Jenny and I went to a ladies cooking night a couple of weeks ago.  We had a lot of fun. The lady from the church that taught the class owns a business where she teaches and hosts parties for businesses and individuals. So she had everything set out specifically in sections for each recipe and had recipes there. We broke off into pairs to make different parts of the meal and then enjoyed the feast at the end. Jenny was assigned to the cucumber carrot salad with yogurt sauce and I was assigned the naan bread. the other parts of the meal were a vegetable curry, Tikka Masala and a mung bean dish. Everything was really good.

you can tell the tikka masala was good!

we finished the meal off with a mango yogurt dessert!

This evening Jenny and I are making our own batch of the chicken and cucumber salad. We are going to eat it with Roti bread (like we used to have in Penang) that I found at the Asian market here.  Yum!

I am betting I have already posted this but it is worth posting again.  My cousin Nathan made these for us when Jackson was born. He brought them over to our apt and we ate them with vanilla ice cream.  Or rather we ate a little vanilla ice cream with tons of the peaches. The name butterscotch kind of scared me at first because I don’t think butterscotch is my fav but it’s basically a buttery, caramely sauce. Trust me! It’s good.

Nathan got the recipe from the New York Times. You can find the recipe here.

The recipe looks intimidating but it is not as hard as it looks. It isn’t a quick, whip up dessert kind of thing but it is worth it.  The beginning part of boiling the peaches is to make them easy to peel…check the peaches first, if they are easy to peel don’t bother boiling them. I always use vanilla but I bet the other extracts would be good as well!

ps-don’t worry, we didn’t eat a whole batch in one serving. I quickly popped most of the batch into the freezer to use when we have visitors! I have no idea if it will freeze well but I figured it was worth a try……for the sake of our visitors and my waistline!

We had a very low key Memorial Day this year. Jackson and I went to pick strawberries in the morning with a friend while Owen and Seth hung out at home. The field is about 10 minutes from our home. We all took naps in the afternoon and then had a relaxing evening together. Jackson and I made a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie in the afternoon and we grilled and ate outside for dinner. It was nice to be together on a Monday after a busy weekend. Here are some pictures from our day…

we picked 4 kgs..over 8 lbs of strawberries!

a bit runny because we couldn’t wait for it to cool! So yummy!

a la mode

It was nice this year to be able to explain more to Jackson about what Memorial Day means. He sees the Marine’s working at the Embassy so he now has some visuals of men and women serving to protect us. During dinner we talked about being proud to be Americans. Jackson announced that he was a Swiss American. We clarified that he was an American living in Switzerland. He looked over at Owen, who was chomping corn on the cobb, and said, “now that is an American eating corn”.

My poor family is slowly turning a pale shade of green…not from seasickness but rather from an abundance of pesto. Not really, don’t worry. They are all just fine. But we are eating tons of the green goodness!

A couple of weeks ago I had thawed some chicken breasts. We were just going to have grilled chicken and some veggies. Blah. About 30 minutes before dinner I decided to get creative. I popped open the pesto jar in the fridge and spread it on the chicken. We grilled it and made the yummiest sandwiches. I used herbs from the garden to make some herb mayo which was super easy! And then threw on some sun-dried tomatoes and mozzarella cheese onto slices of crusty bread. The only thing I would have changed was that I didn’t toast the bread. It may have been yummier with toasted bread.

Telling you about the above thrown together sandwich is really just a distraction before telling you what this post is really about. Tomato Basil Pie. It is our most favorite summer recipe. Seriously, our favorite. It makes a great appetizer or meal. For a meal I normally serve it with a nice green salad.

I got the recipe from my dear friend Annie in Kentucky. She got it from her friend Mary (who I believe got it from Southern Living way back when) but in my cookbook it is now “Annie’s Tomato Pie”. I think of her every time I make it!! I made the first pie of the season last week for a girls lunch. It was a hit. It was an even bigger hit for Seth….I made a double batch so he could have it for dinner. It’s one of those things that he turned his nose up at when I first introduced him but he now requests it.

Last week I tried to take pictures while making the pie….somehow I got to the end and never took a picture of the finished product. It may have something to do with the fact that I was doing it with Jackson and Owen and I had a group showing up for lunch.

you salt the tomatoes after slicing to get out some of the extra water

you can make your own crust but I cheat and buy one…this time I accidentally bought whole wheat. It was actually really good!  You poke the crust with a fork and brush it with dijon mustard.

Pop it into the oven for 8-10 mins.

While it is in the oven mix the cheese topping mixture.

When it comes out of the oven dump the first cup of  cheese on the hot crust. Then top with tomato slices and cheese, pesto mixture.

Pop it in the oven and bake for 20-25 mins or until bubbly. This is where I should have a picture of a beautiful golden brown pie that makes you salivate and buy a bag of pesto. You will just have to take my word for it.

Another variation is using a mini cupcake pan and cutting the crust to fit. It makes a great bite-size appetizer. Last year I made the mini version to serve as appetizers for the adults at Jackson’s birthday party. I used cherry tomatoes instead of big tomato slices and they worked out well! This isn’t a great picture but you get the idea!

And here ya go…

“Annie’s Tomato Pie”

originally from Southern Living (although I can’t find it anywhere)

1 15 oz pie crust

1-2 large tomatoes

2 cups shredded mozarella

1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

1/2 cup mayo (I didn’t say this is healthy)

2 Tablespoons pesto       (On a side note, the beauty of ready-made pesto or even using homemade in this recipe is that you aren’t   having to chop garlic and measure out spices. All of that work is done!)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

small amount of dijon mustard for brushing crust

Slice tomatoes and lay on paper towel. Lightly salt and allow to sit for a few mins so the water can absorb into the paper towel.  Put crust into pie pan. Poke with fork and brush with dijon mustard. Bake at 425 degrees for 8-10 mins. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with 1 cup of cheese. Let cool for 15 mins. Arrange tomatoes on top of the cheese. Mix together remaining ingredients: mayo, parm, mozarella, pesto, and pepper. Spread over top of tomatoes. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. And while it bakes and the smell begins to fill your home think of my red-headed sister/friend Annie in Kentucky! I always do!