on plants and shrubs that were minimal maintenance to complement our busy work life.
Time, you see, is the healing step we needed to plant fruit back into our garden. We planted blueberries and raspberries along our west fence line. We made sure to buy blueberry plants that would cross-pollinate and the raspberries that were quick developers but need little maintenance. I admit I expected nothing from the plants this year, but to my surprise, I was able to harvest enough berries to make a couple of smoothies. I agree with everyone who says fruit and vegetables directly from the vine are sweeter and more delicious. I am hopeful we will need a bounty next year so I can make jam so I can enjoy them into the winter.  Big Guy planted our garlic last fall so it could mature and prepare for harvest this summer. It appears, like most things this year, that our harvest came early to our south bed.
The recent hailstorm forced us to pull one of the garlic as the storm damaged the scape. As I pulled out the garlic, I was amazed at the size and quickly showed it off to Big Guy. We decided to pull the entire bed and I am eagerly waiting to use them in the kitchen once they are properly dried and prepared for storage. As part of our ongoing experiments, we have another bed of garlic that we planted on the west wall which appears will be ready at its usual time around the fourth of July. I am excited to use fresh garlic again. I have a jar of minced garlic in the pantry as a backup, but nothing beats it out of the garden.  We felt so helpless watching the skies open while depositing hail all around the garden. The good news is our flowering plants did well. Our vegetables, on the other hand, withstood the worst of the storm. We lost our runner beans, and our squash is on life support. The other plant to get damaged hard by the storm was our sugar snap peas. Again, the good news is I had already done one harvest anticipating one more before the end of its season. Our peppers plants had minimal damage, with them springing back to life after a day of sunshine and extra attention from the Big Guy. I admit I was worried as peppers have never been a good producing plant for us. To my surprise, our gypsy pepper is thriving and has already produced for us. While it looks and sounds like a hot pepper, it is a cross between a sweet Italian bull horn and bell pepper. I plan to use it very soon in a meal in the Carondelet Kitchen!  Big Guy is a huge fan of steak and potato meals. As he was reading @nytimes, he noticed a recipe for garlic butter steak bites. Butter, garlic, and steak…we ran to the refrigerator to thaw out a steak!
The recipe was simple. The first step was to marinate the cubed steak in olive oil and soy sauce. Big Guy opted for Worcestershire sauce as he prefers the flavor profile. Once marinated, he cooked the steak in a lodge pan over medium heat in batches until the steak was perfectly cooked and set it aside. Returning to the same pan, he added butter and garlic. Once the butter melted, he added back the steak to the pan so he could coat it in the delicious sauce. The final addition was adding a side of baked potato fries and a lovely pinot noir from @seanminorwines. It was the perfect meal! |
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