Long Weekend

And I'm back! It's been a pretty crazy week so I took time off from blogging. But I'm back now with two, count 'em two new recipes. We had a nice long weekend swimming and hanging out by the pool. Everyone told us that a pool would be a lot of work when we bought the house but really it's not too bad. V does most of it but we just skim off the top of the water regularly and then we have a little vacuum to get yuck off the bottom and that's really it's maybe 5 - 10 minutes and we are ready to swim! I also painted the beautiful adirondack chairs and now need to pick out a color to paint the table. I'm thinking white would accent the chairs nicely. We both love swimming and just reading in the pool. For some reason there is an overabundance of ants in the pool which is mildly annoying... but not terrible.

Now I am working on finding recipes that don't require me to do much work so I can swim instead of spending all my time cooking. Which means, lots of grilling this summer. One day we had the summer veggie pasta and another we had creamed corn casserole with grilled asparagus (and V had a steak). Plenty of tastiness to go around! Both of these recipes are from Pioneer Woman's website.

Creamed Corn Casserole

This is really good. I added a little too much cream but I just used a slotted spoon to serve it and it turned out fine. It's not a light dish but it was easy to make and very good.

8 ears corn - shucked and silks removed

2/3 cups cream

2 tablespoons butter (the original recipes called for 3 but I thought it was a little greasy)

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350. In a big bowl with a big knife remove the corn kernels. Then scrape the back of the knife over the cobs to get out all the yummy corn milk-stuff. Pour in cream. Add butter (I cut it in small pieces so it would better disperse), and salt and pepper.

Pour into a casserole dish. Bake for 30-45 minutes, until warm and bubbly.

Summer Veggie Pasta

This is very good also. The ricotta has a slightly odd consistency but once you get used to it, it adds a nice texture to all sorts of dishes.

• 16 ounces pasta shells
• 1 pound Asparagus - ends removed, cut into bite-sized pieces
• ½ pounds Broccoli, Cut Into bite-sized pieces
• ½ pounds Zucchini Diced
• ½ cups Frozen Peas
• 3 whole Green Onions cut into little pieces
• 3 cloves Garlic, Minced
• 4 Tablespoons Butter
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil (though I used letter butter and more oil)
• 20 ounces, weight Ricotta Cheese (20 - 22 Ozs.)
• 2 whole Eggs
• 1-½ cup Parmesan Cheese
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat over to 350.

Melt butter and olive oil in a pan. Put in asparagus and cook 5 minutes (the original recipes said to add garlic first but I like to add it later so it doesn't get bitter). Add broccoli, cook 1 minutes. Add zucchini and good another 2 minutes. Add in garlic and onions and frozen peas. Set aside to cool.

Cook the pasta. Combine ricotta, eggs, salt, and pepper.

In a greased 9x13 baking dish (I used two 8x8 pans and froze half) layer food - pasta, ricotta, parmesan, veggies, pasta ricotta, parmesan, veggies, parmesan. Bake for 25 minutes or until warmed through. Enjoy!