Super Bowl Update

This is our garden this year.

These are going to be yellow pear-shaped cherry tomatoes. I planted 4 other kinds of tomatoes too.
These are chili peppers we planted last year that grew back. There are 3 plants with different kinds of peppers (one is called chocolate pepper.)
We planted green onions outside of the garden to keep the critters away.
These are eggplants from the plant we planted last year. They also survived.
Here is a small cuke. I planted one cucumber plant and it has gone crazy along with the 4 zucchini plants.

This time last year I had a major critter problem in my garden. So far we've been lucky (knock on wood.) I buy most of my plants from Rogers Gardens in Corona Del Mar, Newport Beach. They sell lots of heirloom plants that do well by the beach. And, if you love gardens, gourmet food and art you should visit this place. It's amazing, especially at Christmastime.

A couple weeks ago we had a ladies craft night at church. Well, I mostly socialized so I didn't finish any of my 3 projects that night. I just now finished this one. It's a magnetic board to hold pictures, postcards, invitations, cards, whatever. I was supposed to use ribbon to tie on the metal hanger but I cut some fabric off of my bedskirt instead.

I'm making some custom magnets to go with it. When I finish I'll post them with my board hanging in my room.

This year I was honored to win a blue ribbon for my granola at the OC Fair. I've had several requests for my "winning recipe" so here is my attempt to share it with you. I make granola for my family once a week and it is different every time I make it. The award winner was Orange Cherry Pecan.

First up:
Orange Dried Cherries (They are good on their own but are a wonderful addition to granola.)

*Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

2- 10 oz. bags of frozen cherries
1/2 to 1 cup (enough to cover the cherries) Orange juice (I used orange mango)
1/4 cup honey
secret ingredient-a little orange zest

In a medium saucepan on medium heat, bring all ingredients to a boil. Turn heat to low and allow mixture to simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated and the juice is thick. Don't stir. If you really want to stir it, just swirl the pot around. Remove from heat. Using a slotted spoon, remove cherries and place them in a single layer on a silicone pad lined cookie sheet (or parchment paper or non-stick cookie sheet.) Dry in preheated oven
for about 2 hours, checking every 20-30 minutes. You want them to be chewy. If you have a dehydrator, cool. Use it.

Orange Cherry Pecan Granola
* Preheat oven to 275 degrees
4 cups grains (I use a mixture of oatmeal, wheat flakes, barley flakes, and rye flakes)
2 cups nuts (the winning recipe used blanched almonds and pecans)
1/2 cup flax seeds
1/2-3/4 cups honey (depending on how sweet you want it)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
sprinklings of sea salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg
secret ingredient-2 Tbs. orange juice
Orange zest
Orange Dried Cherries
Combine all ingredients except zest and cherries in a medium-sized bowl. Spread mixture onto a non-stick or foil-lined cookie sheet. Bake in oven for 30 minutes to an hour. Stir every 10-15 minutes after 30 minutes. You want the granola a golden brown. You are stirring so the sides don't get too brown. Remove granola from the oven and sprinkle with orange zest. Allow granola to cool before adding dried cherries and packaging.

It's great on yogurt or with milk as a cereal. Other flavoring options: add a teaspoon of vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, coconut or almond extract. You could also add peanut butter and replace the honey with maple syrup or agave necter.
Other fruits: dehydrated or freeze-dried strawberries, peaches, raisins, currents, flaked coconut, blueberries, apples, banana chips, etc.
Other nuts and seeds: slivered almonds (just be careful that they don't get too brown too quickly), peanuts, walnuts, pumpkin seeds (they are in the picture above but I didn't use them in my award winning recipe), sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, etc.
Enjoy! Let me know if you try it.

Yes, you heard that right. I made my own English muffins. They are as easy to make as pancakes only so much cooler. I found the recipe on Baking Bites blog. I substituted white flour with whole wheat pastry flour and they were amazing. I served them with butter and my mum's homemade sugar-free plum jam.

It has been a long, long time since we have been to Brugge Brasserie, (it was pre-blog days even) and the reason was the last time we went, it wasn’t very good. This time, it was really good and I look forward to my next visit to mix it up a little bit.

First of all, it was pretty impressive how busy this place was on a Monday night. It just goes to show, a quality independent can be successful. Our server was also much friendlier than the one we had last time and was helpful in answering questions.

