I am so lucky to have the Dupont Circle Farmer’s Market every Sunday morning- year round! Farmer’s markets just make me feel soooooo good! Knowing where my food is coming from and knowing I’m supporting the local economy is great and all but- the best part is just how absolutely delicious the food I get from the market is!! And when I go, my imagination goes wild! I start getting very creative and whipping up recipes and huge extravagant dinner party meals in my head. So I figured it would be a great thing to share some of these market dinner recipes with you!! This will hopefully be the first of many posts because I love doing it, and when you are eating fresh and local foods, it’s not hard to make them look and taste good with out much fuss! Luckily, my favorite time to go is in the summer when there are fruits, veggies, and flowers galore! Here we go!

The last few weeks they have had squash blossoms at the market.This is awesome for many reasons. One is because you don’t see these in the groccerie store….like ever…Two is because the one and only time I’ve had squash blossoms was in a little town on the west coast of Italy- and if that’s not a great memory to bring back then I don’t know what is.

So inspired by the squash blossoms, I decided to fry them up one week, and then to test another recipe stuffing them with cheese, the next…

Fried Squash Blossoms:

Ingredients:

1.  12 Squash Blossoms
2. 1 1/2 c. Corn Starch
3. roughly 1 c. milk or more depending
4. 1 tbs garlic powder
5. 1tbs salt & 1tbs pepper for seasoning
6. enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your pan about an 8th of an inch
7. Sea salt crystals for post fry.

To Create:

1. Mix the corn starch with the salt, pepper and garlic powder in a bowl.
2. Pour the milk into the bowl, stir in just enough to slightly dissolve the corn starch and create a thick milky liquid
3. Stuff the blossoms individually with the cheese mixture
4. Pour the olive oil in the pan and turn on the heat.
5. Have a clean plate with a paper towel on it ready to place the cooked blossoms on when they are done.
6. Once the oil is hot, start dipping the squash blossoms into the bowl of starch and milk- being sure to coat the blossom fully- then put the blossom into the pan. You can do a dip and place- dipping each blossom and then placing it into the pan one by one.
7. Once one side of the blossoms are brown, turn them over to brown the other side.
8. Once the blossoms are  done cooking (fully brown) then take them out of the pan and place on the plate with the paper towel.
9. When all the blossoms are on the plate, sprinkle some sea salt over all of them for extra seasoning.
10. Place them on a serving plate, and they are good to go!

Cheese Stuffed Fried Squash Blossoms:

Ingredients:

1.  12 Squash Blossoms
2. 1 1/2 c. Corn Starch
3. roughly 1 c. milk or more depending
4. 1 tbs garlic powder
5. 1tbs salt & 1tbs pepper for seasoning
6. cheese
7. enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your pan about an 8th of an inch
8. Sea salt crystals for post fry.

To Create:

1. Mix the corn starch with the salt, pepper and garlic powder in a bowl.
2. Pour the milk into the bowl, stir in just enough to slightly dissolve the corn starch and create a thick milky liquid
3. Pour the olive oil in the pan and turn on the heat.
4. Have a clean plate with a paper towel on it ready to place the cooked blossoms on when they are done.
5. Once the oil is hot, start dipping the squash blossoms into the bowl of starch and milk- being sure to coat the blossom fully- then put the blossom into the pan. You can do a dip and place- dipping each blossom and then placing it into the pan one by one.
6. Once one side of the blossoms are brown, turn them over to brown the other side.
7. Once the blossoms are  done cooking (fully brown) then take them out of the pan and place on the plate with the paper towel.
8. When all the blossoms are on the plate, sprinkle some sea salt over all of them for extra seasoning.
9. Place them on a serving plate, and they are good to go!

On my weekends off- of which I have very very few- I have been going on some fun and wild adventures. One weekend in July, I spent white water rafting down the New River in West Virginia. I went with my friend Ashley and we stayed at the Adventures on The Gorge camp resort – we had a blast! It took Ash and me 6 hours to get there from DC on friday evening. We set up camp and basically passed out as soon as everything was set up. The next morning we woke up bright and early and jumped out on the river with the Rivermen Raft Company. Our guide, Brian Bell, was a blast- he kept us safe and let us have a load of fun swimming down the river, navigating the rapids, river surfing and even jumping of large rocks…Oooo I would do it all again in a heartbeat! After rafting, we enjoyed our time at the camp resort, eating a yummy dinner and partaking in back country dancing to the live bluegrass music by the Half Bad Bluegrass band (Brian- our guide-is their guitar player which made it extra fun).

