Jesus Has a New Paper Boy

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Deakie pinned his ears back when he was the most happy, and the most proud.
Good boy, Deak.

It is with a broken heart that I regretfully announce that Deacon D. Dawg left this life on Friday morning, while I was out of town, visiting with friends in Atlanta, and while the kids were out of town at a youth retreat.

Deakie Boy experienced a severe breathing crisis just after Mother's Day Weekend in May, but rallied in such a remarkable fashion right there in the vet's office, that he became known by the staff as The Miracle Dog of our little berg. Since that dramatic episode two and a half months ago, he has been in a gradual decline. As I have watched his decline these last 77 days, I can't tell you how dark the cloud over my head has been. In part, the darkness has been due to watching the decay of Deakie's health and his diminishing ability to get around without lapsing into a breathing crisis. But in part my pain has been the dread of not knowing how fast, or how slowly, the end would come. It's come from the uncertainty of when and how Deakie would depart this life, yet the certainty that he and I were both in a very dark tunnel, and I would likely be the one emerging, without him.

It's been a long goodbye.

He was 12 years old, a good old age for a Labrador. He lived joyfully down to the last few hours of his life. My sweet husband has been saying to me ever since Deakie's health crisis began,  that we would know when it was time for him to go. He tells me that Deacon's suffering was such during that last night of his life, that it was plain to see that it was, indeed, my buddy boy's time.

My husband says that for my sake, and for the kid's sake, he is glad that the kids and I were all gone, because the last night was very, very difficult. He knows how I have grieved and suffered with Deakie through this time. Perhaps it is for the best that I wasn't there. But right now, I don't know. I struggle with mixed feelings of both regret, and relief, as I grieve the loss  of my doggie. I wish I could have been there not only for Deakie, but also for my husband.

I prayed several times over the last couple of months in regard to his departure, that the Lord would allow it to somehow be sweet, and we believe that prayer was answered. Some dear friends of ours who owned one of Deakie's littermates, and who love Deakie very much,  "happened" to be at the vet's when my husband took him to be put to sleep, and so they were able to be with him as he was being euthanized. My girlfriend told me that she and her son laid their hands on Deakie, and loved on him, and that her son climbed up in the back of the car and sat with him, doing exactly what my son would have done had he known, and had he been able to be there.

Another dear friend helped my husband dig Deakie's grave,  out by our overlook. So, Deakie's remains rest high on that mount, as it were. My husband picked a lovely spot outside the fence line, the place where Deakie's nose always wanted to take him.

He was the best bad dog we ever had, and I loved him with all my heart and soul. He raced to the food bowl every meal of his life, gobbling his kibble with Labradorian joy and abandon.  He battled the beaver and the snapping turtle. He warned my dear husband of the copperhead that was lying in wait under the grill, and saved my barefooted man from an awful injury. He was a plastivore in his puppydom, a fluffy walrus-like throw rug in his senior years, and a fur dispenser every day of his life. He delivered the paper faithfully, every Saturday and Sunday, come rain or come shine. And while I doubt that the Lord really NEEDS a newspaper, He might just get a subscription, to make my doggie's heaven complete.

That'll do, Deak. That'll do.

Good boy.

Re-framing the Period Discussion

Pin It I was talking lately with some moms of tweens, and a couple of them mentioned that they are kind of dreading the discussion that they'll need to be having soon with their daughters, in regard to the changes that a girl's body goes through at puberty. They were especially not looking forward to talking with their daughters about getting their period.

It's interesting,  I think,  that for some of us, the hardest part of having a period discussion with our daughters,  is actually the discussion we need to have inside our own heads, first, as mothers.

My daughter, in the middle,
with a couple of her besties.

Some of us see our daughter getting her period as a farewell to little girlhood. And, in a way, it kind of is. The passing of time can be so poignant, so bittersweet, even.


But as mothers, the things we say to ourselves on this issue can either paralyze us, cripple us, or enable us to offer our daughters the best perspective possible, while building our relationship with them, all at the same time.

As mothers, we are the chief role model in our young daughter's lives, and so how we approach this topic really does set the tone for how our daughters will think about it, themselves. Will they see that we are embarrassed, and attach shame or fear to it? Or will they see the wonder and the beauty that are inherent in the way our bodies were designed? And will they learn positive ways to approach navigating the difficulties that are inherent in the process? As mothers, we set the tone!

