Summer Series

We have had so much fun the past three weekends travelling either to a fun east-coast city or exploring new landmarks here in our own backyard as we embarked on the 2008 Summer Wedding Series - "Three-in-a-Row-or Bust".

This weekend concluded this new series (quite different from my concurrently running farmers' market series) with Mer and Wyatt's wedding up in Glastonbury, Connecticut; it also marked what I believe to have been my first New England wedding - I'm not-so-secretly hoping it's the first of many.

What an absolutely fantastic weekend capped off with a beautiful and touching ceremony and a non-stop fun reception.

Our weekend started Friday after work, when we met up with our friends and new DC-residents Bril, Karen, and their newest addition, adorable almost 4-month-old Olivia, and began the trek up north. First stop was Bril's parents' in York, PA; after a delicious meal and if it's possible, better company, and a good night's rest, we were up early to head up to Connecticut, this time sans Miss Olivia - much to her grandparents' delight.

Thanks to the bride's Scottish heritage, a bagpiper greeted all guests at the church and also announced the entrance of the beautiful bride and her sweet father. A very touching and personal ceremony, complete with the brother-of-the bride performing three solos, followed.

The reception at St. Clement's Castle was just perfect. Miniature bottles of real maple syrup labelled with Mer and Wyatt's theme "How Sweet It Is" were at each of our places in the beautiful ballroom - such a cute and thoughtful touch.

I think the newlyweds, rightfully so, had the best time of everyone as there were many, MANY smiles throughout the night... a great evening spent celebrating a fantastic couple.

Sunday morning we shared a fun brunch with the other wedding guests and then were on our way, back through New York City (where we got a glimpse of the Empire State Building) and then a quick stop, for no particular reason, in New Rochelle, NY (apparently the home of Iona College).

We soon arrived back in York to both little Olivia and two varieties of Pennsylvania Dutch fruit pudding, Fresh Sour Cherry Pudding and Black Raspberry Pudding, as well as a re-introduction to the Dutch tradition of pouring milk over your "pudding" (which is really more like cake). I refuse to show favoritism to either of them - only to conclude in saying that I had to taste-test them both multiple times.

Just Like the Song...

Seriously!?! I'm subjecting you all (that is... "all" 2-5 of you) to a post about the Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager-written, Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross and Whitney Houston-performed song that we all used to know by heart oh-so-many years ago?

What follows is worth it, trust me.

So what's all the fuss about? A few short days ago, my new food-blog and long-time Deacon friend, Christie, found, made, and posted this recipe, aptly entitled "Tasty Turkey Burgers" by Southern Living. After seeing her delicious post, she and I chatted and it was decided that my frozen lean ground turkey meat would indeed be put to use this very week - it was urgent.

I now understand why. And, well... if it's within my control, I don't believe I will ever... EVER prepare another recipe for turkey burgers (you can check me on this, but I don't believe I've ever made that kind of statement about another recipe... maybe guac, but I am at least tolerant enough of others' guacs to try it).

I changed a few things from both Christie's adaptation as well as the Southern Living version but only because of what was in my pantry, and we all know how happy I am when I don't have to visit the grocery store to complete a recipe.

The. TASTIEST. Turkey. Burgers... EVER.

1 pound ground turkey
1/2 c Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 c finely chopped (defrosted) green, red and yellow bell pepper
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 TBSP minced onion
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 TBSP Fresh Herb Marinade
4 whole wheat hamburger buns
Herb-Grilled Onion Rings
freshly shaved Parmesan cheese

1. Combine first 7 ingredients. Shape mixture into 4 equal-size patties.
2. Grill 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in center, basting each side occasionally with Fresh Herb Marinade.
3. Grill buns, cut sides down, 2 minutes or until toasted. Serve burgers on buns with Herb-Grilled Onion Rings and a few slices of the freshly shaved Parmesan.

*Don't skip either the marinade, grilled onions, or the fresh Parm - it absolutely makes the entire burger.

Prepare yourself once you pull the burgers and the onions off the grill. You are in for a treat. Oh, and go ahead and make all 4 patties even if there are only two of you... I came this (picture me with my fingers VERY close together) close to eating a second burger last night, but if not, the left-overs are just as delicious the next day.

And, if anyone's still interested in our side after hearing that glowing recommendation... I made us a side of fresh string and wax beans with our burgers and for once, I think even without a recipe, it was pretty good.

I guess these are really no-fail, but just in case you need the pointers... I washed and trimmed our beans and then dunked them in a pot of boiling water for 1-2 minutes. I quickly drained that pot and added about 1/4 TBSP of butter and some diced onions to the beans to quick-saute. Once they were slightly sizzling, I added some garlic powder, salt, cumin (only because I add that to everything) and a drizzle of olive oil. I let it cook for another minute or two and then turned off the heat after covering the pot.

