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I’ve gotten to know a few of my daughter’s friends over the years, especially a few of her high school friends. This Thursday I asked my daughter, who will be here with our granddaughter, to invite one of those friends to dinner.  I would call my daughter’s friend a “foodie,” as she’s involved in her family’s business of pate production.
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When planning a menu, I keep in mind my guests likes and dislikes and what can I prepare to take advantage of what’s currently in season.  I saw on @thisgirlcaneat a post for delicious looking stuffed figs. On the website Serious Eats, I found a recipe for grilled figs stuffed with goat cheese. With tomatoes in the height of the season, tomato bruschetta would be a good addition. Our main course will be grilled pork chops with caramelized peaches and basil  and corn pudding. For dessert, vanilla Madeleines, a recipe that I found on the King Arthur Flour website.

On Monday,  I got a jump start on dessert. The best way to describe a madeleine is that it is a small seashell shape cake the size of a cookie. You need a special madeleine baking pan for these cookies. The recipe for the madeleines needs only a handful of ingredients such as butter, sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla, flour and, as an option, 2 drops of rum flavor. Fortunately, I had all the ingredients on hand. The recipe came together without any problems. I did have to melt and cool the butter and have the eggs at room temperature. After that, it was time to put the batter together. Once that was done, the batter had to chill for 45 minutes. Baking time is 12-14 minutes. One thing I learned today is that I should have let the cookies cool in the pan. The ones that I removed while they were warm, have a rough texture on the scalloped side. The few that were in the pan longer, came out smooth and much nicer. To give the cookies a wow factor, I dipped them in some chocolate ganache.

Of course, I had to sample one for quality control. They were delicious. I like the addition of the chocolate, it added just enough of an extra flavor.
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This morning, I’ll prep the corn pudding and set the table. 
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Our daughter sometimes questions the amount of pasta my husband and I eat for dinner. When I was growing up, there was a neighbor next to my grandfather’s house who fed her family of five on one pound of pasta! Sadly, sometimes my husband and I can eat almost a pound. We are trying to be better at limiting our intake, but can I help it if what I make tastes so darn delicious.
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From the May 2017 issue of Southern Living Magazine, there was a recipe for tomato carbonara. As it’s now in prime tomato season in New Jersey tomatoes, I couldn’t resist trying this recipe. My husband could eat pasta seven nights a week, so asking him if he would like to try this recipe was a no brainer.
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The recipe calls for fettuccine, bacon or you can use prosciutto or pancetta, multi-colored tomatoes, shallots, garlic, eggs, Parmesan cheese, fresh chives and parsley. I purchased diced pancetta at Wegmans for a recipe I wound up not making, so I already had this on hand. For the produce, I went to Delicious Orchards and purchased heirloom cherry tomatoes (2/$7.50) and picked up some extra shallots ($2.49/lb.). My herbs this summer are growing and looking great thanks to my husband’s care and patience.

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The weekend of July 19th was indeed extremely hot. No one was interested in cooking, not even me. Although the weather has cooled off, it is still a bit sticky today. So, this morning, I went through the recipes on the Williams-Sonoma website for some supper ideas. I knew I wanted a chicken recipe (split chicken breasts are a Prime Member special at Whole Foods until Tuesday, July 30th at $2.99/lb.) and something that wouldn’t heat up the kitchen.
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It’s Wednesday and new Prime Member specials have been posted on the Whole Foods app. The meat specials that are available until next Tuesday are sirloin steak for $6.99/lb., beef kabobs $6.99/lb. and bone-in pork loin and rib chops for $4.49/lb. I decided that the pork chops sounded good for supper tonight.
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On to my favorite food apps to find a recipe. I found an interesting one on  epicurious.com for hot honey pork chops with escarole and white beans, but I wanted less ingredients. On the Williams-Sonoma website I found a seasonal recipe for grilled pork chops with caramelized peaches and basil, yum! I’ve made pork chops with apples, but not peaches, it’s worth a shot. The recipe has only 8 ingredients, including the pork chops. You’ll need salt, pepper, 2 peaches, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup (the real stuff), the best balsamic vinegar you can afford, olive oil and fresh basil leaves. Luckily for me, other than the pork chops, I had all the ingredients on hand. 
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Recently I purchased a bunch of beautiful New Jersey red beets at Delicious Orchards. I would normal just cook until tender and dress with oil and vinegar. However, I wanted to dress them a bit more. I found on my New York Times cooking app a recipe by Julia Moskin for Marinated Beet Salad with Whipped Goat Cheese, yum! The beets are marinated with shallots, olive oil, sweet vinegar such as Barolo, balsamic or sherry. I happened to have some Carter and Cavero sherry vinegar on hand and used that. The goat cheese is creamed with a bit of olive oil, milk or heavy cream (I had heavy cream), white wine vinegar and seasoned with salt and pepper. 
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Recently I had some leftover crumbled feta cheese in my refrigerator. I didn’t want it to spoil, so I began looking for recipes in which to use this small amount of cheese. I came across various recipes for watermelon and feta salad. There were recipes that were made with a basil vinaigrette, or contained arugula, cucumbers or tomatoes. I wanted to keep it simple so I went with a basic watermelon salad that had mint. Although my husband and I aren’t big mint lovers, he was willing to give it a try.


