Summer

Roasted Eggplant Appetizer with Yogurt and Mint

August 14, 2017 by Lindsay Leave a Comment

Perfectly seasonal, this delicious layered eggplant appetizer comes together quickly and will get gobbled up fast! Creamy yogurt raita, roasted eggplant, and fresh tomatoes + mint round out this yummy vegetarian small plate.

plate of yogurt with roasted eggplant and yogurt plus naan on board with decorative napkin

Oh hey seasonal eating that is healthy and feels decadent all at once.

We can thank the internet for this one. I don't have a great story here except that I read an article with a recipe similar to this and couldn't get it out of my mind. And then promptly couldn't find the link.

This eggplant appetizer features roasted chunks of eggplant over a raita/tzatziki sauce with fresh tomatoes and something green on top for good measure. The original recipe had crispy kale and there was a version with microgreens, but I went with just fresh mint because 1. it grows on my porch and 2. eggplant and yogurt with mint is a really wonderful flavor combination.

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Slow Cooker BBQ Chicken

May 11, 2017 by Lindsay 1 Comment

This slow cooker bbq chicken is so easy and delicious! It's one of our favorite recipes for easy weeknight meal prep and can be used with chicken thighs or chicken breasts - use whatever you have! This can be made with the easy homemade barbecue sauce recipe below or your favorite storebought barbecue sauce!

Because summer!

I've probably mentioned here before that Jay's favorite sauce is barbecue. A cross between tang and sweet, but he'll use the dark red bottled stuff in a pinch. I think that stuff is gross (always too sweet, never spicy), but I do like making my own easy homemade bbq sauce, especially in the summer.

This recipe is nothing earth-shattering, but dumping a bunch of stuff in a slow cooker and letting a sauce form while chicken cooks is a killer trick to have at the end of the school year when you're so.close. to the finish line and it's getting warm and no one has any motivation but also you still need to eat dinner, you know?

Weeknight dinner ideas, I'm here for all of them.

So here goes. Stuff gets dumped in with chicken, you go finish a project that your kid forgot about until just this instant, then you eat a BBQ chicken sandwich because you've earned it. Add a beer or 4 and call it a night.

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Homemade Refrigerator Dill Pickles

August 4, 2015 by Lindsay 2 Comments

Easy refrigerator dill pickles in just 30 minutes! This is a great use for lots of cucumbers, and these last for months in the fridge. Alternatively, you can process the jars and keep them in the pantry all winter!

Pickles!

It's been a goal of mine over the past few months to try project food - homemade ingredients, condiments (like green tomato jam), etc. I did make those biscuits, but that was pretty easy and didn't involve yeast. Why am I so scared of it? I don't know. No-Knead Bread is about as far as I've gone with that so far.

When Jay and I were in Denver we had a few homemade pickles at different restaurants, and just loved all of them. This is the perfect time of year for pickles because cucumbers are at every market and store and are CHEAP, so get a bunch and make pickles for days!

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Southern Macaroni Salad with Ham

May 11, 2015 by Lindsay 7 Comments

Utterly delicious and classic, this creamy Southern macaroni salad has a delicious dressing, fresh herbs, and chunks of ham and cheese for sustenance. This is a delicious summer side dish or make ahead lunch item! Try it alongside BBQ Sandwiches for a real summer treat.

close up bowl of creamy macaroni salad southern style

HELLO creamy, dreamy pasta salad. I am wildly into classic Southern-style side dishes: I think it comes from hardly eating them growing up. Church potlucks, though? Right up my alley.

You've had Southern macaroni salad, right? It's found at diners, sometimes at picnics, and at family gatherings all over the south. It's really basic, really creamy, and can go all wrong, in my opinion, with the wrong ratio of mayo to other stuff in the dressing.

I've had versions of this salad before that were just GOOEY with too much mayo, and that simply will not do. In this recipe, we go really light on the mayo and add some vinegar, sour cream, and a sprinkle of SUGAR to the dressing. Then we pour it over al dente pasta, and add some other flavors to balance out the dish. Ham, cheese, fresh herbs, all good stuff.

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Squash Casserole Mac and Cheese

March 18, 2015 by Lindsay 2 Comments

Classic squash casserole recipe with Ritz crackers and sour cream meets pasta for the most fun mac and cheese date ever. I make this in a cast iron skillet or my favorite Staub for a stovetop-to-oven, one-dish dinner kind of situation.

OH YES SHE DID.

Here is how recipe "development," in the loosest sense of the word, works at this blog and in this house. I tell Jay that it's going to be sunny and I want to photograph something new. He says words like THAI, BEEF, CHOCOLATE CHIPS that go together in no way at all and I veto some of them and add some to his words and then make a recipe. I make it exactly once, then write what I did, then make adjustments based on how it turns out.

It's a really scientific process. In the loosest sense of the word.

So the other day homeboy started talking about squash casserole, which I already have on this website. And then he went off and was like "you could do a baked pasta squash casserole thing with TOFU and CHIMICHURRI and BABY FINGERS!!!" And I was all "squash casserole and pasta. done."

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