Dad's day

My poor little herb garden had a tough weekend. So many snip, snip, snips for all the dishes I made for Father's Day. But it sure was nice just to pop out to my front porch every time I needed a sprig of basil and thyme.

A lot of herbs found their way into these dips that got us started - black and green olive tapenade and white pizza dip. I knew I had to make the pizza dip when the blog posted started with: "This is the story of how four adults ate 28 ounces of cheese." Oh boy do I know now how that happened. This is heaven in a dish. The tapenade was definitely a winner, too. I served them with an assortment of crackers.

The main course was roasted tomato caprese panzanella (I noticed now another howsweeteats.com tasty dish) and Italian chicken soup from the Pioneer Woman.

I really liked the salad the last time I made it, but cheated a bit this time by buying balsamic glaze rather than standing over a hot steamy pot of vinegar. The soup is wonderful creamy chickeny goodness. Thankfully because it made a lot. A LOT. For a person who lives on her own, far too often I seem to make recipes that require pots and bowls larger than what I have. I spread around the left-over soup love and still have plenty left.

And now I'm realizing I forgot to take a photo of the desserts - rice pudding and an embarrassingly simple Kraft black forest mousse dessert. I always feel lame for making one of these recipes, but they have lasting power for a reason. Sometimes all you want is a messy bowl of chocolate pudding, whipped cream, crushed cookies and ridiculously sugary cherries. Less cuisine, more comfort.

I hosted Mother's Day and we took a trip to Morocco. We started with tomato soup and carrot and chick pea salad and the main course was chicken tagine with olives and lemons from my Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Slow Cooking cookbook. I'd recommend them all.