A strange thing happened tonight, especially for a Monday.  I sat down, glass of cabernet in hand, and watched the evening news.  Alone.  To start, I am usually running a carpool or making dinner, and I never see the evening news, much less know what current events are going on around me.  Second, sitting down for thirty minutes straight only happens if I am driving to Greensboro, or further.  But today I was in the kitchen until 4:00 pm, the kids went home with friends and then straight to soccer this evening.  After a very busy but great weekend, this is like a mini-vacation.  They are not home yet, but that door will be creaking any moment as I type furiously with my thoughts in mind.

So I am watching the news and you know how the ending segment can sometimes choke you up when they do the life stories?  Well, it did tonight.  Maybe it was just the calming effect of sitting, or the wine, but once again I was choked up and overwhelmed with the feeling of how great living, yes just living, life can be.  So easy to take for granted, so easy to feel like our days could be better sometimes, so many things to do.  Yet, life is short, and each day we are ALL doing so much living.

Our church bulletin recently sent out a great newsletter, and the theme of the upcoming year is “Are you hungry?”  Regardless of your religious persuasions, isn’t that beautiful?  Shouldn’t we all be hungry?  Hungry for life, hungry for the love of our family, our friends, all that is blooming around us?  And yes, of course, hungry for good food that feeds our body and soul.  Food that nourishes because it is shared together, around a table, with family or friends, simply shared.  Hungry just to be here now, in the moment, soaking it all in, and knowing that this is life- today.  As one of my favorite songs says, “Today is the first day of the rest of my life.  I’m alive, and well.”  With credit to a great duo between Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews, more amazing words could not be sung.

Feed your soul.  I challenge you to feed your soul today, and then again tomorrow, and the next day…give yourself that nourishment, and share it with others.  Life is short.  Live hard, love hard, eat well.  Enjoy the best of food and life.

Just a quick little blurp here with an easy recipe to follow.  This afternoon was one of those days where I didn’t have anything planned for dinner.  I had been in the kitchen all day, and while I always have a lot of food, sometimes it just isn’t turned into a meal yet.  Such was the case this afternoon at 4:00 while we were doing homework and thinking about our next move.  With lacrosse until 7:00, I knew it needed to be easy.  A quick glance in the fridge and pantry, then 30 minutes later a yummy batch of sloppy joe’s was born.  We had Sloppy Joe Hoagies, using up some hoagie rolls we had on hand, and made the meal complete with fruit salad.  I hope this helps you out in a pinch on a busy afternoon, there is nothing wrong with a delicious sloppy joe, and this homemade version is “1,2,3 easy peasy” and a lot better tasting than the can!  Enjoy…

Juju’s Sloppy Joe Sauce

 Ingredients

•  1 lb  ground beef (bison or ground turkey can be substituted)
• 1/2 c  chopped green pepper
• 1/2 c  chopped onion
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp  brown sugar
• 1 tsp  mustard
• 1/2 c  ketchup
• 1 Tbsp  white vinegar
• 1 Tbsp  worchestershire sauce
• 1 8oz can tomato sauce (or, tonight I used leftover marinara sauce I had in the fridge instead)
• Water to make it your preferred consistency…some like it thick and some like it saucy!

Directions:

1 Brown ground beef in large sauce pot or skillet with pepper and onion. Drain grease.

2 Add all other ingredients, mix well. Cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

3 That’s it!  Serve it up on some Martins’ party rolls for great sliders, or hamburgers buns, or on hoagie rolls for a sloppy joe sub!

“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him…the people who give you their food give you their heart” -Cesar Chavez  

I’m quickly inspired by quotes and writing, like the one quoted above.  After sharing a fun night with friends and good food, plus some awesome college football sponsored by the Clemson Tigers, it just seemed the perfect Sunday morning post.  Cooking is a labor of love.  For many, the key word in that last sentence is labor, and that’s ok!  But for a few hundred years now, we as people have had a tradition of breaking bread together no matter where we live, what language we speak, or if that bread is shared in an adobe, mansion, or pagoda.

It strikes me all the time, simple little things that make each day better, like the quote. Or, the other day it was my honey pot.  Small, yellow, with a unique little shape, I love my Le Creuset honey pot.  Every now and then when the honey is used up and it’s washed clean and the sticky goes away, it’s like a new little invention.  Smooth, golden honey flows back in, ready to top buttered biscuits and spread joy around the table.

