Manchego and Greens

This is my favorite bocadillo at César in Berkeley. I made it with some flowering mustard greens I found at the market.

Mung Bean Dal with Rice and Vegetables

Erik and I are doing an Ayurvedic cleanse this week, so aside from some toasted sunflower seeds and spiced yogurt drinks, this is what we are eating for all our meals: Mung beans soaked overnight and then cooked with rice, cilantro, coconut, spices, ghee and vegetables of our choice. Today we added beets, carrots, fennel and dandelion greens. Not too bad for medicine.

Logan and Olallieberry Sorbet

I picked these berries last summer and they've been sitting in my freezer waiting for the perfect moment. Today when my mother called asked me to bring dessert to dinner, I wanted to make something simple and easy, so I decided to make the berries into a sorbet. If you've never made sorbet before, it is incredibly simple: you just puree fruit, or use fruit juice, and churn it in an ice cream maker. That's it! I added a bit of sugar to these berries (which I pureed and strained to get the seeds out) as well as a splash of cherry liqueur to keep the sorbet from getting icy, churned the mixture and then stuck it in the freezer to harden for a few hours. The result was delicious and so pretty! I can't wait to go berry picking this summer so I can make more.

Cannellini Beans and Beet Greens with Breadcrumbs and Parmesan Cheese

This is another of Erik's creations.

Roasted Beet Salad with Tangerines, Mint and Honey

Salad with Mozzarella, Olives, and Fresh Garbanzo Beans

Made with lettuces from my garden!!! I can't wait until I can harvest my own garbanzos as well.

Spaghetti with Fennel, Currants, Capers, Anchovy, Pine Nuts and Breadcrumbs

There is probably a shorter name for this dish; all I know is that it was delicious! It was inspired by a recipe in the latest Jamie Magazine. We cooked down chopped fennel, onions and garlic with anchovies, capers, currants, chilis, and pine nuts. Then we tossed the pasta in it, along with some chopped lemon zest, parsley, and thyme, and toasted breadcrumbs.

Fennel-Rubbed Salmon with Caramelized Carrots and Poached Quail Eggs over Salad

Not our prettiest presentation, and maybe a little over-complicated, but everything was delicious together.

Buckwheat Pasta with Red Snapper, Roasted Tomatoes and Olives

This dish was inspired by a recipe from River Cafe Two Easy, and we broke the rules to make it, as tomatoes are not even close to in season. It was pretty tasty though, and I plan to make it again this summer when I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. The original recipe calls for Red Mullet, but since they are an East Coast fish, we substituted filets of Red Snapper instead. We just roasted the tomatoes with thyme and olive oil for about a half hour (I might give them an hour next time so they get caramelized), smashed the olives, and roasted the fish for maybe 10 minutes before tossing it all together with the pasta.

Brown Sugar Angel Food Cake with Candied Kumquats

The other day we bought three different kinds of kumquats at the market and candied them to put on ice cream. I had some left and needed to make another Passover dessert, so this recipe from Martha seemed perfect. I used matzoh meal instead of flour, so the cake came out more dense than a normal angel food cake... almost like a very light pound cake. But it was pretty tasty! I didn't have any creme fraiche so I made some brown sugar whipped cream and filled the center of the cake with it in addition to the piping you can see.

Flourless Chocolate Torte

This "Chocolate Valentino" comes from Alpine Berry and has become one of our Passover favorites. It's super rich so one cake is definitely enough for a large group.

Millet Cake

Erik made this one- I take no credit- but it was really tasty so I thought I'd share. I think this would be amazing with the addition of some parmesan cheese, or as Erik likes to serve it in the summer, with pesto. Recipe here.

Spaghetti with Anchovy, Hot Pepper and Breadcrumbs

This is a super simple recipe from Jamie Oliver. We made it with farro pasta, which I use for everything these days- it's a little bit sweet and has a really nice bite. We toasted some bread crumbs in a pan with olive oil, garlic, and some fresh thyme, and put them aside. Then we melted the anchovies with some minced garlic and hot pepper flakes, and tossed the pasta in it, adding the breadcrumbs on top.

Eggless Mayonnaise

This recipe was on David Lebovitz' blog yesterday and as we happened to have bought some lovely little artichokes at the market, we decided to whip up a batch to accompany them. It's amazing how close it is to a real mayonnaise, and a bit lighter for those of us who are trying to pay attention to these things. I made it without the chervil, since my plant is still pretty small, and I added about a half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. I should add that this photo makes it look much more yellow than it really was, but I thought it was too pretty to color correct.

Salmon over Lentils with Caramelized Shallots and Kale

For the salmon, I chopped up a bunch of herbs from the garden and some lemon zest, mixed them with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper, and drizzled the mixture over the salmon. I baked the filets for about 12 minutes in a 450 degree oven.


Meanwhile, Erik sliced the shallots very thin and caramelized them slowly in a pan with some olive oil. Then he added the kale and let it cook down. We'd soaked the lentils overnight, so all we had to do was strain them, bring them to a boil, and season them before serving.

Strawberry Ice Cream Sandwiches!

It's almost strawberry season here and I thought I better use up the last of the berries I froze last summer. We used the basic vanilla ice cream recipe that came with my Kitchenaid attachment, and added chopped strawberries and a little strawberry puree to it as it was churning. For the cookies, we used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. YUM!