rita's blueberry buckle

twenty years ago i dragged the girls and my two sisters to a work picnic.....back when i worked as a head nurse for our local community hospital.  it was a grey day....one of the surgeon's invited the group of us out for a ride on his sail boat.....what an adventure...as was his customary way he shouted orders.....only these were sailing orders....not a one of us had a clue what he was talking about ......we could not stop laughing....it was a great day...lots of smiles and good food.  one of the staff brought an absolutely amazing blueberry buckle.....we begged for the recipe...which she was nice enough to share.  (i still have the battered and stained recipe card she hand wrote)  for the last 20 years i have been making this recipe every blue berry season...i have made one change...i make it with buttermilk instead of milk.  thank you rita for this recipe! and thanks to wild bill for the wonderful sail boat ride.

love in the oven

recipe after the jump

birthday girls brunch: pancetta and vidalia onion quiche and baked french toast

the new stove arrived on saturday morning...thank god! i love it, i love it, i love it !!!! can not believe i waited this long to get a really good quality stove. it has dual fuel (gas burners on top and electric convection oven) ....and ok the gas has been installed at the house but the gas company has not hooked up the gas to the stove yet.... so now....as ironic as it may seem i have an oven but no burners.....crazy....and to add insult to injury it will be 2 weeks before they can get someone out to complete the hook up.......  but who cares...has been so long since i have had an oven i am working at using it anyway i can. breakfast.....brit brought home a challah for french toast...so here we go baked french toast and pancetta, onion quiche.....wooo hoooo!!! this is the brit and kelsey birthday brunch celebration. (they are born on the same day 3 years apart.... a story for another day) britany did the internet research to find a recipe that did not require an over night soak since it was now already sunday morning.   the baked french toast recipe is inspired by ree drummond the pioneer woman.

oven baked french toast warm and yummy goodness

pancetta and vidalia onion quiche puffy cheesey yummy

recipes after the jump

Tilly's Birthday french toast celebration

today would be tilly's 91st birthday.   tilly who made me every birthday cake since i was born ......about 27 years ago it dawned on me that no one ever made a cake for tilly's birthday so that year i made her a cheesecake for her birthday with cherries on top.  she was so surprised!....  and of course she told me it was the best thing she ever tasted.  to celebrate tilly today i would love to make a cake in tilly's honor....but still sadly no oven.....instead i will celebrate tilly by making the first thing she taught me to cook....yes the french toast!  this is not the original recipe....i made some changes....and since lemon meringue pie was one of tilly's specialties i may have added some lemony goodness .......

tilly and 2 of her sisters (from right to left tilly, rose, a friend, helen )

challah french toast with lemon curd and fresh blueberries

recipe after the jump

bucatini with spinach and chicken in lemon butter sauce

thursday night....just the two of us eating at 9 pm because we both had after work stuff to do.  its late we are starving.  i take 5 minutes and look for something to do with pasta, lemon, left over chicken and some fresh spinach.  mario batali has a recipe for  lemon sauce over pasta....i have made giada's lemon chicken penne with cream many times but that has a lot of steps and is a bit spicy...i decide to wing it.  i have some bucatini which is some crazy pasta .....looks like regular spaghetti but it has a hole in the middle.....when you slurp it up it makes noise like sucking through a straw......it cooks up almost like udon noodles.  it came out really nice...creamy light and lemony good.  you can tell by now i love lemon! and best of all we were eating in 15 minutes...and it wasn't take out.

my first plate...yes there were two! yummmmmmm

recipe follows the jump

fresh lemon mousse

a homemade dessert is like a hug.....it can be a personal signature.....  a little message that says "i care enough about you to make you something special." i learned that from tilly. if she made you a special dessert it was because she loved you and wanted to make you smile. it felt like a hug! ..... i love to make dessert when guests are coming over, or even for a business meeting where people might be traveling from far off cities.  there is nothing like opening up a box of homemade frosted chocolate cupcakes for a group stuck in a 4 hour meeting....really gets the creative juices flowing.  my favorite traveling desserts are cookies and cupcakes....but with no oven i had to get more creative.  (new stove with oven on order....ETA 2 weeks...YAY) if you ever need to make a beautiful dessert ( and maybe you don't have access to a working oven) you might try this wonderful recipe from ina garten (it's in my favorite book back to basics).

light and and little bit tart

full recipe and step by step pictures after the jump