Grown Up Ants on a Log

I don't know about you, but we are having some picnic weather here today in Portland! A great, easy snack for packing up to take to the park is ants on a log. Traditionally made with celery, peanut butter and raisins- O decided on a more grown up version for myself. :)

To make these ants on a log you will need:

A couple stalks of celery, washed and cut into 3-4" pieces

Chevre (a tangy goat cheese for those of you unfamiliar with it--yum!)

Dried cranberries (mine are organic and were purchased at Trader Joe's)

Just wash and cut up your celery, and then use a butter knife to spread your chevre onto each piece. Dot the top with your cranberry "ants" and you are ready to serve! When taking these on a picnic I will usually spread the cheese onto each celery stalk, and then loosely sandwich two pieces together to put in a sandwich bag. I then pull them apart at the park and put on the cranberries right before I am ready to serve.

Yum! One of my favorite summer snacks (absolutely no cooking/baking required!). What are some of your favorite picnic snacks?

Peach Chevre Salad

This should have made my list for "Things I Love" in September, but I thought it deserved it's own special post. It's that good. The hus and I got a cheese plate at one of our favorite restaurants over the weekend, and two of the many items on it were peaches and chevre. Luckily, they were right next to each other on the plate or I may have missed out on this taste sensation. I decided to turn it into a salad at home, but this would also be great served on slices of baguette as a late summer appetizer. Go nuts, I won't judge.

To make this tasty Peach and Chevre salad you will need:

4 cups lettuce of your choice (I used red and green butter lettuces, spinach would be great as well)
1 ripe peach, sliced
2 ounces of chevre (for those of you unfamiliar, chevre is a tangy goat's milk cheese great for spreading or crumbling)

Wash your lettuce and gently pat dry (or use a salad spinner- woo!). Place into a large serving bowl (or divide evenly into 2 bowls). Top with peaches and crumble on your chevre. This serves 2-4 people as a side and can easily be doubled or tripled for a crowd. We are lucky enough to have peaches in season at our local Farmer's Market, so I am getting my fill while I can.

What Summer dishes are you filling up on?

Soy Ginger Pulled Pork

This recipe is a favorite at our house, my husband likes to play around with flavors when making pulled pork (we're not really into barbecue sauce). We usually serve it over rice, but it is great in lettuce wraps (cold or warm), sandwiches or just on its own as well.

To make this Soy Ginger Pulled Pork at home you will need:

a small pork roast or pork shoulder (about 3 pounds)
1 large onion
1/2 cup fresh ginger, sliced
1/4 cup Soy Sauce (I use low sodium)
heaping 1/4 cup of brown sugar (packed)
1 Tablespoon molasses
2-3 cups water
salt and pepper to taste (we generally use about 1 teaspoon of each)

cast iron dutch oven
corn starch to thicken sauce (optional)

Start by cutting your pork shoulder into 4 or 5 pieces (try to keep them all about the same size). You can trim off a bit of the fat if you want, but it is not necessary as the slow cooking will break most of it down. Place the meat in the bottom of your dutch oven. Add water to your dutch oven so it comes about halfway up the sides of your pork (about 2-3 cups).

Next, slice up your onion. I start by cutting my onion in half, then I remove the outer skin. Slice your onions fairly thin, they will end up cooking down to a point you barely notice them (they just give really good flavor to the meat). I'm not really a huge onion fan, and the first time my husband made this I didn't even realize it had onions in it! If you love onions, feel free to slice them thicker or add some halfway through the cooking process so they don't break down as much.

Then, assemble your additional flavorings. As you can see in the photo above, we slice up our ginger in fairly large slices, and leave the skin on. We take the ginger out before shredding the pork to serve. To make this easier you can tie up your ginger in some cheesecloth before tossing it in to cook. It really adds a fabulous flavor to the pork. If you prefer, you could get away with using less ginger overall by peeling a smaller piece and grating it with a microplane into your pork, the smaller you grate it the more intense the flavor so you can cut back on volume by quite a bit. If fresh ginger isn't something you have on hand, you can substitute about a teaspoon of dried ground ginger in a pinch (but really, try the fresh stuff at least once--it's awesome!).

