No Cheese In This Quiche

So yesterday's playing around included a nice chicken and veggie quiche. Of course it is also a non-dairy quiche and I'll tell you how I did that.

But first I want to remember one of my favorite quiches...one I made when I came back from our first trip to Ireland. I really enjoyed that trip, but as a Californian I'm spoiled with the quantity and quality of vegetables available year round. It was still the tail end of winter when we were in Ireland, so there really weren't a large amount of fresh lettuces and greens, but there was some chard. When I baked the quiche I topped it with some chard leaves from the garden since my chard, growing here where winter can end as early as February (and it was May!), had gotten nicely leafy, so there was a lot of leaves to choose from. I also included bacon and Swiss cheese and evaporated milk. It was sublime and was eaten quickly at the potluck!

This time I again used the Pillsbury ReadyCrust pre-rolled pie crust sheet, and I blind-baked it, using my trusty lentils as pie weights. I put diced red pepper on the bottom and arranged steamed broccoli in a nice pattern over that, then put on the cooked and cubed chicken, tucking a bit under the broccoli stems. No cheese this time, but I did make the custard with eggs, soy creamer, salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. I had it today for lunch and for dinner, both times with green salad that didn't include any romaine lettuce (which has been banned for a week by the FDA for some sort of illness it caused before the ban) but were both delicious and a nice complement to the soft quiche.

If you want to make your own quiche, you can find the one with bacon and chard HERE. If you want to make mine, dice about 1/4 cup red pepper for the bottom of a blind-baked and cooled crust, a half head or even less of broccoli, steamed and cooled makes the pattern and two chicken thighs, poached, cooled and cubed takes care of the chicken. A custard of 3 eggs and 1 1/2 cups soy creamer (plain) goes over the chicken and veggies and then sprinkle on salt, pepper and poultry seasoning to taste. Bake in a preheated 350 degree F oven until the center is just set, about 30-45 minutes. Crust should be brown. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Sorry for the poor photography, but it's raining this week (Yay!) and so I'm only using indoor lighting and I was too tired after a full day of scholarship stuff to try to get a better photo. Just remember, the quiche was great!

Across the Pond in Ireland

Ireland is a magical place. It can also pluck your every nerve if you have flown for six hours in the middle of the night and then, at 6:30 am Ireland time (and God only knows what time it would be in Boston...or San Francisco!),  have to negotiate not only driving on the left side of the road when the right side is the usual side to be on, but you also have to go around a number of roundabouts just to get out of the airport.

Fortunately there were three of us in the car; myself, Sweetie and our amazing daughter Kate. Among us we handled it all (although they handled it better than I did), tried to find sunglasses (since I had left mine in Boston by mistake!), struggled to find the road to Glin once we were near Limerick, and eventually sped through a light rain, often parallel to the Shannon river, to the beautiful and comfortable Old Castle House B & B in Glin where we were staying. 

Below is a photo of the ruins of a part of the castle, which is right near the driveway of the bed and breakfast.

Glin is a village on the Shannon River not terribly far east from where it joins the Atlantic Ocean. The Shannon is the biggest river in Ireland and large ships head up it past Glin at least as far as Foynes, which has a deep water port.

Main Street in Glin is perpendicular to the river and heads uphill. At the end of the street are the Catholic Church on the right and the Protestant Church on the left. Go a little further and you drive into the demesne of the Knight of Glin. That property is currently for sale for about 4 million.

Our innkeeper, Ester, graciously allowed us to check in early and she cooked a magnificent full Irish breakfast for us, too. In case you are unfamiliar with that, it includes eggs, bacon (which is more like ham), sausage, blood sausage, broiled tomato (and sometimes mushrooms, too), juice, fruit, coffee, tea, and lots of delicious home made brown bread and good Irish butter. I skipped the butter but otherwise enjoyed it all. Never took a photo, but this is sort of what it looks like.

We had about an hour to rest and freshen up and then drove the few blocks to Glin's Main Street to O'Shaughnessy's Pub, where we met Cousins Shayne and Barbara. They are cousins from my Mother's side of the family. Her Dad used to live in Glin as a boy. Here is a photo of my Mom, her Dad, my daughter Kate and me from more than a few years ago.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We were delighted to meet some of Shayne and Barbara's good friends and there was lots of talk and laughter and a few drinks taken. O'Shaughnessy's, just outside the castle walls, is really old, one of the finest pubs in Ireland according to those who go there, now in it's sixth generation of family ownership and there is a nice outdoor section that might be a bit younger than the interior. It was too chilly to enjoy the outside part on the day we were there but I took a picture anyway since it looked so inviting. Have to come back when the weather is warmer.