I found a recipe by Jacque Pepin, watermelon salad with feta and mint, that was on the Food and Wine website. His recipe called for EVOO, fresh lemon juice, Tabasco, freshly ground pepper, kalamata olives, sweet onion and mint leaves. I had to adapt the recipe due to the quantity of watermelon I had and I didn’t have the onion or olives. The watermelon was already in small chunks. All I had to do was to mix the dressing and chop some mint. In some of the recipes I read, I followed their suggestion of not mixing the feta into the salad, but placed it on topped; then tossed when ready to serve.
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​My daughter and her family were here over the weekend. I wanted to prepare a new recipe so that I could share it with you, plus I wanted it to be something easy to do with a 22 month old on hand. I found on the New York Times cooking app, a recipe by Martha Rose Shulman for Lemon and Garlic Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes. This a 30 minute recipe that uses EVOO, fresh lemon juice, garlic, fresh rosemary, boneless chicken breasts, cherry tomatoes, fresh parsley and some Parmesan cheese.
 
I chose this recipe as Whole Foods has on Prime Member special until today, boneless chicken breasts. I also had the fresh herbs needed for this recipe in my garden. I did need to purchase from Delicious Orchards fresh lemons and cherry tomatoes. I didn’t want cherry tomatoes on a vine, so I selected mixed cherry tomatoes. As I use their personal shopping service, I wasn’t quite sure how these tomatoes looked, but I did know they were sold in a container. What I received was tomatoes from Village Farms, greenhouse grown Maverick mix tomatoes; were they delicious! On their own the tomatoes had a nice sweetness.
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This past weekend my daughter and her family spent a few days with us. It was my daughter’s birthday, so I decided to make her favorite birthday cake, Gateau de Crepes. This is a cake made of multi layers of crepes with a rich, vanilla pastry cream filling.  The recipe appeared in the New York Times in May 2005 where Amanda Hesser adapted the crepe batter from Joy of Cooking and the pastry cream came from Pierre Herme and Dorie Greenspan’s book Desserts.

​The cake takes two days to prepare. The crepe batter and the pastry cream need to be prepared ahead of time. The crepe batter is a luscious combination of butter (which is browned and makes it tasty nutty), milk, eggs, flour, sugar and a pinch of salt. The pastry cream requires a vanilla bean, milk, egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, heavy cream, butter and Kirsch (clear cherry brandy). Don’t skip the vanilla bean, it makes a world a difference in the cream. Although I purchased mine at Wegmans awhile ago, you can purchase whole vanilla beans from the websites of King Arthur Flour or Beanilla. 
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​Several weeks ago, I was watching Cook’s Country on a public broadcasting channel where they prepared shrimp burgers. The recipe was easy to prepare and they looked absolutely delicious. It’s always interesting to find new ways to prepare seafood besides frying, broiling or cooking en papillote (in parchment paper pouch). 


​meet donna

A former teacher, shop-a-holic, empty-nester redefining quick, family approved dinners.

​If you have questions or comments, click on the envelope icon above to contact me directly. 

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