And so I did. I found this 10-minute no-bake peach crisp recipe, and away I went.

The recipe calls for “1 pound of peaches (3-4), peeled and sliced”. I suspect that it really means one pound after being peeled and sliced. I had two peaches, which weighed a total of just about one pound, but only about half a pound after being peeled and sliced. I couldn’t imagine using the amount of remaining ingredients for such a small amount of peaches, so I cut everything else in half, and it seemed just right.

I just topped it with some half and half, since I had no ice cream or whipped cream. Quick and tasty!

Another great recipe I tried, but which I didn’t take a photo of, is Smitten Kitchen’s amazing Naked Tomato Sauce. I used a variety of tomatoes from the garden, only a few of which were plum tomatoes, and it still worked out fine. Larry raved about it, and surprisingly enough, didn’t even ask for Parmesan cheese as he usually does with pasta sauces. He declared it perfect. It is a little bit fussy with having to peel and seed the tomatoes and make the garlic-infused oil, but it really wasn’t that difficult. I’ll definitely be making this one again.

I won’t keep you in suspense. It’s Fennel Pesto in the making. I harvested a fennel bulb from the back yard, and wondered what I might do with the fennel fronds – the furry tops of the bulb. I found this recipe, and decided to give it a try.

It was quite good! The fennel taste is fairly subtle – it almost tasted a little grassy, more than anything else. The Pontiff actually liked it better than regular basil pesto. I did find it a little salty, so I’d cut down a little bit on the salt next time (I actually ended up throwing in a handful of basil leaves, just to help cut down on the saltiness). It was definitely a good use for the fennel fronds though, rather than just tossing them.

I served it with a Caprese salad (using some of my delicious garden-fresh tomatoes, of course):

I just put a blob on the side of the salad, then dipped the tomatoes in it. I also put a dollop of it on our steamed Tilapia. (It was going to be pan-fried Tilapia, but I forgot to take it out of the freezer.  When faced with frozen fish fillets, I have found that using the steamer works very well.)

As for the fennel bulb itself, I used it to make Scalloped Potatoes with Gouda and Fennel. If you don’t do dairy, or limit your saturated fat, this is definitely not the recipe for you. I don’t make dishes like this very often, but once in a while, it’s worth the calorie splurge. I made this recipe exactly as written. The fennel flavor is distinct, but not overwhelming. You could make it even more subtle by just using the fennel bulb and omitting the fennel seed. We liked it quite a bit. It had that “moreish” quality, where you keep wanting just a little bit more.

Three cheers for fennel! It will definitely be on my list to grow in the garden again next year.

I’ve had this recipe for quite a while, but had a difficult time finding cocoa powder that wasn’t processed in a facility that processes wheat. I finally found Hershey’s Dark Cocoa in one of my local stores.

They were easy to make and awfully good. I’ll definitely make them again. But next time I might eat them all myself.

Clockwise from the top: Hawaiian Pineapple, Pink Grapefruit, Woodle Orange, Martin’s Amish, and a mystery dark pink tomato that I thought was a Martin’s Amish, but is definitely something different. It has a lovely dark rose color that doesn’t really show true in the photo.

In the center is Sungold on the left (one of the most delicious tomatoes of any size I’ve ever eaten, and the only hybrid in the bunch), and Red Robin (grown from seeds from last year’s plant) on the right. It’s normally a darker red, but this was the only tomato left on the plant that was even close to being ripe. It had its main crop early, and now there are just a few stray fruit left.

It was so nice to have a good tomato year after last year’s terrible season.

Tonight’s dinner was provided, in part, by good friends Margene and her gardening-guru Smith, also known around here as “M&M”.

We started off with a simple salad (lovely Japanese lettuce provided by M&M, pink and yellow Amish heirloom tomatoes from my garden):

Then we moved on to the main event. Shrimp Scampi with broccoli (my garden) and spaghetti squash with butter and sage (squash from M&M, sage from my garden).

I used this recipe for the shrimp, using the Meyer Lemon Extravagonzo Oil I brought back from Idaho as my only Boise souvenir. Of course, then I found out that I can purchase it locally at a number of different stores. That’s good, of course, because now I can try some of the other flavors. Like the Roasted Garlic oil. If Matt Caputo calls it “the BEST garlic olive oil product on the planet”, that’s fine praise indeed.

The Meyer Lemon oil is quite tasty – it has a tremendous lemon zest kick to it.

Yum.

One of the best things about the trip to Boise was meeting fellow knitter Jill in person! She picked me up at my hotel where we chatted for a bit, then took me to Java, a fabulous little coffee shop in Hyde Park (the historic district in the North End neighborhood of Boise).

She introduced me to the “Bowl of Soul”, which was an incredibly delicious coffee-espresso-chocolate-cinnamon delight. We had a lighter version of the standard (low-fat milk, half the chocolate, and no whipped cream), but it was perfect that way.

The cafe is located in a historic house, and is very charming. The baked goods and food items looked wonderful – I wish I could have gone back for breakfast. Or at least taken my camera with me. We had a great time, and I was sad that we didn’t have more time to spend together. I’ve already talked to my knitting group about taking a road trip to Boise for a weekend, and there’s lots of excitement about that.

Another great find was the Shangri-La Tea Room and Cafe. We were introduced to the cafe by a couple who run a BMW accessory business, and were also vendors at the rally.

