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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). 
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Putting together a meal is all about planning, organization and execution. Here in New Jersey, food flyers arrive in the mail on Thursday for sales starting on Friday or Monday. Whole Foods sales are uploaded on their website or app Wednesday morning and go through the following Tuesday. You look what’s on sale, find a recipe that can be done in under 45 minutes, purchase the ingredients and you’ll have a quick, nutritious meal. There are many websites that can provide you with quick and easy recipes and I find The NY Times Cooking app and epicurious.com very good resources. You also need to have pantry staples in which to make this process easier too. 
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The first time I had been to Lincoln Center was at a performance at the Metropolitan Opera House during Christmastime. Our son was visiting from Florida, where was working at the time, and we took he and his sister to see Hansel and Gretel.  The opera house is impressive in its grandeur and elegant chandeliers. On the back of the seats there is a digital screen that provides translation in several languages of the opera. Since then, my husband and I have seen Madame Butterfly, La Boheme and La Traviata to name a few. This past spring, we saw Rigoletto. This version was updated taking place in Las Vegas in 1960’s.  It had colorful staging with lots of neon lights, costumes and even colorful characters.

We have also been to Lincoln Center Theater. The theater is designed so that the seating is almost in the round. The stage doesn’t seem as high as other theaters, so the audience feels closer to the performance. We have seen War Horse, South Pacific and recently the revival of My Fair Lady starring Laura Benanti and Harry Hadden-Paton. Following the Sunday matinee show, we went to Bar Boulud for dinner. Bar Boulud is a short walk from Lincoln Center at Broadway and 64th Street. We had previously had lunch there in late winter prior to seeing Rigoletto. 


​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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