Sometimes I come across a recipe and I am so intrigued that I just have to try it. Cinnamon and Tuna. Hmm…Yes, this is one of those recipes.

But, since it involved fish, I decided to get jwa’s opinion on it before making it. He’s somewhat picky about fish and I didn’t want to be left with 20 meatballs to eat all by my lonesome if he decided he didn’t think he’d like it. Not a fish meal, but try having to eat a whole pot of veggie chili by yourself and you will learn to gauge another person’s interest in a meal while it is still hypothetical. For the tuna meatballs, he was a little skeptical but then I mentioned it was a Jamie Oliver recipe and he was all, “Oh, okay then!”

That’s almost exactly how I felt. It’s what convinced me that it would probably be good too. All of the recipes of Jamie’s I have tried have been awesome and Jamie at Home is one of the only Food Network shows I watch anymore (Sandra Lee does not count. Semi Homemade is like a sitcom). But I digress.

You might approach this tuna meatball recipe a bit tentatively but seriously, it is so good! And it’s a great vehicle for frozen ahi tuna. It won’t work with canned and honestly, I wouldn’t waste beautiful, fresh, just begging to be pan seared and nom-nom-nomed tuna here, but frozen tuna is perfect. Perfect, I say! And economical too, making this a Cheap Fish Project post. Hooray!

Printable recipe pdf!

Tuna Meatballs or Le Migliori Polpette di Tonno
Adapted from Jamie’s Italy by Jamie Oliver
for the tomato sauce
olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 14-oz. cans of good-quality plum tomatoes
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
red wine vinegar
a small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
Optional: 1 tbsp honey

for the meatballs
14 oz. tuna (defrosted if frozen, I used ahi but albacore would probably work too)
olive oil
1/4 cup pinenuts
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano
a handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 3/4 cups stale breadcrumbs
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
2 eggs
zest and juice of 1 lemon

Chop the tuna up into 1-inch or so cubes. Pour a good couple of tablespoons of olive oil into a large frying pan and place on the heat. Add the tuna to the pan with the pinenuts and cinnamon. Season lightly with salt and pepper and fry for a minute or so to cook the tuna on all sides and toast the pinenuts. The fish will probably still be a bit raw in the center, that’s fine.

Remove from the heat and put the mixture into a bowl. Allow to cool down for 5 minutes, then add the oregano, parsley, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, eggs, lemon zest, and juice to the bowl. Using your hands, really scrunch and mix the flavors into the tuna. The consistency should be like a regular meatball mixture. Divide the mixture and squeeze it into meatballs slightly smaller than a golf ball. If you dip one of your hands in water while shaping, you’ll get a nice smooth surface on the meatball. If the mixture’s very sticky, add a few more breadcrumbs. Keep the meatballs around the same size and place them on an oiled tray, then put them in the fridge for an hour to let them rest.

Now make your sauce. Place a large pan on the heat, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, the onion and garlic, and fry slowly for 5-7 minutes or so, until soft. Add the oregano, the tomatoes, salt, and pepper and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes or so, then blend until smooth. Taste - it might need a tiny swig of red wine vinegar or some extra seasoning. I opted here to add about a tablespoon of honey. Let it simmer while you finish up the meatballs.

Oh and start boiling your pasta here.

Put the pan you fried the tuna in back on the heat with a little olive oil. Add your meatballs to the pan and jiggle them about until they’re golden brown all over.

You might want to do them in batches — when they’re done, add them to the tomato sauce, simmer for about 5 minutes. Plate up your pasta and ladle with meatballs and sauce. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, and drizzle with good olive oil.

Well, here we are at the end of the month already. And here’s what we’ve all been waiting for — Weekend Cookbook Challenge 30: Farmer’s Markets. Thanks again to Sara for graciously allowing me to guest-host her awesome event for the month of July. I’m happy to say that there was a nice, respectable amount of entries, with all corners of the US and Canada representin’…hooray! I am always worried no one will send anything. I have issues, apparently.

Anyway, let’s get right to checking out the fabulous and colorful Farmers Market bounty, shall we?

