Yet another recipe that was inspired by a trip to the farm fresh produce stand the other day.  Yes, we like to spend a warm summer afternoon wandering through farmers markets, and produce stands to see if we can come across something amazingly fresh and tasty, and that day we did. In the corner of the stand was a mountain of huge beautiful mulit-colored heirloom tomatoes. The brilliant rainbow colors of these beasts drew us in and Charisse could not leave with out taking some home. We chose to buy only the golden yellow tomatoes in the bunch with a light bisque in mind.  If you can't find yellow heirloom tomatoes where you are, you can use the traditional red ones and this soup will still be amazing but the unexpected yellow ones will add something more summery to the color and flavor. Topped with a drizzle of bright green

Why is this post so late? And why is it titled "Upgrading to the new iPhone operations system"? What does that have to do with food? Well, Eric wanted to upgrade his old iPhone to the new iPhone os and low and behold, found his computer full of viruses, bugs and problems, and had to reformat. >.< So today's photos won't be available until this weekend. We'll be back to normal come Monday, with some really great new recipes!Meanwhile, here are some pictures of our Kittens:

When we got married, Eric's parents gave us a Tangerine Kitchenaid mixer with an ice cream making attachment and we were so excited about it. You have to freeze the bucket a day or two ahead of time so its nice and frozen for churning the ice cream. So we tossed the bucket in the freezer and let it get nice and solid and got ready for some home made ice cream! But it was cold, so we waited for it to get warmer. Then we moved. Then we got busy working on the house. Then it was winter again. Then we were working on the house again. Then it was memorial day weekend almost 2 years later and we finally pulled out the bowl and got to churning. We had the good fortune of finding a great year-round fruit stand about 5 minutes down the road from us who

This recipe caught Charisse's eye a while back and its been sticking around in her head since then. We've never heard of such a thing as using preserved lemons, but after some digging we found that they are quickly becoming a fad among many restaurants. With her mom's lemon tree in full swing producing more lemons that we could make lemon drops out of, we decided not to pass this up this opportunity and ran out to grab a couple of mason jars for this experiment. After a lot of internet research we found that preserved lemons can be done two ways: plan, or with spices. Since we've never done either we preserved both to see the difference. After 2 months of sitting and curing in the refrigerator the once tart and tough skin should be soft and edible. The skins are then used in various recipes and drinks, especially

Last weekend we had some good friends Marissa and Lucas over for a summer time Cheese Fondue, one of our favorite meals to do together. For those of you unfamiliar with Cheese Fondue, it is a Swiss dish that is basically a big pot over a small flame full of melted cheese, into which you dip various things that taste good when covered in melted cheese like bread, apples, carrots etc. Fondue can also be done with a wine or oil base and enjoyed with meat and seafood or with melted chocolate for desert. We've always found that the best parts are the cheese and chocolate fondue, so we tend to skip the meat dish (more room for chocolate!).Unlike most other meals that take all the work beforehand and then you can sit and eat at your leisure, Fondue requires constant adjustment and tinkering, and the eating can last for hours.

This is is what our front yard looked like when Eric got home from work. Now normally, he gets all excited whenever theres a big power tool being put to use, and if it has an engine, even better. Yup, in some ways he never grew up. Go figure. So Eric gets home last night to a backhoe in our driveway, a 6 1/2 food deep trench along the side of the house and Charisse's rose garden in shambles. There are 3 or 4 neighbors in addition to the trencher standing around the edge of the hole saying things like "oooh thats not good" and the trencher says "I've never seen one this bad". When comments like that are being used for your house's exit pluming you know things are not good. When the trencher finally finished and left for the day, we got down to the business of dinner. We could

Where have those foodies gone??? We're still here, but our kitchen is not in the best shape this week. We've been having problems with our water system for a while, dating back to about the time we moved in so we've had this project on the back burner for a while, but now we're finally forced to face down the problems, and do something about them! Now re-plumbing a house is not a fun experience and we're not looking forward to the next week or two, but were also happy to have a lot of our water problems fixed. Now what does this mean for the blog? Hopefully, not much! We're going to be pretty hectic over the next week or so, never sure when we'll have running water, hot water or anything like that our cooking is going to be tricky. We have a few things ready, and will

The other night we were getting ready for dessert and we're looking for toppings for the big container of Vanilla Ice Cream we had in the freezer and wanted something different. Chocolate syrup? A classic, but not in the mood. Gooey caramel? Too sticky. M&Ms? We ate them for lunch. We started talking about all the other toppings but still couldn't find something that fit the mood. After a few minutes, Charisse wondered why we didn't put the topping UNDER the ice cream. Now we all know that Charisse is about as smart as they come, so it was no surprise that her explanation for this silly sounding idea was very much genius: we would make an Apple Crisp! Charisse's Apple Crisp is a Farnsworth Family staple, great tasting, fairly easy to make, and it has apples in it so it must be healthy! (maybe). Full of oatmeal, apples and cinnamon (with brown sugar

Growing up one of Eric's most common meal was Shake N Bake pork chops and rice. It was quick, easy and tastes pretty good when your 8 years old. As you grow up, tastes tend to mature, what is appealing changes and what was good growing up seems childish. Somewhere in there theres a turning point, a longing for something reminds us of a so called "simpler time", when everything was easier, colors are warmer and everything has that warm and fuzzy feeling about it. Never-mind that it was never actually that simple, and that warm fuzzy feeling is just a trick of the mind and those pork chops always seemed to turn out burnt. There is always something to that desire to recreate the tastes and flavors one remembers enjoying as a child, so when Eric was feeling somewhat nostalgic one day (as usually happens when its time to pay bills,

After months of weird, cold, rainy weather, summertime is finally here in the Bay Area, its time to light the grills and break out a few cold ones because BBQ season is here! We're on the grill a lot in the summer, mostly because Eric loves to grill, but its doesn't hurt that our little old house heats up like Hades when its hot out. The place just doesn't give up its heat, so we find ourselves outside every chance we get. Especially when it comes to cooking, this weekend has been no different. We have a great patio where a summer house used to be. We had the house knocked down when we moved in and the cement floor and curtain foundation makes a perfect outdoor patio, complete with built in brick fireplace and BBQ. We also have an additional pair of Webber grills, a standard round 22" and