Have you ever taken a print to a frame shop, and tried to find the perfect frame for it? The perfect frame can take the same picture, and change it from "blah" to "Awesome!". The picture itself hasn't changed. But the frame changes the way you see everything!

When you spend a little time in advance thinking about how you want to have the period discussion with your daughter, you get a chance to pick out the perfect frame! This frame will influence how you  present the information, and how your daughter will perceive the information.


So, when thinking about having a discussion with your daughter regarding her first period, if you find yourself grieving the loss of your daughter's little girlhood, know that that is a perfectly normal, understandable feeling.  Watching a season of life begin to come to an end is a loss, so talk about those feelings with a friend, or with a group of girlfriends. You'll discover you're not the only one who's ever felt that way. Then, once you've unloaded those feelings,  you'll be ready to approach the discussion with your daughter in a different way.

To re-frame having this discussion for you, a little bit, I'd like to encourage you to take the long view of the discussion/discussions that you're about to embark on as a mother. Assuming she doesn't die, your daughter WILL grow up. That's a fact of life. For you as her mother, this is a milestone in your daughter's journey toward adulthood. What kind of role do you want to have in her life? Do you want, ultimately, for her to view you trustworthy, and as a reliable source of accurate information and wise advice? Do you want her to view you as her ally, and ultimately, by the time she reaches adulthood, as a true friend? These discussions are a golden opportunity for you to speak into her life, and build your relationship with her. Make the most of it!

You may remember that I mentioned in an earlier article that my mother never discussed the topic of my period with me, so I actually had no real-life role model on which to base my discussions with my own daughter. Another wrinkle in the process for me was that my daughter  is very private with her feelings. I knew that if I pushed too hard, I would push her away. In retrospect, I was very much this way with my own mom when I was a teen, so I could really relate to the feelings of embarrassment and shyness that my daughter demonstrated when personal topics came up. 

I'd encourage moms thinking about this topic to go ahead and open the dialog early, and take it in small doses, especially if your daughter is a shy one about private matters. First, you never know exactly when your daughter will get her period, and you certainly want to talk about it BEFORE she gets her period . If you begin these conversations early, before your daughter is ready to start her period, then discussing her body and the way it functions will not be a completely foreign topic of conversation. As your daughter matures, the conversation itself should evolve into becoming more concretely factual and detailed.

As you think about  how you'll approach this topic, think back to some of your own experiences from when you were your daughter's age, What questions did you have? Where did you take those questions? What do you wish you had known, or wish had been handled differently for you? It seemed surreal to me as an adolescent that my Mom could ever have been my age, but when she told me stories from when she was a girl, I found them to be quite revelatory! Thinking of my Mom as a girl who had to grow up, who didn't always know all the answers, who struggled to find her way? These kinds of stories helped me to feel closer to my Mom, and to know her better. This is one of those paradoxical situations where sharing a weakness can actually strengthen a relationship.

Again, I can't recommend strongly enough the American Girl book, The Care and Keeping of You, as a helpful tool for facilitating this discussion. The information is sound, but presented in a very kid-accessible format. The illustrations are friendly and light hearted. The chapters are divided into information regarding personal hygiene from head to toe, quite literally. I think this book is a perfect resource for a Mom to hold in her lap, and read and discuss with her Tween.

Another awesome resource is this page on the Kotex website. It offers helpful information and thoughtful ideas to help you prepare for the talk. It also has great tools you might want to take advantage of, like a calendar with facts about puberty, questions your daughter may ask, and different ways that might help you decide how you'd like to start the conversation.  You should check it out! 

The U by Kotex website  is another awesome resource, for when a tween would like to do a little research on her own, and, statistically, 50% of girls wish they knew more about their period. At the top of the navigation menu on the website, you'll see a section called "Real Answers". You can point out to your tween that in this section, every question that is posed is answered by three different people: a health expert, a Mom, and a peer. When last I checked, there were over a thousand questions that had been posed and answered. You can also find videos that would be very helpful for a girl beginning her cycle, such as "Using a Tampon for the Very First Time". (Don't worry! No actual skin shown, and really well done! I'm going to be sure my daughter watches it.)

So what about you? How are you feeling about beginning the period discussion with your daughter?

I wrote this review while participating in a Brand AmbassadorCampaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of U by KotexTween and received products to facilitate my post and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

The Drought, and the God Particle

Pin It It's been dry, dry, dry around here lately. And it's not just the soil that has suffered: my spirit feels withered as well.

