Now this IS a tasty burger...

"Now this IS a tasty burger!"

photo courtesy of 
http://www.x929.ca/shows/newsboy/wp-content/uploads/bigkahuna-burger.jpg

One of our all time favorite movies is Pulp Fiction, and after a bite of last night's burger, Ben said that I had to start this post with a photo of Jules in the Big Kahuna Burger scene.  If I ever have the opportunity to try a Big Kahuna Burger, I will only do so because it has been mentioned in so many of Tarantino's films, as it really doesn't look that appealing to me. 

Last night's burger, however, was a different story.  The Italian Sausage Burger with Garlicky Spinach is the second burger we have had now from the June edition of Food and Wine magazine, as well as the second "keeper."  Chris was a little put off initially by the sight of sauteed spinach in his burger, but declared it delicious once he had a taste.  Between the garlicky spinach and the garlic in the Sundried Tomato Pesto spread on the roll, this is a burger for garlic lovers.

Corn cooked on the grill in its husk is a given in our house to go with just about any summertime burger, but the meal still needed something more.  The big pot of basil growing on my deck needed to be thinned out, and this was the inspiration for the rest of the meal.  I don't have any delectable summer tomatoes yet, but did have some grape tomatoes in the fridge, so I thought I would use the small basil leaves with the small tomatoes and make a Caprese Pasta Salad.   The fairly simple tastes of the salad were the perfect foil for the strong tastes in the burger.

45 things to do with fresh sage...

 This photo is from May 15th.  

The variegated sage is front and center (it is much larger already).

While I always enjoy our camping excursions, and this past cub scout weekend event was fantastic, I am always glad to be home again when it is all done (this applies to vacations as well).  We're home now, tired and satisfied with the week, so while I was awaiting the bedtime hour (I don't want to sleep too early and be up at 4am), I decided to catch up on my blog reading.  One of my regular reads is the well known Chocolate and Zucchini.  Clotilde's most recent post covers the many, many things you can do with fresh sage.  In light of the beautiful variegated sage I now have growing in my kitchen window box, this resonated with me.  I have grown this beautiful (and tasty) sage before, and it ultimately becomes a fairly large and bushy plant.  I love to make sage browned butter with it, and use it in numerous other ways, but it always produces more than I can use fresh (but feast is always better :).  Clotilde's post gives me many more ways to use my bountiful sage, so I am copying it verbatim below.  Hopefully you will find this as inspirational as I have...

Sage pairings:
- Sage + eggs (i.e. in an omelette)
- Sage + chicken (i.e. roast chicken with sage and lemon inside the cavity)
- Sage + lamb (i.e. in lamb burger patties)
- Sage + fried liver + croutons
- Sage + polenta
- Sage + onion (i.e. in stuffing)
- Sage + white beans (i.e. in white bean hummous or an open sandwich)
- Sage + apple
- Sage + pineapple
- Sage + roasted peanuts

Sage uses:
- Sage butter on gnocchi
- Sage butter on ravioli, especially pumpkin ravioli
- Sage butter on trout
- Sage olive oil with pasta and parmesan
- Put some leaves into pesto with other herbs.
- Add sage to duck sausage.
- Add sage to bean dishes.
- Infuse honey with sage.
- Use with parsley, rosemary and thyme in chicken risotti and soups.
- Add along with fresh parsley, basil, thyme, and rosemary to tomato sauces.
- Deep-fry the leaves and serve as an appetizer, or use as a garnish for poultry, meat dishes, or pasta.

