Strawberry season!

It's that time of year again here in sunny Florida where the strawberries are out and about! Ben and I L-O-V-E strawberries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We recently went strawberry picking (in between dissertation writing) at Rogers Farms here in lovely Gainesville. If you are in the Gainesville area and are looking for "you pick" farms here are a list of some farms in the area (not all organic).

So what better way to celebrate strawberry season then to make STRAWBERRY BREAD!!!!!!!!
If you all remember, I made this bread for the Relay for Life Gainesville to raise money for the American Cancer society. This bread was such a big hit and we loved it so much, Ben and I have been eating the bread all year long. Thanks to last years great strawberry season (and our freezer), we were able to use our strawberries we picked last May all year long (yes they did survive the big move). We just recently used the last of those strawberries and have started to freeze some more! Over this past year, Ben and I have used the recipe to make different variations of bread: bannana, bannana + strawberry and strawberry + blueberry. We have also made the bread with walnuts instead of pecans and we've added chocolate chips (we recommend the Ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips - it's a must!).

Below is the link to the strawberry bread recipe and as a special treat we added our variations to the recipe as well. ENJOY!

Strawberry Bread

It has been to long!

Hi everyone, Wow it's been way to long since we posted anything on this website! OOOPS!!! sorry about that. Many exciting things have been going on lately and we let the blog go. But we're back!!!! We won't be posting as much as we used to but we are going to try and post a couple of our favorite recipes each month. We can't guarantee we'll keep to this but we will sure try! Up next: Strawberry season is here + a new addition to our kitchen...stay tuned! Shelby and Ben

Yeah we'be been lazy!

No we didn't forget about you!!!!! We've just been a tad bit lazy on the weekend and haven't taken the time to post some yummy meals. To make up for all the lost yummy food blogging we are going to put several recipes in one post (can you handle it?!) The next recipies will deal with two things we love: Football and chilly weather!!!

Enjoy!
Ben and Shelby

Homemade Tomato Ketchup

One Saturday morning Ben and I were watching Jamie Oliver on Food Network and we got really excited when he started to make homemade tomato ketchup. Now this is no ordinary ketchup, it has a few surprise ingredients such has chili peppers and hot sauce! Now you can make it as hot or mild as you want it but we were excited about having hot and spicy ketchup:)

The recipe was pretty easy. First you combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and let the tomatoes break down
*Note: the recipe says to wait and put in the sugar and vinegar into the pan after pushing the tomatoes through a sieve. However, when watching the show Jamie Oliver put the sugar and vinegar into the pan after the tomatoes reduced by half. This seemed to be the trick to get smooth ketchup and not chunky ketchup:)

Now once the tomato mixture has reduced by half place the mixture into a blender in batches. Remember that the sauce is HOT so be sure to keep the plastic pour top off of the blender to let the heat out when blending. Otherwise you may burn yourself and/or have tomato sauce all over your kitchen.

After the tomato mixture is blended and pushed through a sieve, place your ketchup in sterilized jars and let cool. You will here the jars "pop" once the ketchup has cooled and the jars have sealed.
Once done this recipe made ~4cups of ketchup and it was super yummy! We hope you all try this b/c we had a GREAT time making our own ketchup.

Note: You can also use yellow and green tomatoes!

Update: recipe box 2.0

Hi Everyone!

It has been awhile since we've posted on our "foodie fun"; but we have been thinking of a way to better improve our site. One of the problems has been how to get the recipes we talk about to you. We have recently started a new site:

Recipes as featured on Mystery Meats and Other Treats

Therefore, when we talk about a recipe we will be putting it up on this site for you to view and use! We hope this format works a little better for everyone!!!!! If you would like to put on the "access" list for this webpage please e-mail Ben/shelby or leave a comment on here and we will make sure you can access our "recipe box"

Cheers!
Ben and Shelby

Nicoise Salad: a perfect summer salad

Ben's mom Ginny came to visit us at the end of July so we wanted to make sure we had some awesome meals planned for her stay. Ben and I were having a hard time coming up with meals that are suitable for 100 degree weather with a side of 90% humidity. We came across this awesome looking Nicoise salad with seared tuna from Fine Cooking (September 2008 issue). This meal is served cold (a plus for hot days) but is elegant enough for guests. A sort of "fancy" salad if you will. This recipe only took about 20min to make and is very refreshing. I think the salad dressing was the best part of this salad!

Enjoy!
Nicoise Salad
*Note: When buying the tuna make sure to ask if the tuna can be consumed raw. Just asking for sushi grade does not ensure it is safe to eat raw.

Ben and Ginny (his mom) plating the salads

The salads ready to be brought to the table

Nicoise Salad with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc

Cheers!

Our favorite recipe!

Andy came to visit us last weekend and wanted us to make him a nice dinner. We asked him what he wanted and he requested Lamb. We both looked at each other and thought, our favorite recipe! Black cherry and black pepper lamb chops with mint pea risotto. Now we cannot remember the first time we made this (anniversary or valentines day; we have no idea) but we do know that we got it from the lovely people at Cooks Illustrated and it's wonderful! The dish is very rich and savory, because of the lamb, but the mint pea risotto has a nice cooling affect on your palate. This dish is perfect for a nice evening in and/or to impress friends and loved ones. Another plus, it also tastes like you spent hours slaving over a hot stove but actually only takes 45min from prep to finish.

Here is the recipe for you all to enjoy!
Black cherry and black pepper lamb chops with mint pea risotto