Rosemary Lemonade and Grilled Summer Pasta w/Creamy Pesto Sauce

 Another summer monday morning! Right smack in the middle of summer, I love it!!!  I hope everyone had a great weekend and kept it cool.

Here are a few pic's from a hike we recently took.

  Dave and I rode our mountain bikes in this area last year and saw a turtle from the trail so we thought it would be nice to take Keaton and hike part of the stream going down the mountain and find more turtles.  Well, we found a little more than a turtle.

 

This here is a aquatic garter snake, we saw 3 of them.  They are harmless and we grew up with the ordinary garter snake.  They aren't very big and I think they are kind of cute!

This here is a western pond turtle.  This little guy blends in so well with the sand and rock, if he hadn't been laying in the water right in front of me it would have been hard to find him.    I love turtles!!!

We had a great time hiking.  It's such a nice way to spend as a family and we always find something new and we always get great pic's to remember it.

There's nothing like drinking homemade lemonade to cool yourself with on a warm summer day.

This is actually Rosemary Lemonade.  A cafe we go to offers a Rosemary Lemonade so I thought I would try my hand at it.  Keaton loved it and we gave some to Dave and didn't tell him what was in it but the first thing he said was "it smells like that bush by our front door."  He did say it tasted good.  

I don't have exact measurements but this is what I did.  I had some simple syrup made so I reheated it along with  3 large sprigs of fresh rosemary. (simple syrup is made by using equal parts sugar and water, heating it until the sugar dissolves and turns into a syrup).   I let the syrup with the rosemary sit off the heat for about 20min.  In a jar, I used a 32oz. jar and squeezed about 5 large lemons, we like it on the tart side.  Then I poured in the simple syrup and added water 2/3 of the way and topped off with ice.  Pour into a glass and enjoy!

For dinner last night we had Grilled Summer Squash with a creamytomato pesto sauce on pasta.  Grilled yellow summer squash is so juicy and buttery good tasting when you grill it.  Yum!  The sauce was so easy to make, flavorful, yet light on the palate.  A perfect summer pasta!  

Grilled Summer Squash Pasta

Cook up 1 package of pasta according to directions.  Set aside.

Grilled squash

1 Large summer squash, sliced

2 garlic cloves, minced

olive oil

Heat outside grill. In a small casserole dish add the summer squash, garlic and enough olive oil to coat.  Mix with your hand to evenly coat with oil.  You don't want to stick on the grill.  On medium heat add the squash slices and grill for about 10 min. then flip over for about 2-3min. more.  Take off grill and set aside.

Pesto tomato sauce:

   

4 X-tra large homegrown tomatoes(farmers market) or (storebought but homegrown are so sweet and juicy), chopped 

1 C. white wine or veggie broth(a light broth)

1/2 -3/4 C. basil pesto(I make my own

1/2 C. soy creamer or other non-dairy creamer 

3 red spring onions or green scallions

salt to taste

Heat a medium sized saucepan and add 1 T. olive oil.  Next add in chopped tomatoes.  Let simmer until tomatoes are soft and then add the 1 C. white wine or broth.  Let the white wine or broth reduce to half then stir in the pesto.  Next add in the creamer.  Once heated through take off heat and stir in the spring onions.  Set aside.

To plate, scoop some pasta into pasta bowl.  Pour some sauce onto pasta, add a few slices of grilled squash.  Drizzle a bit more sauce on squash and sprinkle with extra onions.  You can add some fresh cracked pepper over top if you choose.  Serve with a side of fresh green salad!

Ciao!

Supercharge Me Smoothie & GF Swiss Chard Pasta

I know some people like coffee to get them going in the morning.  Don't get me wrong, I have a cup or two in the morning myself but just  because I like the taste.  But you know what really gets me going is a Super charged up green smoothie.

Okay so it doesn't look so green but purple.  This smoothie contains, fresh spinach, mixed berries, mango, banana, flax, powdered greens, rice milk and organic cranberry.  You really can't taste the spinach or greens due to the fruit.  Every morning before Dave goes to work I make him a smoothie as well and I've been adding some greens or powdered greens and he hasn't said anything.  So unless he reads this he doesn't know!  So we'll just be quiet about this.

