One of our friends commented to us that they’d chosen not to go because it costs $5, but trust us, we made sure we got $5 worth of food samples.  The Garlic and Herb Festival is so much more than garlic and herbs (though they’re definitely present).  This year, Brian and I sampled cheese, dips, olive oil, vinegar, pickles, sausage, beer and more.  We skipped the maple liquor and the garlic fudge this year, but did head home with fudge, beer and some gifts for family members.

I think this might become a tradition.

The afternoon, in pictures:

Related posts:

1. 5 Things I Learned at the Garlic Festival
2. Fun with Garlic Scapes
3. Rachael Ray's "Turkey Turnovers"

Nevertheless, it’s not a bad idea to remind myself of some ways to save money, especially since my income will be unpredictable for the foreseeable future, even if I start subbing again (which I probably will soon).

2 money saving posts from The Kitchn: The Best Bakeware Under $20 and 10 End of Summer Bargains for Your Kitchen.

21 Ways to Reduce Your Spending Without Making Your Life Miserable (Simple Dollar)  There are a lot of food related ideas on this list, but there are plenty of ways to save money outside of the kitchen, too.

It’s finally cooled off around here, but this list will save you money and sweat:10 Oven Tips that Cut Costs and Keep You Cool (Unplggd).

One of my non-food reads, Fabulously Broke in the City, is a great source for thoughts on budgeting, income and saving money.

In unrelated news, The Healthy Living Summit videos have been posted! I’m really looking forward to watching the sessions I didn’t attend…and re-watching the ones I did!

(Almost) Every Sunday, I choose a theme and highlight blog posts, websites and news articles from my Google Reader which I found interesting (and hope you do too!) If you want more reading, check out “What I’m Reading” on my sidebar.  And don’t forget to add Relishments to your reader or like Relishments on Facebook!

Related posts:

1. Highlights: Convenience
2. Highlights: Cheap Food
3. Highlights: How To

Everyone likes butter and fat and sweet treats.  But unlike some people I know, I haven’t cut them out of my diet.  Just because we don’t really eat meat, it doesn’t mean we don’t eat cookies.  Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules, says “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.”.  It may be my favorite rule in the book.

I love making baked goods and comfort food.  And I’m not giving them up any time soon.

Two of my all time, absolute favorite food bloggers are Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, and Deb Perelman of smitten kitchen.  Sorry I’m Not Sorry.

What sorts of recipes do these lovely women post?  From their “About” pages:  ”A lot of comfort foods stepped up a bit” (Deb) and “… all the cowboy-friendly dishes I’ve taught myself to cook through the years. There’s butter involved.” (Ree).   Their recipes are amazing and I’m going to continue making them.

That’s right:  no substitutions, agave, stevia, vegan cheese or fake butter here.  Just like grandma made ‘em.

So, with that said:

Wednesday I made Deb’s snickerdoodles.  It’s  the same recipe I used last September when I was out of work, which makes me wonder if they’re the official cookies of my unemployment.  Anyway, they’re awesome.  And I didn’t bother to halve the recipe.

Yesterday I made Mac and Cheese…and Panko a la Ree for dinner.  We ate about a third of it, and I expect the rest won’t last long.  The tomatoes make the dish.  (That’s summer squash in the background, I know it’s hard to tell.)  I hadn’t made mac and cheese for awhile and it’s so good!  By the way, once you start cooking for yourself, the stuff in the box with the powdery orange “cheese” doesn’t taste so great.

This morning I made the Peach Shortbread from smitten kitchen, for no other reason than it appeared in my Reader, I love peaches, we had peaches that were past their prime, and I didn’t have any other plans for the day.   There aren’t too many things I like better in this world than peaches or shortbread, so the recipe struck me as pretty genius.  Did I mention I’ve got time on my hands?

How do we do it?

We love our freezer, for one thing.  The cookies are hanging out there and we’re taking out a few every day to eat-a little trick I learned from my mother-in-law.  It’s the perfect way to always have fresh cookies.  Moderation still matters (but you knew that).

