Peach Blueberry Bread

August is the best time for peaches. They are really at their prime and the really ripe ones don't cling to their pits making them perfect for all sorts of baking. Wilson Farm had an abundance of beautiful peaches as well as locally grown blueberries so I decided to combine the two into a bread. What better way to celebrate August?

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of sour cream
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla

10 tablespoons of butter mostly melted and cooled

2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 cup of blueberries
3 ripe peaches, peeled, pitted and chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine wet ingredients in one bowl and dry ingredients in another. Then mix them together and careful fold in the fruit.

Add to a greased loaf pan and bake in the oven for 45 minutes or until lightly golden. Let cool. Serve at room temperature. Enjoy!

Goose Valley Wild Rice - Wild Rice, Pork Chop & Leek/Corn Plate

Instead of a recipe, I thought I would create a plate using Goose Valley's Brown & Wild Rice Fusion. If you haven't developed a taste for wild rice, a wild rice pilaf or a fusion like this one is a great way to acclimate your taste buds to the unique flavor of wild rice. I loved this fusion because it was 100% whole grain and I felt good about eating brown rice and wild rice, where I usually just eat white rice.

The three different elements of this meal really complemented each other. The pork was salty and spicy with the cracked black pepper, the leek and corn with butter had a mild sweet flavor and everything was balanced out my the earthiness of the brown and wild rice fusion. I highly recommend you try it.

By the way, Goose Valley is on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure you follow them for updates on their products.

Goose Valley on Facebook

Goose Valley on Twitter

Ingredients:

Thin cut, boneless pork chops seasoned with salt & freshly cracked black pepper

2 leeks, halved and sliced and rinsed

3 ears of corn, grilled and kernels removed

2 tablespoons of butter

1 package of Goose Valley Brown & Wild Rice Fusion

Cook the Goose Valley Brown & Wild Rice Fusion per the instructions on the bag. Drain and set aside.

Heat up a pan with olive oil until it's sizzling hot. Add your seasoned pork chops and fry on both sides for 2-3 minutes. More if you like your chops crispy like I do.

In a small sautee pan, melt your 2 tablespoons of butter. Add your sliced leeks and cook at medium-low temperature until the leeks become soft. Stir in the corn and add salt to taste. Don't add pepper because it will disturb the balance of sweetness that the leeks, corn and butter provide.

Plate it all up and enjoy.

Flatbread Company & Sacco's

Sacco's Bowl Haven in Somerville, MA (Davis Square) received a complete makeover with the help of a local chain: Flatbread Company. In today's culture, we glorify mash-ups so the union of an old-fashioned candlepin bowling alley and a pizza joint that focuses on local ingredients seems to come at the perfect time. Normally, I'm opposed to this sort of thing considering I am an old-fashioned kind of gal but considering I highly respect the Flatbread Company and enjoy their food and I know that their union with Sacco's will help this local institution, I'm all for this renovation.

Lisa and I went to the new Flatbread/Sacco's on Friday. I was really impressed by how they transformed the billiard's room and half of the bowling lanes into a kitchen with a wood-fire oven and a dining area. The Flatbread Company is known for their open kitchens and visible oven so it was fun to watch them prepare our food while we waited. The renovation was really well down. A very modern yet retro look.

Lisa had the day's special: Stuffed Baked Potato Pizza. It had thin slices of potato, crispy bacon, thinly sliced scallions and a cross-hatch of sour cream. Lisa let me have a couple of slices and I must say it was divine. It is heavy though so chances are you'll be taking home leftovers.

I ordered my favorite Flatbread pizza: The Coevolution. Goat Cheese, Kalamata Olives, Roasted Red Peppers and Sliced Red Onions. So delicious. I do not like 3 out of the 4 ingredients but somehow on this pizza they all work. I had to stop myself from devouring the whole thing.

If you are in the Boston area, make sure you drop by Flatbread for some delicious pizza and some bowling to burn off the calories. Great thing about Flatbread is they have a great menu and they focus on using local ingredients whenever they can. You can feel good about eating here.

Bean & Hominy Salad

Hominy. Where have you been all my life? It's lucky that I refrained from devouring all of the delicious hominy I put into this salad because otherwise it would have just been a bean salad, sans hominy. Have you had hominy? I've never had it nor have I cooked with it. I wonder what other things I can do with it? This is a start of a beautiful friendship.

Ingredients:

15.5 oz can of Hominy (Goya)
15.5 oz can of Black Beans, rinsed
15.5 oz can of Red Kidney Beans, rinsed
1 cubanelle pepper chopped
3 small tomatoes seeded and chopped
chopped cilantro
juice of one lime
olive oil
salt, chili powder and cumin to taste

Mix your hominy, beans, peppers and tomatoes in a bowl. Add the salt, chili powder and cumin and toss. Then add the lime juice and olive oil and cilantro. Toss again. Serve chilled or at room temperature. Enjoy!

Bean and Hominy Salad