Blended Coffee Drinks

I am a sucker for Frappuccinos and all blended coffee drinks. Especially in the summer. And on a 90+ summer afternoon doesn't everyone want/deserve/need a frozen caffeinated treat?
So when I saw this recipe on Joy the Baker's blog, I was intrigued by the addition of instant pudding to add that vanilla flavor and thickening agent.
I just made one and it is pretty tasty, rivals the coffee shop variety, I think. I did equal parts coffee and milk, about 1t sugar and then my husband emptied in the maple syrup bottle that we almost finished at breakfast so that was about 1t maple syrup. I also added about 1-2T vanilla instant pudding and about a tray and a half of ice cubes. I let it blend for a while to get the ice pretty crushed.
Pretty refreshing wake up on Saturday afternoon! Next time I'll try some add ins like a banana or some chocolate syrup!

A Pickle....or 23 pints of pickles.

I'll warn you in advance, I have no pretty pictures for you, not even any ugly ones, just no pictures. Sorry. I wanted to update you on the pickling adventures of 2010. I went to the Farmers Market yesterday with the plan to get a cucumber for a salad and instead I got 12 lbs. of picking cucumbers. I turned in a full draft of my dissertation last week and so this week-end is decidedly a non-school-work weekend! And so what better to do than PICKLE!
I decided to use the same bread and butter pickle recipe as last year because I loved those pickles! I sliced up about 5 lbs. of the pickles into 1/4 inch slices and 2 lbs. of vidalia onions. I salted these and covered them first with a towel and then with ice and refrigerated them for several hours.
In the mean time, I let the afternoon heat dissipate and waited 'til about 6 or 7 pm before I fired up the canning pot. I got a new canning pot! I've been using a stock pot and a round cake cooling rack. Let me tell you that a real canning pot for $17.87 at Walmart was already worth every penny after one round of canning! The rack that hooks on the side of the pot for easy removal of the jars is awesome and reduces my chances of steam burns by about a million percent!
I then went to work on the dill pickles. I wasn't pleased with how my dill pickles turned out last year and so I decided to try a new recipe. I went for this garlic dill recipe. I'll let you know how they turn out...
But I sliced the cukes in chunks rather than slices or spears per the recipe's suggestion. I placed cloves of garlic, peppercorns, dill seed, and hot pepper flakes in each jar and then tried to stuff the jars with the chunks of cukes. That was easier said than done and it requires about twice as many jars because the chunks don't pack as well as thinner slices might. In about half the jars I used 1/2 as much dill seed (1/2t rather than 1t) and used a few sprigs of fresh dill too. I poured the hot brine (4C apple cider vinegar, 4C water, 6T pickling salt) over the cukes, put on the lids, and processed them for 10 minutes in my new canning pot!
Then even though after my dinner break and hang out time it was now 10 pm, I decided it was time to finish the bread and butter pickles too. I got the brine ready (1 1/4C white vinegar, 1C apple cider vinegar, 2 1/4C sugar, hot pepper flakes, cloves, allspice, mustard seeds, celery seeds, and turmeric) and let it reach a boil. I rinsed off the salted cucumbers and onions and tossed them in the boiling brine. I let that all ready a boil again and then filled the jars first with the pickles and then with the brine, put on the lids, and processed them in the hot water bath too.
15 jars of dills....only one didn't seal, so I guess 14 jars of dills and 8 jars of bread and butters.
And that should be enough pickles for a while!

Pesto Pasta with Sausage and Garlic Scapes

A brief post...my new goal is to post more often by posting more briefly.
My husband made arugula pesto the other day. He made a very basic pesto with just the greens, garlic, and oil. He used no nuts and no cheese. Nonetheless quite a delicious topping!

We mixed it with pasta and roasted red peppers and topped it with some grilled sausage and grilled garlic scapes.
The sausage was a local Bratwurst. Delicious! And the garlic scapes were also local. I trip each end, spray them with oil and we grill them in a pan designed to be used on the grill, otherwise they'd fall through the grill.
It was a nice summer grilling combination!

Steak Teriyaki

Again...it would be lame to apologize again but I am sorry that I have been gone so long....
But here I am. And here is some tasty steak teriyaki!
I used a recipe from Simply Recipes for steak teriyaki. I mixed up the marinade recipe: 1/3C mirin rice wine, 1/3C sake, 1/3C soy sauce, 1T sugar, and 1T grated ginger. I actually probably used more ginger than the recipe calls for. I used an unfiltered sake from Oregon: Momokawa Pearl. I chose this one because it is one we like to drink and so only using 1/3C wasn't an issue because the rest of the bottle was happily consumed!
I let the flank steak soak in the marinade for a few hours and toward the end I also tossed in some locally grown shiitake mushrooms from our farm share. We skewered the mushrooms and grilled those and the flank steak on the grill.
While those were grilling, I cooked down the marinade to make the teriyaki sauce to serve over the meat.
We also had rice and sauteed spinach along with the steak and mushroom. Delicious!!

Stuffed Roasted Jalapenos

Do you have a hankering for jalapeno poppers? Do you have the urge to light up your grill now that it's getting warmer outside? (At least in some parts of the country, it's been in the 40s and 50s around here.)
Minus the deep fried part, these stuffed and grill roasted peppers should take care of that jalapeno popper desire!
Unnecessary Kitchen Implement Warning!!! I bought a pepper roaster and it came with a corer. Generally, I hate buying kitchen items that only have one (and obscure) purpose but I fell for this one and we actually use it all the time.
When the grocery store has large enough and nice enough looking jalapenos these stuffed and roasted peppers are on our menu. You'll learn to eye ball the right size pepper for the rack after a few tries. And if they are too small, I have figured out that you can use the stem and the top that you cut off to wedge in the hole with the pepper to keep it from falling through the rack.
I mix cream cheese and shredded cheddar cheese for the stuffing but any number of combinations would be delicious. That mix works for us and I haven't branched out, yet. I'd love to hear what other combinations you try.
After I mix the cheeses together, I slice off the top of the peppers and core them. If you can't get all the seeds out with the corer you can rinse them with water. I roll the cheese mixture into tubes to better stuff the peppers. I place the peppers in the rack and then straight on the grill they go. It is best to keep them off the direct heat and on the edge of the grill. The longer they can stay on the grill with out the tips burning and the cheese boiling out the top, the more tender the peppers will become.
Enjoy!