A great light addition to the perfect burgers.

Enjoying the Bounty

Thanks to our exciting first real farmers' market experience, the stage was set for our big Sunday night meal.

It must be said, if quickly, that Sunday nights have become one of the only nights (aside from entertaining) that I find the time to really put together a full meal for us, so they are eagerly awaited each week. This time, it seemed that our stock of frozen salmon cut into individual fillets and some deveined shrimp was just begging to be included in this weekend-ending fest.

Allrecipes was the winning source providing two great recipes for grilling our salmon and shrimp. I had all of the ingredients in the pantry (or in our herb garden), which undoubtedly made these recipes a cinch, so for once, I actually followed them to the letter... which leads me to think that I might just be heading back down the road of being a loyal recipe-follower. The marinade carmelized absolutely perfectly on the salmon and the mustardy shrimp marinade had a wonderful flavor; admittedly, a soy-brown sugar and mustard marinade on the same plate isn't conventional but we enjoyed it nonetheless.

Since I'd been adventurous with new recipes for our seafood entrees, my creativity waned in the preparation of our market bounty, my cute red potatoes.

This is a recipe that everyone probably knows in some form and is certainly not from a reputable source (except my head and palate), but I thought it might be helpful to record it somewhere... for posterity if nothing else. It seems, however, that there is delicious-ness in simplicity! Thank goodness for that.

Fresh-from-the-Market Red Potatoes (this is easily adaptable to your quantities so be flexible!)

Handful of medium to little red potatoes, cut into equal sized portions (no smaller than halved or quartered)
olive oil
2-3 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tsp garlic powder (can substitute fresh, minced garlic)
kosher salt to taste
1/2 TBSP cold butter, cut in pieces

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Wash and scrub your potatoes carefully (so as to not scrub off the skin). Drizzle olive oil over your potatoes. Sprinkle chopped herbs, garlic powder and salt over potatoes and toss with your hands so all pieces are equally coated. Bake for 10 minutes and then quickly add pats of butter to the potatoes (will make a nice buttery skin on the potatoes) and bake for 15-20 more minutes until desired doneness.

Rubbing Shoulders

My latest (okay... ONLY) brush with fame was last night, attending the beautiful (really, BEAUTIFUL) wedding ceremony and reception of our good friends, Kenny Shealy and Allison Baker.


Nope, neither the bride or the groom are famous (well, almost)... but the bride did have the foresight to order her groom a Charm City Cakes groom's cake! Yes... the Ace of Cakes did the delicious, 3-D Clemson Tiger, red velvet cake that we were treated to at Evermay last night! Sadly, both of our cameras failed me and I have nothing to document that I was in the presence of such well-known handiwork.

But even without pictures, rest-assured that Evermay was about as amazing of a wedding location as you can find, a great time was had by all, and the happy couple thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Part Deux

To market, to market...

Off we went this morning in search of my second/our first farmers market - and besides the fact that I have no pictures documenting our trip (thanks to me throwing our camera across the floor in response to the beautiful loaves of freshly baked bread and piles of fresh produce everywhere), it was a success.

We walked away the proud-owners of some amazing-looking string and wax beans and a small container of some red potatoes. I used utter restraint in not filling our canvas bags of the homemade baked goods (10-grain bread!), local crabcakes (lots of crab, not so much cake!), onions and cucumbers (that's a short list of my favorite things that I saw there and will no doubt be back to get another weekend).

Sadly our next trip will either be an out of town market or one maybe sometime in late July but I'm hooked, either way. Even though I've quickly learned the prices are not the reason you join the masses at local markets, just the experience being around so many people with deep appreciations for great-looking produce and other homemade tasties has been enough for me... and absolutely a fantastic way to spend a summer morning.

Freezer-worthy

Someone can read my mind...

Missy gave me this recipe with the bread pan and a few other fun kitchen utensils at one of our showers earlier this year - and while I've always known that I wanted to try it just because I LOVE banana bread, the only part of the health-ified bread recipe that I could remember was that she mentioned "freezes well, even pre-sliced into individual portions". And, I have suspicions that that might be the only low-fat part of the recipe.

I usually shy away from any low-fat baked goods - I've made less than 5 of them in my lifetime and they have all tasted low-fat, which to me, just isn't worth it. My method of making yummy baked goods low-fat is in line with Missy's - make it, taste it, and then freeze the rest in individual-sized portions for later (of course, you can't eat the whole thing later either or that defeats the purpose).

So I was unsure about this recipe from the start... but I had some (three, to be exact) left-over bananas that had ripened before we could finish them off so I thought this was my perfect excuse. I didn't have the low-fat plain yogurt the recipe called for but finished off the container of low-fat sour cream sitting in the fridge instead.

