Intermittent Fasting Diet Plan Example

Even though the official first day of summer is a few days away, lately I've been thinking of those things I love to cook in the summer but never make any other time of year, and grilled vegetables that get turned into salad are at the top of that list.  I love grilled vegetable salads, and there are a couple on the blog that are my all time favorites, starting with the Whole Wheat Orzo and Grilled Vegetable Salad with Feta, Olives, and Herbs shown above.  I could eat this all summer long!  Two more grilled summer salads I'm equally crazy over are Grilled Sweet Potato Salad with Basil, Thyme, and Feta and Grilled Zucchini Greek Salad.  Did you notice the common ingredient in these three favorite grilled salads?  Yes, I do love Feta cheese and recently my favorite Feta cheese showed up again at Costco after I hadn't been able to find it for a couple of years.  It doesn't take much to make me happy; finding that Feta at Costco again totally made my day, and the summer has gotten off to a good start.

It's Christmas Eve, and I'm spending a few days celebrating Christmas with my sister's family including some very cute kids.  This may be a short edition of Things I'm Thinking About, but I do want to share a few Christmas things I spotted on the web, and of course I want to send out wishes for a happy holiday season to my wonderful readers.  My life is enriched so much by the nice messages I get almost daily from people who are enjoying the healthy food.  Happy Holidays everyone and thanks for your support of my blog!  And no matter how you're celebrating this magical the season, I hope you'll be able to spend time with those you love, hopefully enjoying some good holiday food.

It's feeling a lot like Spring at my house, and even though I already complained about it once, can I say one more time that I'm feeling pretty serious garden withdrawals?  At my old house I would probably have volunteer chard coming up in the garden by now, and one of my favorite things to make in the spring is Garlic Scape and Chard Pesto like you see in the photos above.  If you like garlic, but don't know what Garlic Scapes are, use that link to go and read about them.  Then hit up your local organic grocer or farmer's market and make some of this amazing pesto right away!

Don't get me wrong, I love my new house, and I feel more than blessed to have a house that's big enough that my enormous family can come here for a party.  But I'm also optimistically making plans for a bit more gardening on-the-fly this year (until I can build a real greenhouse, hopefully this fall.)  Tonight I told my neighbor across the street how I was just going to slip a few tomato plants in among the flowers in a sunny but sheltered spot by my garage.  "The deer will eat them," she said, without even thinking twice.  I guess we're going to find out whether deer like tomatoes, mint, and basil, because those are the three plants I've decided I have to at least try growing outside this year.

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you might have noticed that a few weekends ago I was enthusiastically sharing about a  food photography workshop hosted by my good friends and amazing photographers, Todd Porter and Diane Cu of White on Rice Couple.  I've heard Todd and Diane talk about food photography at several blogging conferences, so I knew the workshop held in their fabulous food photography studio outside Los Angeles would be informative, but I never imagined how life-changing it would end up being for me.  Two days of listening to the experts, watching demonstrations, and practicing new shooting methods really got me thinking outside the box on my personal food photography journey.

Plus Todd and Diane had visited my house on the tour for their gorgeous cookbook, so they could help me with one of my biggest photography challenges, which is too many big windows in the rooms where I normally shoot.  When I got home, I bought black foam core boards and clamps the very next day!  A few food bloggers have been asking me about the workshop, so I thought I'd share some highlights  and a few of my photos.    

It's tomato salad and tomato sandwich season, and even though my new town has a weekly farmers market where I've been stocking up on tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini, I can't get over how much I'm missing my garden.  I love all the summer veggies, but tomatoes are the summer treat I wait for every year, and my favorite way to eat them is this Summer Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese, Basil Vinaigrette, and Fresh Herbs.  I've probably been making this salad for at least 20 years and I never get tired of it.  (The other two tomato salads I make over and over are Middle Eastern Tomato Salad and Tomato, Olive, and Fresh Mozzarella Salad with Basil Vinaigrette.)  I'm savoring summer for at least another month here before I'm willing to even think about fall, so a lot more tomato salads are going to be on the menu!

And I'm seriously investigating the idea of a greenhouse so I can grow things away from the deer and other critters for next year.  If anyone has greenhouse suggestions, I am all ears!