It’s great when the journey is every bit as good as the destination. Do you remember last week when I told you I could live on Caprese salads all summer, if only I could get my hands on good tomatoes all season? Well, that might have been a tiny stretch of the truth because I also adore a good BLT when the weather is really hot. And guess what? It’s really hot. And I’m aching for a BLT, but I’m still waiting for the perfect, juicy, ripe tomato. But thankfully, as I determined with my strawberry, mozzarella, and basil crostini, fruit can make an awfully good stand-in for tomatoes. We can have our bacon sandwich with whatever is ripe and juicy right now. This week it was nectarines. [Read more…]
Grilled Peaches with Chèvre & Prosciutto
Normally, I’m pretty worthless when I’m super hungry. I get irritable and irrational. I’ll yell, I’ll whine, I’ll pout, I may even cry. Yes, toddler-style. What can I say? It’s not my best trait.
Once in a while, though, I’ll surprise myself (and my boyfriend) by behaving like a big girl long enough to push past the hunger and throw something together that makes everything okay. I’ll see the one last peach perched on the counter, the nub of goat cheese in the fridge, and remember the garden full of lettuce and herbs. Suddenly, I realize the crisis can be averted–I can make something out of this! 15 minutes later, I’ll be backing myself out of the crazy-losing-my-mind-from-hunger zone, and congratulating myself on turning a bad situation into a delicious one. Then I’ll get so excited over how yummy it was that I’ll make it all over again the next day so I can take pictures and talk about it here.
Okay…now that you decided I’ve totally lost it, allow me to share my latest effort. It’s a grilled or roasted peach stuffed with goat cheese, paired up with lettuce and herbs from the garden and a few slices of prosciutto. It’s awfully good and can be assembled in minutes. It’s the kind of thing that’s always a winner, on occasion, a savior, and just what I feel like eating all summer long.
Fresh Apricot & Tarragon Scones
This spring, as soon as fresh apricots made an appearance at the grocery store, I made a salad with them and the first sprigs of tarragon from my garden. The combination was good, day-dreamy good, and my mind wandered to familiar territory: butter, baking, and scones.
Do you remember a few weeks back when I shared an apricot and strawberry cobbler with you? I told you how the apricots had actually been meant for a batch of scones but (because life happens) they wound up in a cobbler instead. Don’t get me wrong, that cobbler was outstanding and if you haven’t tried it yet, or at least tried the combination of apricots and strawberries, you should. Now.
Just because those apricots became a cobbler doesn’t mean I gave up on my dream of fresh apricot scones. I finally got to them and they were as good in my real world as they were in my day-dreamy fantasy world. Buttery baked goods and ripe stone fruits are always a winning combination in my book (uh, peach pie anyone?) and the presence of tarragon adds an air of intrigue.