  You know that cute crate from a previous post that said Muir Glen on it, that my girlfriend gave me.  Well I opened it up and look at what I found!  There are 4 cans, one was a diced tomato, one is a newer item with adobe sauce(would be great in a chilli) and two cans were of two different types of RESERVE tomatoes.  Look how pretty the can is is and the photo.  It's like a bottle of expensive wine!  It came with a booklet describing the two varieties, Brigade and Yolo tomatoes.  Muir Glen reserved some land to grow a small crop of these two different varieties of tomatoes and it went so well they are going to use more land for 2010. 

I actually opened up the Brigade can of tomatoes, it was a hard decision cuz like I said the can is too beautiful.  On the other hand I couldn't wait to taste these tomatoes and see if they were truly as good as was described.  You know these tomatoes tasted wonderful!  You know how some tomatoes from a can are kind of acidic?  Non of that, these were kind of sweet but light at the same time.  Delish!   So anyways last night I used them in a sauce poured over GF pasta. 

Swiss Chard Sauce

1 medium onion, finely diced

4 garlic cloves, minced(or more if you like)

4 sage leaves, chopped

1 14.5 oz can tomatoes, tomatoes only(save the juice)

1 bunch swiss chard leaves, chopped

1/2 -3/4 C. White wine

olive oil

salt to taste

chopped walnuts for topping(optional)

Boil pot of water for pasta and cook according to directions.

 Meanwhile heat up a saucepan and add about 3 Tbs. olive oil and add onion, garlic,sage and dash of salt (the salt sweats the onion and you can use less oil this way).  Saute until onions are soft.  Next add in 1/2 c. white wine and let it reduce down.  Next add in tomatoes and cook through then add the rest of the white wine.  Next add in swiss chard and let it cook through.  Take of heat and I added more olive oil but you don't have to.  I topped off ours with chopped walnuts.

Enjoy!

pasta lunch....vegan cookbook recipe

This is the 'Hurry Up Alfredo' recipe from Vegan Yum Yum and yummy it is! Get the recipe here . This recipe is definitely more of an alfredo sauce more than a mac n' cheeze type. The family gave their thumbs up. It's so good it's hard to stop eating it! I added some white wine and fresh basil to my sauce. This would be a great hassle free meal to serve for those non-vegan guests, it's so easy and quick to make. Just serve it up with a nice vegetable, baguette and a vegan caesar salad. Wallah! A fabulous meal.

Happy Veganiversary!!!! Summer vegetable soup, and gluten free pasta with zucchini gratin

Happy 2 year veganiversary to my son! It was my 3 year veganiversary this summer but I forgot to post. Oh well now I have.

When we first moved to this area last year my son wanted to pet a cow. (There are many cow ranchs in the area with cows roaming all over the hills.) So almost every evening for a month or so we would drive to this one area and stop to visit the cows and talk to them, trying to lure them close enough to pet. This particular cow up above, my son not only got a chance to pet his head but the next day when we came back, he remembered my son.

The story is, we pull up the next evening and there is a group of cows by the fence. My son gets out and starts talking to the cows, grabs some grass and puts it through, trying to get one of them to get close while looking for the one he got close to the previous day. Well we were there for a while and you know they all have their personalities, one usually is the brave one and the others watch to see what he does, and some are very shy and run away but look back to see what's going on. It's really rather cute and enjoyable to watch. Anyways, so one cow is slowly getting closer to my son then next thing you know, we hear something, we look to our left and their is a cow running down the hill, through the other cows and comes up to my son. It was the same cow my son was able to pet from the previous day! It was an amazing sight to see. You had to be there. I hope you enjoyed this little story about an animal whom many view as food, but to us are very gentle, curious, and they each have a personality just like us.

Same cow another day!

I think I posted about using my zucchini's up in recipes, well here are another 2 that I used them in. This is just a nice summer soup with fresh corn, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, carrots and onion in a vegetable broth. Really nice for a cooler summer evening.

This is a DeBoles, rice, quinoa and amaranth pasta with a basil pesto sauce. On top I made the Pesto Zucchini Gratin from Karina's Gluten Free Goddess blog. The only addition was I made a small amount of a cheezy like sauce and drizzled some before baking it. My husband loved the gratin on a baguette.