Toss all remaining ingredients into the pot and turn it on to medium high heat. Once it starts to bubble, reduce the heat to low and give everything a little stir. Cover and cook for about 2.5 hours. You will want to check every 30 minutes or so to give the pot a stir and make sure there is still some liquid in the pan, if not you can add more water to keep the meat braising. The meat will be fully cooked after only about the first 30 minutes, but it needs the extra time for the fats to break down and the flavors to develop. This is seriously tender tasty pork! Once done, if you think there is too much water left in your pan, you can add some corn starch (a little bit at a time--maybe 1/4 teaspoon or so) and stir until the sauce thickens up. Shred the pork with a fork and serve over rice, noodles or as a sandwich! Enjoy!

Garden + Croutons = Salad.

The sun is out in full force, and thanks to that we had lots of ripe tomatoes and lettuce this weekend for our first garden salads! Add in some croutons (insanely delicious) that my husband whipped up with the end from my French Bread from Friday and it was maybe the best salad I've had in a long time.

While this is more of an "OMG look what I ate this weekend!" post than a food craft, feel free to make some yummy croutons and enjoy a salad of your own. Here is how the husband whipped these up (if you made the french bread and have some that is day old, I really can't recommend using it to make these croutons enough).

You will need:

About 3 slices of french bread 1 1/2 inch thick (we used the last 5-6 inches of a loaf)
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a saute pan on your stove top over medium/ medium high heat and cut up your bread into bite sized cubes. Add your butter and garlic to the pan, then once the butter is melted toss in your bread cubes and stir them around to get them evenly coated.



Saute your bread cubes about 5 minutes, or until they are a a delicious, buttery golden brown perfection. Add salt and pepper and place onto your salad, enjoy!

Friday Food Craft: Deviled Eggs

I have another picnic-perfect food craft for you all this Friday, deviled eggs! The sunny days, while a little chilly here, are putting me in the picnic mood! Here is another easy recipe to take with you to a picnic, barbecue, or any other get-together. These can easily be made the night before and stored in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve.




You will need:

6 eggs
1-2 tsp. Dijon Mustard
3 Tablespoons Mayo or Miracle Whip
2 teaspoons sugar
Smoked Paprika to garnish

To start, I use my perfect every time method of hard boiling eggs. Place your eggs in a saucepan, cover with cold water and place on the stove top. Heat until the water is boiling, then place a cover on your saucepan and turn off the heat. Let these sit for 12 minutes, then drain and cool. *To prevent the yolks from getting that yucky grey/green outer color you want to cool them quickly. I usually run cold tap water over them, and then add ice into my pan, after about 3 minutes they should be cool when you pick them up to remove the shells.

Remove your egg shells and discard them. If you have very fresh eggs, this can be quite a task, fresh eggs tend to hang on to their shells for dear life--I usually hard boil my eggs after they have been hanging out in the refrigerator for a week or so.

Cut each egg in half and place the cooked yolks into a bowl. At this point, I usually do a little pre-smashing of the yolks to try to keep lumps to a minimum, you could also make your entire filling mixture in a sandwich bag and squeeze any lumps out with your fingers (the bag can be used as a pastry bag for filling your eggs by simply snipping off one corner with a pair of scissors when the filling is done).

Add your mustard, mayo and sugar to your egg yolks (you may also add salt and pepper to taste if you wish, but I have never found it necessary. Use white pepper if you want to avoid black specks in your egg mixture). Mix everything together until smooth and then pipe or spoon into your egg whites. Garnish with a sprinkle of smoked paprika (you can use regular paprika as well, but the smoked gives it a little something special). Enjoy!