Salad Ideas

photo via Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times

I know everyone seems to be excited about Mark Bittman's "101 Simple Salads for the Season", but I can't help thinking and talking about it too. I appreciate Mr. Bittman's Minimalist cooking ideas and I love to eat salads.

I rely on a usual salad during the week. Mixed organic baby greens, that I either receive in our CSA box or that I pick up on sale or at a big box store, buying club (to my dismay), and then I usually add tomatoes, cucumber, bits of red onion, sliced and roasted almonds, chunks of grilled chicken, and finally some shredded parmesean. I usually top it with a balsamic vinaigarette that I pick up when on sale.

This is my go-to, never tire of salad. It's easy to plan for and throw together. It's easy for me to get it all ready the night before so I can just grab it and head out the door to work if I take it for my lunch. If the guys at my house all want to eat big pasta dinners for supper I can quickly make this salad and eat it instead.

But, sometimes it's good to break out of your routine right?

The NY Times article is amazing for giving new ideas. I mean, have you ever thought about number 13? (A red salad: Combine tomato wedges with halved strawberries, basil leaves, shaved Parmesan and balsamic vinegar) or how about this one: 78. What happens when your Chicago hot dog falls apart: Toss together tomato wedges, chopped pickles, hot peppers, shredded lettuce and a few slices of broiled or grilled hot dog. Dress with a vinaigrette made with mustard (should be yellow for authenticity, but ...) and celery salt. (You could throw in freshly made croutons; inauthentic, but better than a hot dog bun.)

I'm not sure the hot dog salad is something I'll ever make, but you get the idea.

There are lots of interesting things that Mark Bittman suggests. Some ideas are definitely worth looking into!

A delicious summertime dinner

We have been brainstorming on what new things to eat this summer.
It's so nice to think ahead with meal planning. And it helps with the budgeting and managing life with little kids.
Since I'm the dreamer and my husband is more the do-er, it works well for us for me to come up with a meal plan for the week and then leave my husband alone to make the meals.
We rely on old standbys week to week and then summer comes along and seems to throw everything for a loop.
We have little outdoor activities that come up like bike riding, playing in the sandbox and going to a family swim night, so my husband has less time to prepare and cook. We don't like heating up the house during the summer so we like to keep things a bit simple.
Since subscribing to the C.S.A. we have sort of had to live on the edge, waiting to see what arrives in the box each Thursday. Although we are loving the surprises, it's harder to plan a full week ahead.
I ran across this recipe here and thought it sounded so wonderful. (It's pretty good is one of my new favorites!)
We had everything on hand except for the puff pastry and goat cheese. The garlic, onions, tomato and basil all came in our CSA box this week so on our grocery trip today we picked up the pastry and cheese.
I'm thinking that everything might be better with puff pastry!

Here's the pastry, carmelized onion & garlic and goat cheese:

Here's with a slice from the gigantic heirloom tomato and basil grown locally:

A little sliced parmesean:

This photo isn't the greatest, but they smelled delicious right out of the oven!

And here's the final product:

All the flavors really came together with this one. It also seems like a great recipe to have some variations with. I could see putting all sorts of things on a puff pastry. We had some fresh zucchini fries as a side to our tomato tarts and that was pretty tasty too. I could envision adding zucchini to these tarts. Some pine nuts might be nice....the ideas keep coming.

It's giving me all kinds of ideas for meal planning! Puff pastry might be something to always keep on hand!

(I should add that our kids weren't big fans of this. Our youngest son, who loves pizza, gave it a really good try, but wasn't interested. Our oldest son wouldn't even try it. They both agreed that they preferred cold cereal for breakfast, so they were easy to please tonight!)

Another photo from the trip to the park

Another photo from the trip to the park, originally uploaded by HarbingersofHappiness.

Testing from flickr!

A walk in the park

Today was a nice day!
My husband took the boys to church and I stayed home and had a wonderful leisurely bath without any little kids trying to barge their way in.
We had a quick little lunch and then both little boys and I took naps!
(My husband enjoyed a long solo bike ride too!)
We met some friends at a local park that we always seem to forget about. The kids played on the playground for a while and then we parted ways.
The park has some scenic drives and antelope, buffalo and geese.
The wildlife are behind fences so they they are admired from afar, but the boys really loved it and I had forgotten how peaceful it is.

We need to go back for a picnic sometime!

An Organized Closet!

We've lived in our house for over nine years and I've never made an attempt to organize my little closet in the eaves. I finally decided that of all the home improvements that could be made, this was one that might inspire me to do all sorts of stuff!
We have a friend who does carpentry work and he made some wonderful pantry shelves for us years a go. I finally got around to asking him to make some shelves for my closet. So, for a mere $100, he measured and then disappeared for a week, showing up with custom...nothing fancy mind you, but wonderful custom made shelves!
You can see how horrible it was before.
I forgot to take some before photos of what it was like with clothes in there, so the first are photos of a pretty empty closet. Only one lonely shelf just off the floor. I had rubbermaid tubs in there to store out of season sweaters and the like and shoes were just jumbled in piles.

And here's a photo of what it was like with all the contents piled in heaps while he worked:

And here are the newly installed shelves!

So then I set to task getting rid of tons and trying to figure out where to put everything:

I don't think the photos quite do it justice. I am so very excited about this home improvement!

I am still looking for some baskets or nice bins to put on the floor to keep shoes in. I'm also trying to think about what other items I could store in there.

I think in the next year our bedroom is going to get a complete overhaul.

We painted it nine years a go when we moved in and it's feeling a little dated.

It's amazing what an organized closet will do for morale!

Herbs and Happiness

Wow!

I didn't realize how long it had been since I last posted.

Time has just flown by it seems.

Summer is definitely here.

We're enjoying our first year with a CSA subscription. Each week we get a new box of fresh herbs and veggies from local growers. Last week we even received some comb honey!

We stumbled across some wonderful items at garage sales a couple of weeks a go. I'm looking forward to sharing some photos of the great buys!

We had some family visit last week and enjoyed spending the 4th of July with them. I think they might have even enjoyed the neighborhood parade and potluck.

I have lots of ideas and inspiration in my head these days. I just don't know where to begin.

There are so many inspirational women bloggers. Cooks, seamstresses, interior decorators, gardeners....and many of them are moms too.

The one big thing on our to-do list for the weekend is to do a thorough washing of our front porch.

My friend surprised me yesterday with some fresh herbs from her garden.

Fresh basil, oregano and parsley - presented as a beautiful bouquet and a cute little oregano in a square pot.

It's too bad I can't add a link to the wonderful fragrance coming from the kitchen. Basil really smells like summer to me.

For supper we are going to have grilled shrimp with some zucchini and cannellini bean saute', which is a little variation of a recipe I found in a great cookbook from the library.

I dread summer because of the heat we so often have, but the fringe benefits of fresh veggies might just make it worth it.

p.s. The fresh herbs inspired me a bit. I cleaned the kitchen sink today!

edit: As soon as I hit "post" my dad showed up at our front door with fresh from the garden cantalope, tomatoes, and corn-on-the cob!