Now, I will repeat once again that I don't know just HOW low-fat this is, but it sure was good (which is my main reason for assuming it's really not healthy). I even fed it to two co-workers who literally laughed off my comment of "it's actually supposed to be healthy, it came from Cooking Light".

In the end, I was torn; clearly, I had to share this delicious recipe (one that just might become my go-to banana bread) with you all, but I can't with certainty tell you to eat your heart out. I want to believe that this could possibly not be horrible for you, but my tummy says it's just too good to be true.

"All-Purpose Banana Bread"

2 c all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 c sugar
1/4 c butter, softened
2 large eggs
3 bananas (just a little less than 1 1/2 c)
1/3 c low-fat sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.

Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, sour cream, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.

Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

Adapted from Cooking Light

Local Produce 101

Eating locally seems to be all the rage lately... and if you know me, you know I'm not normally one to jump on the bandwagon... but with the weird diseased-veggie outbreaks recently and the mounting costs of well... everything, farmers' markets have quickly become intriguing to us, though if I'm honest, I've always loved the idea of carrying my canvas tote to my neighborhood market and buying super fresh, in-season produce (feels so European to me... plus, if either this or this is what these markets have in store for us, who can resist?!).

With that, welcome to what I hope will be the first installment of (probably only 2-3 in total) our adventures in local markets. Follow us through a few of the markets here in the DC metropolitan areas... what are the advantages and disadvantages of shopping and eating locally, and anything else fun, inspiring, or otherwise about all of the farmers' markets around us these days.

For my first half-experience (it was impromptu and only a very brief stop so I refuse to give this a full review), I decided to quickly walk through the weekly Foggy Bottom FreshFarm market on my way to the Metro this afternoon. It was a little underwhelming, to be honest... though I think my point of comparison is a little unfair. I sadly didn't have our camera but I did catch glimpses of beautiful (but little... and expensive!) baskets of fresh cherries, blackberries, raspberries, snap peas, fresh garlic, huge scallions, and all sorts of tomatoes (the prices of the tomatoes made me OH-so-happy that we have at least 3 out-of-control tomato plants in the backyard). There was also a stand with fresh dairy products such as goat cheeses and another vendor with homemade jams and jellies.

As in any review, the review is only as good as the reviewer is honest... so my final word is that this particular market was small and the prices were high, but I was energized to seek out more markets after this initial attempt. I wouldn't necessarily send anyone to FreshFarm (at least in Foggy Bottom) though I may be back here in a few days telling you that their prices were very comparable to other DC-area markets, but I am at the very least hoping for some more selection and even some unusual fruits, vegetables and other products that will broaden my admittedly limited chain-grocery knowledge.

Onward!

This One's For the Boys...

Or at least the Dads...

*Happy Belated Father's Day, Dad and Jacob - yes, he's my brother but still a role-model dad!*


Though, truth be told, you might feel the need to celebrate "with them" as I did...

I should have known better when I decided to throw this together... I really have a huge sweet tooth and can hardly resist a solitary chocolate chip sitting there, let alone a deliciously dense and fudgy-but-still-cakelike brownie covered in chocolate ganache, with a sprinkling of chocolate chips and some good melted white chocolate. What was I thinking!

My inspiration for this was actually found in a place I honestly don't find myself in much - I'd seen a brownie similar to this in the glass-enclosed cell of a Starbucks' pastry container, and it was one of those moments when I said "I can make that!" Now of course, mine looks nothing like the glorious brownie I saw over the lid of my Starbucks cup that day but I imagine that it tastes something pretty close (that's just to say that since I made these, we haven't stopped eating them).

Brownies
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1/2 c butter
2 c sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 c chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Combine the chocolate, and butter in microwave dish. Microwave at half power until melted. Stir at 2 minute intervals. Combine sugar and eggs in bowl and mix well. Stir in chocolate mixture, flour, and salt. Add nuts and mix well. Spoon into 9x13 inch baking pan coated with nonstick cooking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool slightly. Let stand until cool. Spread with the Chocolate Glaze.

Chocolate Glaze
1 1/2 c chocolate chips
1/2 c whipping cream

Microwave 1 cup of the chocolate chips on medium in Pyrex cup for 2 minutes or until melted. Add the whipping cream and whisk till smooth. Spread evenly over the top of the brownies and immediately sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips. Let sit in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes until the chocolate has slightly set. In the meantime, make the white chocolate.

White Chocolate Topping
4 TBSP chopped white chocolate

Microwave white chocolate in 30 second increments until melted. Dip a fork into the white chocolate and hold it above the brownies flicking your wrist in a back-and-forth motion making sure to get a little bit of the chocolate throughout the top of the brownie.

Let the brownies sit in the refrigerator for at least another 30 minutes before cutting and serving - they will cut more cleanly if the chocolate has set.

Enjoy this with your dad... or anyone else! They'll be glad you weren't exclusive!