HOME IS.

This is one of the easiest, tastiest little appetizer bites around!

We first ran into peppadews (in fact, this exact preparation) at a local gastropub called Leon’s in Decatur. We were smitten. Since then we’ve seen them at a few placed (including as a topping at our fave pizza shop!), but they are still a bit hard to find. Peppadews are little peppers that are fairly mild, so don’t worry about the spicy factor. Something else to know? Peppadew is actually a brand name – not a type of pepper like a jalapeno.

I got these peppadews off the olive bar at Kroger.

All you need is some peppadews, which come hollowed out, and some goat cheese. I use herbed goat cheese in a log form. Just dump the goat cheese in a bowl and stir to mix the herbs throughout. Next, take a little ball of goat cheese and stick it inside the pepper. That’s all!

I used 2 oz of goat cheese for about 25 peppers.

My slow cooker is hands down my favorite kitchen tool. I love, love, love slow cooked meats and the convenience of having a hot meal ready when I get home from work. It’s been my experience that no matter what you throw in there, it comes out tasting delicious. Here is one of my favorite, super simple crock pot meals.

My trusty, programmable slow cooker.

Slow Cooker Apricot Pork with Couscous

For Pork:

1 lb pork tenderloin
2 small yellow onions, sliced in strips
16oz apricot preserves (I use the low sugar version)
1/2 cup stock of your choosing
A few splashes of apple cider vinegar
Salt, Pepper

For Couscous:

1 cup dried couscous
3/4 cup stock of your choosing
1/4 cup juices from pork dish

In the slow cooker, mix apricot preserves, chicken stock and vinegar. Rub pork with salt and pepper, place in the slow cooker and spoon some of the mixture over the pork. Place the chopped onions around the pork. Cook on low for 7 – 8 hours or high for 4 hours.When the pork is done, remove the tenderloin and most of the onions from the slow cooker. Cover pork to keep warm. It should be fall-apart tender and shred easily.

There will be lots of juices left behind. Couscous is usually equal parts liquid and grain (sometimes a little extra liquid if you like it moist). Remove about 1/4 cup of the liquid from the slow cooker, and mix with the 3/4 cup stock. It’s ok (in fact, encouraged) if there are some onions mixed in. Use this as the base for your couscous. I do mine in the microwave – just microwave the liquid until it boils, then add couscous and cover until liquid is absorbed (about 5 minutes). Fluff couscous with fork.

With any leftover liquid in the slow cooker, I like to use it as a sauce for the pork. If you’re up for it, you can also take the liquid out of the crock pot and cook it down on the stove (I use a thickener like Wondra) to make it a thicker gravy.

Serve pork and onions with couscous and pour the sauce over all of it. Bliss.

In case you are wondering, I use this slow cooker by Hamilton Beach.

This weekend we made a huge batch of peach chutney from some amazing farmer’s market peaches. We bought 14 peaches from Pearson Farm at Atlanta’s East Lake Farmer’s Market (ELF). This recipe makes a LOT of chutney – enjoyed some with grilled chicken and jarred the rest for later. To give you an idea of the quantity, we filled three half pint jars, one pint jar and had enough left for our dinner.

Spicy Peach Chutney

14 fresh peaches, peeled and chopped
2 serrano peppers, finely diced – seeds removed
1 habanero pepper, finely diced – seeds removed
3 small yellow onions, diced (may also use red onion)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
fresh herbs like mint or cilantro

We started by peeling and removing the pits from all of our peaches. We did this by cutting the peach flesh off of the pit and then scooping the insides out of the skin, kind of like you might do with an avocado. This was a pretty easy method, and looks didn’t matter since we were going to chop up the peaches anyhow. Save as much of the juice as possible as you chop the peaches.

You’ll also need to chop up your onions and chili peppers. These should be finely diced. We often use red onion in chutneys, but we happened to be out this time. Depending on the level of spice you enjoy, you’ll want to seed the chilis. We seeded two out of our three chilis, because we like a little bit of heat.

Next, start cooking down your peaches, chilis and onions in a large pot over medium heat. Stir often. We let our chutney cook for about two hours, adding the vinegar to the mix about half way through. As you cook, the chutney will reduce, thicken and become darker in color. In this batch, we also included a handful of chopped mint and cilantro. Season your chutney to taste.