And I don’t always cook like this, only when I actually get some free time (thanks unemployment!).  Soon it’ll be back to vegetable soup, rice and beans, and pasta with tomato sauce.  But sometimes life (and meal planning) need a change of pace.  And I’m not going to not avoid posting something delicious because it’s not “healthy”.

I asked Brian the other day if we could open a bakery (because it’s as much about the creation as it is about the eating).  He said no.  So I guess I’ll just keep making things for the two of us.

I love making baked goods and comfort food.  And I’m not giving them up any time soon.

Related posts:

1. Ultimate Recipe Showdown: Comfort Food
2. Baked Panko Breaded Haddock
3. Wordles Have Little To Do With Food

A few weeks ago I needed to use up some zucchini and summer squash. (I know I’m not the only one with that problem.)  This 3-step recipe for a Summer Squash and Ricotta Galette from Serious Eats seemed like a nice change of pace from our standard pizza/calzone routine.

Two problems:

1. I’d never made a galette before and it looked a little tricky.
2. I have this thing about buying premade pie crust: I won’t do it. Why buy something you can make yourself?

So, I followed the link to the original Smitten Kitchen recipe (have I mentioned I love the internet?) and grabbed the pastry instructions.  This was the ultimate, beautiful, final result:

A few things to note:

1. It’s not that hard.  This was my first galette.  My first experience with this dough recipe.  It turned out fine.  If you’ve made any sort of dough before (pizza, cookie, pie), you can do this.  I think you get a lot of visual “bang” for your time and effort “buck”.  And I think the more I make this recipe, the more attractive it will become.
2. My Pastry Cutter is my friend.  I don’t know what I did without it (oh yes, made mediocre shortbread).
3. This recipe takes time.  If you make your own crust (and why wouldn’t you????), it needs to hang out in the fridge for at least an hour.  Baking the galette takes another 30-40 minutes.   So, you need to plan ahead if you want to make this.  At the same time, most of the time needed is unattended.
4. The crust is flaky, buttery, amazing and addicting.  Consider yourself warned.
5. The recipe is supposed to serve 6.  In our house, it was more like 2.  It was that good (and we were that hungry?)

Fast forward to a couple weeks later:

I stumble upon this recipe for Zucchini and Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Parmesan Tart on Closet Cooking.  It looks pretty darn delicious.

One problem: I have this thing about buying premade puff pastry dough: I won’t do it (this time because I think it’s over-priced).

Solution: make another galette:

The same Smitten Kitchen crust, filled with the ingredients from the Closet Kitchen recipe.  So good.  Making the dough the second time was even easier than the first and I thought it was better looking. too.

Employment Update:

So…I didn’t get the job.  I’ve recovered pretty well from the initial shock and, instead of the first day of school I was looking forward to, I’m spending the day reorganizing my recipe binder (a “summer” project), baking cookies, cleaning up the apartment, perhaps doing some behind the scenes blog work, watching Veronica Mars on Netflix and pondering what my next move might be.  Last year, despite initial unemployment, I was working everyday starting in October.  Things have a habit of working out, even if not the way initially planned.

Related posts:

1. Delicious Bowl of Mush
2. (Almost) No Waiting Pizza
3. Rhubarb Pie, In The Summer…

First, get in the mood by reading “The Annual Hunt for Perfectly Ripe Peaches” on The Atlantic.

The Atlantic also has a fairly lengthy post about canning peaches.  I still haven’t gotten up the guts to try canning, but if I was going to can something, peaches might be it.

Next, move on to the recipes, starting with Ruth Reichl’s warm peach cobbler.

Cynthia has a recipe for grilled fruit quesadillas.    Fruit, almond butter, cinnamon?  These may be happening sooner rather than later in our house, especially since I just bought a whole mess of tortillas.

If you’re feeling adventurous (frying scares me), perhaps you should make these Beer-Battered, Deep-Fried Donut Peaches as seen on Sixpoint (via the Kitchn; also seen on Mark Bittman’s site)

2 possible winners from Salon: tart and sexy peach relish and spicy and nutty peach crisp.  Oh fruit crisps, why are you so good?

What’s (possibly) better than fruit crisp?  Peach Amaretti Crumble from Closet Cooking.

