Outdoor picnics

There's a slight theme to the posts this week -- two months delay! My apologies for these delays. Back at the end of April Patrick took a solo trip to visit his family. I took the opportunity to make some fancy ramen for myself and plan a few dates with some of my favorite gal pals. I made all my favorite things that Patrick doesn't like while he was away and served them to said gal pals a la outdoor dining. Here are some of the details:

On Saturday Marianne came over in the afternoon for our Garden Date! I made us a pasta dish (with yucky artichokes according to Patrick) and a bountiful side salad. The pasta dish featured grilled artichokes (packed in oil), baked chicken, and whole wheat penne.

Here are the fruits of our [garden] labor:

We planted some flowers and herbs. I had already started the lettuce on the table (we had a great spring crop of mixed greens lettuce and arugula). I planted begonias and some colorful flower Marianne picked out and shared with me (can't remember the name). I'm happy to report that all the flowers are thriving!  The herbs I planted are thyme, sage, basil, and lavender. Unfortunately I can't report that all the herbs are thriving; we lost the lavender somewhere along the way. It was my "experiment" plant this season.

Then on Sunday Stephanie came over for an evening dinner and a move date. We enjoyed Easy Crab Casserole with steamed broccoli and casserole. This recipe is one of my childhood favorites; Patrick doesn't like imitation crabmeat while it's one of my guilty pleasure. My mom emailed me the recipe for the casserole (below):

Easy Crab Casserole

   From a Melrose Women's Cookbook; Marie Cooke's recipe
1/2 lb crackers (I use saltines)
2 sticks butter
1/4 cup ketchup
2 cups boiling water
3 Tbsp mustard
1&1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
pepper to taste
several dashes Tobasco (I never used this)
2 cans or 1 lb crab meat (I used imitation crab)

Crumble crackers. Add boiling water. Have butter melted and add to crab meat. Fold crab mixture into crackers. Add other ingredients. Mix well. Bake in buttered casserole dish at 400 degrees for 20 min.

After dinner we watched "August: Osage County" and both agreed it was only okay.

Homemade Hot Pockets

I'm not sure how Whitney came across this recipe for chicken and kale hand pies from Martha Stewart, but I'm glad she did. This is the most delicious thing I've ever had with kale. That's not so much a statement about how the kale was prepared (although it might hint at my mild distaste for it in general) as it is the wonderful cheesy pie crust and filling it was mixed with. This dish is pretty much a chicken pot pie (already a favorite), but with two things that make it ten times better. First is the addition of cheese to the crust, because cheese makes everything better. More importantly is the form factor; I loved having the filling wrapped into the crust, which made it easy to eat and provided plenty of crust per bite (and the crust stayed crisp and flaky as it wasn't soaked in the filling).

Dough coming together

Ready to chill

Prepping the filling

Master hand pie craftsman at work

Ready to bake

Perfectly done hand pie

Martha Stewart's Chicken & Kale Hand Pies with Cheddar Crust
Ingredients
Flaky Pie Dough, recipe doubled and 1 cup shredded cheddar added with flour, or store-bought
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 leek (white and light-green parts only), halved lengthwise, cut crosswise 1/4 inch thick, and rinsed well
1 small bunch black (Tuscan) kale, tough stems removed, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, leaves
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup cooked chicken, torn into bite-size pieces (about 5 ounces)
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Directions
   Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Divide dough in half. On a floured sheet of parchment paper, roll out one half to a 14-inch round. With a knife or biscuit cutter, cut out six 4 1/4-inch circles (rerolling dough once if necessary) and transfer, on parchment, to a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, cutting out six (larger) 4 1/2-inch rounds. Chill rounds on sheet until ready to use.
   In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-high. Add leek and cook, stirring, until soft, 3 minutes. Add kale and thyme, season with salt and pepper, and cook until kale wilts, 3 minutes. Sprinkle flour over mixture and stir to combine. Add broth and bring to a boil. Cook, stirring often, until mixture thickens, 2 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl, season with salt and pepper, and stir in chicken. Let cool slightly.
   Place a heaping 1/4 cup chicken mixture on each of the smaller dough rounds, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Brush edges with egg and top with larger dough rounds; using fingers, press edges firmly to seal. Cut a small vent in each pie. Bake until browned and crisp, 30 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through. Let cool slightly on sheets on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.