We served the chutney over grilled coriander chicken the coconut rice and curried green beans. It is great on any meat, particularly grilled meats. We are even thinking of trying it over vanilla ice cream!

This week we ate at Empire State South, and couldn’t get over the fun appetizer they serve called “In Jars,” where a variety of dips (pimento cheese, boiled peanut hummus, trout mousse, pickled vegetables and more) are served in little half pint mason jars.

Then I noticed in my DailyCandy email that a company called Sugar Lily Bakery is now selling cupcakes in mason jars, a trend I’ve seen around the blog-o-sphere recently.

Of course, there’s always the classic drinks-in-a-mason jar, usually accompanied by colorful straws.

A few more interesting mason jar ideas from Giver’sLog… chili with cornbread in a jar and BBQ in a jar.

What else can be made more adorable, simply by serving it in a jar?

Images: 1. In Jars 2. Sugar Lily 3. Pink Drinks 4. Chili Jar 5. BBQ Jar

One recipe I really like to make is the Inside Out Egg Roll. It’s actually a Weight Watchers recipe that’s been around for ages, but it’s super flexible so it’s a great way to throw together a quick weeknight dinner from whatever you’ve got lying around. The only truly essential ingredients are coleslaw mix (or cabbage) and soy sauce.

The basic recipe is as follows:

Inside Out Egg Roll

1 bag coleslaw mix (or shred your own cabbage)
1 TBS cooking oil (vegetable, canola, etc)
Soy sauce, to taste
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder or allspice
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute slaw mix in canola oil until it cooks down. Add soy sauce and spices; saute a bit longer, then add your choice of add-ins.

Then, you make it your own by adding some mix-ins. In our most recent rendition, I added a bit of ginger salad dressing (in place of ginger powder, which I didn’t have) plus some gyoza sauce to avoid going too heavy on the soy sauce. I also threw in 1 lb of cooked ground turkey, some chopped cashews, onions and some pickled carrots. You can serve the mixture over rice, on it’s own or – as we did- in a lettuce wrap. To round out the meal, I added a side of brown rice and some edamame.

If you’ve ever been over to our house for dinner (or sometimes even brunch), you may have noticed that we kind of have a thing for making a fun cocktail. This super simple Strawberry Lemonade drink is one of our favorites!

Strawberry Lemonade Cocktail

Large jug of lemonade (we use Simply Lemonade, 128 oz)
1 pint of strawberries
3 cups of your favorite vodka
Mint (optional)

Remove strawberry tops and slice berries in half. Blend the strawberries in a blender or food processor with a little bit of lemonade until completely smooth. Transfer lemonade to a pitcher. Since you’ll be adding vodka, the original lemonade container will not be large enough. I usually pour about half my lemonade in a pitcher and then keep half in the original container (for when the pitcher runs dry – and it will). Combine strawberry puree with lemonade. Add vodka. Stir. Enjoy over ice.

If you are using two containers, remember to split your strawberry puree and vodka between them. Sometimes we also add a couple of sprigs of mint.

PS – Many apologies that I forgot to take a picture of this yummy concoction before drinking it all up!

Recently, faced with a lazy Saturday and no plans, the hubs suggested we make a 100% homemade pizza. We’d never done this before. We frequently dress up frozen, organic pizzas from the grocery store with our own ingredients, but this would be the first time that we would make everything – including the dough and the sauce – ourselves.

I was in charge of the dough. He was in charge of the sauce. We collaborated on the toppings.

When I make something for the first time, I review somewhere around a dozen different recipes to get a feel for how things should go. I settled on this formula for making pizza dough in the food processor (hint: it was pretty much the simplest one I found).

Easy Pizza Dough
(via Fine Cooking)

1 package (2-1/4 tsp.) active-dry yeast
1-1/2 cups very warm water (110°F)
18 oz. (4 cups) all-purpose flour; more for dusting
1-1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. olive oil

Activate the yeast by combining with warm water. Stir. Combine flour and salt in a food processor (mine was too small, so I had to do split the ingredients into two batches). Pulse to combine. Then, with the food processor running, pour in the yeast/water mix. Turn off the processor and add the olive oil. Pulse again to mix and form a dough ball. Remove your dough and split it into the desired amount of pies. Knead it for 30-ish seconds, forming a pretty little mound. Cover it with a clean dish towel and let it rise. It will take about a hour.

This makes enough for 4 personal pizzas or 2 normal pizzas. I froze my second dough ball (before rising) for later.

