Erin's joining me...

We were out picking tomatoes yesterday - lots and lots of them - from Erin's little garden.

She's had such an abundant harvest that it's been a little hard to keep up with all those tomatoes!  She doesn't have a freezer or a pressure canner (yet).  She's hoping....

So, today while Clara naps and Erin and Luke go riding and out to eat together alone for the first time in a year, I'm doing these slow roasted tomatoes.

Here they are, all ready to go in the oven...

And three hours and a lovely walk up the hill with Clara later, here they are ready to eat.  Notice a few empty spots on the parchment, do you?  Well, it is impossible to stand near the baking sheet and not pop them in your mouth.  Erin says she could live on them.  They are little bit of concentrated summer tomato deliciousness.

And since we're on the subject of  my daughter's tomatoes, it's a good time to tell you that Erin is going to join me on the Good Food blog.  It was her idea for me to add her as an author, and I'm delighted to do it!   We like to cook together, we like to talk about food and gardening and farmer's markets and eating.  So, it's only natural to do it together!

Erin is a lifelong vegetarian married to a Montana meat and potatoes man.  She has learned to cook things Luke likes, meaning, she's learned to cook meat - not something her mother taught her!  She's also doing a great job developing healthy, happy eating habits in little Clara.  So, maybe she'll add some posts on feeding babies. 

...or babies feeding Mamas.

Welcome, sweetheart.  I'm glad you want to share this space with me.

This one's for....

Colsaladpalooza 2010.

I've mentioned this salad before and even posted a picture.  I linked to a recipe and mentioned my modifications.  To keep you from having to follow a lot of links, here's the recipe the way I make it.  My husband just told me last night that he could eat this salad every day.  I could, too.  I'll be planting kale soon so that we have a bounteous fall supply (hopefully!)

Raw Kale Salad

1 bunch kale
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp. balsamic vinegar (I've also used red wine vinegar)
1 orange, peeled and sliced OR a can of mandarin oranges
1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Optional additions.  Add any or all:
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
1 grapefruit, peeled and chopped

Wash the kale and spin in a salad spinner.  Slice as thinly as you can (the recipe online says to "chop into thin ribbons" - get the picture!)

Drizzle olive oil over the kale and sprinkle with salt.  Massage the oil into the kale with your hands (yes!).  Let it rest for 10 minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients.  You can refrigerate this til ready to serve or serve at room temperature.  I like it either way.

This salad keeps well so we double or triple the recipe and keep it for daily consumption.  So delicious and healthy!

Blackberry cobbler

It's berry time.  I picked a lot of blackberries this morning so I'll be making cobbler later.  Here, for my sister-in-law, Laura, who has fresh picked blueberries, are two cobbler options!  (Warning Laura - this is not exactly health food!)

Grammie's Cobbler Topping

1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. baking powder


Mix all these ingredients together.  The mixture will be rather crumbly.  Put on top of fruit.  Melt 6 TB butter and pour over fruit  and topping.  Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, til lightly browned.

This recipe is from Grammie, my mother-in-law.  It is for apple cobbler and calls for 3 1/2 cups of sliced apples with a quarter cup of sugar and some cinnamon and nutmeg with the topping and butter on top.

I always double this recipe.  I put a generous amount of fruit in a 9x13 pan and put the doubled amount of topping over the fruit. Of course, I double the butter, too! 

Amber's Cobbler Recipe which she calls "cuppa, cuppa, cuppa" shared with me while picking berries this morning.


1 cup of self rising flour
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of buttermilk

Amber says her grandmother would melt butter in the bottom of the pan and put in the fruit, sometimes adding a bit of sugar to the fruit.  Then the topping gets poured on.  I'm guessing it bakes for half an hour or so at 350.

So, there you go.  A couple of cobbler recipes for your fresh picked berries.

Father's Day Food

Erin said I should post about the salads I made for Father's Day.  Sorry, no food photos, just a run-down of what I made:

Honey Mustard Potato Salad

I steamed a great big bag of gourmet white potatoes.  They were smallish, but I cut some of them in half so they'd steam a little faster.  After steaming, I sprinkled them with kosher salt and a few twists of fresh pepper.  Then I mixed up a dressing with plain old yellow mustard (it's all I had on hand), a generous squirt of honey, a bit of olive oil and a few splashes of balsamic vinegar.  Then I poured all the dressing over the warm potatoes and let them marinate overnight.  Oh, yea...I also chopped a sweet red pepper and put that in the salad along with a couple of chopped hard boiled eggs and a bit of chopped parsley.  This salad just got better with time. 

Pasta Salad

I'm sure you all have your own variations on pasta salad.  This one had whole wheat rotini, a jar of marinated artichoke hearts, a bunch of sliced black and Spanish olives, a chopped sweet pepper, and some cut up pepperoni.  I only added a little oil and vinegar since the artichoke heart marinade was pretty flavorful.

Avocado Salad

Three ripe avocados, two chopped Roma tomatoes, a little lemon juice.  That's all.

Broccoli Salad

Here.  I left out the bacon.

These salads were served with some lovely sourdough bread, toasted and spread with butter. Everyone was very happy.  And that was even before the blackberry tart.

Truly, I could eat like this every day.

Blackberry time

We have a power cut up the road - a big ugly swath with high tension power lines.  It's an eyesore, to be sure.  The red clay hillside along the cut is eroding away. Every time it rains, rivers of red ochre mud course down the street.

But this landscape does have a redeeming feature...

Masses of blackberry brambles all over the hill.

Queen Ann's lace, too.

The flowers decorated the table at a bridal shower.  I made the blackberry tart for Father's Day, sort of using this recipe.  Pretty delicious!

Cooking lull

It is rather sad that I have not posted anything on this blog since February.  That reflects the state of my kitchen endeavors in the last months.  A little sad.  A bit boring.  Humdrum.  Repetitive.  Uninspired. You get the picture.

I am looking forward to summer cooking and farmer's market meals and cucs and basil from the garden and all that summer food goodness to reinvigorate my culinary pursuits and hopefully, give you a little encouragement and inspiration....

....when I get back.  Til then, take a look at these wonderful vegetarian supper posts from my friend, Tonia, and be inspired!

Here's another salad...

...I can't wait to try.  I love portobellos and I love anything roasted.  This salad combination sounds amazing.

I keep on eating the kale salad.  I vary it with things like grapefruit sections, pecans, and raspberry vinegar.  "Massaging" the kale really is an important part of this recipe.  Just roll up your sleeves and stick your hands right down into that kaley, olive oily goodness and gently squeeze it around a bit.  It doesn't just make the salad better.  It's good for your skin, too.  And be sure and use good salt.  It does make a difference.

Here's the promised salad picture with a side of homemade whole wheat bread...