After the pub we were invited back to our cousin's lovely home for dinner. Their beautiful daughter Sonya was there and she added to the fun. Kate really enjoyed the time with the cousins! Sweetie and I had met them a few years ago when we first visited Ireland, but this time we were able to spend quality time with them and were honored by the beautiful and delicious meal that Barbara made. Joan, Ann and Tom were delightful and we hope to see them next time we are in Glin.

I would love the recipe for Barbara's plum cake. She served it with a pitcher of heavy cream mixed with pastry cream and at that point I so wished that I could consume dairy.

That night we really slept well and Sweetie loved that you could hear the water rushing in the stream that ran right by the B&B, down to the Shannon river a short distance away.

Raspberries

A bus ride at sunrise through San Francisco to catch a plane to Boston.

One day in Boston.

Two days in Ireland,

then yesterday with a lot of time on airplanes and in the car brought us to the magical tiny hill town in the Luberon in France where our dear friend Naomi lives with her man Pete.

Sweetie and I have never been to la belle France, but are quite taken with the beauty. This morning at breakfast the host of our BandB, Francis, we stumbled along with my broken French and his halting English but we had a satisfying exchange all in all. Some words and phrases returned like fish floating up in a pool...suddenly there.

The reason this post is headed Raspberries is that we had amazing dark red freshly picked raspberries in Ireland with pre-dinner drinks and then Naomi served darling tarts for dessert last night that had bright red and equally tasty raspberries on top. Naturally I didn't take photos of either, but their intense red hues stay in my memory.

When I return home I'll do many posts, with photos, of our journey, but today just wanted to say that all is well and we are having such a good time traveling with our daughter.

Haven't figured out how to add photos yet from this phone, so plain words today! (Some photos added when I got home.)

Perhaps the Best Yet...Irish Apricot and Walnut Sourdough Braid

What do you do that makes you happy? This is a question that comes up early on in a book I just read. The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister. It is set in a cooking school and has wonderful characters and a lyrical use of language. It’s a fairly short book but, at least for me, had quite a few places that got me thinking about myself and my own life, even though the lives of most of the characters were quite different from mine.

What do you do that makes you happy? As a small child it was making pretend cakes in the sandbox and decorating them with leaves, twigs and flowers. At the beach my sand castles would be decorated, too, with shells and bark and perhaps a scrap paper flag on a coffee stirrer if I found those on the beach. I guess I like being creative and making things and embellishing them.

When I was older I loved to make my own paperdoll clothes and to bake cookies, and, later, real cakes with Hershey cocoa icing. More creativity, but more useful than sand.

When I was at school one of the things that made me happy was a day trip with a canoe on top of the car and friends to be with who also liked to travel down swollen creeks in the spring and lazy rivers in the summer, aiming our canoes through the rapids for a brief funhouse ride. Maybe I have a wild side!

Being in the kitchen when I can be creative almost always makes me happy. Sharing the results with Sweetie and others who love good food makes me happiest of all. The creation of food, raw, cooked, baked, and grilled, brings out the artist in me and there is something truly magical about creating food items specifically for those you love…some of your love seems to seep into the food as you prepare it…and they feel that when they eat it.

Drawing together to share food, a process as ancient as any, is an elemental and satisfying way to connect with those we love. If the TV is off it is an opportunity for conversation, sharing of daily trials and accomplishments, subtle instruction…and not so subtle sometimes…of the youngsters, appreciation for our blessings and, sometimes, a bit of flirting, too. If you can, try to sit down to eat with your loved one(s) at least once a day with no distractions other than the food. It is one secret to keeping the love and connections alive…and it just might be something you do to make yourself happy.

When I was in high school I was lucky enough to take a sculpture class taught at a nationally renowned museum in Washington DC. We worked with clay and I found the medium to be absolutely wonderful! Clay lets you be godlike, molding and pushing it around to suit yourself.

Recently Sweetie asked me why I don’t work in clay now since I liked it so much. My answer was “Now I have bread dough.” Bread dough is even more fun because it is alive with yeast. That means that you have to cooperate with the dough more than you do with clay…clay is much more submissive…but when you are done you can eat the bread and make another ‘sculpture’ another time!

