sometimes life is enexpectedly rich. On birthday adams I was the happy and stuffed recipient of 9am texas sheet cake, 1pm gluten free vanilla blueberry super-fun do-it yourself cupcakes and 7pm chocolate birthday cake! On birthday eve I am going to have to get some exercise!
in our ongoing bid to cook through ‘wichcraft we made a steak sandwich last night. It wasn’t the usual beef and cheddar with onions but a fresh take on seared (I overcooked it a little) steak. It had a light salad of english cucumber and ginger topped with lime juice and a black chili mayo. I liked it fairly well other than the ginger which could have been sparser for my taste. The black chili mayo is pretty awesome! I was able to use our home roasted and ground ancho and guajillo chile powders.
love
luscious
limes
I think limes are lovely. Ranging from the rich tart green Persian limes to knobby skinned kaffir limes from Thailand to yellow key limes. Mostly the ones you find in the stores are Persians and are grown in Florida. I find lime complex, interesting and refreshing. In our house you can find limes in loads of different and diverse preparations. A few being Halloumi Cheese Salad with Lime Vinaigrette, Cuban Bistec de Palomilla, and of course, gin and tonics. Tonight we are having Kaeng Kai which is a Thai Massaman curry with fresh lime juice squozen on top.
a rather new Wycliffe tradition of an Orlando Summer Internship (OSI) for students considering missions and the work of Bible translation as a future option. The students (11 this year) spend their summer living and working in Orlando. They get some real behind the scenes work and service at Wycliffe and the program is highly anticipated and much loved for the youth, hope and vitality that it has. One of the things that the interns do is to ‘eat at a member’s’ (or non-member, as it were) home. This gives them a chance to have time to talk, learn more about more people doing the work and a meal. We had four interns (and a co-worker) over for supper last night. It was a good opportunity to 1. add an appetizer to dinner and 2. to back off from work duties to sit and talk in a non-work setting. It was interesting to watch the students interact with us and each other, to see their passion and definitely their youth as well. It’s not like I am all that old but there is a difference in those 15 or so years. Future leaders and innovators and co-workers? You never know.
We had to pull out a stop or two and made a super fun appetizer of chilled raspberry soup that was served in frozen shot glasses. This was impressive and fun. Cool and smooth on a 100 degree day.
For supper we had braised steak and gruyere sandwiches with roasted red peppers and onions out of Tom Colicchio’s book ‘wichcraft (an ongoing theme lately!) We almost all professed love or hate for peppers initially but they were pretty great with sweetness that was unexpected.
It was fun to sit and talk and only the cat and an allergy got us up from the table. I am looking forward to seeing what the interns will learn and bring as they travel this road.
Chilled Raspberry Soup (Ice Shot Glasses Optional)
(adapted from Betty Crocker)
4 cups raspberries
1/2 sugar
1/4 cup cranberry juice cocktail
1 cup plain greek yogurt
place raspberries, sugar and juice in a blender. Cover and blend on high speed until smooth.
pour raspberry mixture into a bowl and fold in yogurt. Cover and refrigerate until cold. Serve topped with additional yogurt or berries if desired.
there are a few things I want to tell you about this soup.
I will admit I didn’t read the recipe but bought the ingredients based on the photo in the blog. My cooking sometimes begins with my eyes.
My Urban Pantry 