a great haul for $35…

$35 for that haul

I love going to the farmer’s market. You never know what treasures you may find. And it’s great to know that you’re supporting local farmers and that you’re actually buying that what’s in season. Plus, you can’t beat the price. I got all that for $35. Yup, you read that right. That would be: a bunch of beets, one fennel bulb, one Kohlrabi bulb, 3 Cara Cara oranges, 2 red onions, 4 avocados, 2 baskets of strawberries, a bunch of asparagus, 5 Asian lemons, 2lbs of fava beans, fresh peas, a bunch of Cilantro, a bunch of purple basil and red walnuts. Just awesome!

I used to hate Kohlrabi as a kid, but I decided to give it another shot and try it in a salad. The inspiration was this winter salad I found via Epicurious, and since I like adventurous salads I thought I should see if I will change my opinion. The beets will be pickled, the fava beans might just become a fava bean spread, peas for a fresh pea risotto, fennel for salad, the strawberries are so good that they’re not going to make it through the weekend, same with the Cara Cara oranges, and the rest I’ll figure out as inspiration hits.

I know I’ll be going to this farmer’s market again!

M is for millet

I’ve been trying out other grains since I’m trying to go gluten-free as part of a detox. I was looking for a millet salad recipe, and I found this one. Genius! A yoghurt-lime-avocado-dressing, millet (I substituted it for quinoa), grilled zucchini and crunchy pine nuts, plus hardboiled eggs makes for a tasty and satisfying meal. And it hits all three groups: protein, fat and (complex) carbohydrates, plus lots of good for you vitamins.

I’m all for experimenting with new salads, so recipes like this one help you think outside of the box. And a delicious dressing – homemade dressings are just so much better than dressings from the bottle. And its really easy to make –  you can whip it up pretty darn fast. Try it for yourself.

 

{this moment}

via Soulemama

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Spring salad with deconstructed salad dressing

Normally I let the this moment photographs stand on their own, but since next week will be mostly about knitting and crafting, I thought I should sneak in a food post beforehand. This was a quick salad I whipped up – good ingredients and a tasty – deconstructed – salad dressing = lunch of champions. The salad has little heirloom tomatoes, watermelon radish, avocado, feta, plenty of mint, and said dressing.

If you’re wondering what kind of dressing that deconstructed salad dressing is, well, I decided against making a proper dressing, with whisk and all that. Instead, I broke down the individual components and drizzled the ingredients onto the salad. That worked especially well since I used balsamico crema instead of regular balsamico. I bought some (took me a while to find it in a store), but you can easily make your own. Anyway, the dressing is made up of a bit of olive oil in it, a bit of balsamico crema (yum), a bit of honey – very little, but a lot of my dressings have some to balance out the acidity and or spice, kosher salt and a bit of Sriracha. Yup, you read that right. I normally don’t use Sriracha in my dressings since it can so easily overpower other flavors and change the balance of flavors, but I got the idea from this awesomely delicious Ottolenghi salad. Their dressing suggests using chili sauce and caster sugar – I used Sriracha and honey instead.

watermelon radish – isn’t it pretty?

You can see droplets of the various dressing components in the picture – especially the crema and the Sriracha. The dressing components all mix when you toss the salad. Make sure you toss it well, though, otherwise you’ll taste blobs of, well, dressing components. But I can tell you, that dressing and the finished salad were so tasty. I’ll definitely be making this one again. Plus it was so fast to make! Perfect if you haven’t figured out what you’ll cook beforehand, and you’re trying to put something together last-minute.

Btw, watermelon radishes are among the prettiest foods out there – and they’re so tasty, too! I wasn’t a fan of radishes growing up – but I really like them if you slice them thin. They add crunch and a bit of sharpness, although the watermelon radish is more mellow. And for me, who is not a big raw celery fan, radishes are a great crunch alternative. Watermelon radishes are bigger than regular radishes – they look more like turnips except that they are green and white on the outside. Their degree of pinkness inside may vary – and unfortunately you can’t tell from the outside how pink they’ll be inside. But give them a try the next time you see them at your grocery store or at a farmer’s market – you’ll really like them. They’re also great for breakfast, e.g. sliced thinly onto a piece of Knäckebrod (e.g. Wasa) or Pumpernickel with a bit cream cheese (yeah, that’s the German in me coming through). Yum!

