SEPTEMBER DINNER CLUB

 

Upcoming Dinner - September 

Hostess - Paprika 

Ingredient - Squash                                                                                                                    

August - Garden Party Theme

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow??

Apparently, if any of us actually had gardens, they would grow quite well!  We devised a bunch of wonderful garden fresh dishes for Saucy's timely selected theme!

Saucy's summery setting set the stage for scrumptious supping!

 

Grapes started us off with a refreshing white wine, Vina Antigua Torrontes Ugni Blanc (say that 5 times fast) from Argentina.

It paired nicely with Couscous' brushetta of tomatoes, onions and capers.

Saucy proudly displayed her vegetarian lasagna

It was as good as it looked with eggplant, zucchini and chunky tomato sauce

(though Saucy insisted it needed a little extra something; none of us agreed).

 

Grapes shared her summery Thai Cucumber Salad and thoughtfully put the jalapenos on the side, for the wussy Couscous.

We all noshed while enjoying a glass of Couscous' wine offering, Green Truck organic Zinfandel

  Paprika rounded out the evening with a delectable zucchini chocolate cake with strawberries and powdered sugar.  We each had our own individual bowls and yes, you did want to lick the bowl clean!!!

Our garden party was a great success, now if only us city girls had yards big enough to actually grow a garden!!

Weekly Farm Challenge 8/2/12-8/9/12, 8/9/12-8/16/12 and 8/16/12-8/23/12

We've gotten a little behind with vacations and what-not, but have been enjoying the bounties of summer in form of salads and roasted veggies!  Here's a recap of what we've received the past couple weeks:

Tomatoes (large, small, cherry and grape), peppers (red and green), peaches, carrots, swiss chard, onions, cabbage, fennel, basil, lettuce, parsley, dill, red onions, beets, apples, thai basil, garlic, red leaf lettuce.

The most impressive undertaking was by Grapes who made a batch of sun-dried tomatoes!  15 baking hours - whew!!

 

Dinner club this week provided us an opportunity to use our veggies

(see next blog entry).

We'll get back on track next week with the start of the fall produce!!

Weekly Farm Challenge 7/26/12 - 8/2/12

This week we received: zucchini, cucumber, swiss chard, green pepper, onion, tomato, potatoes, basil, apples, apple cider, peaches and blueberries.

Grapes prepared this refreshing Cucumber Thai salad with jalopenos, cilantro and apple cider/spenda dressing. 

And she paired it with grilled (blackened - LOL) chicken, grilled peaches with balsamic glaze over rice. Wow!!

Couscous started her mornings with peaches, blueberries and vanilla yogurt - simple but oh so tasty!

She took a shot at a swiss chard and caramelized onion lasagna - some assembly required, but not too bad!

The apples were perfect for some homemade applesauce sans pork chops!

And there was plenty of zucchini to cook up a couple loaves of Zucchini-Pineapple Quick Bread