Honey pot on my windowsill…

You might be inspired, you might be rolling your eyes, but either way I hope you find your own honey pot.  Find it, share it, and as the bumper sticker says “Don’t postpone joy.”  Enjoy, the best of food and life.

Biscuits with Butter and Honey

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon white sugar

1/3 cup shortening

1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

In a word, awesome.  In two words, foodie fun, and in three, just what I wanted.  I am talking about this past weekend, which was almost the perfect way to spend our last weekend before school begins.  Great times with family and friends, time working in the yard, just relaxing and fun at the same time.  Friday we helped host a great 40th birthday party for a dear friend, featuring the Camel City Grill Food truck.  I chose the Ben’s Pimiento Burger, and it was a really good burger…chipotle gave it a nice kick.  Not to mention Ben, the namesake, was the one serving it.

Camel City Grill Food Truck

Saturday morning brought a Fall like feel with crisp air, and a picture perfect setting for a trip to the Old Salem Farmers Market to buy some gorgeous things for dinner.  There, Sugar Creek Farm is one of my favorite vendors.  After a quick stop at Trader Joe’s for lemons, then home for a quick rub down for the leg of lamb before it sat all day soaking in the flavors, we were all outside working in the yard and enjoying an afternoon outdoors.

Sugar Creek Farm peppers

Farmers market Yukon Golds

Now, the real fun begins.  Our grill has a rotisserie attachment, and we don’t use it often, making the times we do even more enjoyable.  Last night we put our leg of lamb on it, and let the fire do the work.  Crispy on the outside with herbs and garlic making a yummy crust and tender, juicy meat beneath, what else needs to be said.  Fire roasted baby Yukon potatoes, marinated vegetable salad, grilled pita bread, to enjoy this with fresh ingredients form the market that morning was amazing.

Full from dinner, and not to mention tired from the past two days of fun, we sat down and watched a movie for a relaxing end to the day.  Now, morning is here, and I’m awaiting my sleepyheads to wake up.  Four Oaks Farms grits are on the burner and fresh sausage in the cast iron pan, and I need to go before it burns.

I hope you have a great week, you will find me back in the kitchen this week getting ready for a busy season ahead and preparing for several catering jobs.  My updated menu for the first dinner pick up Sept. 4th is now listed on my blog links on the side.  Enjoy, the best of food and life, one weekend at a time, I hope to see you at the kitchen soon!

Rotisserie Lamb

Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to volunteer.  I am talking about another kind of do good’er here, the volunteers plants you find in your yard.  I seem to have more than ever this summer, which is no surprise with all of the rain here.  Temporarily we are living in a temperate rain forest for a season in Winston-Salem.  Finding volunteers in my raised garden bed is usually no surprise, as I compost most of my fruit and vegetable scraps.  Compost bins are like seedling heaven!  Occasionally, I’ll have a tomato plant grow from the plant that was there the year before, waiting over the winter and spring before it pokes its green leaves out of the ground.  But never have I had a cherry tomato sprout from the gutter downspout, or a cantaloupe grown between the 1950’s trash cans at our driveway.

The best BLT I have had all summer, maybe even this past year, was last week using the first, and one of the few, homegrown tomatoes I will have.  It came from my volunteer tomato plant at my garden gate, my “stellar volunteer”.  It’s like a natural gift.  Thinly sliced and sandwiched between white bread, spread with Duke’s Mayonnaise (apologies to you Hellman’s people) with apple wood smoked bacon and crisp lettuce, generously sprinkled with salt.  I had to compose myself as the juice trickled down my hand it was so yummy.  I was glad I was alone at the kitchen sink.  That good.

Sometimes nature has ways to make us laugh, and I always find food spreads joy like the ones mentioned here.  Enjoy the pictures of my precious summer volunteers, they have been hard at work, helping me enjoy the best of food and life all summer long!

Cherry tomato in gutter!

Volunteer cantaloupe growing between my trash cans!

This has been a stellar volunteer!

last week’s BLT, thanks to my volunteers!

Work hard, play hard.  Just do it.  All kinds of ad campaigns regularly run through my mind as slogans for how to live life, not just buy products.  Sometimes I imagine a career in advertising, where my often random thoughts and ideas could be put to use.  Therefore, the purpose of my blog.  For those of you reading it, I hope sometimes it inspires you to cook, play, and live the best of food and life from time to time, and I thank you for being somewhat interested.

