lynleyhttp://imwiththebandlfarris.wordpress.comi bake cookies for bands
i make art
i play the accordion
i hunt graffiti
i knit
i dj
i cook
i am process driven
i love whiskey
i had a spiritual moment at graceland
the past is our present
its the whole karmic enchilada
on saturday night my friends and i went to the grocery store we each picked out 1-2 things we wanted for dinner and then we threw all the food in a bag and headed to the park for a picnic. my items included cold fried chicken and a pesto-sundried tomato pasta salad. the leftovers were as yummy the second time as they were the first. for the second round of dinner i also included watergate salad. to me that could be the symbol of 1950s cooking. it has marshmallows, jello instant pudding and cool whip in it. every time i make it i hear a dinner guest i had once saying that the color and food combination sacred her. to me all three things with a rosemary roll made by the amish, as well as some pink lemonade were a way to kick off summer right. you can’t of course forget dessert an oreo klondike bar, yum!
nnooommmmmm
Watergate Salad
ing
1 package jello pistachio flavor instant pudding
1 can 20 0z crushed pineapple in juice
1 cup mini marshmallows
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 cups thawed cool whip
* mix pudding mix, pineapple, marshmallows and pecans in large bowl until well blended, gently stir in cool whip, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour
last year i stumbled upon the 1st international biscuit festival in knoxville when i was visiting some friends. in a matter of minutes several thousand tickets sold out for the pride of the south, the biscuit. this year living here i decided i was not going to miss out on the event of the year and my friends jessica, emily, julie and her daughter shyla drove 12 hours to the smokies to join me.
biscuit festival involves the following: biscuit boulevard, where for a $5 ticket you get to sample 5 different types of biscuits, several different forms of a biscuit breakfasts kick off the day, there are cooking demonstrations with biscuits, biscuit cook-off competitions and last but not least the ms./mister biscuit pageant where men and women compete against each other to reign over the biscuit festival. music, a farmers market and plenty of other downtown festivities are also all happening.
in celebration of the biscuit jessica made us all matching tee shirts to wear. on them has a picture of biscuits and the title “small soft leavened bread fest 2011” shyla, aka “the bean” had a matching onesie that declared her “biscuit bean.” we suddenly realized wearing shirts with biscuits on them meant people asked you lots of questions about the festival.
renegade biscuit fest tees
once we got our golden tickets the sampling began. although i will say everyone who had been at biscuit festival last year seemed to have the same game plan this year. last year = no tickets after 10:15am, this year = everyone showing up for biscuit fest at the same time to sample even though there was plenty of tickets to go around.
golden tickets
jessica and emily milked their “i drove here 12 hours for biscuit festival” and ended up getting extra tickets for more sampling from some of the booths. what i learned and am offering it up for next year is this….. the sampling goes on till 4pm hold out. i wandered back to biscuit boulevard around 2pm to see what was left for my finally 4 biscuits. at this point of the day the place was empty some booths had packed up and left and others were handing me biscuits 2 at a time.
a sweet jalapeno biscuit
the basic buttermilk
my favorite biscuit actually came from the knoxville convention center. it was a cinnamon biscuit that was sliced in half and layered with homemade apple butter and whip cream. the best part of all is they gave me 2 of them!
knoxville convention center with my favorite biscuit
i ate my batch of biscuits while watching the first round of the biscuit cook-off. the round i got to see was the kids cook-off. 2 girls and one boy, the boy was very serious about baking, he even was wearing a chef’s jacket.
kids biscuit bake-off
to end the whole day i got to see the apron ceremony for the ms./mister biscuit pageant. this pageant isn’t your normal beauty contest. men and women compete against each other in 3 categories: 1. aprons–they must wear one of their own aprons and tell the significance of it 2. biscuit talent–the talent must involve or be themed on biscuits 3. the biscuit walk–biscuits are stacked on top of the contestants heads they must balance them as they walk across the stage.
ms./mister biscuit pageant
my friend jenna, the 2010 ms. biscuit, aproning the 2011 ms. biscuit
there is only 4 words to describe biscuit fest……it was a blast. i already can’t wait till next year and maybe just maybe i’ve already started planning a talent that involves biscuits for the pageant.
