Corn Maque Choux, A Cajun and Creole Summer favorite!

Hello, everybody! I've got a recipe most of you have seen before, and probably a few have tried. But I hadn't so I decided to see what all the fuss was about corn maque choux.  We've got tons of fresh corn right now and it's DELICIOUS but the thing about growing your own corn is that it tends to get ripe in big batches. 

I needed a few recipes to use up all this corn!

 So, cut the kernels from 4-5 ears of fresh, cooked corn.
Dice half an onion
Roughly chop one bell pepper

 Sautee with 1 TB of butter and 1tsp of chopped garlic until the onion is cooked through.
Add 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 TB of sugar (really)

Cook another few minutes, mixing well
Whisk 1 egg into a 1/2 cup of whole milk
Add slowly to the hot pan, mixing as you go
Allow to cook thoroughly another 4-5 minutes.

 My kids were giving me the side eye when I added the sugar. The cayenne was fine, it was the SUGAR on the veggies that made everyone wrinkled their noses.

Then they tasted it. DELICIOUS! It was so easy and had so much flavor. A new summertime dish is added to our family menu.
                                                           
August is my favorite season for the garden. Our seedless grapes are ready! We eat them out of hand, but they also dry really well so we can enjoy golden raisins all year (especially good in rice pudding or sweet breads).
                                                   
And a random shot of the steak fries from last night. A friend mentioned French Fries and I couldn't stop thinking about them. I reallllllly don't like frying anything, especially when it's 90F, but a week later, I finally caved. So delicious, especially with seasoned salt and ketchup!

 I hope everyone has a great weekend and a wonderful week.

Fresh, FAST, low carb zucchini pasta with shrimp

Hello, everybody! I cannot wait for summer! I've been dreaming of our Farmer's Market, our garden produce, our peach, cherry, plum orchards. I'm READY!

But, alas, spring has not yet sprung here in Eastern Oregon so I'll just try to pretend with a simple dish I saw on my friend Christalee's page. (Hers was much prettier, of course!)

 You'll need several baby zukes.

 Some raw or cooked shrimp, good size. Cook them in a pain with about 2tsp of minced garlic and some butter. YUM.

 A half cup or so of chopped, raw red bell pepper.

 I know some people don't like salmon but since we can get it so fresh and cheaply (these were $5lb already cut into the perfect sizes, so I just marinated and grilled in a big batch and then froze them for another day... which is today!) This salmon is a random bit of the cooking tonight. The zucchini dish doesn't need salmon.

 Cut into small strips. I tried to cut it as thinly as possible and then after I was done, I realized I have a vegetable slicer that would have worked better. Oh, well.

 Sautee the zucchini in a pan with (more) butter, salt to taste, a little pepper, and a dash of garlic powder. Put the shrimp on top and ta dah! Low carb, super tasty, let's-pretend-it's-summer dish!

  Now, there are other people in the house who prefer more food so here's a teenager's plate. She sprinkled on parmesan cheese. I decided to follow her lead and it was delicious!

 My husband's plate. The man can't live on protein alone so I made some pasta to put under his salmon.(And then he got another helping. I swear his metabolism is speeding up as he ages. Or maybe he's got a portrait in the attic that's getting fat while he eats what he wants!)

Now, remember tomorrow is PI DAY! (Get it? 3.14?) So, remember to have yourself some pie while contemplating its circumference... NOT your own!

 Until next time!

Our Little Free Library and books!

Hello, everybody! Can we just take a moment...

...to mourn the passing of summer? I don't love the heat but I MISS THE FRESH FOOD! My goodness, I'm in veggie and fruit withdrawal.
                                    
OK, I guess we can move on now. We're supposed to get snow this week and although Fall has been wonderful, I'm ready for winter!
                              
This picture: I thought my boys were just playing in the leaves until I heard a rustle and out popped our little neighbor friend. She's such a good sport. At her age, I NEVER would have trusted two little boys with shovels!
                                   
One project I wanted to get finished before winter set in. This is our Free Little Library. If you're not familiar with that international movement, you can read about it here. We saw one near the Children's Museum in Walla Walla and as neat as it is to think of a neighborhood library where you can swap favorite books with your neighbors, I had an ulterior motive.

When we bought our house, we were hemmed in by orchards and we lived on a dirt road. In the past fifteen years, the orchards have been replaced by lots and lots of apartment buildings. And our corner is the bus stop for the entire neighborhood. Imagine- at least fifty kids (I've counted more but let's say fifty) walking across your lawn everyday on their way home from school. (Ok, don't imagine it if you love your lawn. It will give you an ulcer.)

My friend Nick Bruel writes the Bad Kitty books. I was afraid to tag him in my facebook picture, since I am no Nick Bruel. But he graciously said that Bad Kitty was properly scared by those fish, and didn't mention my awkward rendition of our favorite naughty cat.

But imagine a lot of these kids living too far from the library, or their parents not having the right info to get a card. In our city, you need your last electric bill, last phone bill, driver's license AND a personal reference of another library member.  When I worked at our library in 2010, I saw many (many, many) Hispanic kids come in with their parents, encouraged by their teachers to get a city library card. But undocumented immigrants can't get a driver's license, therefore, their children couldn't have access to the public library. Every single time it hurt my heart to tell a child "No". I understand why it had to be and I never broke the rules, but I started thinking...

What if... I made my own library? No legal documents required. Freely given, freely received. Books in both languages. Books all kids would enjoy, and parents, too. If I already had all these small people crossing my lawn twice a day... what would it hurt to stick a little library in their way?
 We have boxes of spare books. More books than we can sell at yard sales or give away to friends. Also, my library RECYCLES boxes of children's books that are slightly damaged. I got them on board and now I have a fairly unending supply... and I've needed it. From the first day, the box is almost emptied every afternoon.