Today I woke up thinking how different my life will be a week from today as we get ready for the first day back to school.  Many of us count our calendars by school days, and those summer days are quickly drawing to a close this week as Labor Day approaches.  One day, as sad as it might make me to think about now, I realize this calendar will change as children grow older, and my calendars is marked by Holiday breaks from college and home visits.  Summer has been exactly the kind of fun we dreamt of early last Spring, but as my kids start to increasingly irritate each other and wonder what to do, I realize a schedule will be good for all of us.

Between books and carpools, soccer and lacrosse, you will find me nestled in the cutest commercial kitchen you have ever seen, having fun, cooking all under the guise of working.   Just whistle while you work, right?  Some of our good friends own Carolina Pet Place, which is a great kennel if you have dogs, or other animals, and live in the Winston-Salem area.  But the best things about this “shout out” is that his email is signed “Living the dream one dog at a time”.  I love it, I think it is hysterical, but it also reminds me how lucky I am to truly be living my dream, as I hope so many of you are.  If not, just do it!

My kids are hungry right now, and they want to make doughnuts, so I better go.  Really?  Yes.  Homemade doughnuts, I’m sure many of you are rolling your eyes and/or laughing that I would do this.  Just go to Krispy Kreme– I mean, we are in Winston-Salem where they were born, right?  But yes, what fun!  Unfortunately they have to rise for a couple of hours, but now you know what we’ll be having for breakfast tomorrow.  I have made beignets before, but never doughnuts, I’ll post my recipe if it turns out well…

I’ve said this before and this won’t be the last time I say it.  Sometimes it’s the simple things that are best.  For example, homemade lemonade in the summer.  It’s that tang that hits you in the back of your mouth and makes your jaw tingle, that only comes from fresh squeezed lemons or limes.  Okay, not really true, I had an extreme sour candy the other day and it tingled my jaws like nothing ever had before!  But, back to lemonade, it is such a simple thing, and one I hope you’ll be inspired to try soon.  And, if you remember the old days of the Village Soda Shop at Reynolda Village, then I’m sure you are quickly taken back to Orange-ade glory!

So it is with Sweet Tea, same simple joy minus the tingle in your jaws.  But the simplicity of brewing a pot of iced tea is a gesture that sometimes goes a long way.  It is somewhat becoming a lost art really, a memory of Grandma’s house most people save for ordering out, but it is so easy you’ll see there is no art to it.  So go drag out a pitcher and buy some citrus and/or tea bags- treat your family to some simple summer love in a tall cold glass this weekend.  Show them how easy it is to enjoy the best things about food and life while quenching your thirst.

Homemade Lemonade or Limeade- makes just over 2 quarts

1/2 cup water

1-1/2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon, peeled or grated, lemon or lime rind (about two lemons)

1-3/4 cups fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice

6-7 cups ice water

Directions:  Bring 1/2 cup water to boil in medium saucepan.  Stir in sugar and citrus rind, stir until sugar dissolves.  Remove from heat, stir in squeezed juice and water.  Serve in tall glass, garnishing with lemon or lime slices, straws and enjoy!  Hint:  lemons and limes juice better when they are not cold.  If you want more tang and less sweet, cut the sugar amount back to just over a cup of sugar and citrus back to 1 1/2 cups.  Get Creative with it!  Put mint in your simple syrup mix, combine different juices, add fresh summer berries for Lemon-raspeberry-ade…no rules here as long as it tastes good!

Sweet Mint Tea

8 cups water

2 family size tea bags

3 or 4 sprigs of fresh mint, about 4″ each

3/4 cup sugar, more or less to your liking

Directions:  Bring water to a boil.  While water is heating, place tea bags and mint sprigs in another tea pot or heat proof pitcher.  When water is just coming to a boil, remove from heat and pour over tea bags and mint, cover and steep for 5 minutes.  Remove tea bags and mint, pressing with back of spoon to extract all the flavor.  Stir is sugar to dissolve while hot, let sit to chill.  Serve over ice with lemon wedge, and enjoy!  I grew up drinking this tea, and now my kids love to help make it as well.

One of my dearest friends gave me a memo pad the other day with a funny little “kitchen humor ” on it.  It reads, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember this recipe calling for your opinion!”  It reminds me how much I love cocktail napkins, or just short one liners that are so funny, and often so very true.  Hopefully you are thinking of some of your favorites and chuckling right now.  If not, I’m sure you have a drawer or basket tucked away somewhere, of those plastic wrapped packages you have received as a thank you, or plan to give as a thank you, or both!  But no matter how you perceive them, I don’t think they can ever go out of style, I guess that’s just my opinion.

