Strawberry Spinach Salad with Avocado and Champagne Vinaigrette

We truly enjoy strawberry season, and every time I start cleaning another batch of berries the boys are at my elbow begging for some of the juicy red fruits. I have to watch Monkey Boy and Top Gun because they will sneak the berries off to a hidden corner and get the sticky juice all over the furniture and floor. Read more

Cannellini Bean Salad with White Balsamic Vinaigrette

Bean salads are an essential part of any recipe file and are great for summer picnic salads since they are often dressed with dairy-free vinaigrettes. I like to mix up my own vinaigrettes, usually tasting and estimating until I get a flavor I like. In his new book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, Michael Ruhlman explains how to use ratios to create everyday dishes. The standard ratio for vinaigrettes is three parts oil to one part acid, though it can vary depending on whether you choose a citrus juice or vinegar. Citrus juices tend to be very acidic and need some extra oil to balance the flavor, but generally vinegars work well with this three to one ratio. For this vinaigrette, I used one part white balsamic vinegar to three parts extra virgin olive oil.

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Lemon Thyme Sorbet

We have English thyme and lemon thyme, both of which grow prolifically in our garden. I’ve become rather fond of the flavor lemon thyme adds to poultry, fish, and even desserts such as this refreshing lemon thyme sorbet. Last month I sampled some lemon thyme butter cookies that knocked my socks off, and I’ve held off making them for fear that I might eat them all myself. I must find an occasion to make them and give them away so I can justify tasting just one again.

Somehow, I managed to get the boys hooked on lemon sorbet. They’ve always liked tart citrus flavors, even going so far as to nosh on lime slices, but their level of devotion caught me by surprise. They hung all over me as I photographed this and shared it with delight. Read more

The Daring Cooks Make the Zuni Cafe Ricotta Gnocchi

The Daring Cooks have begun! An offshoot of The Daring Bakers, group members strive to hone our skills by tackling one cooking challenge each month. For this inaugural challenge, our founders Lis and Ivonne chose the Zuni Cafe ricotta gnocchi from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, by Judy Rodgers. I was thrilled to try the challenge because we dearly love gnocchi and though I’ve never been to the Zuni Cafe, I’ve heard wonderful things about it and have had the cookbook on my shelf for some time.

The ricotta cheese makes this gnocchi lighter than the traditional Italian potato gnocchi and the flavor reminded us of a very light omelet. Because we have plenty of chives and sage in our garden, I added both to the gnocchi and use more chives for garnish, a combination we thought worked well. We usually toss gnocchi with our homegrown basil pesto or sun-dried tomato pesto, but this time I decided to keep it very simple and made a browned sage butter. Read more

Greek Burgers and Tzatziki

While I don’t want to sound trite, I must say the first of May caught me off guard. I can’t believe it’s May, the school year is almost over and the kids will be out for almost three months, it’s time to register Top Gun for kindergarten, and summer is almost here. But that also means it’s grilling time around our house, actually more grilling time since we like to grill year round, we just happen to do it more often in the warm months. Really, I like grilled food in January but I don’t like freezing my fingers while making it!

Burgers are one of Builder Guy’s favorite foods, so we grill up a batch every once in a while. Some times I just want a slice of sharp cheddar and good barbecue sauce on top, but other times I like to play with the toppings: guacamole with caramelized onions, chimichurri, chipotle salsa, roasted red peppers with some kind of gooey cheese. The sloppier the better. And I happen to like tzatziki on my burgers, especially with arugula or an arugula pesto. Read more

Weekend Gardening: What Survived the Winter In Our Outdoor Garden

Herbs. That’s pretty much it. We cooked with our sage, parsley, and thyme throughout the winter. We didn’t get the cold frames finished in time to have a successful  winter garden, but that didn’t stop me from trying. We got one little leek and one tatsoi plant, but the cold frames are ready for next winter and we hope to have much more. The arugula picked up some kind of pest late in the fall that sapped the life out of it before we could get a second harvest, but we’ll plant more this weekend. The saffron never bloomed but did stay green the whole winter, so it probably had too much water last summer. I’m moving all the corms to a new location away from the beds we water so hopefully they will flower in the fall.

We will also transplant all of the herbs to their new home in a raised bed and plant some more cool weather herbs (dill, cilantro) as well as spring vegetables and fruits (two kinds of peas, eight kinds of greens and lettuces, shallots, strawberries, blueberries, and hopefully some rhubarb) in the other new raised beds.

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