Martha Stewart's Flake Pie Dough
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 cup ice water

Directions
   In a food processor, pulse flour and salt to combine. Add butter; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few pea-size pieces of butter remaining. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons ice water; pulse until dough is crumbly but holds together when squeezed (if necessary, add up to 2 tablespoons more water, 1 tablespoon at a time). Form dough into a 1-inch-thick rectangle, wrap tightly in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, 1 hour (or up to 3 days).

Celebratory Chocolate Cake

We have exciting news to share today! The next time you have exciting news to celebrate make this featured chocolate cake! This chocolate cake was made almost two months ago. We've had to keep our exciting news under wraps a little bit but now it feels right to share it on the blog.

Two months ago we had our friends Romin and Mimi over for dinner and we all had something to celebrate! It just so happened that for Patrick's birthday in March they had given him a bottle of champagne (along with some other foodie goodies). When folks give us wine or champagne we like to save it and then hopefully share it with them. On this particular night it was fitting for us to have some bubbles!

Romin and Mimi were celebrating his medical school culmination and acceptance to an intern program!
We were celebrating an accepted offer on a house!
Woo hoo's all around!

For dinner we served Chicken Tetrazzini casserole and a mixed greens salad. Romin and Mimi provided the bread.

Chicken tetrazzini is a great casserole for serving to company in my opinion. It's filling and, like all casseroles, has everything you need in one dish - pasta, veggies (peas), and protein (chicken)! Plus all the prep work is in the beginning and while it is baking you can clean the kitchen and everything will look nice by the time company arrives.

Mimi put this picture on facebook of the dinner and the champagne!

Earlier in the week while I was planning the dinner I decided I wanted to make an actual cake! I found this Martha Stewart recipe and we all loved it.

Martha Stewart's Velvet Cocoa Cake with Instant Buttercream from MarthaStewart.com
   Prep Time 35 minutes | Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes | Serves 12
Ingredients
   For the Cake
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light-brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
   For the Buttercream
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 jars (7.5 ounces each) marshmallow cream
2/3 cup cocoa powder
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions
   Make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and lightly flour two 9-inch round cake pans. In a bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
   In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well incorporated. Beat in vanilla.
   Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three additions, alternating with buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape bowl as needed.
   Pour batter into pans. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pans 10 minutes before inverting cakes onto rack to cool completely.
   Make the buttercream: In mixing bowl, beat butter and marshmallow cream until fluffy. Beat in cocoa, chocolate, vanilla, and 1 tablespoon water. If too thin, refrigerate about 5 minutes.
   Place one layer on platter. Spread top with 1 cup buttercream. Place second layer on top. Frost entire cake with remaining buttercream.

We had some cake leftover so I sent it with Patrick to work.

His coworkers approve...

It's been an exciting two months. Here's a catch up to present day on those April celebrations: Romin is officially Dr. Romin! And six weeks ago we closed on the house. 

Here we are on our front steps! More details and pictures to come in the following weeks. No promises on a timeline ... I'll try to get some things up within two months!

Quick lunch

In the spring Patrick and I had a string of warm, relaxing weekends together where we didn't have much planned. Even though the weekends are relaxing they do require a bit more thought in the meal planning department! Now instead of two meals for two days (ie, Saturday & Sunday dinner) I now have to plan 4-6 meals -- breakfast, lunch, and dinner for both days! Typically weekday breakfasts are unaccounted for in the meal plan because we are grabbing easy prep breakfasts like English muffins or bagels, cereal, eggs and toast, or oatmeal. And then lunches are mainly leftovers or sandwiches. Patrick has lunch provided a lot too with work meetings.

With these weekends where we don't have any major activities planned I usually plan to buy a hodge podge of fruits and snackier meal items (think hummus and cheese & crackers) then we can put together lunch plates to our liking that don't require much prep.

Here is the breakdown for this lunch plate!

Fresh blueberries
   Hard to pass up fresh, seasonal blueberries at the store.

Prosciutto mozzarella panino with rosemary crackers
   Patrick always requests summer sausage for our weekend lunches. I need to remind myself to stock up on the Hillshire Farms sausages during the holidays (always see them in a mall kiosk) because I can not find summer sausage at our grocery store! This prosciutto mozzarella panino was recommended by the deli guy. We warmed it on the crackers in the toaster to melt the cheese.
   We had this another night with some nuts while we were watching Netflix.
   In other news, last week I found summer sausage at World Market! Patrick has been hoarded his summer sausage since then.

Chicken salad
   Chicken salad is always a no-brainer after a rotisserie chicken dinner. When I'm meal planning and see that  a rotisserie chicken dinner fits (or we're baking a whole chicken) I will plan the meal later in the week so that we can use the leftover chicken in chicken salad!

