Cantaloupe Ice Cream

So!  It's been a while since I've posted anything on here, and after getting some flack about that this weekend, I've recommitted to my blog idea and am going to try to get back in the rhythm of posting.  I don't have pictures for this post yet, but they're coming!  But enough about me.  As I've mentioned before, one of Matt's favorite fruits is cantaloupe.  As part of my evil plan to get him to eat more fruit, I've started making just about every cantaloupe recipe I can find.  (Next up - grilled cantaloupe.)  Those of you who know my dad know that ice cream making is in the blood, so when I ran across a recipe for Cantaloupe Ice Cream in the Ben & Jerry's ice cream book, I figured it was worth a try for a couple of reasons.  Partly the 'Matt loves cantaloupe' reason, partly the excuse to make ice cream, but most compelling was the 'cantaloupe and ice cream - really??!' reason.

Pasta with Melon

This is an oddball combination, at least to me.  Melon is one of those fruits that I'm never quite sure what to do with, besides eating it straight.  You can't really cook with it (can you?), and it's too watery to bake with, so I guess you're left with eating it cold on a hot day.  Which is awesome.  But it's hard to eat a whole melon by yourself as a single person, and it's even a lot of fruit for two.  Those baby watermelons seem to be the way to go, except that's a lot of preparation costs for not a lot of fruit (thanks, optimal foraging theory), and the pre-sliced saran-wrapped chunks you can buy at the store never look quite as appealing.

It just doesn't seem like this would go well with pasta, right?

Rhubarb Snack Cake

Rhubarb was one of those fruits / vegetables that took me a long time to come on board with.  When I was a kid, it was mostly that I was terrified of dying from eating poisonous rhubarb leaves - although I was pretty excited about the opportunity to eat what looks like red celery.  Cool!  I worked my way into it as an adult when I spent a week in Anchorage a few years ago right when rhubarb was in peak season.  That was my introduction to rhubarb-based desserts (how many people say that about Anchorage?).  Over the years, I've made a few of my own, but I've yet to find a go-to rhubarb recipe that I can't get enough of.  The closest I've come was a friend's rhubarb sour cream cake that I neglected to get the recipe for when I had the chance.

Rhubarb, also called pie-plant.

BB Bars

As I think I said in my welcome post to this blog, my cooking and baking styles are pretty different.  When cooking, I generally throw a bunch of stuff together and hope for the best.  I rarely follow a recipe, except if I'm making something elaborate or something new.  In baking, it's the opposite.  I follow recipes, even the ones I have memorized, and I rarely make up something new.  This recipe, though, is something I made up a few years ago when I wanted to satisfy my simultaneous cravings for peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and oatmeal cookies all at once.  Clearly I was in graduate school at the time.  My roommates served as guinea pigs as I tinkered with this recipe over and over again until I finally came up with a version that is the ultimate comfort cookie.  And there's oatmeal in them, so you know they're good for you.

These cookies are practically health food!

Cheesy Grits with Roasted Veggies

Being from the South, I could eat grits pretty much all day every day and be happy.  They're sooo good!  Matt and I usually eat them for brunch on the weekends, when he makes omelets and we sit on the couch watching Meet the Press or Jersey Shore or something (kind of diametrically opposed options, now that I think about it...).  He is a master omelet maker - I'm too impatient and always end up with scrambled eggs with stuff in them, but Matt really has the knack.  He's a keeper! 

So simple.  So good!

Cookie of the Month - First American Cookies

Yesterday, Matt and I took a super-fun field trip to Old Sturbridge Village, an 1830s re-enactment town about 50 miles southwest of Boston.  We went for my new favorite holiday, Tomato Day, where heirloom tomato plants are given to visitors as part of the entrance fees.  Matt and I are newbie gardeners, but our garden is growing pretty well so far, so we figured we'd supplement it with a tomato plant.  Matt's not even big on tomatoes, but I love them enough for the both of us.  And they're free!  Ahh, America.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told at the door that they were out of tomato plants.  That was discouraging, but we had a great time exploring the village anyway.  While there, we saw re-enacters making shoes, carding wool, throwing pots, making barrels, printing leaflets, forging iron, and making candles, as well as an old-fashioned baseball demonstration (they run to third base first!  What is that about?!).  Maybe most fascinating was the hearth cooking re-enactment with a woman baking bread and a pumpkin pie from dehydrated pumpkin, as well as making soup with dumplings.  Keep in mind that it was about 80 degrees out yesterday, and she was wearing a full 1830s respectable woman outfit - including long sleeves and a bonnet.
  

Leftover Thursday - King's Cauliflower

This is actually an old Leftover Thursday from last Thursday that I'm just now getting around to finishing - it's been a busy week!  Newer posts coming soon!  Anyway, after a beautiful couple of days where Matt and I tested out our new grill (I mean, Matt tested it out and I watched), it started to rain.  While I've certainly grilled in the rain before (in the sense that other people are grilling and I am watching, often from inside), we returned to strictly indoor cooking.

Boil, boil, toil, and trouble.