As soon as I saw this recipe on Food In Jars, I knew I had to make it. I had quite a few roma tomatoes, and while I initially had set them aside to make massive amounts of pizza and pasta sauce, I was really, really dreading peeling that many tomatoes.

Enter the Tomato Jam recipe. Tomatoes, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and red pepper. Those ingredients alone sounded too good to be true. But the kicker was definitely this line, which was like poetry to my ears: “It needs the skin and seeds, to keep things interesting. Don’t take them out.” (more…)

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Appetizers, Condiments, In the Garden, Prep for Later Use, Vegetarian by Courtney

With the return of Monday night football comes yummy, cheesy, not-good-for-you foods. And to begin the season, I decided to break out one of my recently pickled batches of jalapenos and make a plate of these guys.

I saw this recipe on America’s Test Kitchen many moons ago, and I immediately had to make it. Fast forward a year, and silly me hadn’t saved the recipe. While the nachos part itself I could remember, I couldn’t remember the recipe for the guacamole, which is one of the best I’ve ever had. Recently, I found the recipe again, as a download to promote the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook. Luckily I saved it this time, because it looks like its already gone again. (more…)

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Appetizers, Comfort food, Gluten free, Vegetarian by Courtney

After many battles with my tomato plants, over the past weekend I finally yielded enough tomatoes to make something beyond an individual caprese salad. I decided to flip through one of my favorite cookbooks, the Food of Italy, to find inspiration on how to handle the 3 pounds of roma tomatoes I had on hand.

While many of the tomatoes will be destined for pizza sauce, I decided to take 20 of them and make oven-dried tomatoes, which was really easy. (more…)

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Appetizers, Dairy free, Gluten free, In the Garden, Italian, Vegan, 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

Looking for something to cook on the grill this weekend? This recipe from La Cucina Italiana for Shrimp and Proscuitto spiedini is quick, easy, and very tasty. And it looks pretty impressive too! I would suggest spritzing a little olive oil on these before putting them on the grill.

I served this recipe with grilled tomatoes and onions and a garlic-studded loaf of bread. (more…)

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Cooking outdoors, Dinner, Lunch by Courtney