So, when Lynn comes up for the weekend and brings Nick with him, I surprise myself by not screaming “but I’m on vacation, I don’t want to cook,” and instead think, “Wow, what can I make?”

It’s sad but true.  Here I was a mere two weeks into my granola for breakfast, fruit for lunch, and salad for dinner routine and now I was happy I could do a modest family meal?  You betcha.

But this story needs to start the night before.  You see the previous night I started thinking about dessert (perhaps because of my modest calorie intake this week?), which is always a challenge with these two because Lynn doesn’t like dessert and Nick’s stomach usually can’t tolerate anything remotely dairy-like (i.e., good stuff like ice cream and whipped cream.)

Still.  I had a container of vanilla ice cream on hand and a box of chocolate chip cookies I had picked up and thought, wow, I could so do mini ice cream sandwiches! Except it was 76 degrees in the room and when I took the ice cream out of the freezer and held the container, it had kind of a squishy feel to it.  This meant I had to work quickly.

Too Hot to Make Ice Cream Sandwiches

I laid out the cookies on a piece of wax paper and put a tiny scoop of ice cream on what would be the bottom half. Don’t they look adorable?

Yummy Ice Cream Sandwiches (Next time do it in the winter)

I then put another cookie on top, lightly pressed them together, and tried to quickly wrap each one in wax paper and get it into the freezer.  In theory, this might have worked fine had the ice cream not melted nearly instantaneously between each cookie!  I mean was the room so hot that my cookies already had a “fresh out of the oven” temperature without that actually being the case?

Well, They Kind of Look Good

“Dessert” done, the next morning I woke up and realized I needed a plan. I’m one of those strange people that usually has to visit a supermarket (any old one will usually do) in order to get an idea for dinner.  That theory doesn’t work up at the Red House. I decided I’d simply have to make do with what I had in my fridge and freezer. Ok, so I did cheat a little because I was fairly well stocked and managed to pull out a big bag of red potatoes, a couple of red onions, some tiny grape tomatoes and a very lovely and surprisingly inexpensive pork loin I had picked up the last time I was in town.

And then I headed out to the garden.  No, I wasn’t skipping as I made my way there, but you know, it’s quite uplifting when I think that if I want a salad for dinner, I can wander into my garden and simply get some! So, after ripping off some of the green leaves, I looked around to see what else was ripe, namely basil and yellow squash and picked that, too.  I snipped some fresh tarragon and chives and brought everything inside.

Since I knew how long it would take to get water boiling on the side burner of the grill, I peeled the red potatoes and put them in a pan of water to let them do their thing.  I then decided to make a side dish of the squash, red onion, tomatoes and basil, so I cut everything up into funny little pieces and tossed it with some olive oil and decent red wine vinegar.

Perfect Summer Squash Salad

I washed the lettuce and plated it and looked at the pork roast.  Since I still had a couple of work-related projects I wanted to finish before the “boys” got there, I simply couldn’t fathom babysitting a pork loin on the grill for the few hours I had left to get everything done. So, I cheated again.  I put the pork loin on a metal pan and popped it in the toaster oven.  Surrounded as it was by small tomatoes and dusted with paprika, tarragon and salt and pepper, it turned out exactly the same way I make it at home.

Simple Pork Roast, Roasted Tomatoes

But that wasn’t the final version of the dish.  I actually had the chutzpah (yes!) to brush on some BBQ sauce and wrap the whole thing up in tinfoil and put it on the grill.  It gave the pork roast the appropriate smokey flavor I needed without me worrying about cooking it outside. Plus, I knew they liked BBQ so I thought I’d let them think this was the real deal.

By now the potatoes had cooked, I drained them, and mixed everything together with some mayonnaise and both fresh and dried tarragon. (Why not, I had both, why not use both!)

Red-Skinned Potato Salad

And last but not least, because they’re both men, and I knew would enjoy some bread to go with this “BBQ,” I wrapped up a hero roll (also known as a grinder in these parts of the woods) in some tinfoil, and made “garlic” bread.  Why the quotations around the word garlic? Because in our house even though we call any kind of bread that we slice and slather with a combination of butter and/or olive oil and a good shake of dried “Italian” herbs on top as garlic bread, we actually rarely put garlic in the loaf.

"Garlic" Bread

They eat almost everything and most importantly,  I welcome their company. The cookies?  Well, let’s just say it was a good idea at the time.

