at home with ann

In this steamy weather, I'm craving cold, refreshing drinks.  Smoothies are a mainstay of our lunch menu, and these cucumber coolers were super hydrating.  We've been getting a lot of cucumbers from our CSA, and while I like salads and pickles as much as the next girl, it's good to change it up.  Plus, a certain 3yo I know claims not to like cucumbers.  His younger brother, on the other hand, will eat anything he can get his hands on- food or not.  I'm happy to say both of them happily drank these. The blueberries were also fresh from Tangerini's Farm.  I dragged the kids out to pick in the 90 degree heat one afternoon last week.  The aisle we walked down was next to an anti-bird machine which periodically screeched to deter birds from eating the berries.  A relaxing sound.  Colin's basket was perpetually empty, and I had to supply James with a steady stream of berries, but we came home with a few pints and have been enjoying them all wee...

I know I'm always saying things like, I don't like cake.  But I do like cake, I just don't like it when it's dry and tasteless or covered in that awful grocery store frosting.  This cake was neither dry nor tasteless, plus it looked so pretty in it's little bundt shape. I love using buttermilk, it makes me feel all fancy.  Inevitably, I am left wondering what to do with the leftover buttermilk and keep it around until I can justify throwing it out.  Not this time, however.  Our Friday morning pancakes were given a boost and the Buffalo Cauliflower Salad (recipe to come...) was topped with homemade buttermilk blue cheese dressing.  If you don't want to buy buttermilk, you can add a teaspoon of lemon juice or white vinegar to regular milk and let it sit for a few minutes.   Taking a cake out of a bundt pan is somewhat nervewracking.  I put the plate over the bottom, gave it a flip, said a silent prayer and heard the thunk when the cake released....

The fluffy texture and blueberry lemon flavor is reminiscent of my favorite muffins.  But, the shape says cookie.  This just means you can eat them anytime of day.  Plus, since they use yogurt instead of butter or oil, we can go ahead and call them healthy.  The batch made quite a few, and even after sending some home with friends, we were left with a lot of cookies.  I tossed them in the freezer in an effort to prevent us from eating them nonstop, and they seemed to fare well.  You can take them straight from the freezer and reheat them for about 7 minutes in a 350 oven.  Blueberry Muffin Top Cookies original recipe from spoon fork bacon Yield ~48 cookies Ingredients: 2 cups all purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/4 cup sugar 1 1/4 cups Greek yogurt 1 egg, lightly beaten 1 lemon, zested 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/4 cup blueberries Preheat ov...

I make these recipes for Colin, but grown up people might like them too! Colin was never big into baby food purees.  I fed him one jar of food back when he first started eating solids, mostly so that I could have the cute mini jar to use for lotion.  I think those "complete meals in a jar" are kind of creepy.  Chicken dinner puree?  No, thanks.  For the most part he has eaten fruits and vegetables, either raw, steamed, roasted or sauteed.  A few things have been big hits and I use them as staples: broccoli and roasted sweet potatoes.  He's big in picking things up himself.  We can get into ruts, however, one of which resulted in his eating an entire roasted butternut squash over a two week period. He likes to help in the kitchen, which means he wants to see everything that's going on and touch it.  Cooking with one hand while holding him with the other can be a bit of a challenge.  Sometimes I can convince him that the view from his c...

I may have mentioned this before, but when we got married (3 years ago on the 18th!), my husband wanted wedding pie.  A bit of a stickler for tradition, I wasn't on board and we had a lovely and delicious lemon wedding cake instead.  Everyone loves pie, though.  Pie is also a great make ahead dessert, because a few minutes back in the oven during dinner and you have warm pie.  Warm pie topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it's pretty much perfect. We celebrated my aunt's birthday at the beach this past weekend, so I made birthday pie.  When we arrived on Saturday morning I discovered that they had eaten pie the night before.  Good thing you can never have too much pie.   It's peach season, so peaches are ridiculously cheap at the market right now.  I bought a batch last week and we were barely able to eat them fast enough.  There's that 1-2 day window of peach ripeness, and you do not want to be on either side of it.  This batch...

