Dill Pickles

This is our first year with a big garden, and I am loving it!!  Our cucumbers are gorgeous, and we’ve had enough to snack on as well as enough for the one thing I’ve been waiting for…pickling!  I pretty much heart dill pickles.  This brine comes from my Gram’s recipe, but the spice ratios I ad-libbed for our tastes.  I used dill heads from our own garden as well, so extra fun.  I did use pickle crisp because I did a BWB so they’d last a year+ and didn’t want soggy spears.  Also, I was out of canning salt so used sea salt (about the only alternative to avoid the anti-caking).

For planning purposes, 20 medium to large pickling cucumbers and about 40 dill heads yielded 9 jars of pickles.  The worst thing is waiting six weeks to see how they turned out!

pickles

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Lemongrass Chicken with Noodles

My friend Missy recently had a big party to celebrate a decade in DC – it was an awesome time with amazing DC food!  She had a Banh Mi station with lemongrass chicken.  I used her recipe and threw it over some lightly Thai curried noodles for a pretty good dinner.  The sauce was a good base but could use some brightening up…maybe more lime or fish sauce next time.  The best part was that we used our own sugar snap peas from the garden!

 

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Caribbean Brine Pork Chops

We’ve had so much success with brined chops that I’ve been looking through a few other brines to try them out.  This was good, but too sweet for me.  If you like sweet with a nice hint of spice, you would probably really enjoy this.  I mean, I didn’t leave anything on the plate. 😉  We had this with our squash tossed with some of our dill and chives, and some corn we picked up.  Will be corn season in Virginia soon!! 🙂

 

carribbeanbrine

 

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Patriotic Iced Sugar Cookies

Possibly the most decorative dessert I’ve ever done, but also probably the one I’ve liked the best! I made these for a 4th of July picnic with Shawn’s family in Florida, and they seemed to be pretty popular! While time consuming, these are not difficult. I don’t own a pastry set – instead I use a small paint brush and toothpick for these designs. You can Google for “Royal Icing Marbling” and get some great tutorials.  I used the same recipe as I did for our Christmas cookies, both for the cookie and the icing.

4thcookies

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Flank Steak Pinwheels

This was another of the freezer meals we put together about a month ago. Shawn is out of town and this is easy and in the freezer and it’s possible we have no food at ALL in the fridge. So it worked out. I want to say that the best part was the side of the first zucchini from our garden (also grilled), but the pinwheels were pretty good! They were a little messy on the grill, but for something you can pull out of the freezer and more or less throw on the grill I’m a fan!

freezer_steak_pinwheels

 

 

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Moroccan Chicken Skewers

This is pretty much awesome, and I made it twice in one week, once for us and once for my Mom while she was visiting and our friends who came over to visit.  The original recipe has a lemon vinagrette that you can drizzle over the kabobs, but I skipped that given the dipping sauce was SO good.  Made the meal, I think.  We had this with green bean and tomato salad, and a quinoa/veggie salad.  Great summer meal!

 

moroccan_spring_chicken

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Green Bean and Tomato Salad

This was a really tasty side salad using summer veggies – goes really well with a grilled entree! I got this from Chow and made as is other than halving it for two people. 🙂  At its original size, it would be a nice picnic/BBQ side dish.  Recipe below is for that portion size.

 

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Beer-Brined Pork Chops

The more we try different recipes, the more I think pork chops are pretty much  my favorite thing on the grill.  And this was probably my favorite recipe to date.  The only thing I’d change is to add more garlic and sage to the rub next time…and it is still great as is!  Otherwise…awesome!  We served this with some grilled squash and cucumber and black eyed pea salad.

 

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Cucumber and Black Eyed Pea Salad

This was a nice base salad with which you could do a lot…we liked it a lot.  I’ve had my eye on this for a while since I love black eyed peas, and am always looking for new ways to use them.  I thought this could use lots more flavor and added more lemon, pepper and salt,  Some herbs tossed in would be great too.  This would be nice for a BBQ or picnic side.  It was nice with grilled pork chops.

 

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Raspberry Lemon Bars

These are a pretty summer dessert that go a long way – one batch makes a lot.  Recipe from Smitten Kitchen, called pink lemonade bars.  Shawn taste-tested (I’m allergic to raspberries – these are for a friend), and he thought they were very good but could be a little more tart.    So if you’re a fan of tart lemon flavor (I am!), adjust that and maybe tone down the berries.  I did taste the crust and thought it was quite good.  I’d make again, though I think next time I’ll substitute blueberries so I can enjoy!

raspberry_lemon_bars

 

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