And now, presenting the stories & histories of our recipes

I figured each recipe needs their own small backstory about where they came from, how they have been tweaked over the years, & why we love them now.

Tomato Soup: This recipe I found online and did my normal tweaking. I tend to do this a lot. With my new love for tomatoes we decided this would a fun and smart way to use some of our beautiful tomatoes from our garden. There are no words for how delicious these tomatoes are. I grew up only eating tomatoes in spaghetti sauce, no joke. Not only do I love them and love cooking with them, but now I can't get enough of them. This is a super simple recipe that I would definitely make again. I know we should have totally eaten this soup with some rad yummy grilled cheese sandwich (so retro classic), but since I am so gung-ho tomato lately we opted for pairing with BLT sandwiches. Yummo! This wasn't your typical BLT. For my first, yes first ever, BLT sandwich we went random fancy: peppered bacon, arugula, heirloom tomatoes, a little salt & pepper, small squeeze of lemon, mayo, all on a yummy yeast butter roll. OMG! So delish, I can't even imagine having a BLT on toasted white bread now. I am forever changed just because of tomato soup and BLT's.

Banana Nut Bread: There really shouldn't be "Nut" in the title, since Scott isn't a fan I never put them in. Our daughter's love bananas, but every once in a while we have far too many ripening way too quickly. So instead of making waste I decided to try a new banana bread recipe. I feel like finding the 'right' recipe for banana bread is like finding a needle in a haystack. Someone out there is hoarding the best banana bread recipe! This recipe turned out better than I thought. I have a tendency to gravitate towards baking recipes with buttermilk in them because it makes everything better. I think in the future though I won't try to bake two batches of this my oven, made for some very uneven cooking. Oh well right? At least I know better for next time.

Roasted Corn Salsa: This recipe is entirely made up and inspired by summer. The abundance of fresh corn at the local farmers markets was so ridiculous in mid-June when I created this recipe. I am very fond of the corn salsa at Chipotle and I thought I would give recreating it a try. I had no trouble creating a tasty and refreshing treat. The first time I made the salsa it was gone within hours. So, when it came time to making it again we went a little overboard with something like 32 ears of corn. It barely fit on the grill! We ended up giving most of it to my Mom for her annual camping trip leaving only a little for Scott and I to nibble on. The third time I made it we didn't go as overboard, but close enough. This hefty batch not only lasted us for a few days, but burned us out on corn salsa. It's finally starting to sound good again & the corn is on sale this week at Bel Air. I see corn salsa in my near future!

Chicken A La King: This is a classic that is also widely known as Chicken Supreme. You would never think looking at the list of the RANDOM ingredients that this recipe would as delicious as it is. It's quite remarkable how tasty this dish is. I remember making it for Scott the first time knowing he would like. I didn't think he would LOVE it like he does. I love recipes where everything, besides the starch, is made in one pan. I grew up eating this recipe over rice and usually with steamed broccoli and cauliflower. Only recently have we started adding shallots as well as the lemon zest is now microplaned in, not peeled into some huge piece to be found later.