I cannot tell you what was in my husband’s magical sauce – but it was good. And it was loosely based on this recipe.

We topped off the pizza with fresh mozzarella, a bit of shredded pecorino romano, sliced tomatoes and basil from our garden, caramelized onions, thinly sliced prosciutto, and some arugula.

Overall, we were really happy with our first effort at a homemade pizza. Next time, I’ll try to improve on the crust – I found it to be a little bit crackery, and not in the good, thin, crispy, charred way. So, we’re not pizza experts yet (darn – being Italian, I figured it would come naturally for me), but we certainly had fun along the way. Plus, since I’ve got another batch of dough in the freezer, I know we’ve got at least one more pie in us!

So, the whole point of my candied walnuts adventure was to make a satisfying dinner salad, working with what I had in the house. Here’s the result.

Sweet Summer Salad

2 cups mixed greens
3 ripe strawberries, sliced
2 small mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons goat cheese
A sprinkling of candied walnuts
Black pepper
Grilled chicken
Sweet & Sour dressing (recipe below)

Combine to make a delicious salad. A tip for the grilled chicken (which I topped with Italian seasoning and grilled up on my trusty George Foreman) – for the perfect salad-weight chicken, I like to cut a chicken breast in half crosswise into cutlets. It results in lots of pieces that aren’t too thick and clunky for a delicate salad. Plus, you have enough for two (or three) salads!

Serves 1

Suggested variations: Spinach would work really well in place of the mixed greens. I made this salad again for lunch and used blue cheese instead of goat cheese, which helped cut the sweetness of the candied walnuts.

For this salad, I whipped up one of my favorite dressings. I have no idea where it truly originated, but I got the recipe from my husband’s mom.

Sweet and Sour Dressing

1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp each: paprika, grated onion, dry mustard, salt, celery seed

Combine all ingredients except celery seed in a blender and blend until smooth. Stir in celery seeds. Chill. Enjoy.

Yesterday, I was planning to use up some leftover chicken by making a large salad for dinner. I impulsively decided to make some candied walnuts to kick it up a notch. Now, I love to cook, but I’m historically not as comfortable (or skilled) when it comes to sweet and desserts. Still, I was feeling confident.

The first method I tried involved simply dumping a bunch of sugar and walnuts into a pan and stirring as the sugar melts. I went with this one because it was the simplest recipe I could find – and I’m all about simple in the kitchen.

Getting started, my pan looked like this:

This version of my candied walnuts didn’t go so well. First of all, I quickly realized I should have used a flat pan so that the sugar would melt evenly. Then, after what seemed like forever, my sugar didn’t truly melt but instead formed little clumps. A quick search revealed that this was likely because my heat was too low. So, naturally, I cranked it up. The clumps started to melt… this was more like it… and then, before I knew it, the sugar was dark brown. Too brown. Burnt.

I let it cool in the pan (thinking it would be ok since it was non-stick) and ended up with a rock hard mess that I had to reheat to scrape out of the pan. There was a rescue attempt, my last ditch effort to salvage a few, but it was really too late for the poor guys.

Not yet discouraged (and really wanting a yummy salad), I decided to try a different method. This time, I would toast the walnuts on their own, melt the sugar (in a FLAT PAN) and then dump in walnuts and stir. This worked much better. I did have some little sugar clumps form, but I just kept stirring and was able to melt all of the sugar without burning it. As soon as the walnuts were coated, I transferred them to a silicone baking mat, separated them as best I could with a fork and let them cool. Once they were cooled, it was pretty easy to break them apart.

The result was crunchy, candied walnuts for my salad. These were pretty darn sweet, so I only needed a sprinkling – especially in combination with some summer strawberries.

The recipe made enough for plenty of future salads.

Candied Walnuts
(adapted from Simply Recipes)

1 cup walnuts
1/2 cup sugar
Salt

Heat oven to 350° and toast walnuts for about 5 minutes (the best way to tell if nuts are burning is by smell). Set nuts aside. Melt sugar in a heavy bottomed pan over medium-high heat. Stir, a lot. It will melt. Just before your arm falls off from stirring. When sugar is completely melted, dump in walnuts and toss gently to coat. Transfer sticky mess to parchment paper (not wax paper, they are not the same thing – which I learned the hard way) or a silicone baking mat. Add a touch of salt. Separate using two forks or cool and break apart.