Shiny Copper & Quick Veggie Dishes

Hey Guys! 

I’m so glad you guys want to win that “Summer in a Box” giveaway!  Pretty sweet right?  We’re all suckers for free desserts and products!!  You still have until Wednesday to enter!

Hope everyone has had a great weekend! Mine was pretty busy, but also really fun.

I’m still working my way through our garden full of zucchini and now also this PILE of feta cheese! (I weight it too, almost 9lbs total!!)

I’ve never seen so much feta cheese in one place before, not even when I was in Greece!  I can’t complain though, I love the stuff and so far have really been enjoying coming up with recipes.  I’ll be sharing those with you in the near future :)

This feta comes to you from the same people who brought you Chobani Greek yogurt, so you know it’s good!  Real good.  

One easy way to use up is obviously on salad.  I was invited to a Pig Roast at Tina and Mal’s house yesterday and so I made my favorite party salad, but substituted feta for the Romano cheese!

I also brought a dessert, but I’ll get to that later.

Another fun weekend surprise was a FANTASTIC deal my mom found for me at an estate sale!

See, my grandmother (the most), and my aunts…LOVE garage/yard/estate sales.   I usually lack the patience to try and find something great at those things, but I’m always grateful when someone ELSE finds something for me ;)

Like this beauty:

Oh yes.  My mom snagged me a GORGEOUS Ruffoni copper casserole!   I  drool over those acorn handled pieces of art every time I go into William Sonoma. 

This must be an older model as I can’t find it online anymore, but I’d be willing to guess it would cost around $300-$400 brand new. 

She paid $5!!!  FIVE DOLLARS!! 

Seriously!  Thank you mom!!!!  She also found some other great items for me at this sale…it was one of the better sales they have been to in a while, and somehow I made out like a bandit :) 

And you want to know how she polished it up?  Ketchup!  Yup, just rub some regular old Heinz ketchup all over your copper for a few minutes, wash off and it’s shiny and beautiful.

($5!!!!)

Now I just need to figure out a nice spot to showcase it.

Ok onto the veggies!

The first was a tasty green bean side dish I enjoyed while I was on Nantucket.  My aunt made it, and it was so simple I re-created it when I got home. 

Vinegar Green Beans (you’ve got to like vinegar for this one)

Now this is more of a recipe by description, not exact measurements.

• Simply steam up some green beans (she boiled them, but I went with steaming) 
• I had the steamer basket full.

 

• While your beans cook.  In a shallow serving dish/bowl combine:
• Red wine vinegar (2 parts)
• 1 clove minced garlic
• olive oil (1 part)
• salt & pepper
• As you can see, I definitely used more vinegar than oil, but feel free to adjust.  You just want enough to dress the beans, and using a shallow bowl is great because you want the beans to sit in the vinegar.

 

• Once the beans are cooked to your desired level of doneness, immediately transfer the hot beans to the vinegar mixture

• Toss the beans, and let them sit for 5-10 min.   Or let them marinate overnight! 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed them the next day, cold, after they have marinated in the vinegar :)

Next…

BBQ Broccoli Slaw

This was one of those random snacks I made myself that I kept going back for more and more, and in turn at almost an entire bag of broccoli slaw!

It was all this hot weather making me crave cool foods, and I had a bag of Trader Joe’s broccoli slaw in the fridge.

This is pretty much a typical slaw, topped with BBQ sauce.

• approx 8 – 10 oz broccoli slaw
• 1 T olive oil mayo
• 1 T plain yogurt
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar (more or less to taste)
• 1/4 tsp celery seed (or few shakes)

So I whisk up the dressing, add in my broccoli slaw until I achieve my desired slaw to dressing ratio and serve myself a bowl. 

Then it hits me!!

One day in Nantucket (yes a lot of good food ideas came out of my 3 days there with family), one of my cousins was making herself some coleslaw for lunch.  I wasn’t really paying attention, but I do recall her adding some Sweet Baby Rays to her mixture.

Didn’t think twice about it, until I made mine!

GENIOUS! 

Obviously BBQ + Coleslaw go hand it hand, but I’ve never thought to add BBQ sauce TO my slaw!

So so so good! 

Super fast and healthy snack!  I literally ate what you see above X3!   Almost an entire bag of Broccoli Slaw! 

Ok that is all!!

This girl needs some sleep…  First day of work tomorrow!

Yes I got a new job :)  I’ve actually also had some time off lately which has been really REALLY nice, and making it real hard for me to want to go back.  Yet all good things must come to an end…oh and those pesky things like bills and mortgages need paying. 

The FUN part is that I am now working in downtown Boston!  I’ve always wanted to have my chance to work right in the city, so I’m excited it’s finally happening.

Wish me luck…I feel like it’s the first day of school.  What to wear, what to wear ;)

Farmers Market Morning (and bacon!)

FINALLY the hot hot humid weather has subsided around here.  This weekend is perfect.  It’s just about 80 degrees, sunny, breezy, dry…ahhhh, so nice!

Weather like this always makes me want to just be outside. 