French loaf bread
   I had purchased the french loaf to go with a pasta dish earlier in the week. It rounded out our quick lunch here quite nicely.

What are some of your go-to quick weekend lunches at home?

Meal Plan Monday Post

This has been a week full of impromptu dinner plans and then utilizing CSA veggies. You may recall from the last meal plan that we were coming back from the beach at the beginning of the week. On Monday we just didn't quite have things together so we had Chinese take-out. Then Wednesday and Thursday we had back to back dinner dates with friends -- all planned fairly quickly. We didn't order a full box the week prior since we knew we would be out of town at the beach and since our CSA pick up day is Thursday we were able to do these dinner dates without fresh vegetables spoiling. So we picked up our new CSA box Thursday and were able to start cooking again with all of our fresh vegetables for the weekend.

Meal Plan for Monday June 9 - Sunday June 15

   Monday - Chinese take-out
   Tuesday - 10th Month Anniversary Dinner!
   Wednesday - Met a friend for Mexican
   Thursday - Dinner & a movie double date ... Patrick's favorite sushi restaurant in Durham (Sake Bomb) and catching 22 Jump Street
   Friday - Mahi mahi with pesto, roasted adirodack blue potatoes, summer squash
   Saturday - Ham and cheese quiche for breakfast
      Chicken salad and cucumbers for lunch
      Crockpot Bbq pork ribs with slaw and cornbread for dinner
   Sunday - Quiche leftover for breakfast
      Grilled pimento cheese and ham sandwiches for lunch
      Pan fried black drum fish, roasted potatoes, and kale for dinner

CSA boxes

We are loving our CSA boxes! This is our fourth season with the Brinkley Farms CSA. We've mentioned this program before on the blog -- and I'll link some past posts below -- but here's a refresher:

 - CSA stands for "Community Sponsored (or Supported) Agriculture" which means we, the community, invest in a farm at the beginning of their season to help them, the agriculture / farm, have cash flow to get produce planted and then receive said produce throughout their growing season. All CSAs vary as to how they are set up and what they produce.
 - Our CSA delivers a wide array of vegetable produce, eggs, pork products, and some flours
 - Our CSA is on a weekly delivery; Patrick picks up our box every Thursday
 - Our CSA allows you to select what produce you want (some deliver pre-selected boxes)

Here's our first box of the season

Eggs, kale, sweet potatoes, pork ribs, mixed lettuce, and spring onions

Here's our most recent box

Beets, fingerling potatoes, lots of squash and zucchini
(we doubled up on the squash and zucchini to share with friends)

As promised in the intro here are some links to past blog posts about the CSA. The posts either talk about the program itself, show us experimenting with new vegetables, or how we meal plan with the vegetables.

More about CSA
   First Ever Box | Find a CSA near you
Vegetables we tried for the first time because of the CSA 
   Without a CSA I'm sure at some point we would've picked these up at a farmers market but this is another reason we like the CSA - convenience!
   Swiss Chard | Kale | Fennel | White Sweet Potatoes | Pumpkins | Various Winter Squash
Other posts
   Meal planning | Pancake recipe

Spinach pasta with cherry tomatoes

In a continuation of our unofficial series on homemade pasta dishes, today we're presenting a spinach fettucine. Making pasta in the food processor is so easy, and also makes it really easy to add mix-ins. This time we just added some cooked spinach to the flour and egg. The hardest part of these veggie pastas is getting the water out of the vegetable before adding it to the pasta. When the vegetable has too much water, you have to add a lot of flour to compensate and you dilute the tasty fresh egg flavor, and cause yourself a lot of frustration because it seems like no matter how much flour you add, the dough is still sticky! I always find wringing spinach to be tedious but some extra effort on that front definitely would have helped this time around. In the end though we had some delicious spinach pasta tossed with some onions, tomato, and sauce.

Homemade spinach pasta
Blanch some spinach and wring it dry. Pulse flour and spinach in food processor. Add eggs. Add more flour (because you didn't dry the spinach enough) until the mixture resembles a ball of dough. Roll out and cut into fettucine.

For the sauce
Saute 1 medium onion in olive oil until softened, add 2 cloves garlic and saute until fragrant, then add halved cherry tomatoes and a few more tablespoons of olive oil with salt and pepper. Simmer over medium heat for 10-15 minutes until tomatoes soften. Add in 2 tbsp butter and sliced spring onions, finish with 1 cup cream.

Served with delicious French loaf