Fresh tomatoes and mozzarella

I thought everyone made this every year...but every time I take it somewhere people fall in love. So, here. Make this. When it's time.

Tomatoes, Mozzarella and Fresh Basil
4 large tomatoes, out of your yard or from the farmer's market
Fresh mozzarella balls
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

Slice the tomatoes, generous slices but not TOO thick. Slice the fresh mozzarella balls, thinly. On a platter, alternate the tomatoes and mozzarella in a circle around the platter. Julienne the basil and sprinkle over the tomatoes and cheese, then drizzle with olive oil and vinegar. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. If you're doing this for guests, fill the center of the circle with basil sprigs.

At home, when I don't have four big perfect tomatoes, we cut the tomatoes and cheese into chunks, mix everything in a bowl and serve it over lettuces. The balsamic vinegar discolors the cheese so while it's not the best idea for parties, at our table it's a favorite.

Smoked Chicken Pasta

Truthfully, I did not stage this picture...I'm not that good. I just turned around and there it all was and...life looks good.

When we have the big Branch Parties we fire up the big grill...a major undertaking. It takes four of those big bags of charcoal, that you get at Sam's, just to get going. More than one case of chickens and you're looking at eight to twelve bags of charcoal, plus the hickory wood that has to be cut. And split.

The point is...that meat comes off the grill and it's not smoked, it's SMOKED. It literally screams "I'm smoky! I'm smoky!" And every little tidbit that doesn't get eaten comes home, to show up later as the guest of honor in another dish of something.

Supper this night was the artisanal bread (I am telling you...this stuff ROCKS), mesclun salad from the garden and an apple torte. The pasta was the traditional fettucine recipe, with benefits.

Smoked Chicken Pasta

1 stick butter

2 cups whipping cream

1 cup grated Parmesan or Romano

Freshly grated nutmeg

1-1/2 to 2 cups shredded smoked chicken

1/3 cup basil, finely chiffonaded (?)

12 ounces pasta

Melt the butter, add the cream and let sit over low heat until warm. Add the cheese in four spaced-out batches, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. (I use a whisk.) Stir in freshly ground nutmeg, just to scent the sauce. Cook the pasta al dente. (I cook my pasta in a pasta pot, which has a liner. If you lift the cooked pasta out of the water and pour it into the cream sauce before it completely drains, the pasta water will keep the sauce from thickening too quickly. You could also just spoon pasta water into the sauce as needed.) Add the chicken and basil and fold to combine. Serve with freshly grated black pepper, and grated cheese for sprinkling.

Jalapeno cheese bites

Not for the faint of heart or those who worry about their cholesterol, but these cheese squares have been the hit of branch parties for the past three years. This year, I remembered to get the recipe.

Jalapeno Cheese Squares
1 jar Trappey's jalapenos, drained and chopped (the coarser the chop, the hotter the pie)
1 dozen eggs, beaten
2 pounds cheddar cheese, grated (Chef's comment: This looks like a ton of cheese 'cause IT IS! The is recipe is not for 98 lb. weaklings or those with a cholesterol problem.)

Layer cheese and jalapenos in a 13x9 inch baking dish. Pour eggs evenly over the top and bake at 350 degrees. Chef says the recipe says to bake for 20 minutes, but it usually takes 30 to 40 minutes for it to set and get slightly brown.

These go like hot cakes...when the Chef handed the platter to my sister-in-law, SIL took two for herself before she put it on the table!!

That artisan bread thing...

Remember I said I had brought home a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day? Oh, people. This is SOOOO good. And I'm not going to share the recipe because that's...stealing. Just wrong. And even if I did (share the recipe) I couldn't began to share all the tips and recipes so you're just going to have to take my word for it...go buy this book.

You make the dough once a week. It sits in the refrigerator and when you want to make bread, you get a chunk of dough, let it rise for 40 minutes and have bread. REALLY, really good bread....like bread that you can't make too far ahead of time or there won't be any for supper. (We've done that twice.)

So get thee to a book store. I promise, you'll be glad you did.

Red Onion and Gorgonzola Bruschetta

When my mother was eight years old, her mother died a week after giving birth to her second child. They were in Detroit for the "war effort," so my grandfather loaded up my mother on a train and brought her back to Tennessee, to his in-law's. The newborn stayed in the hospital for three months, and as soon as she was old enough he brought her to Mama's house, too. (Mama was 65 years old when she took in the eight-year-old and the newborn.) At one point, during the war, there were 17 people living in that house. It was a two-story Sears and Roebuck house and they were financially successful merchants but hey...17 people? Rationing? Oooh.

They told the story for years about how Mama liked chicken neck. On Sunday, when she fried chicken, everyone had a favorite piece and Mama's was the neck. It was only years later, when everyone was grown that they realized...Mama liked the neck because by the time she got to eat, it was the only piece left.

I tell that story to tell this story. (That's a direct quote from Ron White and if you didn't know that, well, you ort to.)