Recipe ideas:
- Sandwich an anchovy between two leaves, batter and fry for great antipasto.
- Feta, prosciutto and sage involtini
- Sage on asparagus with shaved pecorino
- Lay two sage leaves over a long slice of sweet potato and wrap with a slice of prosciutto. Roast for 20 minutes or so with some olive oil (credit to Mark Bittman).
- Italian bread and cabbage soup with sage butter
- Roast butternut squash on a thick bed of it.
- Sage and goats' cheese gnocchi
- Sweet potato gnocchi with chestnuts and fried sage
- Put leaves on fish, wrap in prosciutto and sear in clarified butter and olive oil; finish in the oven.
- Take half a chicken breast, place 2 or 3 sage leaves on top, wrap in Parma ham, pack in foil, bake at 180°C (360°F). Open top side of package, pour in some dry white wine, and leave open in oven for 20 more minutes or until done.
- Wrap a flattened chicken thigh in prosciutto with a leaf of sage and pan-cook.
- Pan-fry chicken breasts, add sage, red onion, lemon & crème fraîche.
- Sauté chicken livers with shallots and sage, season, then add a little cream. Toss through pappardelle.
- Sauté lamb chops with a sage leaf on each side.
- Saltimboca (veal, sage and prosciutto)
- Pork, sage and apple burgers
- Mold around a piece of pork sausage (out of casing), batter and fry.
- Sage and cheddar biscuits or pumpkin sage biscuits
- Sage ice cream
- Sage panna cotta

Other uses:
- Freeze in ice cubes for summer drinks.
- Go native and use the dry sage leftovers to purify your kitchen from evil spirits (see smudge sticks).
- Sage tea is a great remedy for sore throat.
- Sage plants give the most beautiful blooms!

Happy 100!!!

This is my 100th post, and I have to say that I really admire my fellow bloggers who manage to post every day.  As much as I would like to emulate this, it seems that there are just days (sometimes days on end) that I can't get done everything that needs to be done.  But, I won't be too hard on myself, because I started this whole project to have fun, not make more work for myself.

So what have we been doing around here?  Scouts, scouts, and more scouts for starters; I'll be glad to give up some of the many hats I wear this fall, but I suppose I am just replacing that time with school, so I'll still be a busy gal.  The weather is grand, so I have been busy weeding, trimming, planting, and hauling (and spreading) what seems like endless bags of mulch.  I have my big pot of basil planted, varigated sage and thyme in the kitchen window box amongst the flowers, and containers of tomatoes and bell peppers planted.  We got the cluttered (scary) basement cleaned and sorted this past weekend, much to the consternation of our garbage man.  And finally, my dear friend Chris is starting a new organization to provide clothing to needy Hamilton school children, so we are busy getting this up and running; it's called The Caring Closet and I'll be sure to write about it more in the future.

So, if I'm not around for a few days, please don't think I've forgotten about you, I'll be back.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures- these were taken on 4/30 and things have grown even more since...

The narrow bed between the house and our service walk on the north side of the house.  You can't see it all, but the bed contains:  arborvitae, climbing hydrangea, azalea,  hosta, astilbe, day lily, peony, catmint, and since the photo was taken, impatiens.

The walk from our driveway that turns and leads to the front door.  What you can see here is arborvitae, catmint, daylily, groundcover sedum, iris, boxwood, and the sprouts of hardy purple mums.  The iris are now in full bloom, in a color very similar to the catmint, and the daylilies (Stella de Oro) have started opening their pretty yellow trumpets.

The "monster rose" (that I had cut back nearly to the ground back in March) is just about to burst into vibrant pink bloom just outside the front door.  I'll be sure to post another photo once it does.  That is a weeping pussy willow blocking the view.  we planted the willow to replace a white dogwood that we lost to a bad windstorm last year.

It is beautiful outside...

 Blueberry Pie with Vanilla Scented Fresh Whipped Cream

It has been beautiful the past days, and last night saw our first real thunderstorm of the spring season, complete with our first tornado watch.  All that blowing and noise sent my little corgi girl to the safety of her kennel, but the sound of rain (once the thunder died down) made for excellent sleeping.  Today, a bright and sunny 82, saw me outside removing the dreaded bagworms from one of our well established arborvitae (6 years old and 9 feet tall).  A check of the rest of the landscape did not reveal any more, but everything will be getting a good dousing with insecticide this evening (sorry, but I must fore go the organic route when trees this size are at stake).

