Minestrone: Hello, soup season.

It was in a teeny, tiny old kitchen in Missouri that I first discovered how vegetables, water and spices can cook down into something comforting, and even satisfying.

It was my first month on my own post-college, in a new town where I knew precisely one person. I didn't think much of it that day, but the New York Times recipe for Summer Minestrone I found would set the tone for this season I was entering.

I would feed myself without a meal plan, without my mother, without good friends to eat with. Trying a new recipe to eat off all week would become my go-to weekend escape. In a creaky, sometimes creepy, small space all of my own, I learned what I liked to eat and how I liked to cook, not just what  I grew up with but still building on that foundation.

Five years later, my life looks different, though not drastically.  I am closer to home and have new companions in my day-to-day comings and goings. I share the fruits of my kitchen in different ways than I did then.

But as I  sauté onions and carrots, add tomatoes to simmer, and fill my kitchen with the aroma of Italian spices, once again all by myself, I return to fellowship with a simmering pot, with thoughts left to wander, with solitude.

For a good part of the evening, I don't look at my phone or consider the rest of the world's social plans on this Saturday night. I rest in the moment, in my happy place, and travel back to a mid-day lunch of Summer Minestrone and Parmesan toast in my lil' old grad school apartment. This is me embracing who I was created to be, and no one else.

Summer Veggie Brunch Bake + Strawberry Scones

Why top eggs with veggies when you can top veggies with eggs, and lots of cheese too of course? Maybe we've been getting this eggs-first priority wrong.

Brunch started with sauteed fresh summer veggies plus fresh mozzarella and basil.

Top it with an egg and more cheese, Parmesan this time, and then more basil, bake it, and voila, you have a pretty+healthy summer breakfast.

Recipe verdict:

+Fresh and summery taste

+Veggilicious lightness as opposed to heavy brunchy eggs-meat combo

+Ramekin presentation elegance

+Individual portion cuteness

-Veggies gone runny...maybe strain veggie mix or leave out tomatoes next time

-Time intensive to cook veggies, put it all together and then bake it

Overall: Make again for a small group but prep the night before and skip tomatoes to avoid liquid in end product

Cheesy!

But the best part of this meal was a more decadent strawberry scone.

Once upon a time I though scones were always dry pastries. And then I had one that tasted like a fluffy, buttery, sweet biscuit. Now when I make them I can't stop eating them, especially warm out of the oven and filled with summery-fresh berries.

Recipe verdict:

+Fresh and summery, yet lightly decadent, taste

+Delicious

+So delicious

+Pretty wedges of pastry

-Time intensive to cut butter into a flour mixture and then play  with sticky dough to fold in berries and get it in a decent shape for baking

Overall: Make as often as possible when I have the time to dedicate to it

Serve veggies eggs+scones with milk in mason jar, plus a lake view and a conversation/food sharing partner, for full effect.

Peach Salsa, Summer Squash with Cheese and Panko: A market-inspired dinner

Roommate-I-Got-To-Keep-from-Last-Year: I feel like we just ate a restaurant dinner.
Me: This is better than a restaurant dinner.

This, my friends, is how we welcomed new roommates 3 and 4 to our home of calm and inspiration (and dream kitchen!), to the land of Pepper Place market and Chilton County peaches, to a new season as ladies of the Court on which we live.

My dinner scheming partner and I also had inspiration from the quinoa salad from Shindigs (her) and the light-yet-cheesy squash casserole on the veggie plate at Urban Standard (me).

Over our summertime fare, we chatted about our "home dreams" and plotted for how this would be the first of many house fellowship dinners and the first of many hospitable welcomes to the home of R+A+H+M. Backyard movie night next, anyone?

A Market-Inspired Menu

Chardonnay

 Grilled Chicken Breasts with Chilton County Peach Salsa (recipe below)

Red Quinoa with Pesto and Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes over Mixed Greens (roommate creation)

Zucchini and Zyphr Squash with Cheese and Panko (recipe below)

Butterscotch Chip Cookies

Crostini with Lima Bean Hummus and Simple Corn Relish

I bought corn and lima beans on a farmer's market hopping trip with the intention of boiling them and eating them, a nice simple summery side dish for the week.

And then I went for a bike ride and somehow came up with a different idea, because when I have free time I tend to busy myself with random projects instead of doing whatever else I meant to do.

These babes were more dainty looking, outside-the-box, blog-worthy, entertaining-worthy, and therefore worth more of my free weekend time where I was actually in town.

Corn Relish: sweet and vinegary condiment; way to cook corn that stretches it to many uses over many weeks; the best part of this fancifying my food idea. 

Lima Bean Hummus is good, but the texture is coarse and hard to get to spreadable consistency, much more so than other beans I usually use for hummus. It is a pretty color for summertime, fresh, and in season though.

Dinner: Grilled Veggie Pasta

Marinated summer veggies on the grill. Colorful red pepper, zucchini, red onion, and mushrooms. I could make a meal of just those beauties.

But in order to make it a "real" meal, I served it with the simple, fresh flavors of penne pasta, Parmesan, and fresh basil. The addition of a grilled chicken breast was optional depending on how much you like meat. Leftovers are fantastic cold; I chopped some chicken to toss into the pasta for lunch the next day.

I recommend chopping the veggies in advance so that all you have to do to prep is grill, cook pasta, chop basil, and put it all together.

Also, this picture isn't all that pretty, but it was pretty darn attractive in person.