The Daily Bread

Recipe here

Egg Flower Soup

recipe here

Ever since my niece sent me the recipe for this soup, it has become a family favorite.  It's also very quick and easy to prepare.  The dried shiitake mushrooms with their meaty texture have become a staple in our kitchen.

Antipasto Mushrooms

Marinated Mushrooms 

1 lb. white mushrooms, washed with bases removed 

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup water
juice from one lemon

3 garlic cloves finely chopped

1 tsp Italian seasoning 

dozen black peppercorns

1 tsp. salt

1 bay leaf

Combine all ingredients except for the mushrooms in a small pan, heat to boiling, add mushrooms and simmer 5 minutes stirring frequently.  After the mushrooms cool, place mushrooms and marinade in a glass container and refrigerate for a day or two before serving. 

Bureau Of Land Management Tumbler

Bob Wick / Bureau of Land Management

Bureau of Land Management is responsible for 264 million acres of public lands mostly in the west.  The BLM's stated mission is to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.  The Washington Post published a feature spotlighting the most beautiful photo's from the BLM's Tumbler site.  From fossils to flowers and desert to beach the BLM site is a wealth of information about America's accessible public lands.

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• Sequester Predicted to Stifle Public Land Programs, Energy Production

Happy Friday

Credit: NASA, ESA Large image

NGC 4402 seen edge on appears to be soaring through space.  This spiral galaxy is 55 million light years from Earth.

Hubble Page for NGC 4402

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The Daily Bread

recipe and directions here

Antipasto Dinner

"If you ate pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?"

 George Carlin.

Quote compliments of my niece Linda, Thanks Linda.  Traditionally antipasto is served before dinner, this antipasto was a complete meal for our family.  Surprisingly, this was fairly easy to prepare and economical but the real reason to prepare this dish- its just plain delicious with a wide range of flavors.  

The night before our antipasto dinner, I prepared the marinated eggplants and mushrooms.  The next day we just grilled the fresh vegetables, baked the bread and my wife Linda arranged everything beautifully on the platters.   The Italian meats came from Trader Joe's and consisted of two packages with a nice variety of thinly sliced meats (each package sold for 4.95). We thought the Italian meats were very tasty and the fragrant aroma of these paper thin meats on a slice of warm fresh bread was memorable. 

Marinated mushrooms, Kalamata olives, Trader Joe's marinated artichoke hearts, stuffed green olives, cubed cheeses and Trader Joe's Italian meats on a bed of lettuce.  

We mixed some fresh rosemary, 4 cloves of minced garlic and several stems of fresh thyme in 1/2 cup of olive oil, which we used to coat the sweet onion, zucchini, green onions and tomatoe before grilling on medium low heat.  The zucchini took the longest to cook, and the tomatoes were done in under a minute.  The eggplant was also very easy to prepare, here is the recipe I followed, however, the eggplant slices (marinated in olive oil, balsamic vinegar and honey) took longer than the 30 minutes listed to brown in my oven.  I'll post the marinated mushroom recipe tomorrow along with a picture.