Earlier this week I made this stew. It’s one of my favorite things my dad made when I was growing up. Today would have been his 74th birthday – he passed away 14 years ago. He was an avid chef in our house, and I miss his food dearly! Today is also a sad day because it’s the 3rd anniversary of my brother-in-law Tom’s death. Both of these men died in their 50′s from cancer which is WAY too young in my book. I miss them as much today as the day they passed. I especially was thinking about a blogger friend Joanne who lost her dad to cancer just last week and it brought back a lot of memories from when my dad got sick. I had I guess you could say advantage of him living a 18 months before he died, Joanne only had a few weeks from when she found out her dad had cancer until his passing.

So, I’ve been thinking about both of them as I knew this date was approaching, so it made me want to make this soup.

Now when my dad made it, it was an all day affair. He would cook a whole chicken in a huge stock pot on the stove, use the stock to make the broth for the soup. He carefully picked off all the meat, added everything else and cooked it for hours on low. The kitchen always smelled so good when this soup was on the stove.

For my weeknight version, I bought an already cooked chicken, and for the vegetables, I cooked those in the microwave until they were done, so all I had to do was add everything to the pot and let it simmer for a while.

When my daughter came into the kitchen, she asked what I was making and I told her Brunswick Stew. After she left the kitchen, I decided to make some biscuits, so I did that and the next thing you know she comes back in to ask what I was baking. I opened the oven to show her and she said “Are those the buns?” I said, well – they are biscuits to which she replied “I thought you said you were making buns and stew?” I said no – it’s brunswick stew! I almost peed in my pants I was laughing so hard.

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So Dad and my brother-in-law Tom, I miss you guys and wish you could have eaten Brunswick Stew with us today

Do you have any family favorite recipes from growing up that you like to make now?

(I would like that give a shout out to my co-worker John who held the spoon in my food photography shoot!)

Since I have my juicer, this was a great way to use up extra juice.

I started with this:

This is watermelon and apple juice

In my juicer I juiced 4 apples and a little over 1/4 of a large watermelon.

Next I added 1/8 cup sugar, the juice of 2 limes and stirred until the sugar was dissolved.

Pour that into a 9×13 glass dish (it’s ok to freeze the glass dish). Set your timer for 1.5 hours.

After 1.5 hours it will partly frozen. Scrape the granita with a fork and put it back in the freezer for 1 hour. Then repeat until it’s all frozen.

This is what it looks like 1/2 way through being done

This was such a nice refreshing dessert! I will definitely do this again trying different ingredients. And it’s low in calories!

This turned out so great!

Have you made a granita before? What’s your favorite flavor?

Speaking of summer – I made my first trip to the farmers market in my town yesterday

We got there towards the end - some people were already packing up

One thing I always get? Squeaky cheese!

a.k.a. cheese curds

popcorn from the husk!

I didn’t get this, but now wish I did. You just take the corn husk, put it in a paper bag and you microwave it!

As with most farmers markets at the beginning of the summer, there were lots of jams, jelly, honey, salsa, lettuce, potatoes, strawberries, asparagus.

I ended up with green onions, asparagus and the cheese. Can’t wait for more fruits and veggies to come in!

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!!!

I love all the fresh fruit, farmers markets, grilling out, relaxing, kids off school, etc…

The first order of business – I bought another watermelon, it was HUGE and immediately brought it home and cut it up into chunks. Shelley if you lived closer to me I would have invited you over!

This watermelon is SO GOOD and sweet and juicy!!!

So for dinner last night I wanted to do a summery kind of meal. This is super easy and quick. Pasta salad with turkey kielbasa and peppers.

For the pasta salad, I added cooked corkscrew pasta, diced mozzarella, olives, and fiesta blend frozen veggies. I cooked the veggies and pasta together then drained and rinsed with cold water. Add the olives, cheese and Paul Newman’s Lite Italian dressing.

For the kielbasa and peppers, just chop up and saute in a pan, or you can certainly grill it too. It was so hot out and I have no shade in my backyard, so I opted to cook inside my air conditioned house!

