Instead of writing about something I’ve made, I thought I’d give you a preview of what I will be (hopefully!!) writing about this summer when the bounty of the fruits and veggies I’ve planted come in.

Last year, I planted a large pot with four wild strawberry plants, and Raju and I looked forward to the strawberries ripening one or two at a time. These guys taste so much better than the supermarket variety, so this year I planted 5 planters of strawberries. So maybe we can look forward to 5 strawberries at a time, or dare to dream, 10! (more…)

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In the Garden by Courtney

After a very blessed Thanksgiving with plentiful food on the table, I have a few leftovers in the fridge, and I’m not just talking about dressing and turkey. The Stuffed Pumpkin I made only needed half of a butternut squash, so today I’m faced with what to do with that other half.

Luckily, this is a pretty easy conundrum for me to face. One of my favorite ways to cook butternut squash is to roast it with a bit of salt until tender, then coat it with an oil flavored with pancetta and red chilis. And what goes better with pancetta then sea scallops? So I did a quick pan fry of those with just a little salt and pepper, and voila! Thanksgiving leftovers that weren’t very Thanksgiving at all.

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Dairy free, Dinner, Gluten free, Quick and Easy, Thanksgiving by Courtney

One of my favorite prepare-ahead meals is pizza. Every month or two, I make up a big batch of pizza dough (usually doubling or quadrupling the recipe I have for 2 12-inch rounds), and I portion those out into large size and individual size lumps that are frozen for later.

When I do this, I also like to cube up some mozzarella and portion it into baggies (generally around 5 – 8 ounces per bag) and make a few batches of pizza sauce, freezing those in individual baggies as well. At some point in the month or two, I end up poaching a bag of sauce here, a baggie of mozzarella there, and I end up with just the pizza dough. So there are a couple of go-to pizzas I make when missing the other ingredients. (more…)

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Dinner, Italian, Lunch, Pizza, Prep for Later Use, Vegetarian by Courtney

This is what happens when you put your garden irrigation on water timer. You aren’t as engaged, and then one day you go out to check how things are doing, and WHAM!! you’re hit with a bunch of produce. I now have over 6 pounds of squash and zucchini, 3 pounds of roma tomatoes, 1 pound of yellow taxi and black cherry tomatoes, and 2 and a half pounds of green beans. Looks like I better get to cookin’!

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In the Garden by Courtney