His and Hers Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

I love to make tomato mozz salad every once in a while, rather than the regular greens.  One night, I cut up the tomatoes and sliced the mozzarella to discover that I did not have any balsamic vinegar.  At first, I freaked out a little.  I then googled "substitutes for balsamic vinegar" and discovered there is generally NO GOOD substitute.  I then freaked out a little more. 

Then, I remembered my favorite vinaigrette.  It is this wonderful bottled blush wine vinaigrette I stumbled on recently.  It claims it is very good over strawberries (which sounds sort of unsavory to me).  I thought it might just be great to drizzle over the sad, lonely, parched tomato and mozzarella. 

Well, I informed Arnnie of the change in plan.  Before I drizzled my lovely vinaigrette on his little salad, he asked me to please refrain and drizzle HIS favorite garlic dressing over his.  We both loved them so much that this has become our new way of making these great little salads.  See below:

Now, if you want to make a traditional caprese salad (the fancy term for tomato and mozzarella), just put a few sprigs of basil on top and drizzle both olive oil and balsamic vinegar. But, this his and hers variation is a really big hit at our house. Oh, and for those of you out there who want to make your own homemade salad dressing, just put in 3 parts olive oil to one part balsamic vinegar and crush in any type of berry you like best. I can't take credit for that. My friend, Kathleen, taught me that those long years ago when we lived together in Wheeling in that house I love on Howard Hill (before I left for law school and got all serious with life, sort of). I guess we did do some productive things in that house even though our schedules seemed to revolve mostly around what time we would meet at the Alpha or TJ's for drinks.  Ah.  Those were the days (that will, most definitely, not be part of another post!).

Banana Bread

I had four little soon to be beyond ripe bananas.  So, when that happens, I usually make banana bread.  Here are the ingredients.

Well, the picture doesn't contain the sugar, but you get the idea (and full recipe is below).  Once you mix all the ingredients, pour it into a bread pan. Just like this:

Then, once it is done, it looks like this:

And, test it with your cake tester. I love this thing. You can buy this cake tester for around $5 from Amazon.  It is much better than the standard toothpick test.  It never fails! 

Recipe for Banana Bread:

2 1/3 cups bisquick
3-4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional) or even chocolate chips (chocolate is always a hit in this bread)

Mix all ingredients.  Pour into a small loaf pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.

CSA and a Cow Share

Community Supported Agriculture ("CSA") programs were something new to me until we moved here in 2008.  I took the train to Center City every day for work.  One day, I noticed a flyer affixed to my windshield that announced an opportunity to buy into a local farm and receive a wonderful share of their produce every week for several months.  Well, that sounded great to me!!  So, I signed us up.  It was wonderful!  Each week, we received fresh produce from the farm.  One week, we might receive radishes, lettuce, rhubarb - an assortment of anything that had been harvested that week.  The absolute best part of the CSA to me was the strawberries!  Those are the best strawberries I have ever eaten.

Here is our CSA farm, Landisdale:

Here is a sample of the box and the produce we might receive each week:

If you are interested in joining a CSA, here is a link that will allow you to plug in your zip code and will search for CSA programs near you!

We no longer do the CSA.  We decided not to renew because it was difficult for us to pick up the produce at the appointed location during the week.  This is our fault, because we have crazy, harried schedules.  Oh, and then Whole Foods opened down the street, and it was just so much easier to go there.  But, I HIGHLY recommend it!

I miss those strawberries.  Whole Foods doesn't come close to these strawberries.

Now,the Philadelphia Cow Share is going to be our next venture.  A colleague at work has done this and raved about it.  I am pretty excited.  We have a big freezer in our basement, so stay tuned for the post on the freezer full of beef!

DiCarlo's Pizza

If you are from my hometown of Wheeling, West Virginia, or from any neighboring Ohio Valley town, you know DiCarlo's Pizza. In fact, it was just voted the #5 top pizza in the country. I am serious.


DiCarlo's is a tradition. We would go on Friday nights in high school and get it. We would go away to college and ALWAYS get DiCarlo's when we came home for a visit. Then, for most of us who moved away, we go to DiCarlo's on each and every weekend visit and/or holiday. In fact, at Christmas, I have been known to wait almost 2 hours for 10 slices.

This is the DiCarlo's I most often frequent.

There is more than one DiCarlo's, but this is my favorite.

Now, for those of us who have moved away, you can call the Mail Center Plus in Wheeling and order a tray (or two) of the wonderful stuff and have it delivered to your front door. One tray is 24 pieces. When being delivered across the state, it will come to you in 6 squares that look like this:

You should put these squares in your freezer. They really are better once frozen completely. Once frozen, you should preheat your oven to 400 degrees and place the pizza right on the rack.

Oh - and don't forget to order bags of extra cheese. It is special cheese.

Once it is done, take it out of the oven. Place it on the pizza stone and then add some of that extra cheese to it.

SO GOOD!!!!!!! Tastes almost exactly like it does being carried fresh out of the store in those great little cardboard boxes.

Oh, DiCarlo's! YUM! It is expensive to ship, but SO WORTH IT!