This braid is truly a delectable bread sculpture...fun to make and fun to eat. As long as you remember that walnuts can give the dough a red tone you can enjoy the flavor they add. Chopped dried apricots give nuggets of intense apricot flavor here and there as you eat the slices.

Sweetie thinks that this might be the best bread yet. Not sure about that but I know it makes the best toast!

The recipe is from a book I bought last spring in Ireland and then somehow left in with the travel books. When it came to light this week I was thrilled to find that it had this bread because I'd been wanting to make a bread with apricots in it. The cook book is called Soups and Breads - The Irish Kitchen by Nuala Cullen. There are wonderful soup recipes in the front and lots of bread recipes in the back. Here and there are charming line drawings, but no photos.

This was written as a recipe for a boule, but I felt like playing with dough and making a braid. Since I used my sourdough starter instead of dried active yeast, the liquid measurements were wrong at first, so I added extra milk...but didn't measure. Add additional milk/water and flour as needed to get a firm dough that is smooth and only barely tacky. Allow plenty of time for rising if you use starter.If you braid the strands loosely you can get a really pretty braid once it rises.

With packaged yeast the first rise should be about an hour and the second, after braiding, about a half hour. Do make this with active dry yeast if you don't have starter...it is really good and worth your time. I'm sending it over to Susan of Wild Yeast for the weekly Yeastspotting event.

Irish Apricot and Walnut Bread
Makes one loaf

75 g/3 oz/2/3 cup finely chopped dried apricots
75 g/3 oz/3/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts
450 g/1 lb/4 cups strong white flour
75 g/3 oz/3/4 cup coarse brown flour (I used whole wheat)
1 tablespoon or one sachet instant dried yeast (I used 1 cup sourdough starter and adjusted the milk/water)
325 ml/12 fl oz/1 ½ cups mixed milk and water
1 tablespoon olive oil (I forgot to put this in, but it turned out fine)
1 teaspoon salt

If using dry yeast: In a large mixing bowl mix together the flours, apricots, nuts, salt and dried yeast.

Make a well in the center and pour in the milk and water, kneading and drawing in the flour from the sides until it is all incorporated. Knead for 2 minutes with a dough hook or 5-6 minutes by hand on a floured surface. Oil the mixing bowl, put in the dough, cover with plastic wrap/clingfilm and allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

If using sourdough starter: In large mixing bowl (I used stand mixer bowl) put the sourdough starter and 1 ¼ cups mixed milk and water, slightly warmed. Stir or whisk to combine.

In another large bowl combine the flours, apricots, and walnuts. With dough hook in place and mixer on low speed, gradually add the dry mixture until the dough is soft and cleans the sides of the bowl. Knead with the machine for 3-4 minutes. If you prefer you can combine the wet and dry ingredients as described in the first paragraph and hand knead. With sourdough starter you might need to have a longer rising time...I did.

Knock the air out of the dough and knead briefly before turning out onto a floured surface. Shape as desired. I did a three strand braid. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk. Again, this usually takes longer when you are only using sourdough starter, but the additional flavor that develops is well worth the wait. I also refrigerated my dough overnight before the first rise...even more flavor that way!

Bake in a preheated 375 degree F oven for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and tap underneath. If a hollow sound results, the bread is cooked. If not, bake a little longer and test again. You could also shape the dough in two loaves and bake this in two 8 x 4 loaf pans.

Do try some of this toasted...it is sublime.

Around the Lakes of Killarney

There won't be any recipes in this post. We have been eating simply (aside from the Daring Bakers' lovely Bakewell Tart) with lots of fresh fruit like the ollaliberries down by the road, served plain or with plain yogurt, fresh local corn and squash and strawberries, plenty of simple green salads...delicious but not really things with recipes.

Instead there will be the next installment of the Ireland journey.



The days left in Ireland are winding down, but we have a few more places to see. We leave Dingle town and drive around the southern edge of the peninsula and past Inch beach, watching the people walking down it being buffeted by the fierce wind.

The map seems to show that driving to Kilorglin and then from there to Killarney is our best route. Once we arrived in Kilorglin we discovered that we had passed the turnoff for Killarney, but there was a delightful café where we enjoyed some coffee and some fine art magazines and a chat with the owner. Down the road was a gorgeous old bridge across the Laune River.

