Seasonal Saturday and Fresh Food Friday!

The recipes that everyone is sharing here on Fresh Food Fridays and Seasonal Saturdays are getting better and better each and every week.  Isn't it nice to have something as wonderful and joyful as cooking in our lives when so much craziness of any type may be occurring around us?  The kitchen is my therapy, my escape, my passion . . . it is pure joy to cook, bake, and garden.  I think from reading all of your recipes and gardening posts, that all of you feel the same way!  Happy cooking, baking, and gardening to all of you!

Here are the Featured blog posts from last week:

Hezzi-D from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks prepared these refreshing, cooling Fresh Cherry Mojitos as a signature cocktail for her birthday!  Happy Birthday, Hezzi and welcome to the party!

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Panzanella Salad with Bacon, Tomato, and Basil

Ahhhh, the dog days of summer and what better theme for this month's Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club than having a "Beachcomber Picnic"!  Currently, I'm lounging around in a cabin in the cool temps of the mountains with Mr. M. and P. (meat and potatoes).  A short drive to a mountain lake, and not the ocean, is a wonderful way to escape the 100 degrees where we live (it's 75 degrees up here!).  Going to the beach is an extremely popular activity in the Carolina's . . . insanely popular, in fact.  So many people bee-line to the ocean, that we avoid the beach and the traffic that goes along with it from June through August!  But the beachside recipes shared this month can be prepared for our very favorite time at the beach -- and that's October when the crowds are gone.

The Cooking Light blogging gang has once again prepared some mighty tasty dishes pulled from the archives of Cooking Light to pack up in our baskets and into the backs of our cars.  Our host Valli, from More Than Burnt Toast (click to see all of the recipes) has done another fantastic job organizing everything!  And the great thing about all of these recipes is how healthy and flavorful they are!

For me, a picnic dish needs to be super easy and portable.  So I selected a recipe that gets better by the minute through the marinating of it's ingredients.  A salad of August-ripe, ruby-red, juicy tomatoes, onion, and basil provide the foundation for Panzanella Salad with Bacon, Tomato, and Basil.  Even without the bread, this salad is a super winner in my salad book!  The addition of bacon was new to me for panzanella, but I assume there are many panzanella creations that include pancetta (Italian bacon).  This recipe also differs from traditional panzanella by the inclusion of lettuce as well.  It's a nice addition.  It's that type of recipe where you can add this or that and make it your own creation!

Panzanella Salad with Bacon, Tomato, and Basil

3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 cups coarsely chopped vine-ripe, red tomatoes
1/2 cup sliced red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
6 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled
1 (8-ounce) loaf day-old French bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 cups torn romaine lettuce

Preheat oven to 350°.
Combine first 5 ingredients in a bowl; stir with a whisk.
In a medium mixing bowl, add tomato, onion, basil, and bacon; toss well. Set aside.
Arrange bread cubes in a single layer on a baking sheet.
Bake at 350° for 15 minutes or until toasted; cool.
Add bread and lettuce to tomato mixture; toss gently to combine. Serve immediately.

For this salad, I chose to present the salad in a 'layered' manner.  The torn romaine lettuce leaves are under the tomato mixture.  Then I placed a layer of bread cubes  on top of the lettuce.  The tomato-basil-garlic-vinaigrette mixture is placed on top of the bread cubes and the bacon is crumbled on top to finish the salad off.

This is quite delicious, light and healthy.  And that's a good thing, isn't it?
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Gnocchi con Zucchero e' Cannella ~ A Veronese Specialty!

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"Romeo, oh Romeo, where forth art thou Romeo?"

Those famous words from Juliet to her lover in Verona, Italy as penned by Shakespeare in his classic melodrama "Romeo and Juliet".  The heroine of that story underscores this month's movie for "Food 'n Flix" which was selected by our host, Kim of Stirring the Pot -- "Letters To Juliet".

Also set in Verona, Italy, a young American woman is inspired by the real-life activity of people writing letters to Juliet and inserting them into the walls of Juliet's courtyard.  'Secretaries of Juliet' reply to those who wrote the letters.   The story unfolds about the romantic lives of two women, one young and one in mid-life and how their endeavors play out in the hills of Italy.  Of course it all ends happily, but if you're interested in more of the details of the film, click on this {link}.

OK, so I began to think about what might be a typical dish that originated from Verona, Italy.  Not knowing much about the city's cuisine, I did some research.  I discovered that Tiramisu was created in Verona, that unforgettably sweet peaches and cherries flourish there, that Valpolicella wine and some of Italy's finest extra-virgin olive oil are both produced in Verona and finally, there is a traditional gnocchi recipe that is sweetened with sugar and cinnamon, known as: "Gnocchi con Zucchero e' Cannella", an Italian dish that I have never tasted, nor ever heard of.  So to help me get out of my comfort zone and try something new, I chose this unusual recipe.  I really wanted to make a peach mascarpone cheesecake, but I didn't want to turn on the oven and bake in this 100 degree summer heat that we're experiencing this week.  More of Verona, Italy's specialty dishes and foods can be found at this {link}.

I also found that there are several ways to make this gnocchi.  One way is for dessert and the other method is for an entree version.  Mr. M. and P. (meat and potatoes) would have nothing to do with the entree recipe and so I made both versions to keep him happy.  I don't know what I'm going to do with him sometimes!

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