Kitchen Playtime: Summer Holidays

Happy belated July Fourth and Canada Day! This post covers the food we made for both.

Since Canada Day was July first, I'll start with that one. I got caught in a hellacious rainstorm that afternoon while on a marketing visit, and so I was really happy that Hubby volunteered to cook that night while I went into introvert recovery mode, i.e., pet the cat and stared at my phone for a couple of hours. He'd found strawberries at the Union County Farmers' Market (in Blairsville), so he made Grilled Lamb Chops with Wheat Berry, Strawberry, and Lacinato Kale Salad.

Looks kind of like the picture in the magazine

We've just been to Canada - check back Wednesday for that post, already written and scheduled, so it will be here - and brought back some Canadian wine. I'd say this bottle was our first casualty from the trip, but one actually didn't make it out of Vancouver. Oh, well. We enjoyed the lamb chops with a lovely gamay from Desert Hills Winery. You've probably just wrinkled your nose as memories of Beaujolais Nouveau flooded your brain. This wine wasn't like those at all. Think medium-bodied and nice fruit but with enough acid to be perfect with food.

Oh, Canada! I love your wines.

Since we were both off from work on Friday morning, I decided to make a real breakfast. I drew on memories from my childhood, when my Belgian mother would make Croque Monsieurs. One of my Belgian cousins corrected me on Facebook saying that if it has an egg, it's a Croque Madame. Oh, well. Alas, no cheesy sauce, either, which I've seen in restaurants. To make this version, toast some bread and top with ham (I used turkey - it's what I had), tomatoes, and an egg sunny-side up.

Croque Something

Saturday morning we ran the Peachtree Road Race in the pouring rain. At least it wasn't horribly hot. Dinner was burgers made with the special blend of pork, beef, and ground bacon from Pine Street Market, which I didn't get a picture of because I was really hungry, and cucumber and tomato salad. It's a super easy summer salad made from cucumbers and tomatoes - in case you were wondering - onion, and a vinaigrette that allows for a lot of freedom. I used the same one I made for the Greek Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Farro I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, but I think next time I'll switch out the proportions of lemon juice and vinegar.

On Sunday morning, we slept in, and I made blueberry muffins from the recipe in the Joy of Cooking cookbook.

I also had my kitchen oops of the week. We had one bag of peach pie filling in the freezer from last year, so since it's had a birthday, I decided to make it. I assembled it but forgot to turn the temperature down for the last cooking period, so the crust ended up a little overdone:

It still tasted good, though.

And finally, here are the ribs Hubby made Sunday evening:

They ended up with a few extra minutes on the grill because of the women's world cup championship game - go USA! I didn't take a picture of them plated because, well, the sides were grocery store slaw and beans from a can. The recipe came from Selby Winery, which sends food pairing suggestions for with their wine. We ate them with a lovely Selby Merlot.