Serious Eats has posted a Galette of White Peaches and Tomatoes.  I’m in the midst of a love affair with galettes (recipe links coming, I promise!)  I’m not sure where I’d get the heirloom tomatoes, but it’s definitely an idea I’m holding on to.

Oh, and because it’s completely necessary:

Any perfect peach preparations out there that I missed?

(Almost) Every Sunday, I choose a theme and highlight blog posts, websites and news articles from my Google Reader which I found interesting (and hope you do too!) If you want more reading, check out “What I’m Reading” on my sidebar.  And don’t forget to add Relishments to your reader or like Relishments on Facebook!

Related posts:

1. Highlights: How To
2. A Busy Week on the Web: Highlights from My Reader
3. Highlights: Cooking with Produce

But the problem with buying kale is that then you have a ton of kale.  But it wasn’t really a problem, I had the perfect soup recipe to use it up (I’m so glad it’s been cool enough to make soup again).  But in order to be perfect, the recipe needed hot Italian sausage.   Just a few weeks ago, I wrote that, if and when we purchased meat again, we’d  ”buy it from one of the local farms so we know where its coming from and how the animals were treated.”  Of course, at that time I hadn’t actually bought meat for months.  It’s funny how “normal” being meat-free has become.  And so, last Thursday, I bought my first locally, humanely raised meat.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it wasn’t much more expensive than the natural (but probably not humane) sausage at the supermarket.  In addition to being really, really delicious, the soup didn’t seem to be as greasy as it’s sometimes been in the past when I’ve used supermarket sausage.

Obviously, you can make this soup with any kind of hot Italian sausage.  In fact, sweet sausage would probably work fine too.   The original recipe claims to model Olive Garden’s Zuppa Tuscana, but I don’t think it does.  You can find more accurate ones online.  Nevertheless, it’s really good.

Spicy Sausage, Potato and Kale Soup

5.5 cups chicken stock

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 medium potatoes, cubed (or the equivilent…I used six red potatoes because we had them)

4 cups chopped kale

1 lb. Italian sausage

1. Cut the sausage into 1″ pieces and cook them in a skillet until cooked through.  Remove from the heat and set aside.
2. Meanwhile, combine the stock and cream in a saucepan and cook over medium heat.
3. Add the potatoes and kale to the soup.
4. When the sausage has cooled, cut the slices into “soup sized” pieces.  It’s really all a matter of preference, but the smaller you cut them, the more sausage it seems like there is.  Add the sausage to the soup.
5. Let the soup simmer until the potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally.

Serves 4 as a main dish.

…and we still had kale left over to freeze.

Related posts:

1. Sunday's Dinner: Potato, Spinach and Artichoke Soup
2. Satisfying Soup and Amazing Biscuits
3. Pumpkin Obsession: Soup

Of course, the blogs are all about back to school, because what’s more important than school lunch?  In the past I’ve posted about the issues surrounding school lunches (here and here) and as a teacher who’s into food, it’s still something I’m really interested in.  This post, however, is about going back to school with your own breakfasts, lunches and snacks.

Getting out the door in the morning is not always the easiest thing.  Luckily, Tasty Kitchen has a collection of recipes for breakfast eggs in 20 minutes or less.  (Of course, this would be more appealing if the recent egg recall hadn’t turned me off of eggs, at least for the time being.  But that’s another story.)

Cheap Healthy Good has some interesting ideas about sharing costs and labor with a lunch buddy.  I’d be totally willing to bring in food for other people at school.  Then again, it’s Brian who does all the school lunch making around here, so I probably shouldn’t volunteer.

Mrs. Q on Fed up With Lunch is throwing a “Back-to-school Lunch Revolution Blog Party“.  If you have any interest in school lunch-related issues, you might want to check it out.  If I get my act together (unlikely), I might participate.

Epicurious posted a collection of “the latest and greatest in lunchtime fashions“.  There are some really cute lunchboxes on there.  I’m pretty partial to the Built bag my sister- and brother-in-law bought me for my college graduation.  I’ve used it to carry my lunch to work every day since (over 3 years) and it still looks brand new!  Epicurious also has a back to school guide featuring recipes, snacks, quick dinner ideas and more.

The Kitchn also has their list of the Top 3 Eco-Lunchboxes.

