ReadyMade: Instructions for everyday life

We’ve been making our way through a fridge filled with veggies from our garden, our neighbors garden and our CSA. Which means that we’ve been making meals with them as our base, which is healthy, to be sure, but can be a bit of a challenge especially when most of it arrived simply because it was ripe—not because it was intended for a specific recipe.

But that’s part of the fun of eating seasonally and I love seeing how I can make good use of seven cucumbers (more on that later this week) and bags full of squash. One good idea is to make a vegetable gratin, like the one pictured here from Ciao Chow Linda—which features squash, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, parmesan cheese, thyme and bread crumbs— or this Layered Vegetable Torte from the NYTimes last week. When all of the vegetables bake and melt together, you will happily eat this as your main course. (At least I would.)

My other recommendation for gobbling up veggies is to cover them with pesto. This was my dinner from Saturday which sure might not be professionally plated, but man oh man was it delicious. I made a mother lode batch of pesto from our basil plants (click here to see some tips about making pesto) and we poured it over steamed purple potatoes, beans, and squash. Definitely tasted like summer on a fork and I am quite sure this will be repeated numerous times through August.

[Images: Ciao Chow Linda (via the kitchn) and me]

I LOVE pie. Maybe it’s because we always picked up a few pies at a farm on the way to the Jersey shore during the summer when I was a kid. Maybe it’s because I ate the last of a peach cherry cobbler this morning and the baked fruit flavors are stuck in my brain. Regardless, it’s the perfect time of year for pie made from fresh local fruits. Here are some that I’d love to eat.

Above left: Peach Pie from the Blue Ridge Baker because nothing is quite as delicious as baked fresh peaches.
Above right: Sour Cherry Pie from Tim at Lottie + Doof. I’ve never had this kind of pie, but the photo and Tim’s description makes me want to dive right into a slice.

Above left: Double Crusted Blueberry Pie from Whisk (and a Tuesdays with Dorie post) which she made into personalized pies. That’s a new idea to me and while I might skip rolling that many individual pie crusts for anything but a very special occasion, I love the idea of getting my very own pie.

Above right: Peach and Creme Fraiche Pie from Smitten Kitchen, which sounds crazy easy to make. I’m curious about having the richness of the cream inside of the pie (you probably wound’t want this one a la mode, right? too much?) and I love only needing one bottom pie crust. I might need to give this one a shot as soon as I can get my hands on more local peaches.

Speaking of local peaches, I’ve started dreaming of planting an orchard along the side of our house. I have a lot of research to do about which varieties of plums, peaches, apples and pears will survive the Iowa winters, but I know that all of these things grow here since I’ve seen them around our neighborhood. We’re thinking 8 trees will give us plenty to can and freeze to take us through the winter, and I am sure, provide us with a lovely way to have homemade gifts on hand for the holidays. But until that actually happens, I’m crossing my fingers that our neighbors share some of the pears growing in their yard!

[Images: Blue Ridge Baker, Lottie + Doof, Whisk, Smitten Kitchen]

We are big egg poachers in my house and for a while we were heavily reliant on the swirling technique. But, since you can only do one at a time, there was always a lot of eating in shifts and eating standing up. And since I like my meals sitting down, in full, I was on the look out for a solution. Cut to these silicon Poach Pods that I found a few weeks ago specifically meant to help you poach more than one egg at a time.

Josh, the main poacher in the house, has been giving these guys a thorough testing this week and he’s learned that you need to oil them (I’ve read that some people butter them) to keep them from sticking, and that it helps to run a spoon around the edge once they are done to help them release cleanly.

We’ve decided that the oil sort of defeats part of the purpose of poaching, so I am going to try to pick up a container of non-stick spray (like the olive oil kind from Trader Joes) to at least lessen the amount that we need to use. But we think that it’s definitely handy to get to eat two eggs at once.

I’d love to know how you all poach eggs (if you do). Any tricks for doing more than one egg using the swirling technique?

[Above is Josh's breakfast from this morning—two poached eggs with leftover cornbread and salsa.]

I love eating dessert-ish foods for breakfast and I would seriously like to eat a slice of this buckle from A Sweet Spoonful. According to Megan, “A buckle is essentially an old fashioned single-layer cake with berries poured into the batter. The berries generally sink to the bottom and the top of the cake “buckles” a bit. This recipe is made a little differently with berries and oats scattered on the top as well. Double whammy.” True story and a terrific breakfast option served with slightly sweetened Greek yogurt.

Click here for the recipe.

[Image: A Sweet Spoonful]

1. If you see a roadside stand selling cherries, stop and buy a bag (or two). Ditto for finding them at the farmers market.
2. Always tip your vendor, particularly if he/she is an elementary school aged kid (which was the case at the cherry stand I hit while on vacation in Montana last week).
3. Keep them chilled (if possible) and eat them straight out of the bag, preferably in a sitting or two. (I like to split a bag between dessert and breakfast the next morning and eat them in the car on road trips.)
4. Spit the pits.
5. Unless you find yourself with a whole crate, I vote for enjoying them in their pure fruit form—this moment won’t be around for long so I like to stock up on the flavor while I can.

If any of you are fortunate to have a whole crate of cherries, I’d love to hear what you are doing with them…I can imagine pie, topping for ice cream, jam…which makes me think that perhaps I should start researching how to plant my own cherry tree.