I told someone the other day that if life is a test, I feel like I'm failing it these days.

And then, out of the blue...

(Who could have predicted it? Our weathermen certainly didn't.)

...out of the literal blue, came gray. And clouds. And rain.

Rain!





Two days of hair frizzing, gutter sputtering, ground soaking, gully washing rain.

And the brown grass around the Nashville area guzzled greedily, and overnight, became a glorious green.

And the whole town, gazing upward in wonder at the downpour and inhaling deeply the rain-laden air, stretched wide our collective arms, smiled, and exhaled.

Aaaaahhh!




In seemingly unrelated news, apparently, scientists believe they've discovered what they call "the God particle". It's an elusive little sub-atomic particle, a thing whose existence scientists have been looking to prove for years, because proving its existence would help explain not only why things have mass, but would also prove correct other scientific theories that exist, regarding the laws that govern how things behave at the sub-atomic level.

So, I've been thinking about this "God particle", and the One who created the laws that govern the sub-atomic realms that we can't even see, and that scientists are only beginning to understand, and that I really don't understand at all. And I've been trying to relate them to things that, experientially, I DO understand.

Here's what Paul says in Colossians 1, that in Christ, all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible. Paul says that all things were created through Christ and for Christ, and that it's in Him that all things hold together.

And, this I do know and understand about myself: it's Christ  that holds ME together. And without Him, I'm missing my own God particle. Because Jesus came to reconcile me to my Father in heaven. And He came to send the Spirit of God, who proceeds from the Father, to live inside me. My very own, indwelling God particle.

But why would He do this? Why would He connect me to Himself? Dried out, weak and weary as I am? Not because I'm worthy. Not because I'm "passing" some "test". But just because the Father loves me. So much so that He sent His Son, to rescue me from the dominion of darkness, and to bring me into the kingdom of the Son He loves.

Therefore...in light of this...I want His Spirit to invade every part of my life: my waking, my sleeping, my hopes, my dreams, my thoughts, my prayers, my speech, my writing, my watching, my waiting, my laughing, my grieving.

I want the rain of the Spirit to green up my soul, because the drought has been fierce, and my soul's soil has been parched, and my heart has been hard.

Who could have predicted it: that unexpected, soul washing, spirit reviving downpour?

Bring it, Lord. I'm stretching wide my arms, and opening my heart.

What about you? Feeling the drought?

God loves you, just like you are.

He is opening His arms and His heart to you, too.

I'd love to hear from you.

Warm Grilled Potato Salad with Kalamata Olives and Parmigiano-Reggiano

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See the strips of Parmigiano-Reggiano? And those little salty, juicy nuggets of  Kalamata olive? And the crunch of the green stuff? (the green onions and the parsley and the fresh oregano?

This side dish is one of my family's favorites when we're grilling out. We love it with ribs, or burgers, and I'm sure it would be great with any other meat that you care to grill. The thing I love the most about it (besides the fact that it tastes outrageously good) is the little crunch factor that you get from the chopped up green onions, garlic, parsley, and fresh oregano. And then there's the saltiness of the olives. And the nuttiness of the Parmigiano Reggiano. This is a dish that is MORE than the sum of its parts!

I originally found this in a cookbook by Joanne Weir (remember her cooking show on PBS? I loved the Napa/Mediterranean flair that she brought to her cooking.) I've only altered her recipe slightly because while she says that her original recipe, which only uses a couple of pounds of potatoes feeds six, we love this stuff so much, and snarf so much of it down, so fast, that I had to double the potato amount. She called for plenty of "green stuff" to decorate them, so I've left those amounts pretty close to the original recipe, thus altering her original recipe's ratio a bit, but what I've come up with works well on our family's table.

In the pictures, you'll also see the rest of this meal: venison burgers that I call Bambi Burgers, but you can use my recipe for any low fat meat: low fat beef, elk, bison, or venison. You can get that recipe here: Bambi Burgers. And Caramelized Onions, that are pretty much a staple when I make burgers.  Here's the recipe for the Caramelized Onions (so sweet, as the onion caramelizes! so savory, with the thyme and pepper! But with the WHANG note from the sherry vinaigrette!). Just scroll down the page, underneath the first recipe, and you'll see it.

Here are the Bambi Burgers with just a quarter of a slice of Provelone, gently melting on top.