We retraced our path and found the correct turnoff.

On the way from Kilorglin we see signs for the Kerry Woolen Mill in Beaufort. We’ve seen their outlets in other places in Clare and Limerick Counties, but follow the signs because this seems to be the actual mill.

When we arrive at the mill we notice that the retail part is in a very old whitewashed building. Inside the tables and shelves are crowded with the most beautiful woolen sweaters and coats and hats and scarves, blankets and throws.

Sweetie even found himself a fine tweed cap.


The buildings in the complex are the original 300 year old woolen mill buildings.

There is even a machine in a back hall that (I think) was once used to measure out woolen yardage for sale. I love that sort of artifact.

We continued on to the town of Killarney in the Killarney lakes region. Driving through the town is a bit confusing, but we eventually found our accommodations, Ashville House. Although we enjoyed the charm and warmth of our previous B & Bs, this was a Guest House and more like a hotel in some ways. Everything was just a notch more elegant and the service was particularly good and very professional, although still friendly. It was a short walk from the center of town, so we took a stroll.

That evening we ate dinner late enough and at a pub, Mac’s of Main Street, where traditional music was played, so we were able to stay right where we ate to hear the music, although, as luck would have it, we were seated at the front and this group had set up loud speakers. After about 40 minutes of good but loud music, we headed back to Ashville House.

The following day after a particularly fine full Irish breakfast, we headed to Muckross House in the National Park not far from town.

This past spring when it was my birthday, we visited Filoli in Woodside, an estate south of San Francisco that I had wanted to visit for years since they have gorgeous gardens. The gardens were spectacular, just coming into bloom and full of daffodils, but we also took a tour of the mansion and discovered that the original owners had presented their daughter and her groom with an Irish estate as a wedding gift. When the daughter died of pneumonia in the early 1920s, the parents, The Bournes, and her husband, gave the estate to the new Irish Republic as the first national park. That estate is Muckross House. You can see that having just heard about it and knowing that we would be in the area, that we absolutely had to visit once we were in Ireland.

The gardens here are equally beautiful to the ones at Filoli and also remind me of the ones at Buchart Gardens in Victoria, BC, Canada.

The house itself is quite imposing,

built in 1843, on land purchased by the Herbert family in 1770 after leasing it for 200 years and has something like 55 fireplaces. The servants must have had a time of it hauling coal and peat for so many fires! The Herberts later sold it to the Bournes, who added modern bathrooms.We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the house, but the tour guide pointed out many original antiques, including a carved sideboard that was created for the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. It took four years to make! Muckross House has one of the Killarney lakes, Lough Leane, at the foot of the lawn
and a very good café for a cup of tea and a scone. I think I took 40 photos in the gardens!

I also spotted a jaunting car, which is a horse drawn cart with side seating. Looked uncomfortable to me, although I’m told that the jarveys (drivers) give interesting tours and can spin good tales.

Once we drove back to Ashville House, we decided to take it easy and just relax and read, noshing on food we had purchased in town on the way back. You can see that eating out at fancy restaurants wasn’t high on our list of things to do in Ireland, although each time we did we had spectacular meals.

The next morning we took a walk into town, bought some scones in the bakery (the best we had the whole time we were in Ireland.

I particularly liked the fruit scones, stopped in at a car parts store to buy batteries (far cheaper than at most other stores),and visited the Gothic revival cathedral, St. Mary’s, which has a spire so tall that you can see it from all over and which has glorious stained glass windows and a carved altar.

More walking took us past the boys and girls schools and through some lovely residential areas. Glad we visited Killarney, which seems like a nice, quiet town, except for the part out by Muckross House which has large hotels, big tour busses, and a lot of traffic.

Next we head a bit north, a bit east, to Limerick city where we discover the National Self Portrait Gallery…which wasn’t easy to do.

Glin to Dingle and Some Grilled Garden Goodies

If more of my Ireland journey journal has you yawning, just scroll down the post almost to the end for Sweetie's take on grilled zucchini.

A few days earlier when we exited the Tarbert ferry, everyone seemed to be following the sign toward the west, toward Dingle. Now it was our turn. We were sad to leave our new found relatives, but also excited about seeing some actual ancient (Stone Age) stone ruins.

