Summer Tomato Sandwiches

I was never a tomato person growing up.  I hated them and anything made with them (including ketchup, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup...).  But somewhere along the road I discovered that I actually kind of like them--especially when they're in season.  Today my husband got to come home from work for lunch.  I told him I was making a tomato sandwich and asked if he wanted one too.  He said that leftover lasagna was really calling to him.  So I made myself a sandwich and went on with life.  A few minutes later I noticed that he had cleaned off his lasagna and was eyeing my sandwich.  I offered him a bite.  He put it back on my plate, and before I could take two more bites, he said, "Are you going to finish that?"  Um, yes.  Yes, I was planning on finishing it, but since it was apparently so irresistable, I told him he could have it and made myself another sandwich.  That is the power of a tomato sandwich.  Okay, okay, this is not really a recipe.  It's more of an idea for something delicious that makes you feel all summery when you eat it.  But here you go.  Enjoy.

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Summer Tomato Sandwiches
(*Yields 2 sandwiches, so you have an extra handy in case someone wants a "bite" of yours.  Just kidding, sweetie.  I love you.)


4 slices hearty bread
1 slicing tomato
2 Tbsp mayo
Salt and pepper to taste
Spinach leaves

1. Toast your bread and slice your tomato
2. Spread each slice with mayo, then top one slice with tomato slices.  If you get a tomato big enough, you only need one thick juicy slice, which helps your sandwich stay together better.
3. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper, then top it with spinach leaves.  Finish it off with the second slice of bread.
4. Hello tomato.  Let's be friends.

Tip Tuesday #7 {Freeze Your Fresh Herbs}

Did you know that you don't have to let all those fresh herbs go bad?  For instance, when you buy fresh cilantro and only use 1/4 of it, freeze the rest and use it later!  Will it come out the same?  Well...not quite.  The texture will be forever lost, but if you're using it in a soup or casserole or other cooked something, the taste is all that matters anyway, and the taste will be preserved.  Here's how you do it:

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Take the herbs and shake them vigorously in a bowl of cold water to make sure they're totally clean.  Pat them with a paper towel, then go through and remove all the wilted ones.  You only want to save the best.  If you throw out a bunch, don't panic.  At least you're not throwing ALL of them out, right?  Okay, now prepare the herb as you would for a recipe (chopping roughly, etc.)  Grab an ice cube tray and fill each one with the leaves, pressing them down lightly.  Next, fill up the ice cube tray with cold water, making sure that the leaves are submerged as much as possible.  Freeze them, then pop them out and put them in a ziploc bag.  When you need to use it, just pop it into whatever you're cooking.  The little bit of water won't hurt, and the flavor will be just as amazing as ever.  

My Apologies

Dear Readers,

I am so sorry that I have neglected the blog for almost a month now.  I've been having all kinds of crazy, random health problems and had to have surgery.  It was totally unexpected and threw me for a loop, but I am home now and am recovering.  Thanks to the lovely relief society sisters from my church, I'm getting dinners and new recipes from all directions, so stay tuned because there have been some tasty new dishes coming my way that I will definitely share.

Busy-Day Berry Cake

It's almost summer, which means it's berry time!  Berries have been on sale like crazy lately, and who can resist a good berry?  Not me.  I wanted to make a nice summery dessert with the berries that wasn't too sweet, and I found this recipe in my good old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.  Someday I will have a giant porch with lots of rocking chairs, and in the summertime, we'll all sit on the rocking chairs and eat this berry cake as we watch the sunset.  I can hardly wait.

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Busy-Day Berry Cake
(from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook--15th edition)


1-1/3 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1tsp vanilla

1 cup whipping cream
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1 cup strawberries
1 cup blueberries
1 cup raspberries or blackberries

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease one 8-inch round cake pan.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and baking powder.  Add milk, butter, egg, and vanilla, and beat on a low speed until they're combined.  Beat for 1-2 more minutes on a medium speed, and spread the batter into your prepared cake pan.
3. Bake about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool in the pan on a wire rack about 30 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, whip up a batch of fresh whipped cream by combining the whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla and beating them on high until soft peaks form.  Or, to simplify things, just grab a container of Cool Whip--because we all know that if you're going to use store-bought, Cool Whip is the only way to go.
5. You can serve the cake warm or wait for it to cool completely.  Top it with whipped cream and berries.  Go find yourself a rocking chair and a sunset.

Tip Tuesday #6 {Re-Steam Your Leftover Rice}

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Have you ever noticed that leftover rice is only good for one thing?  Fried rice.  Any other way, leftover rice tastes dry and gross--hardly even worth saving sometimes.  But not anymore!  My friend, Melissa, shared this tip with me, and it makes all the difference.  When re-heating your rice, just add a tablespoon or two of water.  As the rice heats up, the water will turn to steam, causing the rice to "re-steam" and gain back lost moisture.  The result?  Delicious, freshly-cooked-tasting rice.  Now that sounds good.

