you say tomato, I say tomahto

As I prepared this baked egg in a tomato I could not stop singing that darn song.  The silly lyrics are still stuck in my head as I type this post and I bet you will be singing it too. Whoops. My deepest apologies.
I saw a recipe for a baked egg in a tomato a few weeks ago and have been dying to dry it ever since.  I don't know if this can even be considered a recipe with a mere 3 ingredients; 5 if you count salt and pepper. I suggest using a tomato from a local farmers market; the Wausau Market had some of the most beautiful tomatoes I have ever seen last Saturday! I absolutely cannot wait until I can make this again using eggs from our very own chickens, which will soon be taking over the Warren backyard any day now! 
This is oh so simple, delicious and is a perfect summer lunch.  Here's what you will need:

• 1 large tomato
• 1 egg
• Freshly grated cheese
• Salt and Pepper

The recipe I stumbled upon called for freshly grated Parmesan cheese, however, we did not have any on hand so I used crumbled feta in the bottom of the tomato and fresh Gruyere on the top.  Preheat your over to 400 degrees.  Slice the top of the tomato off and remove the center portion of the tomato.  Place a small amount of cheese in the hallowed out tomato and crack the egg into the tomato.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper, place the tomato on a baking sheet or in a glass pan and bake for about 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and sprinkle with a bit more cheese.  Return the egg to the oven for 5 more minutes.
**make sure you remove enough of the tomato, my egg whites overflowed out of the hole in the tomato and caused me to lose some of the egg to the pan.

Start with a ripe tomato...

Remove the seeds

Crack an egg into the tomato

Add your favorite cheese

Place in a glass pan

Bake and enjoy!

berry bonanza

As promised, I spent time in the kitchen this past weekend and have plenty to write about.  The entire weekend revolved around strawberries.  I would not be surprised if I turned into a strawberry myself due to the overwhelming consumption of berries.  Each June, my Mother and I journey to the strawberry patch to pick a few flats of berries.  Other than the 4th of July, this is the summer day I most look forward to. Each year on the way to the berry farm, we promise each other that we will pick fewer berries than the previous year but somehow we manage to leave with at least 30 pounds of berries.  We arrive home to find that only half of the berries fit in the refrigerator and immediately start thinking of ways to incorporate strawberries into everything (pf course, we eat handfuls of berries while we come up with ideas).  This year, berry season is running a few weeks behind due to the unusually cool spring.  I have been anxiously awaiting the time when the berries are ripe and the day finally came on Friday!  In addition to the beautiful weather, we kept our promise and picked less than 30 pounds! 

I think we consumed about 4 pounds of berries on the drive home, which is only about 10 minutes.  The strawberry concoctions began just seconds after placing the berries on the kitchen counter. 

The first thing we whipped up was strawberry lemonade in the blender. So refreshing in the 90 degree heat.

Dinner was followed by strawberry milkshakes.

After the milkshakes on Friday night, I think we were all in a strawberry coma.  We waited until Saturday evening to make a strawberry lemon buttermilk cake and this turned out to be the real star of the weekend. Just to give you an idea of how out-of-this-world the cake was, we made it at 9 pm Saturday night and this is all that was left by Sunday morning at 10AM:

You get my point.  You all know that I would much rather have chocolate baked goods over fruity baked goods, but not this time.  I have never, ever tasted something quite like the flavor of this cake.  The batter was the perfect consistency, and once again, I loved the subtle lemon flavor from the zest.  I cannot wait to use the batter in combination with other fruits such as blueberries, plums and apricots. I will bake this cake again this weekend, guaranteed.


Strawberry Lemon Buttermilk Cake (Anja's Food 4 Thought)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

75g butter (about 6 TBS)
2/3 cup agave syrup
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh strawberries, trimmed and quartered
1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat oven to 200C (392F). Grease a 9 inch tart tin.
Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside.In a large bowl, mix butter and agave with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add lemon zest, vanilla extract and egg and mix until well combined. Now stir in the buttermilk. Add the flour mixture in several batches and stir until just combined. Pour the batter into the cake tin, leveling the top. Scatter the strawberries evenly over the top and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean of the center of the cake. Let cool in the tin for 10 minutes, before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

red,white & blue.

I usually get a few laughs when I tell people that I am living in the dorms this summer.  The laughs are then followed by a question that goes something like this "...but didn't you graduate in May?"  Indeed I did.  I am serving as an AmeriCorps team member this summer and work as a resident and teaching assistant (not to mention mentor-momof36kids-firstaidperson-ruleenforcer-tutor-16yearoldlovelifecounselor-jackofalltrades-superwoman) and therefore haven't be able to spend very much time in the kitchen.  My lunches (and dinners for that matter) often consist of the same old iceberg lettuce topped with whatever I can get my hands on at the cafeteria and let's be honest, I have no desire to write about that and I can only guess you would not want to read about it either.  I am going home this weekend and while there, I promise to make something blog worthy.
 I did have a few days off of work over the 4th of July and was asked to cook breakfast (with the help of my good friend J) for 10 of my friends while we were up north.  The 4th of July is my favorite holiday, so naturally I wanted to make something festive!  The two of us teamed up and decided to whip up homemade blueberry buttermilk pancakes, topped with strawberries and whipped cream.  Hello RED WHITE AND BLUE!  The pancakes were a major hit.  After breakfast I got to thinking about griddle cakes and I realized many people do not make pancakes from scratch anymore...they are made out of a box.  Don't get me wrong, everyone relies on a box mix at some point in their life, however, I believe everyone should have one go-to homemade pancake recipe in their collection.   Here is a perfect pancake recipe that is simple, delicious and can be specialized by adding berries, nuts or chocolate.  Not everything made in the kitchen has to have multiple pages of directions or ingredients that are near impossible to find.

Buttermilk Pancakes
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
2 Tbs oil
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tps salt
1 1/2-2cups flour (I used 2 to get the correct consistency)

Directions: Mix wet ingredients in a medium bowl and dry ingredients in a separate large bowl.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry, stirring until just combined.  A few lumps in the pancake batter is normal!  Using a 1/3 c. measuring cup, place batter on heated griddle.  Add berries, nuts or chocolate chips to each pancake.  (I have found that adding the berries etc to the cakes once they are on the griddle works out well.  When I mix in the berries or chips to the batter, they all sink to the bottom.)  Enjoy!

fresh blueberries

My attempt at a flag pancake

Red, white and blue buttermilk pancakes!