We’ll start in Canada (British Columbia, woo! I miss the honeymoon) and Sara from I Like to Cook and well, Weekend Cookbook Challenge. She made a really fun colored, Spiced Pink Soup. A bright, neon pink beet soup! The recipe is from Nigella Lawson, Forever Summer and it definitely answers the question of what to make with a bunch of Farmers Market beets (besides Vegetarian Salad Nicoise, that is). Even though she felt it was a little too spici-fied, it sure looks great. Dude, I don’t even like beets but now I want to make this for the color alone.

Judy, at Judy’s Gross Eats in the central coast area of California made two items for WCC this month — Peach Ice Cream and Peach Pies with Toffee Streusel. The ice cream recipe is from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop and the pie from Small-Batch Baking by Debby Maugans Nakos. Wow, jwa’s going to be really jealous. He really wants a peach pie. I just might have to make these because they look wonderful! As does the ice cream. Mmmm..peaches.

Yay! My friend Christy in Denver, CO went to the Cherry Creek Farmers Market to pick up veggies for a super tasty looking Gazpacho from the The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen. With her $17 spent, she even managed to pick up some other, non-gazpacho veggies for making her own baby food. Hadley’s pretty lucky! Actually, so is Dave…

Next up, Deb at Kahakai Kitchen. She made Edamame Shiso Salad with Yuzu Vinaigrette, from The Breakaway Cook by Eric Gower. She got her shiso leaves at The KCC Farmer’s Market, which she says is the largest one in Hawaii and is local foods only. Right on. I love the colors in her salad and learning about the shiso leaves she used. With a taste sort of like a cross between mint, fennel and cinnamon, they certainly sound really good.

Last Month’s guest host, Mike, from Mel’s Diner who is way up in New Hampshire, uses the The Silver Palate Cookbook to whip up a fabulous batch of gazpacho. Seriously, in the Summer, gazpacho is the food to make and eat, Christy and Mike are totally on to something here. Oh and I’m so, so, so intrigued by the eggs in the soup. Like Mike, I have never seen that before, but he assures us this gazpacho is really good and also completely worth the four hours of chill time. Hmmm..now I must try this version too.

Next up? Oakley from Lemon Basil. She’s in my neck of the woods in Portland. She picked up some really wonderful looking carrots at the Groundworks Organics’ booth at the Portland Farmers Market. She made Sweet Carrot Soup with Basil, Goat Cheese, and Capers, adapted from Leanne Kelley’s Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes. Wow. I am totally making this as well! Oakley also helps teach children’s cooking classes at the Portland Farmers Market. Here they make ice cream!

Mrs L at Pages, Puck & Pantry in San Jose, CA made Zucchini with Onion and Garlic from La Cucina Italiana, by Gabriella Rossi. Mrs L really liked the taste of the onions with the zucchini, even though she was hoping for a bit more color on her zucchini from the cooking. Well, it looks really good to me. I could totally go for a bowl right now, for I love both zucchinis and onions.

Okay, and finally, I made a blueberry pie from Dorrie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours cookbook. I got the berries at the Hollywood Farmers Market here in Portland. Really good. It’s all gone now — jwa ate it all. In like 2 days. Okay, I had 2 pieces. Out of um, 8 pieces. Hmmm…perhaps I’ve said too much.

Wow. Great posts! Thank you so much to everyone who participated. If you emailed me and you don’t see your entry here, please let me know and I will remedy your missing-ness like, toute de suite.

So. Baklava. Mmmm. I have always wanted to make some. Then, last weekend I realized I had all of the components needed. It was like fate shouted down, “Make the baklava!” Really, you have to listen to fate.

I found a pretty simple sounding recipe at the Whole Foods Market web site and off I went.

Notes: The original recipe called for twice as much uh, everything. With two people, that seemed kind of unwise. Below is the halved recipe. If you want more, double all the ingredients and do not cut the phyllo in half. Use 20 sheets full size. I used a combination of pecans, pistachios and hazelnuts for my nuts.

Also, the original recipe called for baking at 400 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes. That seemed to burn some of the edges of my baklava (and I only had it in there for 20 minutes). Try taking the heat down to 350 for 20 - 25 minutes.

Personally, I’ve found working with phyllo dough to be pretty easy. Just remember to cover it and be gentle. And it if rips or tears a little, don’t worry, it will most likely be unnoticeable after baking.

Printable recipe pdf!

