Chicken and Cheese Quesadilla Pie

 

What started off as a nimble way using up small bunches of ingredients in the fridge turned into a real revelation.  Meet Chicken and Cheese Quesadilla Pie ! Slide these out of their pie pans and right onto the plate. They hold their shape beautifully ! Side them with baked sweet potatoes.  Have small bowls of sour cream and spicy hot salsa for dolloping on bites of the pie and you have a really delicious meal !

Summer Vegetable Quiche

The other day, I made this homage to late summer. This quiche has all the usual suspects from a late summer garden - zucchini, green pepper, onion, tomato, basil and oregano. Before long, we'll be looking back at the days of full counters and wishing for that squash and all those tomatoes! This particular quiche went with me to my book group luncheon and joined a bountiful counter top buffet of soup and rolls, chicken Caesar salad, fruit crisp, and cookies. We DO eat well when we gather to chat up our books!

French Canadian Tourtière with Gravy

This weather in the Northeast has been a rollercoaster, to say the least! Between ultra low temps, blinding snow, and the latest cruel twist (a rapid melt off and torrential rains), we Yankees don't know whether to dig out the seed catalogues and get happy or roll ourselves up in our blankets and hibernate for the next two months !

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, Oh My !

Sometimes you just have to make a good old-fashioned pie. Strawberries and rhubarb combine to make a pie that feels like Aunt Bea just took it off the windowsill in Mayberry. It's such a vintage treat !

Green Herb Quiche and Cucumber Dill Salad

Tonight's supper is a fresh green affair!

Go Red Sox !!! A Boston Cream Pie for the Boys of Summer

Like all self-respecting Boston Red Sox fans, I keep my hopes for the team under wraps at the beginning of the season. It's always an education to watch the team get their playing style together during the first few home stands and their bull pen sorted out as the season develops.  I love seeing who the new boys are and where they have come from, agonize over the aches and pains of the 'old guard', and root for my personal faves ( Hello, Pedroia ! Hello, Big Papi! Hello JBJ ! Hello Mookie!) The start of this season has been such a pleasant surprise that I decided to celebrate it with a real Boston treat.

Salted Caramel Cashew Pie

Sometimes you just need to have a good piece of pie. If said pie is easy to make and can be stashed away in the ice box for a time to perfect itself AND stay out of sight until the dinner party, all the better. It makes that moment when you pull it out of the icebox and look at all that beauty ALL the better.

So here it is ... in all its glory ... Salted Caramel Cashew Pie. 

Rustic Turkey and Spinach Tart

I've decided to try serving our main meal of the day at the middle of the day - hence, what I would normally call lunch will be more like a dinner meal. That's hard for me, as years of eating a fast bite in the middle of the school day has become ingrained.

Bastelles a la Courge - Squash Handpies

The squash is getting ripe in the gardens. I guess this means Fall is at the corner! I spent the morning slicing and dicing butternut squash, onions, and garlic and rolling out a spelt flour handpie crust. It's always fun to start making those first few recipes that hale a change of season, isn't it?

Apricot and Blueberry Galette

- High Summer on a Plate ...

Spring Garden Green Tart

Here's another tart from Eric Lanlard's Tart It Up ! collection of eye popping pies and tarts. It's almost asparagus season here in New England and the beginnings of the spears are starting to come to market. They're still from further south of here, but I always have to jump the gun at this time of year.
In another few weeks, this tart will be able to be made with fresh and local produce right from the Farmer's Market or back yard beds.

Pansies and a Pear Tart

Oh, Spring! At last, you seem to be rearing up and stretching your arms! Blow your breezes and bring on your showers! We are so ready for open windows and clean sweeps!

Ottolenghi's Sweet Potato Galettes

Kate called the house the other afternoon, as she was walking home from the market. She was all about these little sweet potato galettes that she was going to make for a small dinner party she was having at her apartment. The recipe was coming straight from the first Ottolenghi cook book. As she was talking about them, I began to think that that recipe seemed all too familiar and when I went to my copy of the cook book, I found the recipe marked with a post-it note. Yup, mother and daughter think alike sometimes ...especially when it comes to food!

IHCC's Mystery Box - Bacon, Leeks, Thyme

Chicken + Bacon + Leeks + Thyme = Tasty Supper

Tarte Nougat-Pommes

Oh! The pictures I have for this post! There was something about the slightly sweet and lemony apples and the slippery, sugary almond nougat that made me grab my camera and really document this incredible tart ... and it all started here ...

IHCC's Mystery Box Challenge - Pumpkin Tart with Spinach and Gorgonzola

Start with a sugar pumpkin...

A Thin Little Tart ...

... a thin little fruit tart that matches the thin little cardamom-dusted almond slices that deck its top ...

Apple-Cranberry Streusel Pie

My pie obsession continues to grow, as I find more tempting filling recipes for a couple of pie crusts. But wait, sometimes it's just as tasty to plop a filling into a pie shell and top the whole mess with a crunchy streusel!

... meet Apple-Cranberry Streusel Pie ...

Beef and Bacon Pie - Classic Pub Food

The rant is nothing new here. Sit me down with a good bottle of beer and a good plate of pub food and I am in heaven. Well folks, here you go with another in my list of great recipes for pub fare.

Provençal Swiss Chard and Zucchini Tart

I have so enjoyed this segue into summertime! Our weather has been pretty perfect for the past couple weeks ... cool nights, sunny days in the mid 70's to low 80's, a bit of rain now and then to get the gardens growing well, and some cloud cover to keep things from heating up to quickly! Consequently, the vegetable gardens are really beginning to come on and Swiss chard, salad greens, and herbs are plentiful!