Enjoy…a little kitchen humor is sometimes what we all need!  Here are just a few, (credits to Google Images)…

Along with blueberries, dry grass, and hot days, figs are here!  If you’re lucky to have a fig tree, you are trying to figure out ways to use them.  If not, they are available at Farmers’ markets, or just look in a neighbors yard, as they are everywhere in Winston-Salem and across the South.  As much as I love slicing them and enjoying them plain, I have a lot of figs ripening and wanted to share a couple of ideas you might enjoy, too. It’s always a race to see who gets the fig first- me, the ants, squirrels, or my chocolate lab who loves all things green- including my green peaches and tomatoes!

This first recipe is from the newest Lee Brothers Charleston Kitchen cookbook, (my cookbook of the week), and I love how they make use of local ingredients.  This recipe for pickled figs sounds like the perfect summer side dish.

Butter Lettuce with Toasted Pecans and Pickled Figs

1/4 cup plus 1 tbls white vinegar        freshly ground black pepper

kosher salt                                              2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon honey                                   6 tbls mild olive oil

6 ounces fresh figs, quartered            2 heads butter, romaine or mixed lettuces

1/2 cup pecans                                       4 ounces blue cheese or goat cheese (optional)

1.  Pour 3/4 cup of water, 1/4 cup of vinegar, and 1/4 tsp kosher salt into a bowl.  Add honey and whisk until all is dissolved.  Add figs to the bowl, let stand for 30 minutes.

2.  Preheat oven to 250 degrees

3.  Spread pecans on a rimmed baking pan and toast for 15 minutes, until fragrant.  Set aside to cool.

4.  Strain the figs, reserving the figs and 2 tbls of the brine.  Season figs with salt and pepper.  Add the remaining tablespoon vinegar and Dijon mustard to the reserved brine, whisk together.  Add the oil, pouring in a thin stream and whisking until dressing is emulsified.

5.  Divide lettuces among six bowls or plates.  Scatter some figs, pecan and cheese (if desired) over each portion, and drizzle with vinaigrette.  Enjoy!

Warm Figs with Honey…a simple, perfect bite as an appetizer.  Cut figs in half, place on baking sheet and warm in a 350 oven for about 5 minutes.  Remove, drizzle with honey, and enjoy warm.  Another option is to place a piece of blue cheese on figs before placing in oven.

More “figgy” ideas can be found on these sites listed below- have fun with your figs!

Southern Living, Bon Appetit, Cooking Light

In this time off during the summer, I cook all the time, only out of my home kitchen more and for smaller crowds.  Gathering fun ideas for the upcoming year, enjoying farm fresh produce, playing, swimming and more fills our days.  This week we will be picking fresh blueberries at Sprinkle’s Blueberry Farm in Winston-Salem, a July tradition in our family.  The honey from Sprinkle’s is wonderful, too, a mix of pollen from the blueberry bushes and other flowers, and their tomatoes are almost as much a reason I go there as the blueberries. Or, if you’re in the mood for a great day trip, try Bev’s Blueberries in Virginia, just an hour from Winston and tucked into the gorgeous hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Not much can beat a fresh picked berry, warm from the sun and so sweet as it pops on your teeth.  Making memories that last a lifetime…

As I type, I find it hard to believe it is time to go blueberry picking and, according to my calendar, we are already into the middle of July.  Isn’t it amazing how time has such a way of sneaking past us?  I have not spent much time in the kitchen, or blogging for that matter.  While I miss it tremendously, the slow days with my family have been beckoning like a lighthouse looking for the sea.  Last week we spent a week at the beach, and enjoyed a lot of time on the water.  We spent many late afternoons at low tide on the marsh going crabbing, one of my favorite things to do.  There is something about the excitement at the slight tug on the line as a crab walks away with the bait, or pulling up a crab pot to hear the chatter and bubbles of a bunch of crabs interrupted from their snacking.  Maybe part of it is something about saltwater, and being outdoors in general, that seems to refresh the soul.

While I typically practice catch and release, those yummy crabs I simply can’t resist sometimes.  I keep the larger males, throw back the females, and head inside to a big stock pot of water, pour a glass of wine, and wait to enjoy!  Below are pictures of “before and after”.  Just another reason why I like to enjoy the best of food and life, sometimes in the most simple of ways.

Before…

…and after!