So, here's my adaptation of

Warm Grilled Potato Salad with Kalamata Olives and Parmigiano-Reggiano

Ingredients:

4 lbs. small red skinned new potatoes
5 T. extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
5 green onions
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 c. coarsely chopped flat leaf parsley
2 t. chopped fresh oregano
1/2 c. pitted Kalamata olives, chopped
3 oz. piece of Parmigiano-Reggiano

Preparation: 

Preheat oven to 450º.

Wash the potatoes and place in a 13"x9" baking dish, or a large half sheet pan. Drizzle with 1 T. olive oil, season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, cover with foil, and bake until tender, 50-60  minutes. Uncover pan and allow to cool to the point that you can slice them for grilling without burning yourself.

Preheat an outdoor grill. 

When the potatoes are tender, and cool enough to handle, slice them. How you slice them will  depend on the size of the new potatoes that you used: if they are small, you can slice them in half. If they're a bit larger, like mine were,  slice them into about 4 slices. Place the slices back in the pan in which you roasted them, and drizzle them with 2 T. of olive oil. Place potato slices on the grill, turning occasionally, until hot and golden, with grill marks, which will take between 5-7 minutes. Remove from grill, and place in a large serving bowl. Add the remaining 2 T. of the oil, and and all the rest of the ingredients, except the cheese: the chopped green onions, garlic, parsley, oregano, and olives. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Using a vegetable peeler, shave long, thin pieces of Parmigiano-Reggiano on top of the the potatoes. Toss gently and serve immediately, while the potatoes are still warm.

In the foreground, you can see the pan of Caramelized Onions that I made to go on the burgers.

What do you like to serve as a side dish when you grill out?

Semolina Sesame Artisan Bread

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Sesame Semolina Artisan Bread

I've been making Artisan Bread off and on for a few years, first using Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë Françoise's Making Bread in Five Minutes a Day method, and then using Cooks Illustrated's recipe, and then using Mark Bittman's recipe, all of which I've liked, for various reasons.

The recipe I'm going to share with you today is an adaptation I came up with that sprang from two catalysts: first, a favorite childhood memory. And second, my love for whole grains.

First, the memory: I grew up in Charleston, West Virginia, which, in the 1960's, probably wasn't the most cosmopolitan town. But my Mom was smart enough to know a great loaf of bread when she found one, and there used to be a nice restaurant  in town called The Sterling, that sold their delicious Grecian bread "to go". They also made a really good salad dressing, that my mother figured out how to make at home.  Almost every summer Saturday night at our house was "Steak Night". Steak Night was awesome: Dad grilled steaks in back of the house that came back in still smelling of a hint of lighter fluid, juicy and pink on the inside, and over which we ladled warm, melted garlic butter. These we served with an iceberg lettuce salad with crisp, cool, chopped cucumber and slices of lusciously summer ripe red tomatoes, all drizzled with that special restaurant tangy salad dressing, and fresh, crusty, sesame seed coated Grecian bread, to which I applied lovely, cool pats of creamy butter.

Years later, I tasted something similar to the Grecian bread of my childhood, called "Semolina bread". I always wondered if I could make a similar loaf, myself, the way my Mom had figured out how to replicate that great salad dressing. (Want to know how she did that? French dressing, doctored with a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a pinch of sugar, minced garlic, and a whole bunch of crumbled blue cheese. Savory, sweet, salty and spicy: it's really, really good! Still one of my sister's favorites.)

Semolina flour comes from processed durum wheat. It's the flour from which the world's best pasta is made. It is yellow in color and higher in gluten, thus producing a heavier, more dense flour. The first time I tried to duplicate this recipe, I bought some Bob's Red Mill Semolina flour, which comes in little 24 oz. plastic bags, that you can find in the "organic" section of most grocery stores. It worked well, and if you don't have a grain mill with which to grind your own flour, Bob's Red Mill will give you excellent results.

However, now we come to the second part om my inspiration for my adaptation of the recipe, which involves my love for whole grains. This past May I attended a homeschool curriculum fair,  and I saw The Breadbecker's had a booth, there. (They have everything you would EVER need to make homemade bread, and, in particular, if you are interested in making bread made with whole grains.) I have purchased wheat berries from them before. So, I cruised quickly through their booth, to see if they had anything that might pique my interest. And lo, and behold, they were selling Durum Wheat Berries, which I knew to be the whole grain "granddaddy" of semolina flour.

