Corn, Avocado, and Tomato Salad

This has been one of my favorite salads since discovering it about six years ago.  With corn and tomatoes at their peak the salad will be fantastic, but it is great in the winter using frozen corn and grape tomatoes.  To me grape tomatoes are pretty good most anytime during the year.  In fact that is what the original recipe calls for.  I just like using some of the home-grown tomatoes from Waldrop’s that I truly love.   All of these flavors just melt together corn, tomatoes, avocado, red onion, lime juice and cilantro.  They  just go together for a sumptuous salad that you will never forget.  Don’t think just salad because it  will go with most any main dish or I love it with fish tacos.  YUM!  Now pull out some of summer’s fresh corn and enjoy a real treat.

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A How To on Freezing Peaches

Summer for me will be over in one week.  Tell me that’s not true.  And why does summer vacation go by faster than the school year?  August 1st, please that is still summer.  What happened to September 1st  being the end of summer?  If you can tell I am not ready for it to end.  But, I do have part of my summer in my freezer.   There are many ways to freeze peaches.  In fact, one site I found said to just wash your peaches, slip them in a freezer bag,  and thaw them in the refrigerator.   How easy is that?   Sounds like a great idea to me, but I don’t have the extra freezer space to try it.  So here’s how I did it.

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Brown Sugar Poundcake

This is my new go to cake when I’m asked to bring dessert.  It’s delicious!  I’ll have to admit it has been driving me crazy for about a month.  Wanting to get it just right before posting has been a little difficult.  Just the icing though.  The cake well, it was a cake walk!  I’ve made it three times now I think it’s  time to show it to the world.  Even before tasting it I knew that the icing would be the winner in so many ways.  Praline or caramel lovers will fall in love with this cake.  It’s got that old-fashioned icing that my grandmother put with a plain yellow cake.  You know the kind that just melts in your mouth with that rich buttery taste.

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Fingerling Potato Salad

I don’t think that I would have ever made this potato salad except for the fact that fingerling potatoes and leeks came in my CSA box the same week that this recipe appeared in Bon Appetit. I just couldn’t resist steering away from my old standby potato salad made with mayo. This is a very light salad and certainly a perfect side dish to any grilled meat that you might choose. I just loved the combination of potatoes and leeks plus white wine vinegar and Dijon mustard. Fingerlings that’s really a funny word for a potato. They are a heritage potato with some of the varieties over a hundred years old. They are not to be confused with new potatoes. Fingerlings are mature potatoes when harvested. These potatoes can be used in the same way as other potatoes grilled, roasted, or in salads.

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Corn-and-Tomato Scramble

If you don’t try any new recipes this summer you have to try this one!  It’s absolutely one of the best side dishes I have ever had.  Promise.  It is amazing.  The whole truth and nothing but the truth.  It could be that I used corn from my CSA box and tomatoes from Waldrop’s, but I’m betting that  any summer corn and tomatoes will work.  This is going to be a new summer favorite for you and me.

I did a great thing when I picked up this Gourmet Quick Kitchen almost a year ago.  Every single recipe has been fabulous!!  This one is no exception.  You should get yourself some corn, tomatoes, and scallions  and put this dish together.  Rave reviews will be flying from everyone.  It is so easy and quick, too.  I’m still in awe of its deliciousness.  Is that a word?  Enough gushing.  So here you go fresh home-grown tomatoes and corn that will make your head swim.

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Honey-Peach Ice Cream

Last month my friend Syble and I took a day trip to South Georgia on a quest for fresh fruits and vegetables to till our freezers or in Syble’s case her canner.  I don’t do much canning.  Pickles are about my extent of canning, but she puts up beans, peas, and tomatoes.    We found just what we were looking for Silver Queen corn, cream peas, pink-eyes, butter beans, tomatoes, watermelon, Athena cantaloupes, and peaches.  I love peaches and last year for some reason I did not buy any and I regretted it all year.  So this year I picked up a box.

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Double-Chocolate Brownie Bites

I have subscriptions to five food magazines.  I love to read them, but I get so distracted with all the great recipes that it sometimes drives me to a complete halt.  I mean I can’t make a decision about what to cook for the coming weeks.  I must have some kind of ADHD.  I do the same thing if I am shopping for clothes in a very large department store.  I can’t make a decision.  So I have resisted subscribing to more food magazines to decrease the confusion in my life.  A few months ago I received a copy of Martha Stewart’s Living magazine.  Knowing that I had not ordered it I checked the label and this is what I read, “Wanda The Food Blogger Lupo.”  It made me laugh.  My good friend Neil gave me a subscription to this beautiful magazine for me to enjoy.  Now everytime I receive it in the mail I smile!

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Greek Salad with Grilled Chicken

A couple of weeks ago our family went to a long time friend’s wedding in Greenville, SC.  It was a beautiful wedding and a really fun time.   We arrived on Thursday and had dinner downtown.  I was awestruck at the downtown area.  It is just absolutely beautiful.  Big oak trees line the street making a cool walk even on a hot summer day.  The sidewalks are large enough for restaurants to have outside dining.  And who doesn’t love outside dining?  I just loved the atmosphere in the area.  On Friday we were doing a little window shopping and walked by a group of young men having what looked like a business lunch and the food looked absolutely wonderful.  So we got a table for two under one of the huge oak trees and enjoyed the cool breeze.  And this is when I had the best Greek Salad with grilled chicken I have ever had.  In fact I enjoyed it so much I ordered it again on Saturday for lunch.  I knew than that I had to make this at home.  How could I live without such a mixture of goodness?

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Pecan Turtle Bars

I tasted these little bars of goodness at a tennis match.  If you don’t know anything about ALTA tennis you might not know that the food served is sometimes more important than the score of the match.  I don’t remember if I won or lost the day I was introduced by my friend Betty to Pecan Turtle Bars, but their gooey texture, buttery shortbread layer, and chocolate top won me over for sure.  That next week my blogger friend Grace who wows me with her cooking as well as cracks me up with her humor had these bars posted.  It was fate!  I was destined to make them.

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Chicken Salad for a Hot Summer Day

I love summer for the obvious reason.  I don’t have to work.  I can for the most part do whatever I want to whenever I want to.  Who would not love this? It’s a great perk for the teaching profession!    Teachers are so busy during the year it is not so easy to do many big projects around the  house.  So every teacher that I know has a to do list just for the summer.   And I am one of them.    This summer my list is short.   I have two that I would like to have accomplished before school starts August 1.  We have lived in our new home for six years and I cannot believe how much I have accumulated in that time.  My pantry and my closet need a complete over haul.  Those two projects are at the top of my list.  Okay, let’s see what’s cooking in my house on the lazy hazy days of summer!

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