Jenn, a sweet guest that stayed this past weekend at my bed and breakfast, brought me a jar of homemade mixed berry jam. I have been eating it straight up from the jar on a spoon. Oooooooh… the blend of various summer fruits is perfect. Today, I spread some on a sweet potato scone. Yum!   Waiting in my email…

My friend Connie kindly gave me a beautiful yellow squash freshly plucked from her garden, so I paired it with a zucchini that was in my most recent weekly CSA box to make a flavorful squash tomato medley topped with parmesan cheese. The recipe is from allrecipes.com.          Squash Tomato Medley Makes 6 servings. 1 tbsp olive…

Bread pudding… a perfectly nutritious start to the day if it's "Fantastic Fruity Flan" from Jane Kinderlehrer's Smart Breakfasts Cookbook. I renamed the recipe solely for memory recollection.     Dried Fruit Breakfast Bread Pudding 2 eggs 1 ½ tbsp butter, softened 1 cup milk 2 tbsp molasses ½ tsp vanilla ¾ tsp cinnamon 1/8 tsp nutmeg 2 cups cubed…

Tis the season for fresh garden veggies, so I searched for a healthier version of catalina dressing. This recipe from cdkitchen tastes even better than Kraft's version and takes only minutes to whip up. Kraft Catalina Dressing: soybean oil, tomato puree, (water, tomato paste), sugar, vinegar, salt, contains less than 2% of dried garlic, spice, xanthan gum, dried…

On Thursday, I'll be picking up this week's CSA box, so I got busy and used up the string beans and cukes from last week's box by making the second recipe tucked into my CSA box. The recipe, from Food Network's Rachel Ray, uses a simple olive oil and lemon juice drizzle seasoned with salt and pepper that allows the fresh garden veggies to…

Inserted in my CSA box yesterday were two recipes that used this week's freshly-picked produce from the CSA farm. The farmers had taken time to search out appropriate recipes, so I knew I must appreciate their efforts by trying the recipes. I'm so glad I did. The first recipe, which came from 101cookbooks.com, used a head of cauliflower and green onions from…

Since Dick and I were going to be eating spaghetti with meat sauce at the Legion in Ironton last Friday, I made tofu burgers for lunch using a recipe from Heidi Swanson's 101cookbooks.com blog. I only used half of the mixture, planning to make another meal of it today and write a post sharing this…

Roasting marshmallows on our backporch…

My grandkids are visiting from New York. Four things absolutely must take place at this Nana's/Nanny's house… bedtime reading, baking, outdoor exploration, and sewing. I had the reading covered by checking out 26 books from the public library. Baking..well, today, O'Malley and I made these Applenut Flax Bars.  They are really easy, nutritious, and a wonderfully tasty snack.   Applenut Flax…

I wanted to make a dessert that was fitting of today's 4th of July holiday and it needed to be cooling because it is a hot and steamy mid-summer day. My friend Connie came to the rescue with this recipe and she even supplied me with raspberries freshly picked from her patch. It is a must-make… again…