I received an ice cream maker as a wedding shower gift, and although I don't use it nearly as often I should (every day), it's a great little appliance.  Aside from a hand crank contraption using rock salt and all that, you can't really make ice cream at home without a special appliance, so in my mind it's totally worth it. The ice cream shop we stop at every Sunday on our way home from the beach (it softens the blow of having to leave, at least that's what I tell myself) has monthly special seasonal flavors.  I was expecting July to be something in the red, white and blue genre; blueberries, strawberries and the like.  Instead it was cake batter that included a blue frosting swirl.  Blue frosting does not do it for me, so instead I've been eating coffee ice cream for the last three weeks.  The point of this rambling story is that I decided to take matters into my own hands and make blueberry ice cream at home. Blueberry Ice Cream Recipe from Southern Food ...

Last week our elderly neighbor passed away.  It wasn't unexpected, but still sad.  He had a dry sense of humor, appreciated sarcasm, and I will miss seeing him puttering around the yard and mowing his lawn every other day.  Gifts of food are almost always appropriate.  Something good happens, bring food.  Something bad or sad happens, bring food.  My neighbor's wife has a house full of people to feed with all their family here to support her, so I wanted to bring something over to help a little bit.  Muffins seemed like a logical choice, everyone likes muffins.  Plus I went a little overboard with the buy one get one free on blueberries this week.  I used the same Martha Stewart recipe as I did a few months ago, but used half blueberries and half strawberries for the fruit. I'll let you use the directions from the boss, herself.  I will add that whenever I make this recipe, I end up with enough extra batter to make one ...

It is no secret that I love pancakes.  Blueberry, strawberry, banana, chocolate chip - all pancakes are good in my book.  While pancakes are a frequent menu item on weekend mornings around our house, it's hard to justify filling up with flour, butter and sugar on a weekday.  Not exactly a breakfast of champions to give you energy.  Yesterday I had a major craving for blueberry pancakes, and came up with this oatmeal bowl as a slightly healthier alternative.  If you read any of the "healthy living blogs," oatmeal is no new thing to you, but I feel like it's sometimes forgotten and considered an unglamorous breakfast (I'm not sure what a glamorous breakfast is).  Old fashioned oats have many great benefits.  They come in that old school canister, they are full of fiber, and have a low glycemic index, which means you digest them slowly and your blood sugar remains steady.  Instant oats, while convenient, taste like glue, so if you have the time, go o...

Yesterday was Jon's birthday, so a few of the recipes this week will be parts of his birthday dinner.  Instead of our usual tradition of going to a fancy steak house, this year we bought fancy steaks to cook on the new grill!  The birthday boy came up with the menu, and blueberry pie was his request for dessert.   Making pie crust from scratch is not hard.  It really only takes a few minutes in the food processor.  It's a little more time consuming by hand, but still not difficult.  And if you read the ingredients on refrigerated pie dough at the market, you may find even more incentive to make your own.   Normally, even when I use someone else's ingredient list, I give my own version of the directions.  You don't mess with the baking queen herself, though, so I'll give you Martha's instructions straight.  With my comments in italics.  Pate Brisee (Pie Crust) recipe from Martha Stewart Ingredients 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flou...

This post is part of my vacation series highlighting some amazing recipes from my favorite bloggers! Miri Leigh (via Steamy Kitchen) - Meyer Lemon Clouds with Lemon Whipped Cream and Fresh Blueberries Lemon and blueberries are two of my most favorite things. I can see this being a dessert staple this summer. Baking Blonde - Lemon Cheesecake with Lemon Curd Topping You had me at lemon.  Cheesecake too?  Heaven.  

Pancakes are very popular around our house.  Over the years we've made hundreds of batches on weekend mornings, sometimes accompanied by bacon or fruit, sometimes on their own.  My recipe is based on the Joy of Cooking, and never fails.   Every year for my birthday my sister gives me a gallon sized ziploc bag of the best Maine blueberries, frozen.  They are tiny and perfect and bear no resemblance to the big and somewhat tasteless blueberries you find at the grocery store.  I ration them throughout the year, only using them in recipes where they'll be fully appreciated.  These pancakes fit the bill.   Pancakes This recipe makes twelve, so I always halve it for two people.  I've heard they freeze and reheat well, but we never have leftovers. 1 1/2 cups flour 3 Tablespoons sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cups milk 3 Tablespoons butter, melted 2 eggs 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup fruit (optional) Preh...