On a slightly overcast day we drove back to Tarbert and took the N69 southwest, past Listowel, past Tralee, past Derrymore to Camp. Once we passed Tralee we were on the Dingle peninsula.
Dingle peninsula is a lovely but rocky piece of land and is the westernmost tip of Ireland, which is itself the far western part of Europe.


Dingle is part of the Gaeltacht, a part of Ireland where Gaelic is spoken, traditions of music and poetry and the arts are cherished, and sometimes the signs are only in Gaelic. Coming through pass between Camp and Anascaul we read a sign painted on the road that ended in Mall. We were pretty sure that it wasn’t directing us to a shopping mall. As it turned out the phrase was ‘Taisteal go Mall ‘ which is Gaelic for ‘go slowly’. Fortunately we were going fairly slowly so that we could enjoy the lovely green valley below with fields crisscrossed by hedges and stone walls

and flocks of puffy white sheep here and there.

There even seemed to be a section at the lowest part of the valley for peat farming.
One of the pleasures of Ireland is how clean everything is, both with the lack of trash at the road side and in the towns, but also with the lack of billboards and other visual distractions. We did see some signs that explained how clean and fresh many places looked. There is a national competition for the Tidy Town award.

People keep their personal space in good order, towns plant flowers and paint buildings bright colors.

Getting the award seems to be very important. I wish we had something like that here.
There were plenty of signs for those running for office, but even those seemed to be regulated so that none were terribly large. Multiples of the same sign posted side by side on highway overcrossings was as close as they came to big campaign signage. There are often appropriately sized signs at ruins telling a little bit about the history, but even those are discrete. Road signs are very large when needed and usually well placed and helpful. It seems to me that Ireland has the right idea.

Driving home from the Oakland Airport after our trip the most noticeable signs were the commercial ones; neon signs, lighted signs, and billboards were more numerous and shouted for attention much more than the occasional road sign. They seemed to be a blight on the senses after the serene lack of them in Ireland. Think of a busy American large tourist town and all the bright, overpowering signs and then notice these which were on one of the main streets in Dingle which is a major tourist destination.

After coming through the pass we were able to see Dingle Bay on our left as we continued on to Dingle town and our next B & B, Harbor Nights, which sits right on the water of Dingle harbor. Housed in narrow, traditional row houses,

the rooms were similar to a good motel’s, but the beds were top notch and there was a tea set up in the armoire and a good shower and nice sliding door to the balcony. The breakfast room is bright and well appointed and the common room upstairs has really comfy chairs and good, free Internet connections. The innkeeper, Kathleen, was welcoming and efficient and her helpers charming.

One of the advantages of staying here, besides all rooms being en suite and there being parking behind the B&B is that you are within easy walking distance of Dingle town. Should you wish to stay there, they have a web site: http://www.harbournightsguesthouse.com/.
While Sweetie caught up with his e-mail upstairs, I headed off to town and had a look around and mailed some post cards. I was charmed by some old fellas chatting by the harbor

and by some schoolgirls at lunchtime gathered by a grocery store.


Store fronts might have dolphins ‘swimming’ on the front


or they might be adorned with a beautiful carved face with knotwork hair.

There was a lot of traffic and plenty of shops.

I went into a pottery shop


and fell in love with a beautiful and unusual teapot which is the work of the owner’s daughter. I had it shipped home and have already enjoyed the wonderful balance it has…so important in a teapot that is for use, not just looking pretty. Isn’t it beautiful?

That evening we celebrated our anniversary (a little late) and enjoyed a fine dinner at Fenton’s with two kinds of fresh fish. Mine, a flat fish similar to a flounder, was poached and finished with a light butter, lemon and chive sauce. Sweetie’s was a steak, similar to halibut, grilled and it came with a mushroom sauce. Both were excellent and you could tell that it was very fresh fish. Fresh veggies were lightly sautéed. The light as air potato soufflé was a perfect way to enjoy the extra sauces. We shared a strawberry rhubarb crumble for dessert. It came with a dollop of whipped cream, but also with a pitcher of barely warm, pourable crème anglaise . Heavenly! Too bad I had left the camera at home. In fact, most of the time I was in Ireland I forgot to take food photos. What kind of a food blogger am I?

As we walked home from dinner it began to get dark. There were dramatic clouds on the horizon. We hoped for good weather the next day because we were going to explore ancient Iron Age forts, beehive huts used by monks, and hoped to have a picnic, too.

