I found this recipe through Tastespotting last week and immediately determined that grilled bananas with chocolate would be an essential part of our weekend. It’s the simplest dessert imaginable — bananas stuffed with chocolate, then grilled. Just slice the length of the banana down to, but not through, the bottom, load with chocolate, and grill until the peel darkens and the chocolate melts.

We had bittersweet chocolate chips on hand, so that’s what I used, but I’m sure any chocolate you love would be great in this. Perhaps even, dare I say it, Nutella?

If you look closely, you can see where the juices are still sizzling between banana and peel. I’m sure this would be amazing over ice cream, but we enjoyed them scooped straight from the peel.

Oh, boy, do I ever love summer — buying berries by the quart doesn’t require a loan, and the best desserts are the simplest, like this blueberry and blackberry galette.

<Sigh> It actually makes me a little sad, knowing this will come to an end so soon. </Sigh> Guess I’ll just enjoy it while I can and take lots of pictures to tide me over during the long winter to come.

And hey, there’s always apple crisp season to look forward to!

recipe after the jump

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Hi, everyone. My apologies for the lack of frequent updates here, but the next two months are going to be just brutual at work, so you can expect short posts, and mostly on weekends. But I didn’t want to let much more time go by before I told you about our Italian weekend because it was that good.

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After the success of the grilled salmon with blueberry salsa, I decided to try my hand at a similar combination over the weekend — grilled shrimp with peach salsa. (The original plan was for pork and peaches, but we had dim sum Saturday, which pretty much topped off our pork tanks for the week.) And “meh” doesn’t even come close to describing it. I’m practically dozing off just writing about it now.

It was a good idea in theory — ripe peaches with brandy, cilantro, red onion, cumin, and jalapeno. What could go wrong? I blame the peaches, which were ripe and smelling quite peachy, but tasted like not much of anything, to be honest. I tried doctoring them with pineapple juice and a touch of brown sugar, but to no avail. The best parts of the salsa were the red onion and jalapeno, which do not a complete salsa make.

So it’s back to the drawing board. I’ll try the peaches at the market again this weekend to see if they’re better this time around, and if the weather cooperates, I’ll grill them, too. But perfecting this one’s going to take some work, I can tell…

“Your eyes are bigger than your stomach” was one of my dad’s favorite sayings — which never got old, by the way — when I was a kid. Of course, by the time I hit my teen years, that saying was defunct, as I became an eating machine and the “hollow leg” jokes started (which also never got old).

I still have issues with my eyes being too big, mostly when I visit the Ringwood Farmers’ Market on weekends. I know I won’t be cooking much during the week, but I just can’t help myself with all of that gorgeous summer produce on display. Surely I’ll find a way to use blueberries and cilantro and beets and tuscan kale (and about 10 other things) before next weekend, right?

Well, not always, or even usually. But last night I was determined to at least make a dent in last weekend’s haul, so I started researching recipes for salmon and blueberries and kept coming upon one that sounded promising and had the benefit of only requiring a quick stop at Garden of Eden for a jalapeno pepper and a grapefruit (both easily toted on the bus).

I gotta say, this salsa rawked! Assuming frozen blueberries were recommended for a reason, I used about 1/2 cup of frozen and supplemented with about a cup of fresh, but otherwise stuck to the recipe. I’d like to replace the grapefruit with pineapple next time to sweeten it up a bit more, but this version was so good Gil and I dug into the leftovers with a spoon.

I grilled the salmon (and the asparagus, now that I think about it) with nothing more than a slick of olive oil to keep them from sticking to the grate, but the blueberry salsa and a sprinkling of fleur de sel knocked ‘em out of the park.

I’ll keep the fruit salsa solution in mind for this weekend. Pork loin with peach and basil salsa doesn’t sound half bad, and I think they’re still pretty good after only a week in the fridge…

recipe after the jump

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This only reflects my most recent posts, but I’m still pretty happy that the word “ribs” is the largest in this word cloud.

Image courtesy of Wordle.

After taking off exactly three days so far this year, I decided to treat myself to another luxurious vacation day and thus enjoy a wonderfully long holiday weekend. Gil’s been working from home since last week, so we slept in (by our standards), walked Rufus, and puttered around for a bit before I even considered being productive. Not inclined to waste the day cleaning, I got in cooking mode and treated myself to a nicer breakfast than my usual weekday cereal or egg sandwich — multigrain waffles with blueberries and maple syrup.

Yeah.

I modified an old favorite recipe for the waffles, leaving out the cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla, then tossed in two handfuls of fresh blueberries. To keep it simple, I just topped the waffles with a little butter, more blueberries and a drizzle of maple syrup before quickly taking the obligatory pictures and devouring my breakfast.

And then there was cleaning, followed by some work, but the day was redeemed by the “grilled everything” lunch.

Being a congenitally lazy person who relishes her cool house in summertime, I refused to stand around cooking in a hot kitchen on my day off (woohoo!), so I did a little experiment to see just how much of our meal I could cook on the grill. Turns out that would be every single thing. A grass-fed ribeye was a no-brainer slathered with avocado oil and a little salt. Two minutes of grilling per side produced a nice, rosy medium steak. (I’m usually a medium-rare girl, but had no trouble overlooking the lack of blood in such an otherwise-delicious hunka beef.)

We had several grilled sides which really were the focus of the meal, so maybe “sides” isn’t the term to use, but hey. It’s already there and I don’t feel like editing. First up, we had kale tossed with olive oil and salt that was grilled in a basket then tossed with a little sherry vinegar. I dug out some new potatoes and grilled them in a foil packet with spring onions and garlic, avocado oil, salt and pepper. Once they were done, I added a handful of chopped herbs (thyme, rosemary, and chives) from my balcony garden. And to finish off the meal, some baby carrots tossed in olive oil and salt and grilled until slightly charred on the outside and just short of soft inside.

And then we locked Rufus in his cage and feasted.

Have a safe and happy 4th, everyone! I hope your day is filled with grilled meats and delicious beverages.

For the record, my husband’s the one who enjoys dressing the dog in human clothing.

I’ve finally accepted that I’ll never get around to writing the posts that have been sitting in my drafts folder, so here’s a mish-mash of images with no coherent thread. Enjoy!

Yum. My chive plant resurrected itself this year and before I knew it, there were loads of gorgeous blossoms on my balcony.

Found some colorful rainbow chard and spring garlic at the first farmers’ market of the season, so I threw together a quick chard agro dolce with balsamic vinegar and dried cherries. The salmon was coated with grainy dijon and topped with panko bread crumbs before I seared it on the stove.

Saw this gorgeous orchid (I think) on one of Rufus’s early morning walks.

Another neighborhood sight.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed the late afternoon sun streaming through a drinking glass, making beautiful designs on the kitchen counter.

Salt-roasted pink potatoes. Salt roasting is much easier than I thought, so I’ll definitely try this out with a whole fish sometime.

Red quinoa…

Wonderful over baked eggs.

You see the funniest sights heading into the city.

And I aim to please. With gorgeous weather predicted for this Memorial Day weekend, I knew I’d have to break out the smoker, and what better way to kick off the summer than with a 7 1/2-pound pork butt?

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