>> Picked up a lot of good tomatoes this weekend. On Friday night, I
>> made a salad of coarsely chopped heirloom tomatoes tossed with a warm
>> vinaigrette of bacon drippings, EVOO, sherry vinegar, and sauteed
>> shallots. Served it over big homemade croutons (toasts, really).
>> Topped it w/ crumbled bacon, crumbled French feta (the recipe called
>> for blue cheese, but I prefer the feta, having tried it both ways),
>> and lots of chopped fresh parsley and basil. Yum. My husband loves
>> this salad so much that we just eat it in entree-sized portions now.
>>
>> Dessert was a fresh peach galette -- the recipe was from the New Joy
>> of Cooking. I used the cornmeal butter pastry crust (they offered a
>> few choices), and it was quite nice.
>>
>> This morning, we rode bikes (with our 3 kids, including the baby in
>> his little trailor for the first time) to the farmer's market and got
>> more tomatoes and basil and some fruit. We stopped at a great bakery
>> and got a crusty baguette. My lunch today was just a chopped tomato
>> (well, two!) with a small drizzle of EVOO, some salt & pepper, lots of
>> fresh basil, and lots of bread for mopping up those wonderful juices.
>> Hubby and the kids had BLTs. After lunch, I made a very small plum
>> galette with some leftover pastry from Friday...that was very tasty,
>> but the plums were quite tart,...a little vanilla ice cream on top
>> solved that one!
>>
>> And after working a few hours on stripping the ugly old wallpaper from
>> our bedroom, my husband and I went out for Thai food....we had a
>> really spicy grilled beef, red onion, scallion appetizer w/ spicy lime
>> dressing and cilantro, followed by fried softshell crabs with chili
>> garlic sauce (two thumbs up!), and a dish of wide rice noodles with
>> shrimp and ground chicken. That dish was supposed to have a spicy
>> basil sauce, but the broth-y sauce wasn't spicy, and there was very
>> little basil (the dish was ok, but we won't order that one again). It
>> wasn't really a balanced Thai meal, we just felt like trying some
>> dishes that we hadn't tried before.
>>
>> And on Sunday, we'll be going to some friends' house for dinner.
>> We're bringing dessert, which will be All-Star Brownie Sundaes:
>> vanilla ice cream and brownies (yes, Barb's) cut into star shapes w/
>> small star cookie cutters (works pretty well; we just use a slightly
>> larger pan so the brownies are a little flatter). Probably some
>> chocolate sauce (my son will insist-- and this dessert was his idea),
>> though I think some fresh raspberries would be nice.
>>
>> Chris
>
>Ummm... You're gustatory weekend sounds delicious!
>
>--
>Wayne in Phoenix


Oh, this all sounds so good! Now I know what I am having for
lunch...buschetta-ish lunch on a bagette that needs to be finished up. And,
tomorrow, when the grocery is open, I will give that salad a try. It sure
sounds like a winner! Thanks for posting!