We were there on Wednesday night, which was fortunate as they had live music – you can just get a peek at the musician in the background. He had an amazing guitar – it was made of welded steel. It was beautiful and had a fantastic sound. Although the lyrics were very Dharma, we thought the music sounded like it was coming from a smoky Louisiana bar. We enjoyed it tremendously. (OK, I am stupid – I asked him if I could take a photo, but didn’t get his name…)

But the best part of all was the food. It was really, really good. I had the veggie burger, topped with goat cheese and mango-peach salsa and it was amazing. (You can see it in the video on the Shangri-La website.) I think even meat-lovers would enjoy it – the melting goat cheese and sweetness from the salsa made a delicious flavor combination. We also shared a Mediterranean platter, which included the best Baba Ghanoush I’ve ever had. Plus they had organic beer and wine, so there was something for the non-tea drinkers.

Another great food experience was the breakfast we had on the way home. We left the hotel early, so didn’t stop for breakfast until we hit Wendell – about 20 minutes north of Twin Falls. We saw a Phillips 66 with a big sign that said “Farmhouse Restaurant“, and figured it was a good time to stop and fill up our bellies and the gas tank.

What a great decision! The food was excellent. I had an omelette that was cooked in the classic French manner – a beautifully thin, tender layer of just-barely-cooked egg tri-folded over its filling. Trust me, it’s an incredibly difficult thing to master. The waiter (great service, BTW) recommended the Basque Sheepherder’s bread for the toast – and was that ever delicious! It’s moist and tender on the inside, a bit crispy on the outside, and comes in huge loaves baked in a large dutch oven. (You could buy the loaves of bread, and if we’d had the room, I would have.) They make French Toast with the bread, which I’d love to try if we go there again. The two slices of toast that came with my breakfast would have been more than enough by themselves – each piece was practically the size of a dinner plate, and about an inch thick.

I got a big kick out of this car in the parking lot. Obviously the best people know this is the place to go.

The recipe calls for a 12″ sloped-sided skillet that is oven-safe to 450F. Since mine are not oven-safe to that temperature, I used a 12″ fry pan with straight sides, and it worked fine. Definitely do not try to use a smaller pan.

Finding myself with a bounty of veggies, none of which came from my own pathetic garden (unless you count the handful of cherry tomatoes I scarfed down while making the rest of the dinner), I made a totally-veggie dinner.

Yellow and green beans (from my CSA), blanched and tossed with olive oil and lemon juice; yellow crook-neck squash sauteed in olive oil with garlic and chopped basil (all courtesy of Margene), then topped with grated shredded Parmesan cheese*; and finally, some wonderfully sweet fresh creamed corn (CSA).

I guess I should have saved some of those cherry tomatoes to throw on the plate for a bit of color contrast.

Do you think a dinner of nice healthy vegetables will make up for the bowl of home-made chile verde I scarfed down for lunch?

In other assorted news… something very strange and mysterious may be going on at my house. And it’s neither yellow nor green.

* Oh Costco, Costco… why have you stopped selling grated Parmesan cheese? No, shredded does not substitute well in all recipes, as it doesn’t melt the same way. It turns my Parmesan-crusted Halibut into a gooey mess. Besides, I can shred it or shave it myself – I can’t grate it like the commercial graters.

Tonight we had the Mediterranean Vegetable. Add an inexpensive “pizza wine” (we had Bogle Petite Syrah, purchased on sale), and you’ve got a cheap dinner for two that will make you think you’re in Italy. Well, maybe not quite… but still, it’s pretty darn good, and only around $10 including the bottle of wine. Not bad at all.

No artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives. Tonight we had the Mediterranean Vegetable, which was quite tasty, but I think my favorite so far is the Sicilian Vegetable. I also tried the Four Cheese, but that one didn’t wow me.

Since I had so many serviceberries (also known as Juneberries, Saskatoon berries or shadberries), I figured I needed to find a recipe that would use more of them than the yummy serviceberry muffins I made last time. I’ll probably make those too – they were sooo good and I have plenty more berries.

Snooping around the Internet (I even found out how they got all those different names), I found this recipe for Saskatoon Pie.

Instead of making a double-crust pie, I just made a single crust for the bottom, and used a crumb topping (1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar, with 1/3 cup cold butter cut in until it’s crumbly). With that exception, I followed the recipe exactly.

Although serviceberries look like blueberries, they’re not really berries and instead are related to apples and pears. I find the flavor to be pretty pear-like, maybe with a bit of apple mixed in. I’d read that there’s also an almond flavor from the soft seeds inside, but I had never really noticed that.

Until I made this pie.

What a surprise I had when I took my first bite! Although the texture was fruit pie, the flavor was sweet almond. I would swear that it had been made with ground almonds for the crust, or had almond extract in it – or maybe even a touch of marzipan. Oddly enough, although I love almonds, I despise marzipan – fortunately, although this sort of reminded me of marzipan, it didn’t have quite that flavor.

The fruit flavor was minimal – mostly just in the sweetness. If I made an almond torte that had thin layers of apple jelly in it, this is a lot like I would expect it to taste.

I’m not sure if the pie normally tastes like this, or if the almond flavor was more intense because my berries were extremely ripe and the seeds were large. You can pick the berries when they’re red, or wait until they turn purple. I don’t really notice much difference in flavor between the red and purple ones, but the seeds get larger as the berries mature. The ones I picked were really ripe and dark purple, since I was out of town the weekend I would normally have picked them.

It’s very good – but it’s pretty weird when your eyes say blueberries and your mouth says almonds.

With this flavor, I think maybe the berries would be really good made into a fruit crisp or Brown Betty.