Market Menu

We had my cousin Elise and her husband Gordon over for dinner last night. They share our love of food; as I've mentioned before Elise is the best cook I know.

On Saturday, I went to the University Farmer's Market for shopping and inspiration.

Several of the recipes below are from cooksillustrated.com, and accessible only if you have a paid subscription. I am a huge fan of Cook's Illustrated - you can check it out by signing up for a 14-day free trial.

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I like to keep hors d'oeuvres light and simple. I got a super-skinny bagette, sliced it diagonally into thin rounds, and topped each with a little sun-dried tomato pesto.

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The centerpiece of the meal was grilled New York steak from Oregon Country Beef. I marinated it for about 4 hours in a Garlic-Herb marinade. It was really flavorful - the 4 hours marinating time was perfect.

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I made three side dishes from market produce:

• First, I could not resist buying some cute little zukes. I marinated these overnight in Julia Child's Mustard-Lemon Marinade;Drake grilled these before putting on the steaks.
• Next, I bought some beautiful tomatoes - a mix of red and yellow - from Billy's. From these I made a rustic Tomato Bread Salad.
• Finally, there were some haricot verts, which I steamed until crisp-tender and then tossed in a vinaigrette of 1/4 c. red wine vinegar, 1 1/2 T. walnut-dijon mustard, and 1/4 c. walnut oil. I garnished with some toasted walnuts.

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For dessert, I made a fresh Peach Ice Cream (Drake and Gordon had two helpings of this - to conduct "further analysis" of the recipe!)

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t was a fun evening and the food came together really well. The peach ice cream recipe - which I hadn't made before - is definitely a keeper. In fact, we may need to make another batch of this while peaches are still in-season!