We've moved!

A lot has happened since we last posted!

We got married and we moved!

Change your bookmarks and follow us at

thelushers.wordpress.com

I didn't want to do this....

....but we are taking a hiatus.

Our wedding is getting really, really, close, coinciding with the birth of a good friend and coworker's baby, and the 25th Anniversary celebration at work. Food blogging is just not at the top of my priority list right now when my to do list is officially about a mile long and includes things as monumental as "get marriage license" and "throw huge classy party the caliber of a wedding reception during the busiest time of your life for work, while aforementioned friend/coworker is probably out in labor and/or on maternity leave".

Don't worry though, I'm not abandoning cooking and baking. There are plenty of occasions coming up that are going to require my skills (hahaha, experimentation is more like it), my Google Reader is bursting at it's virtual seams with starred recipes to try, and I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures along the way!

We'll be back around early November, 10lbs heavier after what's going to be a fabulous occasion, followed by Tom and I eating and drinking our way through Northern California and Wine Country, hopefully well rested with our sanity fully restored!

See y'all then!

Roasted Broccoli & Roasted Garlic

Here it is on a pizza:

Now, I trust that you all are competent enough to slap some sauce on a storebought pizza crust and top it with cheese, so I am not going to waste your time with how to do that. I am, however, going to tell you how easy it is to make roasted garlic and roasted broccoli and tell you that you're going to love it.

Roasted Garlic
2 heads of garlic
extra virgin olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Slice the top off the garlic, to expose the cloves underneath. Drizzle with olive oil, wrap in foil, and bake for 30 minutes, until garlic is golden brown and tender.

Roasted Broccoli
1 head broccoli
extra virgin olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut broccoli into about 3in pieces.

2. Place on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and bake for 15 minutes.

There you have it. A two for one of super simple, super tasty things. If you don't have a use for 2 whole heads of garlic, (but after it's roasted, it's so sweet you can just eat it by itself) just squeeze it out of the skin, put it in a freezer bag and freeze to use later. The broccoli is just good. It's good on it's own, it's good in pasta, it's good on pizza.
You won't have to worry about leftovers.

Roasted Vegetable Penne

There are so many wonderful fresh vegetables available right now, that I felt compelled to heat up the oven, despite the intense summer heat, and roast them up a la Everyday Italian rerun I caught while at home during my lunch break the other day, but with our own spin, since we can't seem to get enough of roasted broccoli these days.

adapted from Everyday Italian
1 zucchini, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 summer squash, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 crown broccoli, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 small eggplant, cut into 1 inch cubes...you get the idea
8-10 cremini mushrooms, halved
1 yellow onion, peeled and cut into 1 inch slices
extra virgin olive oil to lightly coat veggies
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 T herbs de Provence
1 lb penne pasta
3 cups marinara sauce
1 cup chipotle Gouda, grated
1/2 cup Mozzarella, grated
1 1/2 cups frozen peas
1/4 cup, plus more for topping, parmesan cheese, grated

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. On 2 large baking sheets, toss vegetables with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and herbs de Provence. Roast in the oven for about 15 minutes, until they are tender.

2. While the veggies are in the oven, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta until not quite done, around 6-7 minutes. Drain and return to pot.

3. In the pot with the pasta, mix the vegetables, marinara sauce, cheeses, peas, and salt and pepper. Mix carefully until everything is thoroughly coated.

4. Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish. Pour the pasta mixture in, top with the remaining parmesan cheese and bake for about 25 minutes, until cheese is melted and browned.

We loved this stuff and it made a lot, so we froze half of it for later. Don't worry if you can't find anything crazy like chipotle gouda...it was a cheese case special, so we picked it up at the time. A mixture of Fontina and smoked mozzarella will do the trick too!

August+NC=100 Degree Days

It is H.O.T. outside, and that is a rare thing for me to say, since I am freezing most of the time. Oh, not today.

For the better part of my college years, I worked at a smoothie shop. I had smoothies just about every day for 3 years. Well, it has taken me a little over 3 years to stop dry heaving at the very mention of a smoothie, and there really is nothing better on a day so hot you can't even chew without feeling like you're gonna keel over and die of heat exhaustion, so here we have it....Blood Orange Mango Smoothie.

1/2 cup peaches, chopped

2 T. sugar

2 cups ice

2 T. water

1/2 cup mangoes, chopped

1/2 ripe banana

2 scoops, about a cup, blood orange sorbet (I looooooove the Ciao Bella brand, or regular orange sherbet will do.)

1. Mash peaches together with sugar. I use a potato masher. Set aside.

2. Add the ice, water, mangoes, banana, sorbet, and peaches with all their juice to a blender pitcher. Mix everything together until smooth.

Pour everything into your favorite large glass, and add a fun straw, it's Monday.

Makes about 16oz.

Cilantro Chimichurri

Chimichurri is pretty much an Argentinian pesto, but made with parsley. But guess what? My parsley's all dead. Don't know how that happened, but we had plenty of cilantro, so we improvised. The following recipe is not for the chimichurri purists, but is was based on the real thing. And you know what? It was good.

adapted from Simply Recipes

1 cup cilantro leaves, firmly packed and thick stems removed

4 garlic cloves

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 T red wine vinegar

1 tsp salt

freshly ground black pepper

pinch of crushed red pepper

1. Add cilantro and garlic to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse several times until finely chopped. (Can be finely chopped by hand if you don't have a food processor, but you should get one, they change your life.)

2. Add the vinegar, salt, black and red pepper. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil until everything is completely combined.

We just covered some pork chops with the chimichurri and threw them on the grill and they were great! Maybe if I don't kill the parsley next summer, we can try the real thing!

Banana Pancakes

Inspired by Jack Johnson, ripe bananas, the rain and the weekend.

Absolutely delicious, and quite possibly the fluffiest pancakes I have ever seen.

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 T sugar

1 T baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten lightly
1 cup skim milk
1 cup mashed banana
3 T vegetable oil

1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

2. In another bowl, with a fork, mix together the egg, milk, banana, and oil. Add the wet mixture to the flour, all at one time, and stir together, just until moistened.

3. Drop onto a griddle or pan that has been preheated to medium. Cook on one side until bubbles form and underside is light brown. Flip and cook until completely done. Serve with butter and syrup!

I said it before, but I'll say it again...the fluffiest pancakes I have ever had. The banana flavoring wasn't overpowering either. Just enough to make them a little bit different than the ordinary!