This summer, Saturdays have turned in to a leisurely meal outside on the deck, enjoying the shade of the 250 year old oak tree, the gentle breeze, and the mild early summer temperatures. And in such a relaxing, civilized setting, not just any lunch will do.

A recent Saturday morning found me watching FoodNetwork TV as I got ready to run my routine errands (like picking up the CSA produce box that we get weekly).  Tyler Florence’s show “Tyler’s Ultimate” was on, and while he tends to do food we like, I wasn’t paying extraordinary attention… until he began to discuss a dish called Gallina De Madre, or Mother Hen Toast.  I was immediately intrigued.

This dish consisted of a crusty, toasted slab of rustic bread, topped with serrano ham and an egg, then baked.  I knew that the chances of finding serrano ham were slim, but I also know that other high quality ham would work for this dish.

Gallina De Madre was offered up as a tapas, or even a nice breakfast.  It looked to me like the perfect lunch for that very day, and so I made sure that my errands for the day including picking up anything we might need.  As is usual, I modified the recipe that he presented to suit our tastes.

Recipe serves 2:

2 thick-cut slices rustic bread
Extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 
4 slices shaved serrano ham (We used Boar’s Head Black Forest Ham)
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Lay bread out on a sheet tray and drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toast lightly in oven. Arrange 2 slices of ham on each slice of toast and nestle it into a nest shape so the egg will rest in the center. Crack egg and drop into nest on each toast. Bake in oven until eggs are just cooked but the yolk is still slightly runny, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, if needed.

Served along side a bed of greens simply dressed with salt, pepper, olive oil and red wine vinegar, it was exactly what we were looking for that day.

Spring hits in Wisconsin in a very welcome way.  After the brutal winter that we lived through in our area we needed Spring desperately.  Over 100 inches of snow was a hard memory to shake off, but somehow we managed to do just that. 

This process was helped along with a Spring Tradition of ourse - the enjoyment of a Hacker Pschorr Dunkel Weissen, a plate of artisan Wisconsin cheese, and farm fresh radishes.

It was just one of those snowy days. The roads were crummy, and I went out and did all of my errands that required driving as early as possible. When all was said and done, around seven more inches of snow had fallen… just what we needed on top of the 28 inches of snow that we’ve already had this month.

But, it was an excuse to hole up and do nothing at all once the errands were run. This, of course, meant raiding the refrigerator for lunch, and luckily we had just the thing to do the trick. Pulling out the Prosciutto, some cheese, some mustard and some bread, we were pretty happy not being able to head out for the day. This is something that we usually serve as an hors doeuvre, but it made a great lunch.

First Lunch On The Deck

We had our first lunch out on the deck of our new house! This was also the first use of the new patio table and the first beer, sausage, cheese and radish lunch of the season. It was a perfect day for all of these firsts, particularly as the temperature was hovering around 65 degrees outside.

The pupster hung out and gave us some “puppy eyes” until we caved in and gave her some cheese and sausage. She thought that she had hit the jackpot when she discovered that we not only had cheese and sausage, but that we had cheese with sausage in it!

She didn’t get any beer. We don’t share our beer.

As luck would have it, we had plenty of corned beef left over from St. Pat’s day. This caused us to eagerly anticipate our Saturday lunch – leftover Corned Beef on leftover rye bread, with onions, mustard and swiss cheese.

We very seldom buy corned beef for sandwiches from delis. In these parts its really hard to find a good corned beef in a deli that has the right texture and taste. So when we make corned beef, it’s an added bonus that we have more than we can handle on hand.

Corned beef is good as a main meal, but there’s nothing like a leftover corned beef sandwich for lunch!

The morning started with an early call (pre-6:00 AM) from my partner in crime on Cuisine Capers. He had an itch to go to the Farmer’s Market on the Square. I was game, so I threw on some sweats and headed into the 45 degree clear morning.

It was the perfect time to go to the Farmer’s Market – the crowds hadn’t arrived yet. We strolled around once as the farmers were setting up their stands. I showed some restraint and didn’t buy anything. Then we went around the second time, and all previous restraint disappeared. I ended up with tomato, morels, snow peas, fresh brown eggs, beef brisket, and Tuscany bread.

That accomplished, I stopped and picked up my CSA produce box, then headed home with a car full of produce.

I dumped the produce on the counter, then went to work out. Good thing too, after you click the link below to see what we had for lunch!

After the workout I made lunch (below). A Tuscan sandwich. I wrapped it in plastic, put a brick in a box, set it on the sandwich, and put it in the fridge. We then went out looking for brick for the house we’re building.

We came home to sunny skies, 55 degrees, and lunch on the back deck.

(Click to enlarge the images)

Tuscan Panini with tomato, prosciutto, genoa salami, olive pesto, arugula, and shaved asiago, served with antipasto and Terrale Carignan-Syrah