The next morning I headed for town to get supplies for the picnic. I spotted a bakery with industrial sized beaters hung in front of a window. I missed cooking and baking!

Inside I bought some goodies for a picnic I had planned. One slice was a Victoria Sponge enrobed in chocolate. The other was puff pastry with pastry cream and powdered sugar. (The last made a mess in the rental car, but was really good.)

At another grocery store by the post office I found local cheese, a wonderful seeded baguette, some sliced sausage, fruit and juice. At the fish market across from the B&B I bought some salmon pate’ which finished off the picnic provisions.

Starting a little later this way was a good thing. The road along the edge of the peninsula as you go in a clockwise direction is very narrow and the tour buses you are sharing the road with are very wide. Since most of the buses leave much earlier, we had little traffic and could enjoy the wonderful sea views and felt blessed with the slightly overcast but good (but windy) weather.

At Ventry Harbor there was a nice sandy four mile long curved beach. We pulled in and had our picnic, but the wind made it nicer to eat in the car.

Fortified, we headed off to Dun Beg Fort, an Iron Age (500 BC) ring fort on a rocky promontory. This is looking straight down to the sea.

Comparing this actual historic ring fort to the one we had seen at Craggaunowne, it seemed like the real one was larger and that there were multiple rings. Amazing how these unmortared walls

are still standing so many hundreds of years later. The doorways were very low,
but lined up with the breaks in the ring walls.

You can see that the underlying land is very rocky. Imagine having to clear all that rock!

They have estimated that there are something like 40,000 ring forts remains all over Ireland. We had parked across the street at a stone house where a traditional boat called a currach is permanently dry docked. It looked a bit like the Brendan.

Our next stop was at a group of beehive huts or clochans.

They were likely the living quarters for monks. They are enclosed by a circular wall, like the ring forts,

but the rock on the huts continues on up to make a roof, with spaces to let smoke out. Although the entry ways are low,

inside you can see that the roof is a fair distance over your head. Some like these above have lost their roof section. Imagine living in rock buildings like these so close to the water! Some of them were connected with a sort of corridor. You can see Sweetie on one side of two that are connected.

One of the interesting thing about the western part of the Dingle peninsula and, indeed, the area around the Cliffs of Mohr in County Clare, is that there is so little topsoil before you reach underlying rock. Getting to the sand and seaweed to build up the soil can be a challenge when this is the coastline.

It turns out that the inhabitants started out with mostly rock and hard clay and slowly built up the soil by first clearing rocks and piling them into walls, then sand and seaweed were laid on the clay and in time it was good for grass for grazing. A hard way to create soil that wasn’t even deep enough in most places to plant anything. Sheep and cows were grazing near the beehive huts, carrying on centuries old traditions.

Having had enough of stone and wind and narrow roads for the day, we turned around and headed back to Dingle Town. Here is where we were from Glin (day 4 & 5) to Tarbert, Listowel, Tralee and on to Dingle and then the stone fort and beehives (day 6 & 7) and left Dingle on day 8. On day 8 we headed toward Killarney and it’s beautiful lakes and gardens.

Speaking of gardens, thanks to drip irrigation installed before we left, mine is doing really well!

For the food portion of this post, we turn to a summer staple, fresh from the garden zucchini. There has been a fair number of lovely yellow, light green and dark green zucchini squash (also known as corregettes) being harvested so far, with some being given away to friends and neighbors, too.

In case you were wondering, I rarely give more than three medium sized at a time and never any of those baseball bat sized ones that managed to hide under the broad leaves. I like folks to be happy when I turn up with squash, not running the other way in dismay.

This "recipe" works for all types of summer squash; just be sure the pieces are large enough or they might fall through the grillwork and onto the fire or coals. For small pieces, use a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil on top of the grill to hold them.

"RECIPE": Sweetie is a genius with the grill, so we cut the squash lengthwise in thick slices, slather on some olive oil, sprinkle on a little garlic salt or herbs and a good grinding of fresh black pepper and they are ready to grill. I like them slightly charred but not so cooked that they are mushy. A few in the photo were a little too charred for my taste, but Sweetie likes them that way. A nicely cooked zucchini which retains is firmness and has a little sweetness from being so fresh is a true summer treat. Add in some golden bell peppers, also grilled, and you have a plate of goodness.