Really Home Made Bruschetta

The first tomato I've ever grown has ripened:



And I harvested some of our basil leaves:



And I made bruschetta. Lindz toasted some home-made bread for this.



It's been a rainy, hot sauna here in Raleigh of late (preceded by a comparatively dry spell). The plants seem to like it.

Dragonfly and Tomatoes

 

Corn and Scallop Johnnycakes

Lindz found a whole bunch of cool recipes in the June issue of Cooking Light. This is one of them. They are johnnycakes (a pancake version of cornbread, more or less) with fresh corn and scallops in them, and (not pictured) they are accompanied by a scallion sauce. Tasty shit. The sauce is scallions and some mayonnaise, sour cream and other goodies, blasted in the food processor. I didn't have all the ingredients, but it worked - a bit of ricotta instead of sour cream, and a few capers instead of parsley. This was a very nice, fresh dish. The corn is really what made it. Of course, my evil mind naturally came up with other ways to make it: deep-fried corn and scallop fritters with a sauce of scallions pureed with creme fraiche. Perhaps a little pile of caviar on top. A glass of Veuve Clicquot to wash it down...

Actually, we had the sensible version, with Spaten Premium, a delightfully refreshing German Pilsner, to go with it. It was marvelous. Soon, we will make the cherry-jalapeno preserves out of the same magazine and put it on top of some pork chops.

Word o' the Day

Repine
1:To feel or express dejection or discontent: complain
2:To long for something.

Food has been an escape for me, but perhaps I need to try harder in my efforts to pierce the gloom. It seems like sections of me are going numb, thanks to this cubicle farm. My wife is married to a freak!

An Entire Day Spent on One Meal....

And well worth it. Here's the Boston Butt, after about 6 of the 11.5 hours of 210-degree hickory smoke:




SmokeDroid performed well. I tossed a towel over him to reduce lost heat, and it leveled off nicely at about 210 degrees. I also recreated (reasonably well, at least, the roasted potato salad from Childress. I also made cole slaw. Here is the result:




The pork was pretty damned good. Smoky, succulent and a bit salty. It had a tasty crust on the outside. A fine day.