That may not be great news to you, if you don't have a wheat mill. If you don't, just use Bob's Red Mill, and you'll make great bread! But since I have a wheat mill, and had a yen to make my very own loaf of at least partially whole grain semolina flour, ground from my very own Durum wheat berries, I was pretty thrilled.  Could I do it? One obstacle that I knew was that whole grain flours produce a bread that tends to be more dense. The germ and the bran have been already extracted from a typical semolina flour. Could I make a bread comprised of whole grain durum flour that would be reminiscent of the Grecian Bread of my youth? Could I make a delicious crusty bread with a bit more density to it than most artisan bread recipes, but with enough lift that it wasn't a brick? (My previous experience making artisan bread with homeground whole wheat had not been anything I was ready to blog about.)

If Jesus is the Bread of Life, this might just help me love Him even more.

I could, and I did, and you can, too. And remember: if you don't have a grain mill, just let Bob's Red Mill do the grinding for you, and try this bread recipe anyway. It is SO yummy! I've made 3 batches since, and it is now my go-to bread recipe.

No mixer involved.

No kneading involved.

No kidding.

Couldn't be easier.

Important Recipe Note for those using Bob's Red Mill Semolina Flour, rather than whole grain durum flour: If you use Bob's Red Mill Semolina flour, I recommend you use 3 c. semolina flour, and decrease the all purpose flour measurement that I give in the recipe to 3 1/4 c., making the total amount of flour in either version of the recipe equal to 6 1/4 c. flour. So, no matter which ratio of flours you use (3 to 3 1/4 or 2 to 4 1/4) you should come out using a total of 6 1/4 c. of flour. Since the Semolina flour is lighter than the whole grain durum flour, you can use more of it in the ratio. Make sense?

This recipe makes four 1 lb. loaves, or two 2 lb. loaves. I find a one pound loaf at my house barely makes it to being cool before it is completely devoured, so while you can make a smaller 1 pound loaf, you might want to try the 2 lb. size, if you live with ravenous wolves, like I do.

Oh, goodness me, pass the butter.

Semolina Sesame Artisan Bread

Ingredients:

3 c. luke warm water
1 1/2 T. granulated yeast
1 1/2 T. salt
2 c. durum whole wheat flour (see recipe note if you are using Semolina flour)
4 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1 T. sesame seeds

1 T. cornmeal

1/2 t. cornstarch

Preparation:

Mix the yeast and salt with the lukewarm water in a large 5qt container. I use a large plastic tub with a lid, but I do NOT seal the lid to make it airtight.

Mix in the flours using a large spoon. (I use a large wooden spoon. By the end of adding all the flour, I wet my hands to mix in the last bits of the flour into the dough. The dough is a fairly wet, sticky dough. You can certainly use a mixer if you'd like to, but I don't find that I need one.)

Cover (not airtight...this needs to off gas a bit...but then...don't all God's creatures need to do that? Yeast is no exception.). Allow to rest at room temperature until the dough rises and collapses (or flattens on top) approximately 2 hours.

The dough can be used at this point, or you can store it in your fridge for up to 14 days. As if you could wait that long!!!

When You're Ready to Bake:

Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off about half of it. (About 2 lbs.) Dust it with more flour and quickly shape it first into a ball, and then into an oval (ish) shape. Allow to rest on a sheet of parchment paper that you have sprinkled with cornmeal for 40 minutes. (If you HAVE a pizza peel, then use that to let it rest on, and to help you transfer it into the oven. I don't have a pizza peel, so I use parchment paper as my sling for transferring the bread dough loaf to the oven onto my baking stone. It can stay on the parchment paper for the baking: no problem. No need to transfer it off directly onto the stone.)

Twenty Minutes Before Baking:


Preheat the oven to 450º, with a baking stone placed on the middle rack, and the bottom of a broiler pan on the shelf just below that.

Time to use that mysterious cornstarch that's in the ingredient list.
You're going to make a Cornstarch Wash to make the bread shiny, and help the sesame seeds to stick to the outside of the bread.
Cornstarch Wash:
Blend the 1/2 t. of cornstarch with a bit of water to form a paste. Add 1/2 c. of water, and whisk with a fork. Microwave for 60 seconds, till mixture appears glassy. You can store the unused portion in the fridge, covered with plastic, for the next loaf.