Summer on a plate

Earlier in the day, I had the pleasure of attending my friend and co-worker Leslie’s wedding shower – her fiance also works with me and I am so excited for them. Lots of good eats!

beautiful cake!

fancy place cards

Mimosa? Yes please!

YUM!

My great friend Leslie!

So that was a great time to see friends and hang out!

In other big news, my son Paul got a hair cut this weekend. Why is that a big deal? Because he’s had long hair for the longest time! He always loved it, and I supported it as long as he was happy. This photo is showing the long hair:

This is from last summer (2011)

And here is him now:

He is super happy about it and I’m sure all his friends will be majorly surprised when they see him at school tomorrow.

And in even BIGGER news – My son Mark graduates from 8th grade this week! So we had to spend some time yesterday getting new dress pants and shoes (they are wearing cap and gown), but he’s grown so much, he’s outgrown his old stuff. I think he wore the previous dress pants and shoes maybe twice?

And on Wednesday I am going with him on his 8th grade trip to Great America! The weather is supposed to cool off, sunny and low 70′s – super beautiful for a fun day at the park. So good times are coming!

Have a great week – and enjoy your memorial day!!!

Normally I don’t buy seasoning mixes out of a packet but I picked up a few of these a few weeks ago at the store and it is really good!

Last week I used it to marinate chicken breasts, and over the weekend, we grilled out burgers and I thought about putting some of the marinade together for potatoes. They turned out amazing! A little spicy but great flavor.

To make these potatoes

4 baking potatoes, skin scrubbed clean
1 tablespoon olive oil,
1 tablespoon of the marinade mix
1/4 cup hot water

After the potatoes are washed, cut them into big slices at least 1/2 inch thick. Place all the cut potatoes in a microwave safe bowl and cover with water. Cook in the microwave on the “baked potato setting” or you can put these in a pot, cover with water and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

Drain the potatoes and let cool. Add the marinade and mix together. Place the potatoes on the skewer and grill on indirect heat about 7 minutes per side, until they are nice a browned.

I will definitely make these again!

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On another note, I can’t believe I haven’t talked about Next Food Network Star! Have you been watching it?

To be honest, I am HAPPY with the final 3, and I was OK with Mary Beth being sent home. Although I thought it was crazy that Penny was purposefully going slow and that she could care less how Mary Beth did.

But in the end, to be the Next Food Network star, you have to not only be able to talk about food, but also make good food too!

I’m hoping Jeff Mauro the sandwich guy wins! He grew up in a suburb only a few miles from me so that would be very cool to have a local guy win such a great contest.

I watched a behind the scenes of the making of the show on The Cooking Channel and they received over 10,000 entries to even get on the show. So to get in the final 3 is amazing!

Who do you want to win Next Food Network Star??

But lucky me, when I came back from lunch at work yesterday, there was a bag waiting for me on my desk. I was hoping it was what I was thinking it was…BLUEBERRIES!

Every summer my friend Kathy gives me blueberries from a blueberry farm near her summer home. They are juicy, sweet and I am so lucky to be a recipient of these beauties!

Since it’s still been so hot out and I don’t want to turn my oven on, I thought I would make pancakes during the week as a special treat.

Even though we’ve made pancakes so many times, my daughter Claire always gets the recipe out. She is 9, and I think this piece of paper is about 3 years old.

When you open up the paper, you see this:

Can you see on the right where she wrote “vanilla flavor” and “Nestle of chocolate”? Isn’t that so cute.

Claire’s pancake recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour
2.5 tsp. baking powder
3 TB. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1.5 cups fat free milk (I have made this with water if I’m out of milk and it still works!)
2 TB. melted butter
*add 1 cup fresh blueberries

Add the dry ingredients, then the wet and stir until combined. Add blueberries and stir.

In a skillet coated with cooking spray, using a 1/4 cup measure place batter in the skillet. wait a few minutes, then turn and cook another few minutes.

I took a few to work and I’m glad I only took two because I would have gone back for more!

What is your favorite thing to make with fresh blueberries??

Now on to the give a way. I wonder if my friends at Pop Chips knew it was my 800th post yesterday because they sent me coupons for SIX of my readers to get a free bag of Pop Chips!

Leave a comment to become eligible!

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