Jill Richardson asks “Senate Passes Child Nutrition Bill: Now What?” (on MarkBitman.com)

From Planet Green: 40 Healthy School Lunch Recipes to Make for Your Kids and Make “Real Food” Versions of These Popular Snack Foods (I may actually try some of these…)

Not going back to school?  Don’t worry.  Serious Eats has all you need to know to throw a lunch lady potluck. :)

What was your favorite school lunch?

(Almost) Every Sunday, I choose a theme and highlight blog posts, websites and news articles from my Google Reader which I found interesting (and hope you do too!) If you want more reading, check out “What I’m Reading” on my sidebar.  And don’t forget to add Relishments to your reader or like Relishments on Facebook!

Related posts:

1. School Lunch Links
2. On Alice Waters and School Lunches
3. School Lunches, continued

Because there are a million other HLS recaps out there, because I don’t think summaries of the sessions will do it justice, and because its already Thursday and I still haven’t finished recapping last weekend, I’ve decided to list the top 10 things I learned at HLS.

1.  Bloggers really are normal people. I like to think I’m a normal person, and I’m a blogger, but I was a little scared about meeting some of the better known and more popular bloggers.  The blogger I’m most in awe of?  Caitlin Boyle (full time blogger and author of Operation Beautiful).  Where did I meet her?  In line at Dunkin Donuts, getting breakfast.  She was totally cool and I realized at that moment that all of the HLS attendees were really cool.  We have a lot in common and there was no reason to be shy.

Me and Caitlin

2. “Close enough is good enough.” Christine Palumbo, our keynote speaker, shared “11 Tips for Healthy Eating and Feeling Fabulous”.  My favorite tip was that “close enough is good enough”.  I don’t have to be 100% perfect, 100% of the time.  If I can do 80% some days, that should be enough.  Sometimes I’m too hard on myself.  It’s okay if I don’t post my HLS recap until the following Thursday, at least I’m posting it at all.

3.  It’s okay to eat meat. Or not. Lots of healthy living bloggers are vegetarian.  Lots are vegan.  But not once did I feel like I needed to defend my choice to eat meat occasionally.  It’s just not that big a deal; it’s an individual choice.  And all of the food served at the summit was delicious and nutritious.  I’m still in awe of the fact that we had breakfast, lunch and 2 snack breaks between 8 and 4:00 on Saturday.  Delicious food, all the time?  That’s my kind of summit.

4. There’s nothing like being surrounded by people who take pictures of their food.   Brian knows better than to take a bite of his dinner before I’ve photographed it, and we really don’t eat out much, but it was still incredibly refreshing to be hanging out people who also think it’s normal to photograph their food.

5. Yoga pants and tank tops are the ultimate outfits. Another entry in the “this is my kind of summit!” category: the dress code.  It was decided a week or two before the summit  on Twitter that it was totally reasonable and acceptable to wear yoga pants.  Granted, I didn’t do any traditonal working out during HLS, but it was wonderful to be super comfortable (and I did walk all over Chicago!).

6. Stay epic. During one of our snack breaks (after snacking, of course), I dashed upstairs to get my copy of Operation Beautiful for Caitlin to sign.  Trust me, I was not the only dweeb doing so.  Anyway, that’s the inscription: “Stay epic” (Epic is Caitlin’s favorite word.)  What does epic mean? “surpassing the ordinary”.  Sounds like a plan.

7. I need to get more creative with my cream cheese. Sunday morning’s brunch, sponsored by Thomas’ Bagel Thins, featured a “make your own cream cheese” bar.  At first I thought this was kind of lame, but by the end of breakfast I’d decided it was the coolest thing ever.  There were a ton of mix-ins we could choose from to add to our cream cheese.  Our creations were mixed for us and, though they gave us a lot of cream cheese, I couldn’t help but use all of mine on my bagel thin.  My personalized cream cheese included smoked salmon, green onion and fresh tomato.  There’s no reason why I can’t replicate that at home.

