Sunday Night Dinner: August 29, 2011- Fresh Tomato Extravaganza!

A good friend gave us some fresh tomatoes from her and her boyfriend’s massive garden. This caused me to ditch my original dinner plans and make cheesy broiled tomatoes with fresh garlic, mint, basil tomato sauce!

tomatoes with seasoning and basil- pre-cheese.

post cheese pre broil-- they kind of look like eggs!

Post broil

As you know, I love my mint, basil, garlic tomato sauce and since the season is dwindling down, I wanted to make another round.

When we’re in England we like to eat at Pizza Express. It’s a chain that seems to be all over the UK with slightly fancy pizzas, wine, and dough balls. Dough balls are the British equivalant to breadsticks. They are about the size of an average super ball or large marble. That sounds tiny, but it’s just the right size. If we had dough balls in the US they would be tennis ball sized and stuffed with cheese. We like the simplicity of the British dough ball just the way it is. We make ours using Pilsbury canned breadstick dough and then make a little garlic butter dipping sauce. YUM.

John making dough balls.

Dough balls!

They’re so cute and you can just toss them right in with your pasta like bread-meatballs!


Of course I didn’t think of that until after I took the photo!

sunday night dinner: august 28, 2011—chicken salad and blueberry muffins

ever get those cravings that you just can’t explain?  i had one this week when i was investigating what was in my fridge, while planning meals.  as soon as i saw the eggs all i wanted was deviled eggs.  so began the quest of what to have with the deviled eggs for my sunday night dinner.

i'm going to eat the devil out of those eggs

i settled on a combination of chicken salad, blueberry muffins, and deviled eggs.  chicken salad is diffidently in my top 5 favorite foods.  i like to sample it wherever i go.  the best, so far, is at the sub shop in springfield , mo.  pineapple, grapes, mandarin oranges, cashews, onions, celery and of course chicken and mayonnaise.  mine this time was a bit less complex.  cashews, grapes, onions, celery, and my secret spices. maybe one day i’ll share what that is but right now i’d like to keep you in suspense.

looking for a meal involving mayo? this is it.

now normally i’m a huge advocate about not using box mixes.  however i’m a totally sucker for jiffy mixes.  they are so cute and small, you can get 2 for a dollar, and the artwork is pure out of 1950.

channeling my inner 1950s housewife

the muffins were just screaming for purple cupcake polka dot wrappers

jiffy mixes allow you to do that step back in time in the kitchen.  much like the apron i choose to wear for sunday night.

my 50 states apron and a furry kitchen helper

dinner this sunday was accompanied with a movie.  to go with the them of summery chicken salad and deviled eggs, and embracing the hotness of still refusing to use my air conditioner, i watched “a long hot summer.”  the premise……paul newman shows up wrecking havoc on joanne woodward’s plans of rebelling against her father by refusing to get married.  must say probably the number 1 movie for paul newman’s sexiness, oh but “hud” is a close competitor for that.

what goes better with a paul newman movie but homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream.  um yes please!