And you want to know the most common age of the kids I see at the box? 10-12 year old boys. I'm not kidding... That was NOT what I was expecting! So, instead of fighting to keep picture books stocked, we're suddenly searching out middle grade fiction. I've seen the boys arguing over who gets to read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief first. That was the highlight of my month, right there.

So, random cute picture of my god child holding my latest book release. She got the first copy. I think she's reserving judgement. She demands a happy ending...

The fabulous YA author Lois Duncan knows that I have a background in linguistics and sent me a bunch of her foreign editions. I have a shelf of copies of my favorite books in other languages so, this made me really smile! (I didn't tell her that I only took a year of college German and it was much harder for me than Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, etc. etc. etc.) I thanked her kindly and then we sent some of them to our pen pals in Germany.

One more little book related pic.  My dad brought me this one day, as writing sustenance. Made me laugh. 

And I did cook some very tasty dishes this week but I think I'll save them for next Friday, But here's a preview. 

Quick and easy pan fried garlic annetto shrimp with yaki soba noodles.

A sauteed shiitaki mushroom and beef with lime and parsley dish that which was way better than I expected.

I know this looks similar to the first dish, but it's really not. I promise. Quick and easy peanut chicken stir fry. (This was over chow mein noodles because my husband needs carbs. He works too hard to survive on veggies and a few ounces of protein. I, on the other hand, survive on Jelly Belly jellybeans.)

So, those dishes are coming in the next few weeks and somewhere in there will be THANKSGIVING! I'm ready!

Until then, I'll be watching the sky for the snow that we're supposed to get soon. Happy winter!

Fresh Tomato Sauce with Capers

Hello, everybody! I found this cookbook at the library and thought it might have a great way to use up some of our fresh tomatoes.

It's called (sideways) The Southern Italian Table. I looooooove Italian food. GIMME, GIMME.

 The recipe is really simple. Fresh tomatoes, a few teaspoons of fresh basil, 2 tsp of capers, two cloves of garlic.

I sent some kids out into the garden to get tomatoes. (It occur to me that by the time you read this, it will be October. So, imagine it's summer time.)

                                     
Chop the tomatoes, and throw in a pan with the basil. Add two teaspoons of olive oil.

 Here are the capers. Funny how a little jar lasts forever. Because recipes hardly ever need capers...

Mmmm. I love the way they smell. Mix everything together and mash well. Let it boil for about 20 minutes so the water is mostly reduced. Some people add a little salt or brown sugar, but this was a pretty simple sauce. 

                                           
I decided to make some stuffed pasta shells to put the sauce on, so mix two eggs, a carton of ricotta cheese, a cup of parmesan shredded cheese, 2 tsp salt and 2 tsp crushed garlic. Boil the shells, rinse in cold water, stuff, pour on the sauce and bake in the oven.

 Hubby's plate. Man, I wish I could eat like he does and not gain weight. YUMMY.

 I threw in some frozen meatballs because it sounded good.

Have a great weekend and see you all soon!

Meat N' Potatoes

Hello, everybody! I thought I'd try out some little Pinterest recipes. 

 I've heard these called hasselback potatoes but my friend says they're not hasselback if you don't add the bread crumbs. Which I didn't. So, get a large russet, slice very thin but not all the way through.

 Drizzle olive oil, making sure to get in between each slice.

 Add salt, pepper, any kind of seasoning. One of my kids wanted theirs with Seasoned Salt and that was really tasty. I opted for salt and pepper.

 Place them on a sheet with foil, into the oven at 425F for 40 minutes.

 They turned out perfectly! Crispy, salty, savory. And all in one piece. For once, not a Pinterest fail!

 

 I'm sticking this here because it's a bit too simple for its own post. My friend told me she makes delicious oven fries and the simple trick is to rinse in ice cold water to get off the starch that the potatoes leak when you cut them, pat dry and then put on the oil and salt. WOW. Big difference!

Yummy.... I cooked mine with a big piece of Kielbasa sausage and then sliced the sausage into individual servings. With some honey mustard and a big red pepper, my husband thought it was pretty tasty. Not a real vegetable in sight!

                                                    Until next time!

Cherry Blackberry Jelly and a Flashback!

Hi everybody! Weve been having some wonderful fall fun! 

Here's a shot of my little guy (five years old!) on the dirt bike track. I brought a book, but I did more praying that reading. It was SCARY. But everyone survived and had a wonderful time! *whew*

                                       

This is a random picture of the super moon. I didn't even use the zoom. It was JUST THAT BIG.

Here's Mr. Edward at my desk back in 2010. My sister had given me a computer and I spent every nap time writing. I didn't have an office chair so I sat on an old toy box. The desk we got at a yard sale for $10. A steal, even if the drawers didn't really work!  I was finishing up Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits while my sixth baby nursed or slept in my arms and the older kids rested in the afternoons. Sometimes I think, "Why did it take me two years to write my first book?" Huh. This is why...
Anyway, I found my then 20 month old "talking" on my mouse. HAHAHA! Kids are hilarious.

Anyway, this post is really about blackberry jelly. If you've ever made it, then you know it's pretty straightforward. Cooking the blackberries with sugar, strain them, add the pectin, maybe boil again if it didn't dissolve enough. Well, my friend in Texas said she always adds about a cup of Bing cherries! She said it adds zip and zing.

                                       
I am here to tell you... I have never had jelly disappear so fast. I think there's only one of these little jars left. I'm going to have to make a much bigger batch next time!
  So, if you're a jelly/jam maker, consider adding some Bing cherries to the mix of your fruit. It's a winning combination!

  Take care and I'll see you all in October!!