Where’s my Wednesday at?

Hello fellow Yarn Along-ers! Yes, I’m still around, and yes, it is high time for another Yarn Along post. Especially since I have a new wip to share with you. I managed to finish my Paraphenalia socks – yay! – and decided to cast on for something new instead of finishing up one of my old wips.

But first things first. Were you able to figure out what I’m reading? Yes? Or are you distracted by the image of the luscious lemon square? I can tell you that I have a serious hankering to bake some right now. I may just head out to the store later to buy some lemons… I guess that’s the mark of a good cookbook, that it serves to inspire you.

So – in case you didn’t guess, this is the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. I’d actually planned to attend one of the book signings, but life interfered. In the end, I guess I was better off not going, given how overcrowded and incredibly long the book signing was. And so I ended up borrowing the book from the library… I have to say, I do enjoy it, but it after all they hype, it wasn’t the best thing since sliced bread. A good cookbook but not the best one ever. It didn’t knock me off my socks. I know, heresy. Especially by me, an avowed Smitten Kitchen lover.  I do like it, but I think I’ll be just fine with the website. Unless of course someone wants to gift me with a copy of the book – I won’t say no (hint hint, family).

I guess that’s the problem with hype – it raises your expectations to a level that will almost always cause a let-down when you encounter the real thing. I’ve felt the same way about Argo or Forrest Gump. Really good movies, but the hype was just way too crazy. I was kind of disappointed after watching them – although I actually enjoyed Forrest Gump more the second time around. I’m guessing that’ll be the same case with Argo.

Back to the knitting. I’ve been on a yellow kick lately – the color just makes me happy. Plus it’s perfect to put you in a spring kind of mood. And even though the original prototype of the pattern sports a shawl knit in red and grey – MadTosh tart! – I decided on yellow. A mellow yellow, matched with a mellow grey so the scarf would be easy to combine with all kinds of clothing. I’m really happy with the final color selection. The yarn is MadelineTosh fingering merino light, in the colorways Whiskers and Winter Wheat. Pretty!

The pattern is Elinya – it’s a scarf/narrow shawl with  alternating stripes, knit in garter stitch. This is definitely a good design for beginners. As to me, I’m already bored out of my mind, and I’m only 30 stripes in. Oy. And this brings me to another point. This is a pattern you have to pay for. $4. I thought there’d be some short rows or some kind of shaping, something worth paying that much for. And yet all it consists of are garter stitch stripes, with increases at the beginning and end of each row. That’s it. I feel ripped off. I could have come up with that on my own, thank you very much. Sigh. But more on the topic of patterns, and pattern pricing another day.

And now for the blog hop part: I’m linking up with this week’s Yarn Along, this week’s Tami’s Amis WIP Wednesday and Frontier Dreams’ Keep Calm and Craft on (KCCO) blog-a-long. Check out some of the other awesome wip posts.

 

Homework

shallow depth of field

 

Hi! If you were expecting a Wednesday Yarn Along kind of post, there’ll be one of those next week. I’ve actually made some progress on my socks, and I think I’ll be casting on for another wip (work in progress), to give me a bit of a break from knitting socks. And I really need to get back into the groove of blogging regularly. Even though it’s kind of hard with the household that I’m currently living in. But more on that another day.

 

For today though, I’m sharing my homework with you. Yes, homework – it’s so weird to once again have assignments that have to be turned in. But this homework is all my own fault. You see, I signed up for a food photography class, and as part of our current homework, we were asked to take two photographs, of two food-related items. They could be anything from a finished food items to ingredients to herbs and spices. The assignment was two take two type of photographs – one with shallow depth of field, and one where the entire photograph, with all the components were in focus. The next class will deal with lighting, so this is a good prep for that class. So, in case you hadn’t noticed, the top photograph was the one with shallow depth of focus, and the following one is with everything in focus.

 

everything is supposed to be in focus

 

If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you might recognize the tart. I’ve made it before  and blogged about it too – it’s the whole lemon tart recipe from smitten kitchen. I’ve made it before, and quite successfully so. I’ve definitely gotten positive feedback from all the various consumer’s of the tart. This time around though, I made some changes. I used Meyer lemons instead of regular lemons, and it really does make a difference in the taste. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. Honestly, I can’t tell you that I liked one or the other better, they’re both good.