today was edwin’s 4th birthday. edwin is my co-worker ivan’s son. ivan has been preparing us for this party for the past couple of weeks. i was game to go when he walked over to me one day in the kitchen pointed at my cold line and said “see this, i’ll have 3 times this with food, tamales, enchiladas, everything.” ivan is a fantastic cook and a real treat to work with. though his english is way better than my non-existent spanish we work together well. lots of goofing around and discussing of food. i felt i finally won him over when he told me he liked an avocado-black bean salad i made as a special. a sign up sheet was created for the party for all interested market employees, this i have discovered is a regular happening for any “family” outings that occur outside of work.
the meal had everything, roasted chicken, pork, beans, a variety of salsa including homemade salsa verde, hot sauce, 2 types of guacamole, beef. as we sat around you just kept seeing more come out of the kitchen, while ivan and edwin kept passing out drinks to everyone, ivan handing out beers to the adults and edwin passed out juice boxes to the kids.
the feast
the party begins
i created 2 rounds of tacos the first with the extra hot hot sauce that left my lips tingling and included a chunky guacamole and chicken. the 2nd round was beef tacos with peppers and a puree guacamole
but the fun really kicked off when the cake was brought out and the kids were all given horns to blow. the cake came from the local mexican bakery and was the most delicious thing i’ve had in a while. moist cake that had chunks of oranges in it, yum. i know i’ll be dreaming about this cake.
allie and her horn
no birthday party is complete without singing happy birthday which was done twice once in english and once in spanish and horns sounding away. all this made me realize adult birthdays are just lacking a little something. i’m tempted to ask ivan to throw my birthday party in the next couple of weeks horns, balloons, and party favors galore please!
this is a recipe i had clipped out of a magazine years ago and have never made. so when i was planning meals last week i thought its time to try it. it seemed easy and yummy things i look for, for sunday night because i usually work on sundays flipping pancakes for the masses of knoxvillians that like to brunch. the recipe was very simple although i didn’t agree with their use of green onions, felt like they should have been red onions in it ,and there seemed to be a serious like of seasoning. so i tweaked it a little adding a greek seasoning mix to it along with fresh garlic. grilled chicken or prosciutto would also be an excellent addition. i also opted out of mixing all the feta in with the pasta, the pasta was so warm it would just melt it all so i recommend using the feta as just a garnish.
and to continue my quest of making strawberry dishes to celebrate them being in season i made a strawberry-rhubarb pie with homemade vanilla ice cream for dessert. yes on saturday night by 8pm i had made homemade ice cream, baked a pie, and planted flowers in my garden. take that martha stewart! my goal this summer is to conquer fruit pies. this was my first attempt. i’m pretty proud of myself. i’ve never made a pie that had an upper crust to it, must work on creating pretty designs for upper crust. also problem to solve ……filling to running.
RECIPE
Greek-style penne pasta with chickpeas
Ingredients
12oz box of penne pasta
150z can chickpeas-drained
7oz jar roasted red peppers-drained and sliced
6oz jar marinated quartered artichoke hearts
1/2 cup sliced scallions (i’d substitute red onions personally)
1/4 cup sliced kalamata olives
2 cloves garlic minced
2 Tbsp olive oil
1Tbsp greek seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
1. in a large saucepan boil pasta according to directions on box. (tip under-cook the pasta just a little because it’ll continue to cook in when you add it to the vegetables) meanwhile in a large skillet heat olive oil and garlic over medium heat, add in peppers, artichokes, onions, and olives. *
2. drain pasta reserving about 1/2 cup of the water. add pasta and water to vegetables, toss. add in greek seasoning, salt and pepper. allow to cook 5 minutes
3. plate pasta and garnish with feta crumbles
* if you were to add in chicken or prosciutto i’d recommend cooking it before the all the vegetables you can use the left over grease and olive oil as a base to cook the vegetables in.
i took dad’s stir fry recipe and put my own spin on it. instead of chicken there is tofu and i added small corn cobs and broccoli. the recipe calls for pecans but i swear i think dad also makes it with water chestnuts but he is notorious for adding water chestnuts to recipes including chilli once.