"Make Your Own Cream Cheese" mix-ins

8.  It’s okay to walk.  Another item on my list of concerns: the Sunday morning fun run/walk.  Would I be the only one walking?  Once again, HLS proved my fears to be ridiculous.  Our fabulous walking group:

9.  I ♥ Swag.   I knew there was going to be free stuff at the summit.  I even planned ahead and brought an extra (empty) bag to pack it in.  But did I realize there was going to be this much stuff?  No, but I somehow got it all home anyway, minus the canned beverage and the bags of Doritos.  I’m so excited about trying everything.  (Disclaimer: I bought Operation Beautiful before going to Chicago.)

10.  The Healthy Living blogging community is amazing. As I already mentioned, everyone I met was wonderful: friendly, interesting, unique, beautiful.  I was really impressed when a card for Ashley, who couldn’t make it because of some health issues with her husband, began circulating.  Do I know Ashley?  No. Did I sign it?  Yes.  Because it’s immediately apparent that the Healthy Living community is incredibly supportive.  That, if I needed them to, they’d have my back, just like they had Ashley’s.

That said, there’s a new site to encourage the awesomeness of the HL blogger community:

Healthy Living Blogs is a new resource for the health blogging community. Created by Lindsey of Sound Eats, HLB is a site designed to enhance the positive community of the healthy living blog world. Bloggers and readers can explore the site and find more blogs to love, bloggers in their area, and forums to deepen healthy discussion and support. If you’re interested in having your site listed on HLB, simply send the following information to healthylivingblogs@gmail.com and check the site out for yourself!

• Email subject line: MEMBERS
• Any specific labels (i.e. vegan, gluten-free, weight loss, running, etc.)
• Your name (please share if you prefer to go by first name, first and last, or however you prefer to be known on the Internet)
• Blog Name
• Blog URL (please start with http://, not www.)
• Your twitter handle, if applicable
• Your location (if you prefer not to disclose this information for privacy’s sake, that is completely understandable. We’ll simply include your blog listing in the A-Z listing, not by location, too)

Chicago was fabulous, the summit was fabulous.  I’m already looking forward to next year!

Like this post? Share it!

Related posts:

1. Pregaming (HLS Recap #1)
2. Frito-Lay and a Cocktail Party (HLS Recap #2)
3. 5 Things I Learned From CSA-ing

After 3 hours on the bus (our driver got a little lost), we arrived at the plant and split into 2 groups.  First we all heard a presentation about the changes that FritoLay’s Beloit plant has made to make their factory more ecologically friendly, as well as the many awards they have won for doing so.  It was definitely interesting, and made me feel a little better about big food companies.

My group toured the plant first.  The lovely folks from Ketchum (Frito-Lay’s Public Relations) took a ton of awesome photos for us (we weren’t allowed to bring cameras).  I thought I slide show might be slightly less overwhelming:

We started out the tour by donning safety goggles, earplugs and hairnets, as well as using lint rollers and walking through an air shower.  This was no ordinary “factory tour”-we were on the floor of the plant, meeting employees, checking out the equipment and tasting chips right off the line.  It was really cool; who doesn’t like to see things being made?

After our tour, we headed to lunch.  One of the best things about the Healthy Living Summit was knowing that the food was always going to be good.  Clearly, this was no exception.

As we ate, we enjoyed another presentation about the nutrition of Frito-Lay products from Kate Wilson, a RD who works for Frito-Lay.  It was really fascinating to hear about all the changes they’ve made to their products.  Frito-Lay regular potato chips only have 3 ingredients: potatoes, oil and salt.  Also, the amount of sodium in many Frito-Lay products aren’t as high as we often assume.  Click the second image to enlarge the slide featuring sodium levels in common snacks and foods.

All that said (and the presentations were fairly persuasive), I feel better about eating Frito-Lay products, but know that they’re still not the world’s perfect snack food.  Big food companies may be doing a lot of good, but they’re also doing a lot of damage.  There was much discussion about why the Healthy Living summit was checking out Frito-Lay, both before and after the tour.  Heather wrote an excellent post on her blog,  “Side of Sneakers”, which details more about the information in the presentations.

I feel less guilty about eating the occasional potato chip now, which is good, because we all left the Frito-Lay plant with a big bag of free Frito-Lay products.