We had three tomatoes from the garden yesterday. Now, these are cheater tomatoes because the blooms were on the plants when we bought them and that's...just not right. You have to bloom the blooms yourself. But regardless, the taste of these (after the winter tomato famine) is divine. So here we sit...we have tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. We have home-made bread. This is REALLY looking good except that I birthed these babies and I know...three small tomatoes isn't even going to scratch the surface, so there better be a back-up plan. These kids are going to eat ALL of everything I make with the tomatoes so I'm going to have to have an alternative dish if I hope to get even a single bite. Hopefully, a dish that will let me have a bite of the (chicken breast) fresh tomato.

The back-up plan was SO good that it shared center stage and everyone was fed and happy. I didn't have to do without my share of the fresh tomato and the kids were ecstatic about some onions. Go figure.

Sweet Onion Bruschetta
1 red onion, very thinly sliced
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Roasted garlic
Good blue cheese
I heated a cast iron griddle, poured in some olive oil and let it get hot. I added the sliced onions (I love me a mandelione) and turned the heat down. While I was fooling with the other stuff, I let the onions wilt, stirring them occasionally. After a while I poured in about two tablespoons balsamic vinegar, sprinkled some kosher salt and black pepper and stirred. I left the onions on low heat and stirred them every now and then.
I sliced the bread I had about one-half inch thick, smeared it with roasted garlic and then brushed it with olive oil. Toasted it just until it was no longer soft and then topped it with the onions. I sprinkled the onions with blue cheese (this was the last of the Point Reyes I got for Christmas...I had frozen the last handful) and toasted the bruschetta to soften the cheese. When we got to the table I realized...I'd been a little stingy with the cheese so we added more and popped them under the broiler again.

Oh, Lordy. I should do this more often. Summer time and the livin' is easy.

Fresh Berry Cobbler

Southern Living published a recipe for an easy blackberry cobbler in the July issue, which came last week. We have ACRES of blackberry bushes, which is what happens when you have a farm and you don't...farm. Every year, one weekend day, we pack up and go pick blackberries. Picking real blackberries off wild bushes is NASTY...everything bad you ever read about it is true. There are chiggers in them thar bushes. There are mosquitoes above them. There are snakes lurking in the depths...the saving grace is that when you have a pack of kids, the snakes tend to leave as soon as they hear the commotion. Those that are too dumb to slither off make themselves fair game for the dogs...and that's a whole 'nother entertainment committee.

ANYWAY. The recipe in the magazine looked interesting...I hate that cobbler topping where you take one cup milk, one cup flour and one stick butter, mix it all together and pour it over a dish of canned peaches. I HATE that stuff. This topping, however, had more of a crumb texture so we decided to give it a try. (For a family that doesn't usually do dessert, this season is a LOT of fun.)

Problem is, blackberries won't be ripe until the week of the Fourth. We have some bushes in our side yard, and they're pretty loaded, but only with bright red (re: not ripe) blackberries. So we took the last of the peaches from the peach farm, about 1/2 cup raspberries the fat little toad next door hadn't poached, and about...12?...ripe blackberries and made a cobbler. Nice, very nice. Not nice enough that when we pick the first real batch of blackberries I won't have to do that double crust, prebaked interior crust, lattice thing, but still really...nice.

Easy Fruit Cobbler

Lightly grease an 8-inch square baking dish and fill with four cups of assorted seasonal fruit. We had peaches, raspberries and blackberries. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Stir together 1 egg, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup all-purpose flour, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. (I added a couple of gratings of fresh nutmeg into the topping because...that's what I do.) Sprinkle over the fruit and drizzle with 6 tablespoons melted butter. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes, or until lightly browned and bubbly. We served ours in a bowl, with a scoop of Blue Bell vanilla bean ice cream alongside, slowly melting and seeping into the fruit.

Summer is good.

(The picture is one The Not Nice Kid drew of the blackberry bushes when she was four. We use it on the labels when we make jam.)

Zabaglione...and raspberries

Sometimes everything just...comes together. And supper last night was a meeting of all things good. Fresh mesclun greens out of the garden. The artisanal bread thing is LOVELY...I'll get into that in a couple of days. And then, for dessert, we had fresh peaches and raspberries off our bushes...with zabaglione. Heaven in a dish. The small children actually groaned.

Zabaglione
6 egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup champagne (or white wine, but if you use champagne then you have to open the bottle and if you open it, well, then...you have to drink it.)

In a double boiler (or a metal bowl set over a pan) over simmering water, beat the egg yolks and sugar until thick and lemon colored. Add the champagne and beat until mixture coats the back of a spoon. That's it. The only trick is NOT to let the water boil...the eggs will scramble and it's not even passable. You can also add, with the champagne, a spoonful or two of Grand Marnier, or a couple of gratings of orange zest. I added a couple of turns of fresh nutmeg, just because I put fresh nutmeg in almost everything.