Cooking with Julia

I would love to say I’ve been cooking with Julia Child all week, but sadly that will never happen. I have been cooking with another fabulous Julia all week though; my dear friend and our very own Julia from Blackberry Homestead at https://wordpress.com/reader/feeds/101099938. We have been busy making all kinds of delicious sourdough treats with the sourdough starter she brought me. We just made another beautifully delicious olive loaf too. We will enjoy that with dinner tonight. 🙂

We’ve been cooking a lot more than bread too. Not only did Julia gift me with her sourdough starter, but she and Bruce brought a whole big box of vegetables and sweet potatoes too.

We have already used all of the tomatoes except for one of the larger heirloom tomatoes. The first thing I made with the tomatoes was my spicy ketchup Spicy Ketchup.

Then I made a delicious tomato cucumber salad with more of the tomatoes and a couple from the cucumbers. I used a lot of the smaller potatoes for a warm potato salad with olive oil and fresh herbs, also from Julia’s garden.

Tomato Cucumber Salad

4 large tomaotes, diced

2 cucumbers, sliced thin

1/4 red onion, sliced very thin

2 TBSP olive oil

1-2 TBSP lemon olive oil, optional

1 TBSP lemon juice

2 tsp minced garlic

salt & fresh ground black pepper to taste

1-2 TBSP fresh herbs, chopped -of course I added lemon verbena from our backyard

Mix everything together well and serve. You can eat this deliciously fresh salad chilled or at room temperature. I almost like it at room temperature better because it really brings out the fresh flavors of the vegetables.

The ingredients we used for the potatoes were very similar to what we used for our salad.

I finished up the rest of the tomatoes for my pasta with shrimp, sausage and vegetables, a favorite of ours that I haven’t made in awhile. Usually I make it with scallops, but this time we had shrimp instead. Angel Hair Pasta with Scallops and Chorizo

Tonight’s dinner just may include some of Julia’s sweet potatoes, along with the freshly baked olive bread, as well as some other delicious menu items. 🙂

We have thoroughly enjoyed having Bruce and Julia stay with us. I just wish we all lived closer to each other so we could get together more often. 🙂

Life is always better with good friends and good food. Life is short. Make the most out of everyday and make everyday great. ‘Til next time.