We left the plant and headed back to Chicago on the bus.  Again, the 2 hour trip was lengthened, this time due to Chicago traffic.  Someone had the genius idea to convince the bus driver and the Ketchum people to drop us off at an L stop so we could take the subway into the city.  I’ll let you imagine what over 20 people with big red bags full of chips running through the train station looked like.  Somehow, we all made it onto the crowded subway and back to the hotel by 6.  6:00 was, of course, the time the cocktail party (and official HLS kickoff) was supposed to start.  I quickly changed my clothes and headed out the door.

The OpenSky sponsored Cocktail Party was fun. Most of the HLS attendees were there and I spent the evening introducing myself to lots of people, both total strangers and bloggers I regularly read. It was a little hot and crowded, and the music a bit too loud for real networking, but I enjoyed myself. The photographer from Oroweat and Arnold Bread (another sponsor of HLS) took amazing photos, imbedded below. I really like the one of me and my roommate, Nicole (the second picture in the slide show).

I headed back to the hotel around 9 pm, in a cab with 5 other girls (apparently Chicago cabbies don’t care).  It was a bit of an early night, but the official summit was the next day and I wanted to be well rested.

Related posts:

1. Pregaming (HLS Recap #1)
2. 10 Things I Learned at the Healthy Living Summit (HLS Recap #3)
3. Highlights: Travel

HLS activities didn’t begin until Friday night, but when I discovered that the Healthy Living Summit was going to be in Chicago, I’d immediately contacted my friend Kirstin, who lives a couple hours outside the city, to see if she wanted to hang out.  She said yes, so I flew out of Albany on Wednesday.  While waiting in the airport, I decorated all of the bathrooms with Operation Beautiful notes.

After much debate over cost, ease and economic impact, I took a cab from O’Hare to the Congress Plaza Hotel.  After about half an hour of sitting in traffic and watching the meter go up, I concluded that I probably should’ve taken the “L”.  Oh well, you live and learn.  It took a while, but I made it to the hotel without a hitch.

A couple hours later, Kirstin arrived.  We wandered around the city for a little while and settled on Qdoba for lunch, because we’re cheap and they offer vegetarian options.  After dinner we headed to The Back Room, a tiny live music club of the sort I’d never go to by myself.  But that’s what friends like Kirstin are for.  The music was great and we had a lovely time.

Thursday morning was spent eating breakfast at the Artist’s Cafe (delicious!) and  shopping (Chicago had surprisingly good stores, though I managed to save my money).  After lunch we headed to Oak Park to tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio.  I was beyond excited about this trip; I’ve been borderline obsessed with Frank Lloyd Wright since I saw an exhibit of his furniture in 2007.  It made my day when Kirstin asked if I wanted to go-I’d initially thought it was too far out of town.  The house was fabulous-everything (windows, furniture, molding, ceilings, art) was intentional and well designed.  Highly recommended.

Thursday night, Kirstin earned more major friend points by accompanying 14 of the HLS attendees and myself to Raw, a raw food restaurant in the French Market.  It was the first time I’d gotten to meet any of the girls, including my roommate and it was really fun.  Organic, raw food isn’t usually my thing, but the owners provided us with a whole bunch of samples of amazing food. I’m so glad that Diana organized it and invited us along!

Kirstin and I ended up sharing a bunch of food with Freya, including collard burritos, spaghetti and meatball, ravioli, and a garden burger.  Who knew raw vegan food could be so good?  Kind of mind blowing.

From Raw, we crammed more people than probably safe or legal into a cab and headed to the YumUniverse website launch party.  The party was hot and crowded, but there was free food and beverages (organic wine, acai spririts) and, best of all, free massages.  I wasn’t super impressed with the party (the lines for samples were so long!) but I just took a peak at the website and the recipes look delicious.  Check it out!

We headed home relatively early from the party and headed to bed.  The Healthy Living Summit hadn’t even started yet and I was having so much fun.  Stay tuned for my post about the Frito-Lay plant tour and the rest of my weekend in Chicago!

Related posts:

1. Frito-Lay and a Cocktail Party (HLS Recap #2)
2. 10 Things I Learned at the Healthy Living Summit (HLS Recap #3)
3. Highlights: Travel