Garden fresh

Last night, my husband and I each made a delicious salad to go along with our meal. The salads were so fresh and good and were made from tomatoes, green bell pepper and a cucumber from our raised bed garden.
We've been eating the cucumbers for several weeks, and just a few days ago had our first, ripe and juicy tomato. Last night, we added a very tender and tasty bell pepper to our salad. I really love homegrown bell peppers; they are so much better than their thick-skinned cousins I buy at the supermarket.
Reggie and I have loved our little garden, outlined from 2X4s we found stored under my Daddy's shed. We visit the garden several times a day, just to check on things. Over the weeks, we've gotten excited over the first cucumber, the siting of the first watermelon and the first red tomato. I know, we're silly, but it's really been fun for us.
Our newest discovery this week was a few crop of tiny cantaloupes! I had given up on them and had decided I might just pull up the vines and plant pumpkins instead. Buy my patience paid off. We have five or six walnut-size, fuzzy green cantaloupes growing in the garden now with two more up to the size of an orange. Anna and I love cantaloupes and can't wait to see if these grow to be as sweet as some of the ones we've bought this summer.
This weekend, I'm going to make a roasted vegetable pasta dish and will use our abundant supply of grape tomatoes, a zucchini I bought at the farmer's market today, and one or two of my bell peppers. I know I'll be stingy with my peppers. I'm hoping to have enough one day to make some stuffed peppers.
I'm so glad Reggie and I decided to do the raised bed garden this year. We never had much luck with patio tomatoes and peppers. It was expensive to fill the plot with bagged garden soil and manure, but it was worth it. We've enjoyed working side-by-side, having something different to talk about and now relish in our little harvest.

Blueberry goodness

I hope you like blueberries because I have another delicious and simple recipe to take advantage of those plump berries in grocery stores and farmers markets right now.

My cousin Betty passed along the recipe for Blueberry Oat Bars recently. I stuffed it in my pocketbook and forgot about it until last week. I'm so glad I found it!

The recipe is a simple one-bowl recipe that mixes up in just a few minutes. There are no complicated ingredients; in fact, the only item I had to buy was the blueberries. Everything else was in my pantry or refrigerator.

I only made a few changes. The original recipe called for margarine, but I used butter. It also recommended a glaze of powdered sugar and milk added after the cake had cooled, but I opted for cinnamon sugar instead, which I sprinkled on before baking.

The result is a very moist cake with delicious berries enhanced by the undercurrent of cinnamon. This cake is delicious as a dessert but would be equally good for breakfast or brunch.

I'm already thinking of ways to expand on this recipe. It would definitely be good with apples and nuts instead of blueberries. And I'm thinking it would make a simple and tasty cake without the fruit. Just top the cake with chocolate syrup or frosting. It's so easy to make, you could mix it up on the spur of the moment to treat the family to a weeknight dessert.

But try it with the blueberries first!


Blueberry Oat Bars

• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 stick butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
• Cinnamon sugar

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and beat well. Add vanilla and milk and mix well. Add flour and oats and mix until combined. With spoon stir in blueberries coated with flour or sugar. (I took 2 tablespoons of sugar from the 3/4 cup and tossed it with the blueberries).

Pour batter into greased 9x9 pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 325 for 35-40 minutes until golden brown.

Cool treats for July 4

There's something special about July 4. It's right in the middle of the lazy days of summer, when we're already in a laid-back mood.

It's not one of the high-pressure holidays. You don't have to buy gifts, cook a turkey or come up with the perfect card for your sweetheart. You just get to enjoy it. At my house, that usually means cooking on the grill or at least eating picnic foods, even if we buy the fried chicken from a restaurant and team it with locally grown corn on the cob.

And although the menu has changed from year to year -- maybe hot dogs one year and cheeseburgers the next -- I have made a flag cake almost every year since I had children. I know you've seen this cake: yellow cake in large Pyrex dish, frosted with vanilla frosting or Kool Whip and decorated with strawberries and blueberries to resemble the American flag.

This time of year, women's magazines have all kind of recipes that incorporate a patriotic theme, and most look fairly easy, from red and blue sprinkles on a cupcake to sugar cookies dyed red or blue and cut out in the shape of stars. Most are easy adaptations of recipes and decorations we are already familiar with.