Mixed Nut Baklava
Adapted from a Whole Foods Market recipe
1 cup finely chopped nuts (can be all walnuts, or any combination of walnuts, pistachios, hazelnuts and/or pecans)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
10 sheets frozen phyllo sheets, thawed, and sliced in half vertically, so that you have 20 sheets approximately 9 inches by 7 inches
4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup water
1 tsp lemon juice
1 small cinnamon stick (or a larger stick, broken in half — just use one of the halves)
2 green cardamom pods

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a jelly roll pan or rimmed baking sheet. Mix the nuts, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside. Alternatively, process the larger nuts pieces, cinnamon and sugar in a food processor, then set aside.

Lay the phyllo sheets out on a counter top and cover with a slightly damp towel to prevent them from drying out. Working quickly, place a sheet of phyllo in the prepared pan, brush with melted butter and then place another sheet on top. Continue with sheets, brushing each with melted butter until you have used 8 sheets.

Evenly spread half of the nut-sugar mixture over the stack of phyllo. Repeat the process of layering two more sheets, one by one, brushing melted butter over each sheet. Next, spread the remaining half of the nut-sugar mixture over the stack of phyllo.

Again, repeat the process of layering the rest of the sheets, one by one, brushing melted butter over each sheet.

Using a sharp knife, cut the pastry through to the bottom into serving pieces. I made a horizontal cut across the phyllo, then cut vertically five times so I had ten pieces of baklava. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the middle of your oven or until the baklava is golden brown. Remove baklava from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Here, I removed the baklava from the baking sheet and placed it on a plate, pieces pushed together, to keep cooling. I wanted to apply the honey syrup on a surface that I could easily stick in the fridge (ant season!) for storage.

Meanwhile, make honey syrup by stirring honey with water, lemon juice, cinnamon and cardamom in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 minutes. Cool.

Ladle the warm honey evenly over the baklava. Let cool completely before serving. Now, when you first pour the honey, you will think, wow, there’s so much, maybe I shouldn’t use it all. Don’t worry! The baklava will totally absorb most of it. Really.

Don’t forget about Weekend Cookbook Challenge 30…I’m guest hosting! Send me your entry by Sunday, July 27th. Let’s say by midnight, just to make it more mysterious.

First off, this recipe had a lot of pressure on it. I was opening a package of pork tenderloin so that I could slice it up and marinate it all day while I was at work. Note to self — do not use knives at 7 AM. I sliced the hell out of my finger. So much so that I had to call work and leave the following message:

Hi this is Michelle. I cut my finger and right now I’m walking around the house with it wrapped up in paper towels and packing tape. I’m going to wait until it stops bleeding and probably be in around 9:00 AM. Okay, bye.

All day I was thinking, damn, that pork had better be really freakin’* good. Grrrrrr.

In case you were wondering, my finger is fine and I was actually able to just use a band-aid on it by 8:30 or so and I did make it in to work by 9 AM. So, that ended well.

Originally, I saw this recipe on Bobby Flay’s new show, which, meh, but he has a guest(s) on each week that grill with him. The guest griller that week was Judiaann Woo, who made awesome looking beef ribs. I don’t know why FN just doesn’t give her a show and stop airing all this Next Food Network Star crap. (Although, I must admit, I like Lisa). Anyway, I got to wondering how the marinade would work with the pork tenderloin I had in the fridge. Now, I no longer have to wonder…it’s great.

Printable recipe pdf!

Korean-Style Grilled Pork Tenderloin
Marinade recipe adapted from Judiaann Woo
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup water
3 tbsp mirin (rice wine)
2 shallots, peeled and minced
pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 small green apple, peeled and finely grated (or use an Asian pear if you can find one)
3 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp dark sesame oil
pinch black pepper
1 green onion, thinly sliced (optional)
1 pork tenderloin (1-2 pounds), sliced into 1 inch thick rounds

(lack of pictures due to irritation over wounded finger).

Combine the brown sugar through the black pepper. Whisk until sugar is mostly dissolved. Divide in half. Add tenderloin medallions to a large bowl or ziplock bag. Add half the marinade. Refrigerate two hours to overnight (overnight!) Add the other half of the marinade to the container of your choice and also park it in the fridge.