 

I also used smitten kitchen’s great unshrinkable tart crust recipe instead of a Mürbteig base (classic German basic crust recipe). The crust was good – but not “oh my God, this is out of the world great, this is now my go-to crust recipe” great. I think I might stick with a regular Mürbteig. I like the texture better. Oh, and for the sake of the little person with dairy allergies I used Earth’s Balance soy-free butter sticks instead of butter – yes, also for the filling. I’m not a fan of margarine generally – the whole hydrogenated fat thing is a turn-off – but, well, if I want to make this a dessert that everyone around here can eat then there really isn’t much of an alternative. I did find the texture of the crust to be different though – it was so ‘buttery’ that I added extra flour to the crust in order to get a more of a dough and less of a buttery consistency. I have no idea how people got a crumbly kind of mixture in their food processor. I guess I should try making the version with butter before I render my verdict on the tart shell. And I do have some leftover dough which will probably be transformed into Easter cookies.

 

 

And that’s it from my end for today. Stay tuned for more of my photography adventures. I should have a new post up in a few days, probably on Friday. Until then!

 

Almost too pretty to drink

a perfectly layered latte macchiato

pears in my salad

Pear Salad with Feta, Bacon & Hazelnuts. I’m just going to let the images speak for themselves.

The perfect winter salad.

pears, hazelnuts, shallots, bacon and endive – substituting endive for watercress and Belgian endive

Related articles

• Winter Chopped Salad (thecocinamonologues.com)
• Pear Salad with Ginger Vinaigrette (cantstayoutofthekitchen.com)
• Apple Pear Salad or is it really a Dessert??? (fork-lore.com)
• Endive Salad with Bacon, Avocado and Gorgonzola Recipe (avocadocentral.com)
• Roasted Fruit and Arugula Salad (lattesandleggings.com)

 

Zucchini Season

People who grow zucchini feel like its growing out of their ears. But me, I’m thrilled. I’m so glad zucchini season is here, because of these lovely delicious zucchini fritters. Yum! Add a sunny side egg and you have a meal:

Prepare to buy more zucchini to make more fritters. Rinse and repeat

 

Wavin’ Flag

Remember how I talked about soccer fever? That it was Euro 2012 time? And that it was time to celebrate the beginning of Euro 2012, and to cheer on Germany? Well, I didn’t quite manage to create a German food menu, instead I made carrot pancakes, a spring potato salad and a cherry, corn and fennel salad. But now, with the Olympics, I have another chance to create a ‘German fan menu.’

One option is to come up with food inspired by the German flag. The German flag is composed of stripes in yellow, red and black. Or I could do the completely lazy version and make Bratwurst and Sauerkraut. I could also make some kind of classic German cake like a Black Forest cake. There are also delicious fruit cakes in Germany, but I’d rather challenge myself. Btw, did you know that the German chocolate cake is actually German’s chocolate cake - named after the chocolate brand German’s? If you ask a German for a German chocolate cake, they’ll probably look confused and ask you what kind of chocolate cake you’d like.

A three layer cake: yellow cake, red velvet cake and chocolate cake

I’m not the first person to think of making a flag cake. Petite Kitchenesse made a beautiful version, with layers of yellow cake, red velvet cake and chocolate cake. I think that’s the way to go. The black flag will just have to be made of chocolate. I’m so not making a black cake, nor will I use food coloring to turn it black. Who would want to eat that? It’ll just look like a burnt cake. And the actual “black cake” which is a dark fruit cake derived from the British plum pudding – yeah, no. I was never a fan of fruit cake, so that one is a no go (I want to eat it too!).

I love all these cakes separately, but I’m not quite sure how the flavors will all go together. I mean, will the flavors meld, or will they clash???? I could also go a different direction and make a German Beer Coffee Cake. It looks interesting, but also strange. And it again has hints of fruit cake. Sigh.

The post title is inspired by K’Naan’s song “Wavin’ Flag” which is awesomely soccer themed. It’s also the song Coke used for its FIFA World Cup 2010 commercials. Don’t be turned off by that – all the big sponsors release pretty great soccer themed commercials for the big soccer tournament.

