Cooking at Cornerstone Again

This time around, we did not get very many pictures at all, especially for dinner/dessert - there is always much more going on when we are cooking here, with extra people and kids, etc.  Because of that, we are not thinking as much about taking pictures, and that makes it more difficult to take time to try and get good photos.  But we still had delicious food!

Natalie cooked mutton for us again--she braised it in wine, carrots, onions, and celery.

We made a salad based on the Little Gem, Feta, and Cumin Salad in the July 2011 Bon Appetit.  The dressing was delicious, made with greek yogurt, feta cheese, and cumin, and we used a mixture of salad greens from both Cornerstone and Ian and Jeanette's garden.  We also added freshly picked radishes, which added beautiful color, as well as a little spice and crunch.

Now on to side dishes...we'll start with Cheese-Stuffed Portobellos from the June 2011 Food Network Magazine.

These had so much stuffing in them (and there was still some left-over after piling it on really high) that no one realized they were mushrooms until we told them!  We used spinach from the garden in the filling, and omitted the celery salad the recipe suggests to serve on the side.

Next we made hasselback potatoes - the potatoes are sliced thinly, but not all the way through, filled with thin slices of garlic here and there, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with rosemary (from the garden), and baked at a high temperature until they're cooked through and crispy on the outside.



The final side dish for this meal was Spinach Gunge from the June 2011 Bon Appetit.  It takes a lot of spinach, but is a pretty simple dish made with creme fraiche, Pecorino cheese, and dijon mustard.

We decided to eat dinner on the second story of the 'barn'

Lauren also made her first loaf of sourdough bread using a starter and instruction from their intern/roommate Andrew, who ate dinner with us as well.

Frozen Key Lime Pie from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Family Style cookbook was for dessert.  We weren't able to make it as much in advance as we should have, so it wasn't too frozen yet when we ate it, but it still tasted good!  We stayed in the barn for dessert, and then started a game of Rats, which was later moved into the house.

The next morning, which was Lauren's birthday, we made Fresh Peach Cake from the June 2011 Food Network Magazine for breakfast.

The cake batter is layered with sliced peaches and cinnamon sugar, and then topped with chopped pecans

It took longer to bake than the recipe said, but we made it in a slightly smaller pan than it called for

It smelled so good while it was in the oven, and turned out great!  The cake was moist and fluffy, and the peach juices and cinnamon sugar seeped into it, giving it great flavor.

Now that the weather is finally warming up, there are lots of things growing, so we have a lot more farm-fresh ingredients to use!  We better get cooking!