although i full heartedly believe that i am an italian born into a german family, if i could pick another ethnic group to join into i’d be cajun. i don’t know a lot about it, never been to the bayou but it all feels like it just makes sense.
jambalaya
when trying to decide which sausage to pick for the jambalaya there was no other choice when i saw the “ragin cajun” sausage brand
so good that i actually bought 2 packages
the beauty of the recipe i used is that you make it in the crock pot. to me, yes, it makes it seem like it isn’t a real jambalaya because i let the slow cooker do the work but, i love coming home and smelling dinner and i haven’t done anything really. i heart my crock pot!
friends alaina and justin joined in for the yummy goodness that also included strawberry ribbon cake for dessert.
1. sift the flour and salt together into large bowl. in smaller bowl cream the yeast with the milk let stand 15 minutes
2. add the yeast mixture, oil, yogurt, and egg to the flour and mix to a soft dough
3. turn out the dough on to a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with oiled clear film and leave to rise for 45 minutes or doubled in bulk.
4. preheat over to its highest setting at least 450 F place 3 baking sheets in the oven to heat
5. turn the dough out on to a lightly floured surface and knock back. divide into 3 equal pieces and shape into balls.
6. cover two of the balls of dough with oiled clear film and roll out third into a teardrop shape (thinner the better)
7. preheat grill (i used my griddle) to hot. meanwhile place naan on the hot baking sheets for 3-4 minutes bake until puffed up.
8. remove naan from oven and place on griddle for a few seconds till top is slightly browned. wrap cooked naan in dish towel to keep warm, serve warm with melted butter brushed on top.
so i have decided every week in may to make one strawberry themed item granted as i came up with my list i realized they were all desserts. c’est la vie! also am dead determined to pick my own strawberries for a strawberry-rhurbarb pie. we’ll see how ambitious i get.
my mission this week was to avoid the grocery store and to eat up leftovers. combining that with the assignment to create a blue plate special led me to make open-face egg salad melt sandwiches. (the eggs came from dyed easter eggs) whole wheat bread topped with slices of vine-ripe tomatoes, egg salad and cheddar cheese melted on top. and of course lays potato chips. if you know me you know my addiction to lays potato chips. they have to be rationed out or i’ll eat myself to death with them. can’t have a blue plate special without a blue ribbon winning beer!
i have a theory…..if you grew up in springfield, mo no matter where you end up living later on you eventually find other springfieldians to bond with. sort of like being in the peace corps, even though there might only be 6 other peace corps volunteers in estonia they’ll all eventually seek each other out for friendship. a month into living in knoxville fellow springfieldian and childhood friend, erin, tracked me down having just moved down here with her husband. this easter both being unable to travel home for the holidays we tagged teamed easter brunch.
we kicked off the meal in a spectacular way by popping the cork of the champagne bottle, which bounced off of not just one wall of the kitchen but two! the menu included: stuffed french toast, eggs-in-the-oven, vegetarian sausage, deviled eggs and mimosas. our meal conversation consisted of basic springfieldian dialoge……”you remember this?” ” they are so and so’s sister. -oh i know them” and of course “well i think your mom told my mom” to ease our overly stuffed bellies we walked through my neighborhood and fantasy house shopped at open houses. the last house though cute on the outside and newly painted on the inside we concluded “there was more there than meets the eye” aka a money pit.
STUFFED FRENCH TOAST RECIPE
ingredients
1 baguette
1 small container of ricotta cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
FRENCH TOAST BATTER
3 eggs beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tsps cinnamon
1. slice baguette down the middle, but not all the way through, you should be able to open up the bread as if it was hinged.
2. mix together ricotta cheese, powdered sugar, and chocolate chips. spread cheese mixture onto bread, fold top loaf back over, forming a sandwich, slice into 1 1/2 inch slices.
3.mix together eggs, milk and cinnamon to form batter. heat griddle on medium heat.
4. dip each slice of stuffed baguette slice into batter coating all sides of bread. cook on both sides till bread is golden brown and all raw egg is cooked.
5. serve french toast topped with powdered sugar and syrup.
Hearty Eaters 