Zucchini Hash With Soft-Cooked Eggs

So remember how I told you I already found and picked a zucchini from my garden? I was so excited about it that I had to cook it and eat it right away. I had some boiled potatoes in the fridge and decided to make a zucchini hash and top it with some soft-cooked eggs. With zucchini from my garden, potatoes from Siena Farms, and eggs from Silverbrook Farm, I had a super-local meal that was summery and satisfying. It makes a great breakfast or breakfast for dinner.

Introducing . . . My Garden

Right now, our yard is the ideal candidate for Yard Crashers. There's a huge area of it covered with gravel where a swing set used to be and a smaller area filled with sand where a shed used to be. And because the house was built with the garage behind it (no longer functional but not unusual for houses in West Roxbury), there's a lot of cracked, broken asphalt where it doesn't belong -- mainly where I'd like to put in a patio. There's also an oversize rundown deck that I would love to knock down and rebuild on a smaller scale. It's going to be at least another year (if not longer) before we can afford to make some real changes to the yard, but we are making the most of it in the meantime and making small changes to slowly improve it.

Family-Style Fried Chicken Dinner At Belly

Last Friday night we finally headed to Belly Wine Bar with a couple of friends. I had been wanting to check it out since it opened since I love The Blue Room, and when I found out about the family-style fried chicken dinner, I easily convinced Jeff and our friends to head over there with me.

Soba Noodle Salad with Pesto And Grilled Eggplant

Every time I get a new issue of one of the (too) many food magazines I subscribe to in the mail, I immediately flip through it and dog-ear the pages with all the recipes I want to make. I never end up making everything I flag, but I turn back to the recipes often and eventually get to some of them. Sometimes I follow the recipes exactly, and other times I use them for inspiration.

I made skirt steak tacos with a mango guacamole inspired by the Smoked-Chile-and-Mango Guacamole in the May issue of Food & Wine (I still need to make the Silky Tortilla Soup in that issue). I made a fabulous punch by swapping out brandy for rum in the Strawberry-Ginger Punch in the June issue of Bon Appetit. And most recently my friend and I whipped up the Soba Noodle Salad with Pesto and Grilled Eggplant from the July issue of Food & Wine.

Apothic Winemaker Dinner

Have you guys heard of Apothic wine? I hadn't heard of it until my friends gave me a bottle of Apothic Red last Christmas. It's a full-bodied blend of Zinfandel, Syrah, Cabernet, and Merlot and has these wonderful chocolaty undertones, as well as black cherry and vanilla notes. I'm so glad my friends introduced me to it, and I've definitely had a few more bottles since that first one.

Recently I was invited to meet the winemaker, Boyd Morrison, and to try the new Apothic Rose, as well as Apothic Red and Apothic White, at a dinner at Tavern Road. I happily accepted the invitation since I knew I already loved Apothic Red and couldn't wait to try the rose and white as well. And I brought along my friend who's a big fan of Apothic Red too.