Summer Tomato Salad

If you are tired of the good old lettuce/tomato/red onion salad on your dinner table, here is a good (and super easy) alternative. I call it my Summer Salad and it is a French-Italian fusion.
Typically Italians would only use Oregano in this salad and maybe add water to the dressing. I use Fennel and French Tarragon to mine, no water!

This year we have planted 6 Tomato plants, one of each variety, just for contrast and compare purposes and I have to say that some varieties will not grow in my yard again: Jersey Big Boy for instance takes a lot of room but yields very little. At best we have 6 ginormous tomatoes out of this plant. The Cherry 100 are still a reliable plant for us, we've been picking cherry tomatoes daily since mid July. The Roma for some reason have a parasite which rots the bottom of each one, only a few were spared. The Grape, Vine and Steak varieties are OK thus far.
So here is our tomato harvest as of August week 1:

This sorry looking cucumber is a fridge find!
 I figured I might as well use it!

Here are the ingredients for my Summer Tomato Salad:

• Tomatoes - all sizes and varieties
• 1 Cucumber
• 1 whole garlic
• Fresh herbs:  Fennel, French Tarragon, Chives and Basil
• Olive Oil
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Lemon Juice
• Salt and Pepper

STEP ONE:

Slice at least 5 Garlic cloves as thin as you may like. We enjoy Garlic in our home and are not afraid of using it. You may notice that I am not giving measurement for this salad because everything is really "to your taste".

Chop the fresh herbs and combine with the Garlic.

STEP TWO:

In a large bowl, combine the Olive Oil, Balsamic Vinegar, Lemon Juice, Salt and Pepper (again, all to taste) and mix well. The more you mix the dressing the more it will emulsify (get creamier), if you have a small whisk (the kind used by Bartenders) now is the time to use it.
This is what my dressing looks like once it is slightly mixed:

Combine the dressing with the Garlic and Herb mix.

STEP THREE:

Slice the Cucumber and tomatoes, whatever size you prefer - we like to keep the Cherry Tomatoes whole but you could slice them in half as well.
Add all your "veggies" to the dressing and mix well. Cover and keep cool in the refrigerator for at least one hour before serving.

And here is the final result!

There are many ways you can serve this Summer Salad:

• As a side dish in a ramekin directly placed on a plate or on the side
• As a Bruccetta Dressing (ingredients would need to be sliced thinner)
• As the base for a larger salad
• As a sandwich garnish - just add Mozzarella.

The possibilities are endless - this is a very simple, very refreshing salad which uses only "in season" ingredients. And if you have a basic garden, you would have most of these ingredients on hand already.

I hope you enjoy this recipe.

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Thank you all!

Zucchini Banana Bread Recipe

I don't know about you but I don't particularly care about wasting money on food.  Yet, every week we end up tossing leftovers we had long forgotten on that refrigerator shelf no one ever checks, or worse, fruits and vegetables! In our area, these are not cheap!

This year, I have decided to become more frugal when it comes to food and am now making it a point to try to find solutions and alternative meals out of our leftovers or food that is just about to pass its expiration date.

Take these bananas for instance...

I do not care much for over riped bananas, in fact, I would much rather eat green ones, bitter to the taste and all. An over riped banana tastes more like some kind of liquored desert to me, something I would not enjoy much for breakfast.

So, I went online and checked around as to what possible use I could make for these over riped bananas!

Turns out there are a lot of alternatives, amongst them, two My Great Challenge readers and fans commented on an earlier Facbook post on this very subject. Gina P. makes Banana Bread with hers and Nancy M. wrote that she slices her riped bananas and freezes them to later use in smoothies (genius!). Other uses for over riped bananas:

• Chocolate covered frozen banana bites
• Banana Pancakes
• Banana Flambe (use Rum or Orange Liqueur)
• Ice Box Cake (bananas, graham crackers and pudding - it's an old fashioned recipe from the Italian neighborhood around my way)

And on, the list goes...But since I had Zucchinis on hand, guess what? I made Zucchini Banana Bread from a recipe I found online and it was absolutely delicious!

Here are the ingredients:

2 cups flour (self rising variety - I did not have any but half a pack of yeast to mine)

1/4 teaspoon regular table salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 large eggs

3/4 cup granulated white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar (mine needed to be broken up as it was all packed)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup sour cream (you can use yogurt or apple sauce)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup mashed bananas (I used just about 3 small bananas)

2 cups grated  zucchinis

You can find the recipe on the website "about.com".

Step one:

Grate your nutmeg and gather all your spices.

Mix  flour, salt and spices together.

Step Two:

Mash the bananas with a fork and add to a separate bowl. Mix the bananas with the granulated sugar, brown sugar, yogurt and oil.
Using the electric hand mixer, blend to a smooth consistency.

Add the two eggs and continue blending the wet ingredients together.

Step Three:

Mix the wet and dry ingredients using a kitchen whisk.

Your mixture should look like this:

Add the shredded Zucchini but only fold the mixture over the zucchini, churning a few times (you do not want the zucchini to get all mashed up nor release their water in the mix).

This is what the batter should look like...

Step four:

Turn the oven on at 350 F.
Butter a rectangular cake pan (I used my Pyrex Meatloaf dish), add flour all around to ensure the batter will not stick to the walls.

Once the oven is pre-heated, mark your timer for 1 hour and place the cake on the middle rack. After one hour of cooking, insert a knife into the cake to check cooking, the knife should come back dry. If still wet, add time in 5 minute increments.

Here is the cake after 60 minutes cooking time!!!

It was absolutely delicious and the boys ate it too! This cake is awesome as a breakfast bread or an afternoon tea treat. Scott ate his in the evening, under a pile of ice cream!

The original recipe calls for pecans, but you could use walnuts or hazelnuts just as well. I can see this bread as a side on your Thanksgiving table, just add orange zest and dried cranberries to the mix, you can also sprinkle it with confectioner ' sugar!

Overall, I found this recipe very easy to reproduce and the resulting taste was above my expectations! Plus, I got to use some fruit I would have otherwise tossed away...win-win all around!

Enjoy this recipe!

Sophia, NJ.

Cleaning Routine - free template

This template is free - more to come!
Please refer to this post for more information on how to use it:

Bathroom Cleaning Routine

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BATHROOM CLEANING ROUTINE