Sunday morning we were sad to leave but we packed up the tent, and went on our way stopping in Fayattevill, WV for breakfast, and Lewisberg WV for a coffe and a little antiquing. We then drove down part of the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway on our way to stop at a couple vineyards for some afternoon wine tasting south of Charlottesville, before heading back to DC. It was an action packed, super duper, heart warming, fun filled weekend! I’ve got hopes to do it again soon!!

Enjoy!

I couldn’t go all summer (my favorite season) with out shellin’ out some food and drink favorites. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a monthly food and drink post…or maybe even more than one or two per month…we’ll see. When I get busy with wedding season in the spring and fall it’s not always easy to do more than wedding posts…as I have pictures galore to go through.

Anyway, with out further ado- here is one of my favorite summer cocktails, one that if possible, I ask pretty much every bartender to throw together for me. I call it Summer Lantern because it reminds me of all that is good in summer- sunsets, sipping an nice cool iced tea or lemonade on a hot, sultry, summer’s evening while rockin in an old rocking chair on a big antebellum porch in the south, watching time pass because it’s too hot to move, fireflies, katydids, swimming, peaches and fresh fruit….

Summer Lantern:

4.5 oz Sweet tea vodka

8.5 oz Cold Water

3 oz Peach schnapps

Juice of half a lemon

splash of sparkling water

1/4th lemon thinly sliced

1/4th slice of peach

Ice cubes

Sprig of Mint

Create:  Combine the vodka, water, schnapps, and lemon juice in a shaker with ice. Shake. Fill the serving glass with the peaches and lemon slices, and some mint leaves. Pour the shaker contents into the serving glass. Add several block ice cubes. Add a splash of sparkling water. Give one little stir and add the sprig of mint.  Voila!

Oh boy is it delicious- you really can’t go wrong!

And if you can’t find any sweet tea vodka, regular black tea with a shot of vodka does the trick with out adding that super sweet sugary sweet tea taste.

I did a quick photo shoot for Flavor Magazine last week- Here are a couple pics from the shoot. Check me out in the June/July issue of Flavor Magazine !! So exciting!!! Look for it in whole foods and in stores and restaurants around the DC, virginia, and maryland area!

Here’s the spread:

The Center for Inspired Teaching held their Annual Chocolate Inspiration event at the Embassy of Mexico this year and I was lucky enough to photograph the delicious event! Have a look at some of the info for the event and be sure to make an appearance next year. Promise you won’t be disappointed and you definitely will enjoy eating chocolate while benefiting a fabulous cause!

Chocolate Inspiration!

Center for Inspired Teaching
The 2010 Chocolate Inspiration will feature fine chocolate desserts and demonstrations from some of DC’s finest chefs. Please join us on this fabulous night. With your support, this year’s event will be our most successful ever.
When: Thu Mar 4 2010 (7:00 PM – 9:00 PM)
Where: Cultural Institute of the Embassy of Mexico, 2829 16th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009
Fee? yes $150 per person
Volunteer Info: Help with event preparation such as coordinating with facilities and vendors, preparing event space, preparing marketing and promotional materials for event, etc.; help with invitations, including packaging and distribution; Help with raffle prize research, solicitation, and pick-up; help with registration table and other tasks such as coat check, raffle table set up, messenger between event staff, chocolate and food pick up, etc.
Contact: Laurie Wingate, (202) 462-1956 ext 23

Welcome to Sunday Night Sips! Here we have some food greatness….chef Alice Waters, Joan Nathan, Spike Mendelsohn and many other awesome chefs and foodies gathered for a cocktail hour and food tasting before their respective fund-raising dinners around the city. The spirits were high and hopeful and the food was truly fantastically de-licious! Have a look below to see some of the fun that was had.

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