Summer Optimism

That is one of the most optimistic sights of all of summer. Look at that sautee pan with those pretty home grown tomatoes. You can see that picture and know that you just eliminated the idea of a bacon tomato sandwich, but that you're ok with that decision. Tomatoes in olive oil...homemade pasta with meatballs, spinach and tomato orzo, summer chili, succotash, summer tomato aspic, oh it goes on forever!

One of the best parts of being in a small town is that our friends, Heath's patients, my dad's friends bring us produce plucked straight from their gardens. Most nights at my house have some kind of tomato based side dish. Last night we had tomato, spinach and asparagus orzo for dinner. Very light, very fresh and just yum.

But looking at that picture now...I'm almost ashamed I ruled out the bacon tomato sandwich. there's always tonight.

Father's Day at the Lake

As always, my sweet sister, Jennifer, hosted our family for a father's day at the lake. We swam! We sunburned! We grazed! Ok so we grazed until there was nothing left but crumbs and Rory winning the U.S. Open. Father's day at the lake seems to be our summer opener. It's been so horribly hot and dry around here, so I decided to keep things light as far as my contributions to the grand graze.

I should point out that I'm stuck on mango right now after my recent trip to NYC. After a couple of long days filled with smoke and meat and smoke and meat we snuck into Eataly for treats. My new personal anti-BBQ food is proscuttio and mango. I can't even begin to tell you how ridiculously awesome that place is. I won't try in this post.

I've digressed, as usual. Mango.

I made this fruit salad for my daddy and I want to hang on to this recipe in case I ever decide to diet. ha.


2 mangos diced
1 pint strawberries quartered
1 pint of raspberries
1 pineapple, cored and diced
1 cup of green grapes

Dressing: 1 cup of Sprite Zero, 2 tablespoons of honey, 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 5 chiffonade mint leaves. Pour dressing over fruit and allow to sit for at least an hour.

I watched my dad drink the juice from his paper plate when he thought no one was looking. This leads me to think that all this needed was the juice drained and a little vodka for a nice spritzer! This was really quick to throw together and really pretty to look at AND it was tasty to boot!