Tomato Avocado Chicken

Back at good old BYU, one of my roommates would always make this for dinner, and it would make our apartment smell amazing, and I would be silently jealous of her extraordinary cooking skills.  And when she told me how to make it, I thought, "Wow!  I can make that!"  And this, my friends, is how I was first introduced to one of my favorite things ever--Montreal Chicken Seasoning.

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Tomato Avocado Chicken

(from Rochelle)

1 Tbsp cooking oil

1 bonleless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 tsp Montreal Chicken Seasoning

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 avocado, sliced or cut into small chunks

1 tomato, diced

1.  Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the cubed chicken, and sprinkle on the Montreal Chicken Seasoning and cayenne pepper.  

2.  Continue and stir until the chicken is browning but isn't quite cooked through.  Add the avocado and tomato, and mix it all up.  Continue cooking until the chicken is no longer pink.  If you want, add a bit more of the seasoning to taste.  

3.  That was easy.  Eat up!

Tip Tuesday #5 {Bake Your Hard-Boiled Eggs}

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Did you know that you can bake eggs and that they come out just like hard-boiled eggs?  Neither did I!  I didn't, that is, until my brother-in-law informed me of this last week.  Just stick the eggs in a preheated oven and bake them at 325 for 30 minutes.  You can either rest them on the oven rack or put the eggs in muffin tins to keep them from rolling around.  As soon as you take them out of the oven, plunge them in ice water to prevent them from overcooking.  Baked eggs tend to be creamier, less smelly, and generally don't get that gross green color you sometimes get with hard-boiled eggs.  And they're easier to peel!  And honestly, doesn't this sound a lot less technical than most of the boiling methods?  Give it a shot.

Tip Tuesday #4 {What to Do When You Forgot the Yeast}

Image thanks to Our Best Bites

Last week I decided to make some delicious homemade bread.  I made the dough, kneaded it, put it in the oven to rise...and came back an hour later to find that the dough hadn't risen at all.  I had forgotten the yeast!  So I did a little investigating (because there is almost nothing I hate more than wasting food) and found that you can add it later and that it actually improves the flavor of your dough slightly by increasing the time the flavors meld together.  Cool, huh?  All you have to do to fix it is dissolve the yeast in just a tablespoon or two of warm water.  When it's all dissolved, knead it right into the dough.  If it's too wet, add a bit more flour to even it out.  Voila!  Perfect dough!  Isn't that awesome?  Three cheers for salvaging almost ruined bread!

Hearty Bacon Waffles

Wait!  Before you recoil in disgust at the name of this recipe, just hear me out.  When my husband (then fiance) told me to get excited about having waffle pancakes when we went to meet his family, I was hardly excited.  But the image that popped into my head of a waffle topped with butter, strawberries and whipped cream with a greasy slice of bacon on top was far from the truth.

Never fear, folks.  That's not what this recipe is.  Rather, these whole wheat waffles (which, by the way, don't taste like the gross wheat flavor some of you are probably thinking of) are hearty and delicious.  With crumbled bacon cooked right in, they are delicious by themselves or topped with warm applesauce and cinnamon sugar.

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I was extremely skeptical before I took my first bite, but now when I go to visit his family, the conversation goes about like this: "Hi!  How are you?  Are we having waffles for breakfast?" I request these pancakes every time we go to see his family.  And I made them myself for the first time the other day.  Am I turning into a wheat person?  Times, they are a-changin'.

Also, did you know that they sell pre-cooked, crumbled bacon at Costco that's perfect for this?  Okay, here we go.

Hearty Bacon Waffles

1 cup wheat berries (if you have a fancy blender that will mill it into flour for you...) OR 1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Crumbled bacon (as much as you want!)

1. Preheat your waffle iron so it's all ready to go.  Who wants to wait for waffles any longer than necessary, really?  Let's get going!
2. If using a fancy blender (like a Blendtec or a Vitamix), blend the wheat berries with 1 cup of the milk for 30-60 seconds or until well combined.  Then add the rest of the milk.  For the rest of us, just combine the wheat flour with all of the milk.
3. Add the oil, eggs, baking powder, and salt.  Mix until well-combined.  Get our your crumbled bacon and put it where it's handy by the waffle iron.
4. Pour some waffle batter into the waffle iron, then sprinkle as many bacon crumbles as you want over the batter.  Close the lid, and cook until the waffles are browned and delicious.
5. Bacon waffles!  Eat them as they are or topped with warm applesauce and cinnamon sugar.

Tip Tuesday #3 {Spray Your Cupcake Liners}

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 Cupcake liners.  They are amazing and wonderful and beautiful.  They make a cupcake look amazing and keep little fingers clean(er) when kids are eating them.  But if you take a second to spray the cupcake liners with non-stick cooking spray before you fill the them with batter, the liners will peel right off without taking part of the cupcakes with them.  The result?  Fewer crumbs (and mess) and more cupcake deliciousness in your mouth.  And who doesn't love more cupcake?

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