I wanted to run and I wanted to go to the Farmers Market in Winchester (town over from me).  So I packed my water, a towel, and bags for the market and drove over.  Then I did a 3+ mile run, cooled down, grabbed my purse and bags and walked over!

This isn’t a huge Farmers Market, but its close by and downtown Winchester is awesome to walk around anyways.

There were SO many families out!!  Babies and dogs everywhere haha.

 

I picked up various fruits and veggies, plus some cheese and bread.

I do have my own garden with some great produce growing away but some is doing better than others haha.  Like I don’t know what is up with our zucchini!?  The summer squash plants are going great but the zucchini plants are flowering and just not growing any vegetables??

So I got:

• 2 zucchinis
• 1 tomato (you know, to compare to ours)
• 1 peach
• strawberries
• raspberries
• 2 ears of corn
• 1 purple pepper!
• 1 little squash that looks like a spaceship :)
• 1 honey wheat baguette
• Burrata with mascarpone!!

I was pretty hungry when I returned so I made a quick egg sandwich with:

• honey wheat baguette
• 1 egg
• 2 strips bacon
• some avocado spread on the bread
• tomato slices

DELISH!!

I also had another little piece of baguette with burrata and a couple raspberries.

THE CHEESE!!  I had this once before at the Slow Fest.  It’s homemade fresh mozzarella stuffed with mascarpone.  So creamy, ever so slightly sweet…amazing.  It’s made in Somerville, MA by Fiore di Nonna.

Last night I also made a kick-ass garden salad!

I used my first picked Beefsteak Tomato from our garden…oh.my.god…so amazing. 

Also into the mix was:

• avocado
• cucumber (from the garden)
• yellow bell pepper
• snap peas
• Feta cheese
• lemon juice
• olive oil
• S&P

Definitely hit the spot for a light dinner

 

So yeah…there’s bacon in the house.  Bacon is one of those thing I just never buy.  No big reason, but it just reminds me of greasy, bad for you foods.  However with the tomatoes ripening in the garden I was craving a BLT like no body’s business!          

Enter Trader Joes…

This stuff is great!  Takes 2-3 min to crisp up.  Thin Slices, 3 slices is only 100 calories and you really do not need more than that because it’s so flavorful.

The bacon came into play one night this week when I came home from the gym and wanted dinner ASAP!

Bacon, Avocado, Tomato, Arugula Sandwiches with Tarragon Mayo (BATA’s ?)

To make the tarragon mayo I used Smart Balance light canola mayo with fresh chopped tarragon.   

Cooked up 3 slices each of the TJ’s bacon for Brian and I.

I also used TJ’s Soft Multi-grain Rustico Bread, sliced avocado, sliced tomato, and baby arugula!

Wow.  This is one flavorful sandwich.

The bacon just adds that intense smoky, salty, delicious flavor and you don’t need mounds of it to accomplish that!

This was a great, FAST, dinner.

Off to enjoy the rest of my Saturday!! 

Green Thumb Part 1

Time for an update on our yard!

The month of May seemed to be all about yard work…probably the most I’ve ever done :)  I mean weeding alone can occupy many many full days and you’ll never be done!!

We’ve been at our house for 1 year this month!  I’d love to share some of the adventures/projects as new homeowners.

#1 – Vegetable Garden

I always knew I wanted to have a veggie garden.  We didn’t move in early enough last year to really get one going, although we did have a few tomato plants last year and those are always great to have.

We did tomatoes again in the same spot, as that worked out pretty well and we’d have more room for other veggies in the new garden.

 

(this pic was from a few weeks ago.  We now have some green tomatoes sprouting and they’ve grown a lot!)

For our new garden, we did a raised bed.  We build the box ourselves, and it’s 4’x8’ and 8” high. 

The area we chose gets a lot of sun throughout the day which is very important.  The plastic in the picture was there when we bought it to keep weeds at bay, so we cut around it for the bed instead of removing it.

My handyman/yard work champion

Once in place, it was time to buy some veggies! 

We had a gift card to Mahoney’s Garden Center leftover from the wedding (great gift idea btw!!), so we headed there one Saturday morning.

They had SOOOO many things to choose from, it was a hard decision and we really didn’t know how many different items we could fit into our garden.  

Definitely Basil

Look at all these gorgeous basil leaves!!!!!!!!!

This is what an asparagus plant looks like

I bought 1 to see what would happen, but we wont see anything from the plant until at least next Spring.

Thought this was interesting…

A Stevia plant!   Didn’t get one though.

In the end we had a full cart of veggies and herbs

• cucumbers
• green, red, and yellow peppers
• carrots
• mesclun lettuce
• red onion
• zucchini
• summer squash
• asparagus
• snap peas
• basil
• cilantro
• parsley
• thyme
• oregano
• dill
• rosemary
• mint
• chives
• sage

And into the ground they went…

Aside from 1 year with tomatoes, we are both gardening newbies!  So we are figuring that this year is more of a learning experience than anything…but I do hope we have some success!

So far things are going pretty good…not great, but good.  I really need to read up more about each plant and how to take care of them.  It’s also only been 3 weeks so I don’t know how much growth to expect yet.

If anyone has any tips for any of the items we are growing it would be greatly appreciated!! :)