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

pork loin roast on the grill for easter

easter....one of my favorite holidays as a child.  my aunt ethel and my grandmother tilly would make sure i had  a wonderful easter basket full of surprises.  one year tilly bought me big girl patent leather shoes with gold buckles that i actually remember wearing to bed because i could not bear to take them off.   ethel used to do easter baskets like martha......before martha was martha.  yellow and lavender crepe paper wrapped around a wicker basket filled with wondrous goodies.

easter at tilly's 1961 ish (ok that is a scary looking bunny)

 ( tilly kicked it into high gear for every holiday.)  i know now, that she and grandpa had a very modest income...but somehow she put on feast after feast for everyone that showed up.  for easter there was some candy for sure, a ham with candied sweet potatoes and usually a wonderful lemon meringue pie or maybe a cake shaped like a bunny covered in colored coconut.....is kind of sad, but good at the same time to have such wonderful traditions to carry on with my girls....yes the bunny still makes a yearly visit to my house, but these days he brings  grown up goodies like make up and pastel spatulas from le creuset, martha stewart cook books and maybe some swarovski crystal earbuds.

kelsey's blown decorated eggs

  ****  flash forward to 2011 no tilly, no ethel  and no oven....nix the ham.....nada to the rib roast,   no way to do roast beef.....so i thought i would be smart and do a marinated pork tenderloin on the grill....like an idiot i asked for a pork loin not a tenderloin and came away from the butcher with a 4 pound roast  and  NO OVEN.  so i decided to marinate with salt, pepper, olive oil and rosemary...put it in a bag, pop it in the fridge and then do some research on what techniques might work to get the roast done on the the grill.  brit found a web link with some directions....i used my own marinade but tried this technique complete with the roasting rack and smokey bags (i happened to have some weber flavor wood chips)...have to say it worked out pretty well.
recipe after the jump

ny strip steak with spring risotto and tomato blue cheese salad

ok so it is week two with no oven.......have to be creative with what to make for saturday dinner (this works for dinner on the weekend or during the week)....gotta get to a menu that works all on the stove top or gas grill.....so what to do, what to do?  brit and kelsey are both home for easter weekend...so lots of cooking and easter egg crafts are on the agenda.  first a trip to the butcher....picked up some beautiful ny strip steaks (among other things) then on to the grocery store to check out the choices.  brit and i had done some research with the ina cookbooks and decided on some dishes that would work together and be oven free.  brit picked out some nice leeks, a variety of herbs, blue cheese, fennel.....a nice wheat ciabatta bread....back home and start prepping.

oven free blue plate special

we took the steaks out and seasoned with salt and pepper and left at room temp while we got to the risotto. the spring green risotto is from ina garten's back to basics cookbook (this one is my favorites of all of her cookbook ......i have made many of these recipes multiple times. ) i have made this recipe about 5 times...i always leave out the white wine and add the parmesan on the individual plates.

recipes after the jump