When ready to cook, get a large plate and cover with a couple of layers of paper towels. Place the pork slices down on it. Use some more paper towels to press down on the pork and dry it off. Discard the marinade that the pork was in.

Now, pour the other half of the reserved sauce in a small pot and add about 1/4 - 1/2 cup of chicken stock, bring to a boil and reduce for about 10 or so minutes.

Meanwhile, heat up a skillet and add a little canola oil. Cook the pork about 2-3 minutes per side until done. Remove to a plate and cover with foil for a few minutes.

We had this with some cooked brown rice and pan sauteed carrots and yellow bell pepper. I used toasted sesame oil to cook the veggies.

To serve, put the rice in a big bowl. Place the veggies around the edges of the bowl and the pork in the middle. Top with the green onions, maybe some toasted sesame seeds and serve the sauce on the side.

Leftovers are just as tasty. In fact, the next day at work, L. stopped by my cube and commented on how good my lunch smelled. Ha! Take that finger!

* In my head, it was not freakin’…that is just family blog-speak.

Edited to add –

How much do I love Dr. Horrible? Oh, so, so much. jwa and I have both been singing Freeze Ray all weekend and changing the lyrics to suit our own needs:

With my freeze ray I will stop…the world

with my freezeray
I will take
take the laundry
up the stairs
spread it on
on the bed
and put it all away?

Okay, here is my post for Weekend Cookbook Challenge, which incidentally, I am hosting this month. Yay! But, the real props go to Sara for starting and running such a great blogging event on a regular basis for a while now.

The theme for this July is Farmers Markets and at the Hollywood Farmers Market, (in Portland), I managed to find a whole bunch of beautiful blueberries. And, what’s a great thing to do with summer berries? Why yes, pie. You are so right.

For the cookbook, I turned to the one and only baking book a person could ever need, Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Seriously, if you don’t have this book, go get it. I’ll wait.

Okay now, I am by no means a pie expert, but I’ve a couple made some tasty pies. That said, I’m still never really sure if a pie will turn out. I was a little concerned about not baking the bottom crust before adding the blueberries but I went ahead and followed the directions. And the bottom crust baked fine for me. One thing I did that may or may not have made a difference, was that I preheated a baking sheet in the oven and then placed the pie directly on that for baking.

I was also worried about using just flour as a thickener. It seemed to work out okay The filling was a little runny, but not out of the realm of what pie filling consistency should be. All in all, I was quite pleased and jwa seemed to really like it too!

The pie crust recipe is first (weirdly, I got enough dough with this recipe for about three 9 inch crusts). I have an extra ball of dough in the freezer right now…

Printable recipe pdf!

Good for Almost Everything Pie Dough
For a 9 inch Double Crust (or possibly more)
3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 sticks very cold unsalted butter, cut into tbsp size pieces
1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening, cut into 4 pieces
About 1/2 cup ice water
Optional: (My additions):
1 tsp dried lavender (the eatin’ kind, not the potpourri kind)
1 tsp orange zest

Put the flour, sugar, lavender, orange zest and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse just to combine the ingredients. Drop in the butter and shortening and pulse only until the butter and shortening are cut into the flour. You can of course, also use a pastry blender thingie or two forks or even your fingers.

Don’t overdo the mixing - what you’re aiming for is to have some pieces the size of fat green peas and others the size of barley. Pulsing the machine on and off, gradually add about 6 tablespoons of the water - add a little water and pulse once, add some more water, pulse again and keep going that way. Then use a few long pulses to get the water into the flour.

If, after a dozen or so pulses, the dough doesn’t look evenly moistened or form soft curds, pulse in as much of the remaining water as necessary, or even a few drops more, to get a dough that will stick together when pinched. Big pieces of butter are fine. Scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto a work surface. Honestly, I added about 10 tablespoons of water to mine. So, you may need more than 6 here.

Divide the dough in half. Gather each half into a ball, flatten each ball into a disk and wrap each half in plastic. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour before rolling.

You can roll the dough out onto a floured surface or between sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap or in a rolling slipcover. Butter or spray coat your pie pan and lay the dough down in it. trim your edges with a 1/2 inch overhang. I laid my bottom dough in the pie pan and my top piece out on some parchment on a baking sheet and refrigerated for about 30 minutes before assembling the pie.

Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie
double pie crust
5 cups fresh blueberries (about 2 1/2 pints)
1 cup of sugar, or a little more, to taste, plus more for dusting
1/2 cup all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
Coarsely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
Squirt of fresh lemon juice, or a little more, to taste (I used about 1 tablespoon)
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs (you can use packaged unseasoned crumbs)
1 large egg, beaten with 1 tsp of water, for egg wash
Sugar, for dusting (I used raw sugar here and the bigger crystals looked awesome!)

While your pie crusts (in the pan and on the baking sheet) are in the fridge, position a rack in the lower third of the oven and pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Put the berries in a large bowl and gently stir in the sugar, flour, salt, zest and juice; let sit for about 5 minutes. Taste the filling and add more sugar and/or lemon juice, if needed.

Remove the pie shell and top crust from the refrigerator. Sprinkle an even layer of the breadcrumbs over the bottom of the shell. Give the filling a last stir and turn it into the crust.

Using your fingertips, moisten the rim of the bottom crust with a little cold water. Center the top crust over the filling and gently press the top crust against the bottom. Either fold the overhang from the top crust under the bottom crust and crimp the edges attractively.

Using a small, sharp knife, cut 4 slits in the top crust crust and cut a circle out of the center, then lift the plate onto the baking sheet. If you have time, refrigerate the pie for about 30 minutes. The pie can also be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months. Brush the top crust with the egg wash, then sprinkle the crust with a little sugar, just to give it sparkle.

Bake the pie for 30 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees F, and bake the pie for another 30 minutes or so (total baking time is about an hour) or until the crust is a beautiful golden brown and the filling is bubbling up through the slits. If the crust seems to be browning too quickly, make a loose foil tent for the pie. I had to do this after the first 30 minutes.

Transfer the pie to a rack and let it cool and settle for at least 30 minutes before serving. We let ours sit for about 3 hours before digging in…really good!

Okay, don’t forget about WCC #30. Get me your posts by July 27th! And thanks again to Sara for letting me guest-host for July!

Last Sunday we picked up some nice looking Italian Artichokes at the Farmers Market. (Pssssst: don’t forget WCC30!)

I really didn’t know what to do with them but jwa assured me that he did.

“Boil them in water,” he instructed.
“For how long?” I asked.
“Hmmm”, he replied, “maybe you should look that up.”

So I did. Not surprisingly, one of the best resources I found was on Simply Recipes: How to Cook and Eat an Artichoke. Which is what I did. Kind of.

Artichokes!
artichokes
water
lemon slices (1-2)
1 -2 garlic cloves
1 bay leaf

Basically, I followed Elise’s instructions for preparing the artichoke. In very little detail — trim the stem and cut about 3/4 of an inch off the top of the artichoke. We did not bother snipping the ends of the leaves off. Okay. All ready to go.

We also chose to boil them instead of steaming, as jwa had fond memories of boiling artichokes as a youth. This will take 25 - 45 minutes to cook (pot covered), depending on the size of your artichokes. When the leaves pull off easily, they are done! Let them drain upsidedown for a few seconds before serving.

Mmmm….quite tasty dipped in a combination of mayonnaise and balsamic vinegar (I used about a 4/1 ratio). Pull off the leaves and dip in your, uh, dip of choice. Scrape the leaves with your teeth.

After the leaves are gone, you’ll be left with this. Pull of the top fuzzy part (the choke) and you will be left with a delightful artichoke heart. Dip it on the dip and nom it up.

***

Oh, I’ve started putting together pdf’s of the blog recipes for easy printing. I’ll try to go through the backlog as time permits but going forward, each recipe will hopefully have an easy way to print out now. Yay!

I have been getting into Spanish food lately, well, over the past couple of years. I really like the flavors and, although most that I have made have been served hot, they really seem to go great with Summer weather.

Now, this dish is pasta but it is also pretty much one pan pasta dish (okay, and a pot, but just for a few minutes). It’s relatively quick and you can be out of the kitchen before it even gets too hot in there. Get yourself a glass of wine and you’ll be eating in no time. Plus, damn, it’s just so good.