So, we started with the endive salad which was mixed greens with some chopped endive, candied walnuts, blue cheese and raspberry vinaigrette. The salad was really tasty. The blue cheese was good quality and went really well with the candied walnuts. And when they say candied, they mean it; I mean there were some bigger pieces in there that looked like pieces of walnut brittle. The salad was properly dressed and we ate every bite. If I was going to be picky, I would say it was maybe just a little too sweet, with the candied walnuts and the raspberry vinaigrette, but I still really enjoyed it (and hubby thought it was great just the way it was). It was certainly enough to share between 2 people. There was a spinach salad as well as a special salad with caramelized fennel and pear. They both sounded really good as well. Next time.




For our dinner, we ordered the mussels Provencal. One of Brugge’s specialties is the mussels and they serve them in many different flavored seasonings. The Provencal was French Chardonnay, French Butter, herbs de Provence, shallot and garlic. I certainly like all of those things and it was really hard to choose amongst the different choices. Let me start by saying, it is nice to eat at a place with enough turnover that you know you are getting fresh mussels that are correctly prepared. They are also the smaller size that I prefer (yes, boys, size does matter, and bigger isn’t always better). As far as the mussels themselves went, they were super high quality. As far as the Provencal seasonings, I would prefer a bit more flavor. I saw one big garlic clove in the pot—instead of that maybe some minced garlic and some fresh herbs would have added a bit more? And even more shallots would have been good I think. I did enjoy them though, although I will definitely try another flavor next time. Hey, I have had lots of recommendations to eat here from readers. Tell me what your favorite flavor is for the mussels—I would love to know.

The 2 pounds of mussels (again, certainly enough to share) come with a bit of French bread and an order of frites with 2 dipping sauces. The frites, I will say, were outstanding. The combination of the frites, the dipping sauce and the mussels made a fantastic combination in my mouth. Again, they give you lots of choices for dipping sauces. We went with the regular aioli (mayo with fresh garlic) and the roasted garlic aioli (with roasted garlic obviously). The roasted garlic was much milder in flavor—I really preferred the regular aioli—it had a great garlic bite. I would probably get that one again and add in a new one next time. (Again, what’s your favorite flavor)? As far as the size of the frites, the ones that came with the mussels were really enough for the two of us, although if I had had more, I certainly would have eaten them. They were great. Rated up there with the best in the city.

Now, I know it is sort of sacrilegious, but we didn’t have the beer. Brugge is known for its own brewed beer and have won awards for it I understand. What can I say? I am not a beer drinker. We had wine—and I was glad to see a new wine list with some dryer choices. Last time most of them seemed pretty sweet as I recall.

I love dessert crepes, so we had the nutella crepe. Nothing super fancy, but tasty nonetheless. It was a sweet crepe filled with nutella (a hazelnut chocolate spread if you are unaware) and drizzled with raspberry sauce and cream. Hubby wasn’t a fan of the raspberry sauce detracting from his nutella, but I liked it all together.

All in all, I am really glad we went back to Brugge after all this time. It was a thoroughly enjoyable meal. (Note--they also serve many other things besides mussels, such as crepes, soups, and regular entrees as well. So if you aren’t into mussels, there are other options, although I can’t vouch for them (not yet anyway).)

(Don’t forget to leave your comment about your favorite mussel seasoning and frites dipping sauces! I gotta figure out my game plan for next time.)

Brugge Brasserie
1011 A East Westfield Blvd.
Indy 46220
317-255-0978
www.bruggebrasserie.com

To continue with my tradition of posting a tour of my home on every holiday, I present you with Independence Day. First off, a picture of my house with my flag out front.
Just inside the kitchen is the banner that I sewed using vintage and recycled fabrics and bias tape.

And, as promised, on the living room coffee table lies the coordinating table runner. It's reversable. It has the red bandana/centinial fabric on one side and colorful flip flops on the other.

I didn't really go all out of decorating the house this go around because I've been busy planning the church 4th of July Breakfast. We are having pancakes with fresh strawberries and whipping cream.

I also made 150 of these Mentos "firecrackers." I used up a bunch of paper and ribbon I wasn't crazy about. I will put these on the tables as the decoration.

Basic instructions: Remove paper wrapper. Replace with 2" x 3" piece of paper (I ran my adhesive runner up one side and then just rolled the Mentos over the paper). Tie knot in 3" long piece of ribbon and adhere with a small glue dot. Repeat 149 times. LOL.

And, finally, every year the girls in my family (aka the growgirls) wear matching Old Navy t-shirts. This is my uniform for this year. I'll wear it with a skirt and a flag bracelet

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend. Happy 4th to all of my American friends. Thanks for stopping by.