Birthday party

My parents were here for the weekend. Saturday just happened to be the midway point between each of their August birthdays, so we threw them a little party. We started with flank steak with local seasoning; local tomatoes tossed with basil and olive oil; and roasted local red potatoes tossed with arugula.

For dessert, we had Wellesley Fudge Cake with Ina Garten's peanut butter icing.

The blog is back!

And featuring tomatoes, summer squash, and red potatoes from the Norman Farmers' Market. Recipes from the September issue of Real Simple.

All-American Girls

I joined flower girl Stella and her mom Maia at the American Girl store in Natick for a birthday brunch this morning. I thought about taking my first generation Felicity doll to the hair salon, but I refrained.

Star-shaped butter for Stella Bella!

How sweet it is

It sounded weird, but it was oh-so-good: sauteed chicken with a sweet potato-spinach salad, from the February 2009 issue of Real Simple.

Perfect breakfast

One of my favorite childhood treats: a dutch baby topped with strawberries and powdered sugar:

Real simple comfort food

The February 2009 issue of Real Simple was full of goodness. First, we had chicken pot pie:

Then pasta, with roasted broccoli and walnuts:

Then, from Cooking Light: brown-butter gnocchi with wilted spinach:

Hummus for dinner

It's so good, we had it twice this week: chickpea, lemon, and cumin stew over polenta.