Just before baking, paint the surface of the loaf with the cornstarch wash, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and slash the surface of the bread (I usually make 3 diagonal slash marks) about 1/2" deep, using a serrated knife.

Gently place the loaf on the parchment paper onto the hot baking stone. Pour 1 c. of hot tap water onto the broiler tray below it, and quickly close the oven door. Bake for around 30 minutes, until deeply browned and firm. Adjust baking time to the size of your loaf, and your own oven's performance.


Allow to cool before slicing and eating.

Allow it to cool before cutting. Repeat after me: ALLOW IT TO COOL.
Hang it. Give me the bread knife, NOW, or someone's getting hurt.

Ready to try this? Pin it! Share it! You know you should!

What's your favorite type of bread?

Happy Fourth of July!!!

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Today, I have to share with you a tale of true independence. (We like what we like, and we're not ashamed to admit it!!!

A tail of capitalism as its finest. (So what if its a Chinese product? The American guys camping out in the fireworks tent for the holiday doubtless make their share!)

When John Adams said he envisioned that this day, the day of the celebration of the first reading of the Declaration of Independence, as a day that would be celebrated through the ages:

"It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

Wouldn't you agree that this might be just EXACTLY  what he had in mind???

How about a nice dozen of these?

But be careful to watch out for those flaming pellets it's going to be emitting.

It looks so innocent, doesn't it?

Just add fire.

Things begin to smolder, And rumble.

Here we go.

Oh, my!!!

Houston! We. Have. Liftoff!!!

Unless somebody laid an egg.

Happy Independence Day!!!
Because Nothing says Independence Day like a chicken blowing an egg out of its butt!!!

4th-of-July-Worthy Food Post Round-up

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Heirloom Tomato Appetizer

I know I'm not the only one who is thinking about what food I'll be serving for the 4th of July. In actuality, since I'll be attending the pot-luck I go to nearly every year, my own contribution will be fairly limited, which is kind of nice! (I'm planning on taking my relatively famous blueberry cheesecake to the picnic, because I think there might be a slight uprising/insurrection out here in the Boonies if I didn't. Think small-scale mob scene with torches and pitchforks. Tradition-lovers can get ugly when you cross them, you know.)

But I woke up this morning thinking of all the lovely recipes I've posted that capitalize on the fresh ingredients of summer, that would also be good for 4th of July celebration, and then, I thought maybe someone else might be looking for a slightly narrowed down list of possibilities that are wholly 4th-of-July-Worthy. And I've got just the ticket for you!

You can find ALL my recipes by clicking on the "Food" tab above, but rather than making you go digging around on that page if you don't want to, here's a list of summertime recipes, any of which would make a fabulous contribution to your 4th of July menu.

Appetizer:
Heirloom Tomato Appetizer: BACON, tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil, and an AWESOME warm bacon, shallot and sherry vinegar vinaigrette. Did I mention bacon?

Salads:
Aztec Salad: corn, black beans, tomatoes, cilantro, delicious, and so good for you!

Mango and Blue Cheese Salad: try this with peaches instead of mangoes, now that peaches are in season!

Panzanella : this could easily be a light main dish, rather than a salad. We have it for a light summer meal very often. I can eat mountains of this.

Shamefully Easy and Delicious Cole Slaw: your dish will be the TALK of the pot luck, and it couldn't be easier or more delicious.

Spicy Pasta Salad with Smoked Gouda, Tomatoes and Basil: creamy and spicy! Yummy! Heads-up: this has a mayonnaise-based dressing. Keep that in mind if your weather is as hot as ours.

Watermelon Arugula Salad with Pancetta: with or without the pancetta, this is delicious and refreshing.

Aztec Salad

Main Dishes:
Bacon Crusted Smoked Brisket: I have several rub recipes, all of which are good.

Bambi Burgers: this recipe works great with venison, beef, or elk. Top them with Caramelized Onions. You'll find that recipe on the same page.


Pesto: love, love, love this green, fresh but rich taste of summer.


Desserts:
Blueberry Cheesecake: start it two days before, if you think you can make the homemade shortbread last that long.

Fresh Peach Pie: I've won three pie contests with this pie recipe. It's a sublime taste of downhome comfort food. Really, it's the essence of summer.


Lemon and Blueberry Frozen Yogurt: light, refreshing, makes your taste buds do a little dance.

Lemon and Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream: well, you need something extravagantly wonderful to gild that peach pie lily, don't you?


What will you be making for the Fourth?