July burgers and pesto!

On the menu for the weekend (along with the sorbet) were hamburgers and and hot dogs . I made a double batch of my "BBQ Bun" recipe and shaped them into buns for burgers and hot dogs. I snipped loads of rosemary and chives from my garden, cut it up and added it to the dough.

The other item to make the meal tasty was homemade pesto: a jar of basil pesto , and a jar of sun-dried tomato pesto. I also made a recipe of hummus which added to the selection.

Sorbet for the weekend!

Last weekend Erika and her family came up to Portland . They brought Joshua up for his week with Grandma and Grandpa. We planned lots of activities for Friday and Saturday but the most fun activity for me was the food preparation. The dessert for the weekend was homemade sorbet.

Here are the sorbets. A very easy recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Living, July 2010.

3 Cups of Fruit

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

Mix up the fruit in the food processor until it is well chopped up. Dissolve the sugar in the water. When the water and sugar are dissolved, pour it into the food processor and mix up with the fruit. It will only take a few seconds. Then scoop into a freezer dish and freeze.

Very simple, very little sugar and delicious. It took the whole weekend to get through the three kinds . The kids especially liked it. We had raspberry, marionberry, and mango.

An herb basket.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to give a short talk about herbs and how to use them. For a few weeks I dreamed and imagined baking at least 10 recipes using herbs; baking breads and cookies of all sorts to demonstrate the amazing use of herbs in ones life. However, I had to be realistic about time and effort......I enjoyed keeping it simple : basil shortbreads, Meyer Lemon bread with fresh thyme, fresh herbs baked on top of a loaf of rustic bread, a bouquet of herbs from my garden. I lined the antique square baking tins of my grandmother's (I recently learned that she baked my parents wedding cake in these tins) with natural parchment paper and filled them to the brim with the baked goods. I wandered around my garden and gathered a bouquet of my favorite herbs that grow so freely in my messy English garden and placed them in my favorite blue and white checkered pitcher. I placed all of this in my very large hand made basket from Maine and drove to the church to share my goods!

Eleven years ago, my husband, Michael and I built a home with a New England flavor . After a long search for the perfect house plan, we chose a plan from Southern Living called "Poplar Point." The ten thousand square foot lot we bought to build this house on was lined on one side with beautiful tall Poplar Trees. So the house and the lot were perfectly matched.

This blog is about my life here at Poplar Point: My cooking delights, my sewing projects, my beloved herb garden, and my ever changing English garden filled to the brim with my favorite perennials