Wavin Flag Coca Cola Celebration Mix

Magical Mystery Sauce

You know how sometimes 1+1 = 4? Yes? Sometimes the combination of two recipes is way better than the original individual ones. That’s when a recipe is a keeper.

I was planning to invite family friends over for Easter. Normally we spend Easter together in their garden, hiding Easter gifts for each other, with the kiddos running around and a cookout if the weather permits. Well, most people weren’t in town, mostly because they were on vacation in Asia, so we were trying to come up with an alternate plan. I was hoping to invite the remaining contingent over for Easter Sunday or Monday, but if I’m preparing new to me recipes then I really want to try them out. My plan was to make something with chicken so I was browsing through Epicurious, looking for recipes that sounded interesting.

I found a very interesting recipe for chicken with radicchio and fennel mustard butter. Hmm. I didn’t have any radicchio, but I had sweet potatoes. Now, I am on a mission to make good sweet potato fries. I’ve tried various versions, and I haven’t been happy with any of them. Saint Ex in DC used to make these awesome sweet potato fries – my goal was to reach that standard. Btw, Saint Ex ended up with a new cook, so the sweet potato fries are permanently off the table. Boo.

I could share my sweet potato fries adventures with you but this post is about chicken. (Bock bock bock bogoooooock – just for you, V!). Let’s return to the chicken with fennel mustard butter. The fennel mustard butter sounded interesting. I have a French mustard with herbs, which, thanks to the herbs is green. That, plus butter and fennel made a for a really pretty, very green, and very tasty fennel mustard butter.

On to the chicken part of the menu. Chicken marinated in olive oil and lemon juice. But I was feeling more adventurous. And then I remembered this magic sauce recipe from 101 cookbooks. I’d made this magic sauce before, and used it in a version of aglio e oglio, or with buffalo burgers. I brushed it both on the burgers and on the toasted rolls. De-licious.

magic sauce in the making – note the fennel mustard butter in the background

Now, I could make the Italianesque version of the magic sauce as in the recipe. Or I could tinker with it. Guess which option I chose. Yeah. I decided to make an Indianized version, and substitute ingredients. Here’s my magic sauce a la India:

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 tsp roasted fennel, ground into a powder
1 1/2 tsp roasted cumin, ground into a powder
2 large garlic cloves, smashed into a paste
1 bay leaf, well crumbled
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I ground the herbs in a mortar but you can just chop them)
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint

lamb knuckles in a Römertopf (clay pot)

I used the entire sauce, plus some extra olive oil, lemon juice and salt and marinated the chicken breasts in the sauce in a ziploc and everything was good. And then the plans were turned upside down. The menu was revised to lamb knuckles, marinated provencal style with lots of caramelized red onions, steamed potatoes and salad with spring herbs fresh from our friends’ garden. Oh and some of that fennel mustard butter. This isn’t the best picture, but you get the idea.

The marinated chicken had to stay in the fridge an extra day. This is the first time I marinated chicken more than 24 hours. I wasn’t sure if it would be ok, but some googling showed that it should be ok. Since there was acid in the dressing, I was hoping that the chicken wouldn’t be tough. But au contraire. The extra marinade time had made the chicken delicious. I used a cast iron pan and fried the chicken in butter, 4 minutes on each side, letting them brown nicely, and then I finished it in the oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, for 10 minutes. The marinade was added to the pan and made for awesome pan drippings. I ate some of the remaining drippings with bread – so good.

I don’t think I can convey in words how juicy and tasty the chicken was. Chicken breasts tend to dry out, but this, this was great. The chicken breasts weren’t to thin so they wouldn’t have dried out quickly, but the marinade made the dish. It outshone the sweet potato fries by leaps and bounds. Since that dish was so awesome, I remade it for Mom. First I thought I’d make a quick salsa and then some beans, probably beans almondine. Easy peasy, right? But then I made that pomegranate black bean feta mandarin and mint salad. This time I once again marinated the chicken for two days – why mess with a good thing. I urge you to go out and make your own. Really. You won’t regret it.

As you might have guessed, the post title is inspired by the Beatles ‘Magical Mystery Tour‘