the best way to eat pie...

...is out of your hands. Although any way of eating pie is delicious--on a plate with ice cream is one of my other favorites. Eating pie out of my hands is a skill I learned early in my years. It's perfect for that on-the-run breakfast or after work snack. I never thought other people might find it strange or hard to do. Here is a picture of our friend Andris attempting to eat pie out of his hands (it was the last piece of a blueberry pie I made and he generously offered to clean it up). There was pie filling on the floor when he was done. :)

how to roast a chicken (vegetarians beware)

I confess that for too long I have been a member of the "I only cook with boneless skinless chicken breast" club. It's just so easy to cook with and not very messy. For a Mennonite, this is a sad confession indeed, as I should be able to use every possible part of a chicken (I believe my dear grandmother is especially fond of chicken hearts). I finally faced my chicken cooking deficiency when my good friend Hilarie came to visit recently. She and her husband have become champion chicken roasters--it's much cheaper to buy a whole chicken and roast it, then eat the leftovers, than to keep buying the boneless skinless stuff. We bought a whole chicken without the giblets (sorry, grandma), and together roasted it for dinner. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to prepare. She cut out the backbone with kitchen shears, then flattened the bird on a roasting pan. We stuffed pieces of garlic and rosemary under the skin, then drizzled the whole thing with lemon juice, olive oil and balsalmic vinegar. Surrounded by potatoes, zucchini, carrots and onions, the whole thing roasted for 50 minutes or so at 400 degrees. It was delicious. Yesterday I used the leftovers to make a yummy chicken vegetable soup, adding fresh sage, parsley and thyme from my garden.

ice cream discovery

Tonight my husband and I stumbled upon something I have been dreaming about for awhile: an ice cream shop within walking distance. It's one of the few things missing from our neighborhood--we have a few coffeeshops, a few restaurants, a pizza place, a great sandwich shop (Open Face) and even a grocery store opening in September. This ice cream place isn't in our South Wedge neighborhood, so it is a bit of a walk (probably 20 minutes) but when you consider the calories you consume eating the ice cream, and the calories you burn walking to and returning from the shop, it all balances out in the end. The shop is called Corn Hill Creamery and it just opened a month ago at the new Corn Hill Landing apartments across the river from us. All the ice cream is homemade. I had chocolate hazelnut ice cream in a waffle cone. My husband had mint chocolate chunk, also in a waffle cone. Both flavors were thoroughly enjoyed. The walk back helped me feel better about the huge size of the cone--even a small is almost beyond my ability to finish.

my little herb garden

I am so proud of my little herb children. Some of these herbs are from my mother (oregano, thyme, chives, parsley) and others (both basils, dill, sage) I bought as seedlings at the public market this past spring. Due to our warm, wet summer, and the fact that the garden in the front of our house faces south, all of them are growing well. I don't know a lot about gardening and we live in the middle of the city, so I'm amazed it worked. It's a pleasure to walk out my front door and pick herbs for dinner. I even have just enough basil to make a small batch of pesto if I pluck all the leaves off a bush of it all at once, then let it grow back for another batch. The only disappointment is my cilantro--I planted cilantro seeds too late in the season so now I have just a little bit of it (you can barely see it beside the sage). So when our CSA doesn't have it, I've resorted to buying bunches of it at Wegmans to make my favorite fresh salsa (which I have to make a batch of whenever we have fresh tomatoes). I'll know better next spring.
See if you can identify the following in the picture: basil, thai basil, sage, thyme, dill, cilantro, oregano, chives, parsley.

hot weather cooking

Here in Rochester it has been HOT. As in around 94 for the last two days, with the heat index above 100. My husband and I are trying to survive without an air conditioner. Our resolve is weakening, particularly because it's hard to sleep when it's so hot. It's also very hard to convince myself to cook in this weather. Anything that adds heat to the already too hot environment is not appealing.

However, we have managed to have two good meals so far despite the weather. The first one was sort of cheating. We ate at Thali of India last night. We gave up on cooking and went to a lovely air-conditioned environment where we were served delicious Indian food. I had the Vegetarian Thali of India, a combination platter with palak paneer, dal, navrattan korma, basmati rice, naan, raita, salad and rice pudding (all for 11.95). My husband had the non-vegetarian platter (with tandoori chicken and lamb curry). We ordered samosas for an appetizer and a mango lassi to split between us. Our waiters had turbans and were so kind as to refill our water after every other sip or so. All in all, a good meal, but I still think my favorite Rochester Indian restaurant is Raj Mahal.

Tonight I actually made dinner at home and managed to do so without fainting from heat exhaustion. I made angelhair pasta with fresh tomato sauce, a deliciously simple recipe that only requires cooking pasta for 8 minutes or so. While the pasta cooked, I chopped three tomatoes and tossed them in a large bowl with 2 cloves of garlic (minced), a pinch of salt, freshly ground black pepper, a handful of chopped basil and a few tablespoons of olive oil. When the pasta was done, I drained it and added it to the bowl and tossed well. I topped it with freshly grated Parmesan. Yum. (You can find this recipe in the Simply in Season cookbook or on epicurious). We also had green salad (lettuce, cherry tomatoes, green pepper, carrot and goat cheese) and my mom's applesauce, pulled out of the freezer yesterday. Not bad for very little effort. I love the fresh produce of summer!

Other recent cooking adventures: pie season has begun! Well, I guess it began with the strawberry pie I made a month ago, but now it's in full swing. My husband and I made a blueberry and a cherry pie this past Sunday. The cherry is not great--we really should try making it with sour cherries--I hear this makes the best pie. We had sweet cherries, not that flavorful, which gave us an okay pie. The blueberry, though...it is transcendent. It has convinced me that my two favorite pies in the world are apple and blueberry. When combined with the right amount of flour, sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon, the blueberries' natural tart/sweet combination shines. I had a piece for an after-work snack today and will definitely have another before going to bed. My next goal: a peach pie. And maybe raspberry, if I go raspberry picking somewhere.

Last but probably most importantly: I have been hydrating myself with homemade mint tea (called meadow tea in some circles) for the last few days. It's probably the reason I'm still alive. While we were visiting my parents this past weekend, I picked a bagful of mint from their ample supply (most of it grows wild down by the creek). On Sunday I steeped it all in a big kettle of water and made a lot of mint tea concentrate. We have been going through a pitcher of it per day or so. I was excited to make so much concentrate at once and found myself dreaming of cool fall or winter days where I would pull the concentrate out of the freezer and enjoy the fresh taste of summer. Alas, I think we are going to drink it all this week! Which just means we'll have to get more on our next trip. Plus plant some mint here in our backyard, although I'm not sure how well it will survive.