Scratch Cooking August 4

What a difference a week makes! Mallaury cried again tonight, but this time because she's going home on Tuesday and she doesn't want to leave! She turned to my daughter tonight and said in English "you are my American sister!" It was very sweet!

After all the stress, I am a little sad she is leaving, too, but my instincts tell me that it is the right thing for her to do. I just have that feeling that her dad doesn't have much time left and that she needs to be home with her family. As I keep telling her, California will still be here when she is ready to come back.

We had a little impromptu dinner party with an old friend of my daughter, her mother and their French house guest. It was nice to catch up and I hope the girls will reconnect during the school year.

Dinner was salmon and corn on the grill, a chickpea mash, a caprese salad, green salad, ceviche and a cheese plate.

The chickpea mash was about 2 cups of cooked chick peas pureed with 1/3 cup browned butter (just heat butter over a high flame until brown and fragrant), seasoned salt, juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/4 cup ver jus and 1/2 cup water.

The ceviche was a pound of bay scallops, one small chopped onion, 1/3 cup cilantro, juice of 3 limes, 1 1/2 tablespoons sea salt and 1/2 teaspoon ancho chile powder. Mix all together and let sit for 2 hours until the lime juice "cooks" the scallops.

For the caprese salad, I used a cup of cherry tomatoes, 1/4 cup chopped basil leaves and one big round of chopped fresh buffalo mozzerella. I mixed the whole thing with a drizzle of olive oil.

For dessert the girls made brownies and we ate them with the apricot ice cream from the other night.

One week left to go and we will have gone an entire year without buying packaged foods!!