Chorizo, Chorizo, Makes the World Go Round:
For the sausage, I used a mix of ground, uncased, hot & spicy chorizo and regular Italian ground pork sausage (removed from the casing). This is because when I first made the dish, I decided to use up some Italian sweet sausage that I had in the freezer. Tasty.

But, with the leftovers, I got some ground pork chorizo, cooked it up, and reheated all the pasta in the pan with the new sausage. Mmm! If you can find authentic, Spanish chorizo links where you are, I would go ahead and use that for all of your sausage needs. But, I liked the mix of half sweet sausage and half ground, really spicy, chorizo. Oh, I actually saw some Spanish-style chorizo links at the Hillsdale Farmers Market last Sunday and I’m planning to grab some the next time I’m there!

Anyway, I also added orange zest, manchego cheese and just a bit of fennel seed and chopped rosemary to the finished dish.

New: Printable recipe pdf!

Spaghetti with Chorizo and Almonds
Recipe from Gourmet Magazine, with tweaks by me!
1 1/2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 tsp crumbled saffron threads
2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil plus additional for drizzlin’
6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
4 ounces Spanish chorizo (cured spiced pork sausage; not hot), cut into 1/2-inch pieces (or a mix of ground chorizo and sweet pork sausage)
1 tbsp unsalted butter (oh, you’re already eating a bunch of sausage, just use the butter)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
9 ounces fideos (dried coiled vermicelli noodles) or angel-hair pasta or thin spaghetti, broken into 2-inch lengths
1 tsp orange zest
1/4 tsp fresh, chopped rosemary
1 (14- to 19-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
2 tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup sliced almonds with skins, toasted (bonus points for marcona almonds)
1/2 cup Manchego (or other Spanish cheese), grated or shaved

Bring broth, water, wine, saffron, and 1/2 teaspoon salt to a boil in a small saucepan, then reduce heat and keep at a bare simmer.

Heat oil in a 5- to 6-quart heavy pot over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then sauté garlic until pale golden, about 1 minute. Transfer with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain. Add chorizo and sauté until golden brown, about 3 minutes. If using uncooked, ground sausage, cook until both browned and cooked through.

Transfer with slotted spoon to paper towels with garlic. Add butter to pot and sauté onion until golden, about 5 minutes, then add fennel seeds and pasta. Sauté, breaking up fideos with a wooden spoon, until golden, about 4 minutes. (Be careful here or you will have little pasta shards all over your stovetop. Use a high-walled pot, not a big skillet for this — I learned the hard way).

Add broth mixture and cook, covered, until all liquid is absorbed, about 6 minutes. Stir in chickpeas, tomatoes, orange zest, rosemary, cooked garlic and sausage, parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

Serve pasta sprinkled with almonds, cheese and drizzled with oil.

Awww….Petrozza.

Hai there. Oh, look, I am guest-hosting July’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge! Hooray, it’s my 2nd time! Thank you very much to Sara, for agreeing to let me do this again. Last October, my theme was Halloween. This time, the theme is…Farmers Markets.

July is a great time to hit your local Farmers Market in search of veggies, fruits, cheeses, maybe even eggs and meat. You never know what you can find unless you go look! So, go to a Farmers Market near you, find some interesting foodstuffs and bring them home and cook something!

Of course, since this is a cookbook challenge, you should try to get your recipe from a cookbook, but if you see an amazingly awesome recipe for just the very item(s) that you got at the market, in a magazine (or even online) that you really want to use for this, I’m not going to stand in your way. Myself, I just scored a used copy of The Northern Exposure Cookbook and I can’t wait to make something from it!

Alternatively, if you are a member of a CSA or something like that, that works just fine too. And if there is just no Farmers Market by you at all, you can, of course, use something from your very own garden or even windowsill.

To participate, please make a recipe and post about your dish and send your entry to mlbATjemangelavilleDOTcom (or mlbATjammedDOTcom works too) by Sunday, July 27th. If your recipe is from a cookbook, please make sure you include what the book you used in your post. Also, feel free to plug the Farmers Market in your post as well. I plan on getting the recap up very soon after the deadline.

Thanks again to Sara for generously letting me host this month. WCC is one of my most favorite food blog events! Please feel free to email if you have any questions about the theme or anything.

PS: If you are looking for a market and you live in the US, this seems like a pretty good tool.