The weather was gorgeous on Sunday, so we actually had our Easter dinner out on the deck.  I made the Bourbon and Brown Sugar Glazed Ham that I had last made at Thanksgiving, scalloped potatoes, and the green beans i made last week that Ben liked so much (now, forever, to be know as hillbilly green beans).  I don't often make dessert, but since it was Easter, I decided to make a pie with the blueberries I had hanging out in the freezer.  A quick internet serch found an easy recipe at About.com, indexed under southern foods (seems very fitting, considering the food it was following).  The pie was easy to make, set up very well, and was pretty to look at topped with some vanilla scented fresh whipped cream.  What was disappointing was the berries I had used.  We did not get the expected little bursts of tartness, instead the berries were, not bad, but a bit boring.  That said, I will use this recipe again, just with berries that had not been frozen too long.

Spring is here (continued)...

The head of that path along the south side of the house last summer, all green and lush.

I am just not feeling like writing about food today (gasp!!), but as I sit here waiting for phone calls to be returned (don't people realize that even we homemakers have something we would rather be doing), I am gazing out my back door, and at all the trees aching to burst with bud.   Thinking of all I have yet to accomplish in my personal piece of the great outdoors, I decided to share a few photos from last year.  These are just "big view" photos, not the many (many, many) individual flower pics I have taken.  Take a moment to have a peek and dream of the seasons yet to come...

The mailbox last September, the vine is "Sweet Autumn" clematis.

The back yard.  It is hard to tell from the photo, but the back corner is very steep, so I made it one huge planting area so that Ben wouldn't injure himself mowing it.

We eat nearly every meal on the deck when the weather is nice.

 One of many meals on the deck last year.

The patio where we spend many wonderful evenings.

The view of the patio from the yard- it will be very private once the plantings have gained more size.  I planted this bed to celebrate (finally!) getting my degree.

The AC unit and a potting area are very nicely hidden.

Where I like to work some magic when I'm not in the kitchen.  

This sheltered spot is behind the garage.

I call this my "Monster Rose," a climber called Zephirine Drouhin that I cut down nearly to the ground every year, but comes back with a vengeance (more than one storey tall last year).  This is near our front door and the fragrance is magnificent. 

Spring is here...

Tuscan Chicken with Mediterranean White Bean and Romaine Salads

Spring is finally here and I have been so busy clearing the winter debris from all my planting beds.  While all the plantings are beautiful once the growth is fully under way, every spring I feel like I have been overly ambitious with the plantings- three days of clearing and I have so much more to do...

This is the path down the south side of my house, just to give you a clue of what I am up against.  I have the house, patio, and deck surrounded, most of the perimeter of the yard, and the random beds here and there.  It will all be worth it in another week or three :)

Friday morning, in anticipation of spending the day outside, and a very busy weekend coming up, I spent a little prep time in the kitchen  For dinner Friday night I got some chicken marinating in order to make Ina Garten's Tuscan Lemon Chicken, and also threw together two quick salads, one being my Mediterranean White Bean Salad- I knew the lemony flavors would work well with the chicken (and did they ever :).  I also prepared some beef shanks for braising in anticipation of having them for Sunday dinner (it was supposed to be cold and rainy), and popped them in the oven while ventured outside to tackle more beds.  A note for those readers with children- Ben and I found the chicken to be absolutely delicious (the grilled lemon halves were an especially nice touch), but the little guy wasn't so sure and wondered (out loud) why I didn't just barbecue the chicken.   Ben and I enjoyed a bottle of Redwood-creek Sauvignon Blanc (2007), a perfectly wonderful and refreshing wine, especially considering the $6.99 price tag (we enjoy wine, but are certainly not snobby about it).

Tuscan Lemon Chicken

1 chicken, flattened (I used chicken leg quarters instead)
Kosher salt
1/3 cup good olive oil
2 tsp. grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1/3 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 tbs. minced garlic (3 cloves)
1 tbs. minced fresh rosemary (I used 1 tsp. dried)
freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, halved

Ina gives directions for flattening a whole chicken and grilling it under weights (see the link to the original above).  I kept it very simple and just put the chicken and all the marinating ingredients in a gallon sized ziplock bag; Ben then grilled it that evening on the gas grill and used no weights.  The lemon halves he charred and then finished up on the upper rack and they turned out perfectly.

The mailbox, before I cut away all the dead growth.

The mailbox after-
the clematis was already growing again under all the mess.

And tomorrow...Red Wine Braised Beef Shanks with Garlic Smashed Potatoes