Jacky Hackett: Cooking, eating, reading, riding my bike that goes nowhere — living my best porch life.
It was a beautiful football Sunday around here, especially perfect for watching the game on the front lawn with friends. What goes better with football than beer, cheese (three of them), and pretzels. Roasted garlic is a beautiful addition to the party. I am new to saison style of beer, I had never heard of…
Thankful for a beautiful day off, though I labored inside for a good part of the day. Poor planning, I should have gotten that all done earlier so I could have a beach today. We took an extra long weekend and spent two nights in Michigan, so at least I got one beach day out…
I’ve been intrigued by the food swap movement for the past year. I was so happy when a few local foodies established the Chicago Food Swap, and bonus it was so close to home. I attended the first swap and came home with lots of goodies. Gosh, that was last year, so I was glad…
A delicious introduction. They got along swimmingly. After a few weeks soaking the bourbon took on the color of the cherries and resembled the color of a rich red wine. With the color soaked out of the cherries, they look a bit like Kalamata olives. But believe me the flavor is nothing like an olive. …
Plenty of tomatoes and basil to enjoy this week thanks to the CSA. Layers of tomatoes, basil, finely shredded Swiss, salt, pepper, and a little drizzle of olive oil were packed into a pie crust for a very rich and incredibly filling dinner. Didn’t make a dent in the basil. I still have plenty of…
It was an exciting week with the kids starting school. Kindergarten for the youngest, he is now a full-time student… The kitchen was not exiting this week, lots of reruns. Let’s see, I at this spicy watermelon salad about four or five times last week. I have finally run out of watermelon. The kids requested…
Summer is quickly coming to an end. The day light hours are already shifting, school starts tomorrow and Labor Day is right around the corner. At least we still have lots of summer produce to look forward to, and hopefully some summer-like weather. Our final summer supper to ease us back into the school night…
The CSA box this week included squash blossoms. They are gorgeous, amazing color. I have never cooked or even eaten squash blossoms so I was pretty excited to have them in the delivery. I have most commonly seen squash blossoms stuffed, battered, and deep fried. I decided to go that route minus the deep fry. …
The first leg of our vacation was camping in Michigan. Can’t go camping without s’mores. My sister-in-law brought Reese’s peanut butter cups, genius! We roasted up the beer marshmallows. I have to say,beer or no beer, homemade marshmallows are awesome. The texture is creamier than the packaged kind. They roasted up nicely, and melted very…
Strawberries + Basil = Summer Easy + No Bake (almost) = Vacation Summer vacation in a pie crust… I love cooking, so I have no problem cooking on vacation. It gives me time to try new things and not be rushed. But sometime simple wins. There is no time like summer for simple, easy, no…