More food, coming from a freezer near you . . .

Mr. says the blog is off to a roaring start (thanks for the bump, guys!), so I figure I should get back to my proverbial roots - it's time for a food post!

I know it's December, but here in Tucson we've been having some incredibly warm weather - and this sweet treat is just the cure.

And yes, that really sums up the instructions.

Thanks to my father for coming up with this pretty, easy, and even kinda healthy dessert idea! How we did it:

• Arrange two thin cantalope slices in a small bowl.
• Use a melon-baller to add three scoops of each of the following sorbets:
• Lemon
• Peach
• Raspberry
• Mango
• Top with a handful of raspberries (or really any kind of berry - go crazy with this!

One final tip: make sure the sorbet is really good and frozen before trying to scoop it - things can get goopy fast! In a perfect world, you should end up with 12 perfectly balled sorbet bits smiling up at you. In my world, you end up licking sorbet juice off your fingers and hoping no one minds the smushed appearance.

Got in the kitchen, baked myself a pie!

My father makes the best pies on earth. No, really, he does -- which means I will never be willing to show one of my sad excuses for pie in public until I get a lot better at baking them.

That said, for a first attempt this didn't turn out all bad.

Yes, that is a pie -- a Joy of Cooking, 9th Edition, crust, filling, everything-from-scratch peach pie at that! And since I've made this, I've gained some vital knowledge:

• I need to get better at rolling pastry dough.
• End of the season peaches will not be as flavorful in pie as earlier ones.
• Must buy pastry brush for cream wash application on the crust!

That said, it was quite edible, and although next time I think I'll be using a more butter-based crust than a dominantly shortening-based crust, overall I give me an 8 for appearance, 6 for flavor -- and that's better than I was expecting, so overall I'm pleased.

Finally, one more picture, of the juicy crusty bits where the filling started to bubble out:

First Tasty Post - The food I've been waiting to show you.

At last, the blog is up and running - and what a fitting subject matter!

I rarely have time to cook, so when I do I like to go all out. Today's featured food is actually from a while ago, when I wanted to make a pizza but didn't have the time to wait for dough to rise. Turns out, those raw tortillas you can buy at the store work just as well for crust!

I started by sauteing some green bell peppers and cherry tomatoes, threw some ham in halfway through, and finally dropped my baby spinach leaves in the hot pan after I turned off the burner, so they wouldn't be too crispy. I poured that stuff out of the pan into a small bowl, then put my raw tortilla into the pan so it could soak up all the food flavors while it cooked. As soon as the bottom side was cooked, I flipped it over and sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on, then spread my toppings over that, then sprinkled more cheese to bring it all together. Then, I let it cook on medium low heat until the cheese was melted (but be careful with this part -- another time I made this I ended up burning the tortilla! Blackened tortilla pizza -- not so yummy), then gave it a minute or two to cool off before I ate it. The whole thing took twenty minutes max, and it was so much tastier than the Kraft mac and cheese I had been considering.

While the pizza was cooking, I made my salad: baby spinach leaves (I buy this stuff in bulk!), fresh sliced strawberries and blueberries, crumbled blue cheese, slivered almonds, and balsamic vanaigrette (I'm particularly fond of Paul Newman's version of this dressing -- it's good and sour and salty). Mr.'s comment regarding the overall taste: "I really like how there's the sweetness of the berries and then the balsamic comes and kicks you in the teeth." Yes, but it's a GOOD kind of kick.