This is a great meal for when you don’t really know what you feel like or what you want for dinner. It has everything — bread, cheese, veggies, and basil. If you wanted to go crazy, I bet you could even add some cooked, cubed chicken. jwa and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The slightly sweet cornbread really works with the tomatoes, cheese (what doesn’t work with cheese?) and lemony olive oil.

I just used a box of cornbread mix (Trader Joe’s brand), baked that (I added a little garlic, sautéed leeks and fresh herbs to the mix) and then let it cool before cubing it and drying the cubes of bread out a little in a 290 degree oven. That worked just great.

Cornbread Panzanella Salad
This recipe is based on one by Giada De Laurentiis.
4 cups cornbread, cut into cubes
1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup fontina cheese, cubed
1/2 hothouse cucumber, cubed
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 lemon, zested and juice
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
pinch red pepper flakes

Combine the cornbread, garlic, cheese, cucumber, onion, basil and cherry tomatoes in a large bowl. Toss gently.

Mix together the zest, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and pepper flakes. Toss with the veggies and bread in the same large bowl.

Now, just sit down and eat!

Wedding Flowers

I kind of tested out making a hand-tied bouquet with some $3.99 a bunch irises. For the wedding, I’m going to use burgandy calla lilies (and possibly a few fiddlehead fern thingies), but I figured the small irises would be a good practice flower.

I think it’ll work. I’ve decided to go the diy-route with Fiftyflowers and for our size wedding and flower needs, I am convinced this is a great choice. I gathered the flowers in bunches of three (10 flowers each bunch) and secured with floral wire.

Then, I wrapped everything together with more wire and then wrapped the big bunch in chocolate-colored satin ribbon.

We went to Sub Rosa for dinner last night and had a good meal — wine, salads, pasta, a pizza for jwa and some pistachio gelato. Hey! It was for charity!

One of the things that I am most excited about though (and have been putting enough effort into to not have time to post about the almond cake), is that we’ve found a photographer! Hooray! Christina Gilchrist will be shooting our wedding next Spring and we are so happy to have found her. So, if you are in the Oregon/Washington area and are looking for a nice and very talented wedding photographer — there you go.

We also spoke with Angela Snyder, Gayle Aman and Urban Photography. We really liked Angela (she was the clear second choice) and actually, Gayle was great too. Jodi at Urban Photography was nice as well, but a bit more expensive for what you actually received in the packages, imho.

I was in New Seasons the other day buying some halibut and as I was walking through the produce sections I saw the cutest thing — garlic tops.

“Oh!” I thought to myself, “need to buy! Cuuute!”

Then I got home and realized I had no idea what to do with them. I did a little online searching and found this page — Mary Jane’s Farm about garlic scapes, which I think are slightly younger versions of my tops but I figured it was close enough.

I made the pesto, using half parm and half feta. I also added some pine nuts. Wow! The garlic! It burns! (But in a good way). I mixed about a tablespoon into a big bowl of hot pasta with some olive oil to start, as it did seem a little strong. But — by the middle of the meal, jwa and I were spreading the extra pesto on bread and mixing more of it into the pasta. So, so good. Just make sure you really like garlic.

Garlic Tops Pesto
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp toasted pine nuts
1/4 lb scapes (garlic tops)
1/2 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Puree the garlic tops and olive oil in a food processor until smooth. Add the Parmesan, feta, lemon juice and pine nuts and process it all until nice and smooth.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve on bread, crackers or with pasta (or all of the above).

So what else did we have with our garlic top pesto and pasta? Grilled halibut with this awesome marinade.

Awesome & Simple Halibut Marinade
4 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Let fish marinate in the fridge for about an hour. Salt and pepper liberally, then grill in the ol’ grill pan.

It turned out really nice and moist and was excellent with the side of pasta, tossed with cherry tomatoes, spinach and garlic top pesto.

I even brought out the balsamic glaze and drizzled a little over the fish and pasta to make it all look pretty.

See? Pretty!

***
In wedding news, I made the lodging reservations for most of the honeymoon in Victoria here. It’ll be nice to have a kitchen while we’re there. We’re also going to rent a car and drive up to Tofino for 3-4 days. We’re going to splurge and stay here. So very excited!

Also, I finished making the save the date cards and I should be able to get them in the mail in early/mid June (waiting on vellum envelopes and nifty return address stamp).

Image from the book, Simple Stunning Weddings.

So, we are currently trying to decide on a location. We are casting a wide net — Ashland. Astoria. Yachats. Dayton. The Long Beach area of Washington. So far we have scoped out Red Ridge Farms, Heceta Head Lighthouse and The Peerless Hotel.

Next we’ll be heading up to Astoria to check out Hotel Elliott and the Rosebriar Inn. Then it’s a bit farther north to see The Shelburne Inn and their restaurant. Hopefully, we’ll have a place decided on by the end of next month.

The plan is this — when we’re done looking at these six possible locations, we’ll each sit down with a piece of paper and rank the places. Then we’ll exchange lists and hopefully be pretty close on our number one or number two choices. At least, in theory, that’s the way it’ll work.

I’ve also started dress shopping, which is an odd experience. You stand there in your underwear in the dressing room with a mask over your face (so you don’t get makeup on the dress) and the store person puts the dress down over your head and sort of gets you into it. (You can remove the mask after the dress is on). Then you try to visualize the dress as if it fit correctly. I’ve been to Tres Fabu, which I liked and plan to go back to this week to try on some more dresses and I’ve been to Bella Bridal, which I also liked a lot (she was very nice but the store seemed to have fewer dresses). I’m going to be in Camas this weekend, so I’m going to take a look at the NW Bridal Outlet too as long as I’m in the relative vicinity.

I am also trying to get a few books on the subject and stick to only a few. It seems like the wedding industry is so crazy and inflated that I am trying to not feed into the whole industry frenzy and silliness. Anyway, I really like:

Simple Stunning Weddings
A gorgeous book. I love the format in that it focuses on a number of venue types (wineries, restaurants, the beach, an inn, a traditional hotel, a museum/gallery) and gives examples on how to make the most of each type of location. Really great pictures too.

Intimate Weddings: Planning a Small Wedding That Fits Your Budget and Style
A nice book for people not having a 300 guest wedding. It gives examples of real weddings with 30, 20, 10 guests. Four guests, even. I mean there’s nothing wrong with a huge, lavish wedding but there’s nothing wrong with an intimate, 16 person wedding either. It’s nice that there’s a wedding book that acknowledges that fact.

Wedding Papercrafts: Create Your Own Invitations, Decorations and Favors to Personalize Your Wedding
Yeah, I’m going to get all crafty and make Save the Date magnets and cards and invitations and stuff. This book has some good ideas.

Oh and Offbeat Bride is a great site. (The first time I typed that it was “Offbeat Brie” which was very amusing. To me, at least).

Let’s see, what else? Catering will be dependent on location as will the color scheme, I suppose. Food, of course, will be very, very important.

***
Oh and I had a very bizarre dream last night that there were occultists trying to put a demony curse on me and my neighbors Paula Deen and Alton Brown, in addition to being cooks, were also specialists in deflecting the Dark Arts. I was sneaking over to their houses under the cover of night to get their help with my paranormal problems. Kind of a Food Network/Charmed/Buffy all-in-one theme. Very, very weird. When I woke up, it took me about 30 seconds to remember that Paula and Alton were not actually my neighbors. And then I was kind of bummed.

***
Thursday should be spaghetti & meatballs and Friday, SHF30: Lavender Shortbread.