June is turning into a whirlwind month for me and mine. We traveled to northern Iowa on Memorial Day weekend and then I had to smack dab go out of town on business. I got home and then The Hubs had to travel (as I again had to go out of town as well). Have two more weeks of meetings out of town and then hopefully July will be a bit calmer. Wait and see….
To start, I’ll reference again our trip to Iowa. Mom put together a surprise mystery tour for Sis and me and she would not up any hints. We ended up in Hazelton, home to a large Amish community. We started at an Amish bakery where we snacked on delicious kolaches.
Then, off we marched to all the Amish stores. Each store seemed to be a bit specialized in what was stocked: plants, baking supplies (in bulk), candy and cake making supplies, surplus food.
I didn’t buy any plants because we were traveling, but they were quite glorious. I did purchase some pectin (in bulk), some smoked paprika, ground cumin, and this blast from the past:
If you’ve never heard of Horehound candy, you never visited my grandmother. She always had these lozenge-like candies in her candy dish along with lemon drops. Unfortunately, the Oklahoma humidity always melded the two flavors together. So, if you wanted a delicious lemon drop, you generally had to take a horehound along with it. I had to buy these and see if they were as hideous as my childhood memories. My sister spit hers out immediately. Personally, I didn’t think they were quite as bad as I remember.
Previous to all our traveling, we went to one of the first farmers markets of the season and we bought greens and radishes. I also bought some more kombucha from Jared’s Kombucha:
One is a lemon grass kombucha and the other is a berry vanilla one. Delish!
We also bought some of this locally made grilling cheese.
There’s some great recipes at their site. We haven’t tried it yet but I have a plan.
Finally, there’s the garden. There will be no pictures because it is extremely weedy. 🙁 But look at what it is producing!
My favorite way to eat them—sliced with just a bit of Himalayan sea salt and fresh pepper.
I’ll leave you with a simple yet delicious salad that I mixed up for a quick dinner after one of our marathon road trips: Strawberry and Cherry Tomato Bruschetta Salad.
Just toss the tomatoes, sliced strawberries, fresh basil with good olive oil and a splash of balsamic. Season with fresh ground pepper. Enjoy! (Linking the salad portion of this post up with Deb’s Souper Sunday.)
I’m linking up with Sherry’s Pickings.