Well this was quite a prolific weekend for me in the kitchen! Sadly, being new to the whole “photograph my food” concept, I often forgot to get pictures, but I’ll be more diligent in the future, I promise. I work T-W-T, so I am very fortunate to have F-S-S-M as my weekend! WOO HOO!

My cooking began in earnest on Saturday. For dinner, I made chicken with homemade BBQ sauce, succotash, and salad. The BBQ sauce turned out great! The basic elements were:

1 cup ketchup

5 good shakes of onion powder

2 cloves of crushed garlic

3 tsp. of Worcester sauce

¼ cup of brown sugar

1 drizzle of molasses

2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

10 good shakes of cinnamon

Sounds extremely bizarre, but tasted great! I kind of mashed two recipes together (one was a sweeter, more Carolina style BBQ recipe and the other had some more spice to it).

The succotash was another hit! I had never had succotash until a week or two ago when I ordered it at the Station House Cafe in Pt. Reyes and LOVED it. I had always thought succotash was some kind of squash (my brother thought it was a root vegetable!) but turns out, “succotash” means a mix of corn and beans.

Station House Café Succotash (Katy’s Recreation)

3 ears of sweet corn

1 can of black beans (rinsed)

½ red bell pepper, chopped into one inch pieces

15-20 fava bean pods

The trickiest part of the recipe for me was the fava beans! I have never cooked them before, so I was a little unsure. I shelled the pods (about 4-5 beans per pod) and put the beans into boiling water, and after 10-12 minutes, took the beans out and removed the thick bean skin. BUT next time I cook fava beans, I think I will de-skin the beans before boiling! The beans turned out a little mushier than I would have liked, because I wasn’t able to monitor their texture while cooking. I looked it up and there seems to be no difference between cooking with/without the skin.

For the rest of the succotash, simply mix some cooked corn with the beans and bell pepper and add the favas when done! I didn’t cook the bell peppers, because I wanted something in the salad to have some good crunch. It was excellent and very colorful! (Next time there will be pictures!)

But I must say, Sunday was my day of cooking. I began the day with a wonderful bike ride to the Farmer’s Market for some yummy produce. I had been visualizing a trio of vegetarian appetizers as a meal: one soup, one salad, and one smaller veggie based dish so I knew I would need lots of fantastic produce to keep the meal fresh and interesting.

On the menu, I had:

Fresh Pea and Mint Soup (served chilled although the recipe and my brother recommend it hot):

2 cups diced yellow onion

2-3 cloves of garlic, diced finely

2 tbsp. olive oil

3 cups of fresh or frozen peas (I personally think fresh made all the difference!)

Handful of fresh spinach

4 cups water

10 sprigs of fresh mint (used mint from our garden!)

First sautee the onions and garlic in the olive oil, then add the spinach, peas, and water and then simmer the peas until they turn bright green. Pour it all into the blender with the mint and just blend until smooth. Garnish with a mint sprig if you're feeling festive!

Summer Fig Salad

Combine the following in a big bowl or compose them prettily on individual plates:

Spring greens

Walnuts (roasted in a few pinches of brown sugar and salt)

Cherry halves

Fig slices

Pear slices

So this salad was YUMMOLICIOUS. My brother and I kind of threw it together with whatever fresh fruit we wanted to use up. FAB results!

And my personal fave of the evening:

Quinoa Stuffed Zucchini

2 medium zucchini

½ cup quinoa

15 oz (1 can) of cannellini beans

1 cup cherry tomatoes, quartered

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/4 cup almonds, chopped

¼ cup crumbled herb goat cheese

2 tbsp. olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Add the quinoa to 1 cup of water, bring to a boil and then simmer for 10-12 minutes or until quinoa has absorbed all water. Meanwhile, cut the zukes long-ways and then scoop out the seeds to make little zucchini boats. When the quinoa is ready, fold in the cheese, olive oil, garlic, cherry tomatoes, almonds and beans. You can use any cheese you like (the recipe I got it from had 3/4 cup of shaved Parmesan instead of the goat cheese I used but I loved the goat cheese flavor and highly reccomend it!) Then simply fill the zukes, cover in foil and bake for 30ish minutes. Remove the foil and bake another 10ish minutes. SOOOO delicious!

Finally came dessert!

Light Strawberry Ice Cream

5 cups of 1% milk

1 cup of whole milk

¾ cup of organic cane sugar

1 cup of strawberries

2 capfuls of vanilla

Simply mix the whole milk and sugar and then add in the berries, 1% milk and vanilla. Pour mixture into a homemade ice cream maker (fill the bucket with layered ice and rock salt). Crank that ice cream for 25 minutes and you will end up with 2 GIANT Tupperwares of ice cream (probably 15+ servings!).

This one was SUCH a hit with the Dad and brother. I was worried they wouldn’t like the texture since it is NOT creamy and thick like usual homemade ice cream. But everyone agreed that even though the texture was different, the taste was still distinctly homemade. Dad and the brother went back for seconds and were seriously contemplating thirds (especially after I told Dad how few calories were in it).

Well, time for bed so I can be up bright and early for a pre-work workout. Yoga tonight was FAB! More on that later...