I've been wanting to make ice cream sandwiches, and decided I'd give them a patriotic theme with red and blue M&M Minis that I sorted from a large bag of the candies. I've made ice cream sandwiches several times over the years, using different chocolate chip cookie recipes. This time I used my family's favorite chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe, adding some corn syrup because I read that would keep the cookies from getting too hard in the freezer.

I have a few tips if you're making your own ice cream sandwiches this summer.

First, find somewhere cool to assemble the dessert. My kitchen was hot when I put dollops of ice cream between my cooled cookies. The ice cream started melting quickly, and the M&M decorations I put on the sides immediately started to melt colors onto my vanilla ice cream before falling off altogether. I wanted to cry, but instead, I came up with a solution.

I placed my remaining ice cream sandwiches on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for several hours to harden the ice cream. When I was ready to serve them later that day, I dotted the ice cream with M&Ms Minis that had been chilled in the refrigerator. They must be served immediately.

If you want to avoid dealing with the M&Ms on the side of your cookie, mix them into the cookie batter instead, adjusting the amount of chips accordingly. When I make this cookie recipe, I use 1 cup M&M Minis and 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

If you have any remaining ice cream sandwiches, wrap them individually in plastic wrap and return to the freezer until ready to serve. I found that if I wrapped the sandwiches in plastic as soon as I made them, the ice cream continued to melt and attach itself to the plastic wrap, making a mess.

For an easier version of this recipe, use ready-to-bake chocolate chip cookies instead of cookies made from scratch. You can also vary the ice cream flavor. Wouldn't a chocolate cookie be delicious with mint chocolate chip ice cream? And you can certainly vary the decorations on the side and use sprinkles or chocolate chips or even chopped nuts.


Pasta salads

When you're planning your July 4 gathering, you might want to consider a new pasta salad. You can make the dish in advance and keep it chilling until it's time to eat. And other than boiling the pasta, you don't have to worry about heating up the kitchen.

I asked readers last week to submit their favorite pasta salad, and I got two responses.

Laura Harris said her recipe is always a hit and feeds a crowd.

Marie Brown has a tuna salad made with a box of macaroni and cheese. She said it's one of her favorites.

Thanks to Laura and Marie for sharing their recipes!



Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips*

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Either prepare cookie sheet with cooking spray or line with parchment paper.

In medium bowl cream melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth. Beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk until creamy. Mix in flour until blended. Add in chocolate chips until mixed throughout dough.

Drop approximately 2 teaspoons dough per cookie onto prepared cookie sheets.

Bake at 325 degrees for 17 minutes or until top turns a light golden brown. Don’t overcook because you want the cookies to stay soft.

Makes approximately 28 cookies.

*I make this recipe often; it’s my family’s favorite chocolate chip cookie. I usually make it with 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 cup M&M Minis. I also omit the corn syrup if I’m not using them for ice cream sandwiches. I usually make them large, using my muffin scoop to form each cookie.



Ice Cream Sandwiches

• Cooled chocolate chip cookies
• Vanilla ice cream (I use the low-fat version.)
• M&M Minis or other decorations, such as nuts or sprinkles (I find it works better to cool the M&Ms in the refrigerator.)

Make sure cookies are completely cooled. Find two that match up fairly well in shape and size. Put a scoop of ice cream on one cookie and make a sandwich with the second. The cookies should be firm enough to press down and flatten the sandwich some. Place the sandwich cookies on a cookie sheet and freeze. Just before serving, place decorations on the ice cream.



Pasta Salad

• 1 box penne pasta
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon Accent
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 3 tablespoons yellow mustard
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large cucumber, sliced thin
• 4 ounce jar pimentos, drained

Boil pasta according to directions. Drain and add additional ingredients.

Make 1 day ahead and refrigerate.

Laura Harris



Mac and Cheese Tuna Salad

• 1 box Kraft Deluxe Mac and Cheese (prepared as directed and cooled)
• 2 cans white tuna (drained)
• 3 eggs (boiled and chopped)
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup green bell peppers
• 1/2 cup chopped sweet pickles
• 1 jar chopped pimentos (drained)
• 3/4 cup mayonnaise

Mix all ingredients, cover and refrigerate. Serves 6.

Marie Brown