Unfortunately, because of our busy work schedules, we hadn’t been up to the Red House in over a month and he was actually looking forward to being up there. Was it the anticipation of more spackling and taping, or the fact that he thought we might actually be able to put  on a coat or two of paint?  Hard to say.  I, on the other hand, was looking forward to being in a different place (the Red House is perfect for that), and thinking of things I could cook without the benefit of a real working kitchen.  That’s when it came to me.  I was tired of winter and longing for summer.  Summer at the Red House means eating outdoors.  Could I make something akin to an (indoor) picnic at the Red House?

Reality check.  It’s still March and the snow has barely melted.  Since we have little to no heat in the Red House, having a picnic inside was kind of like eating outside on a nippy day.  So, once again I planned and packed and lugged food up to the house.  Here’s what I came up with.

The Picnic Menu

Chopped Liver Pate

Cold Shrimp Vinaigrette

Fried Chicken

Potato Salad

Mini Cheesecakes With Cherries

Prep The Night Before

The night before we drove up, I quickly sauteed some chicken livers and threw them in the food processor with a generous dash of brandy, a shallot and a hard boiled egg.  Done.

I boiled the shrimp, drained them, let them cool, then tossed them with some olive oil, lots of lemon juice and sprinkled them with salt and pepper and some red chili flakes.  Perfect.

Shrimp Salad

I figured I had at least two dishes under my belt, the rest I could make when I got up there.  But remember my dilemma — I’m a two burner girl up at the Red House.

Instead of leaving on a Friday night after work, we decided to leave early on Saturday morning. (Note to reader: early for some people means 5 a.m., early for us is 10 a.m.)  Not only did we not hit any traffic leaving that Saturday morning, but the snow had melted enough so that we didn’t have to shovel a path to reach the front door.  How awesome is that! OMG!! (Sorry, had to channel the teenage daughter for a moment.) Consequently,  we pretty much had the whole afternoon in front of us to contemplate painting, spackling, and all those other good things.

Lynn went around turning on the water and pretending he was turning on the furnace.  I, on the other hand, walked from room to room imagining big comfortable sofas in such impractical colors as white with a couple of shag rugs scattered about, and lots of art and pictures on the walls.  Then I went into the kitchen.

Remember my kitchen.  It’s disappearing soon (or so my contractor tells me.)  Look at the burnt beams on the ceiling from a previous kitchen fire (not mine).  Since it’s dark and scary and I’m always afraid something is going to fall on my head as I’m cooking (dust, dirt, a beam, a rodent), I like to do what I have to do in the space, quickly, and get out.

Kitchen Ceiling

I start to think about what I’m going to cook.  Since I think you can’t have a real picnic without some fried chicken, I start to make some.  I cup up some of the chicken I brought with me, dip the pieces in some egg mixture and then into a plate of homemade breadcrumbs. That goes into a frying pan sitting on the big burner.

Modest Fried Chicken

I have one burner left and attempt to make potato salad.  The water however takes forever to get to a boil and frankly the kitchen is just to darn cold to stand in for very long so I have to keep going in and out of the kitchen just to warm up.  (I did briefly think about getting into my car and turning on the heated seats (butt warmer seats as we like to call them) but I had to remind myself that this is what I wanted — a large house, a lot of property, and most importantly a place to escape to.

Finally, the water starts to boil, and I throw in some potatoes. When they’re done, I use the same pan to quickly fry up some pancetta, thinking I’ll do a German-style potato salad and toss the potatoes with the pancetta, add a chopped up red onion and lots of salt and freshly ground pepper.

Not Your Average Potato Salad

I lay everything on the table including some cheese and baguette and it’s a nice picnic to behold.  We dig into the food but occasionally have to get up and move around because even though we are both wearing THREE LAYERS OF CLOTHES, it’s a tad nippy in the house, so we need to keep moving.

The Spread

While I loved the chicken liver pate as an appetizer, I thought the rest of the meal was just fair.  Maybe it’s because I was cold and perhaps I should have made soup to start?  But who has hot soup at a “picnic?”  No one.  I was hoping dessert would be the clincher.  How about those mini-cheesecakes I had brought from home?

A few weeks ago I had a family get together and had leftover filling from a cheesecake I threw together. Not one to waste anything these days, I poured the extra filling into ramekins and put them in the freezer.  Luckily I also had some leftover cherries from a jar and spooned on top,  they were a nice ending to the first (and hopefully last) indoor picnic.

Cherry Cheesecake