Strawberry-Basil Salad...

One of the dishes we had tonight we actually made first a week or so ago, but Jeff requested that we have it again. While this Strawberry-Basil Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette was quite good, I think he was so excited that most of it was grown right in our back yard!

There isn't much to this at all, but the basic combination of ingredients sure made for a dramatic side! If you want a crispier green, by all means use a head of romaine - however, we have a couple rows of red butterhead lettuce that are still thriving and while tender, we've found it is firm enough to hold up to this type of salad. Hand torn, we tossed those lettuce leaves with slices of just-picked strawberries (the plants are still producing!), sweet crunchy arcs of Vidalia onion and fresh basil.

To let these ingredients shine, a straightforward dressing composed of good olive oil and balsamic vinegar, spiked with salt and fresh ground black pepper, was all that we needed to moisten this salad. You could go and throw in chunky pieces of cheese, toasted nuts or grilled chicken if you must, cluttering the surface, but I think what was so appealing about this salad was just how clean and simple it was. I was intrigued at first by the addition of basil, but as its fragrance lifted from my plate and I got a taste of the combination, the refreshing anise-like flavor came sweeping through and made complete sense, anchoring this dish with such a pleasing note. This is the second time we've enjoyed this salad and I bet it won't be the last during this summer!

Recipes
Strawberry-Basil Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Lemon-Ginger Bundt Cake...

One item we keep handy in the pantry is crystallized ginger, if for no other reason to snack on for a sweet treat that backs itself with a warm, spicy bite. Nibbled on plain, or dipped in dark chocolate for an especially devilish treat, I also like to have it in the pantry to use in baked goods... like this Lemon-Ginger Bundt Cake that we made for this week's Wednesday Treat Day.

To really grind the oils from the zest into this cake, maximizing its potential, I took the extra time to rub the fragrant zest into sugar with my fingertips, before creaming the sugar and butter together. Fussy? Yeah, maybe a little, but when you see how the grains of sugar are moistened and take on a light yellow hue, you know it's worth it. When you add the softened butter in, make sure you give it plenty of time for the mixture to become light and fluffy, rather than just creamy and combined.

With most cakes, the batter benefits from adding the eggs one at a time, rather than just dumping the whole shebang in. Besides being able to work in more air as you beat each one in, the batter stays in smooth and together, rather than curdling into a mess if too much is added at once. While we have lemon infused already, we added some pucker power by mixing in the tangy juice from the zested lemons once the eggs were all worked in.

Sour cream is a wonderful medium to tenderize and moisten a cake, which is why this cake has a full cup added in - though just like those eggs, the sour cream is not added all at once. Rather than just dropping in spoonfuls at a time though, the sour cream is alternately added with the dry ingredients, lightening the batter as the flour is absorbed. This is a ginger cake right? To impart that flavor, we snuck a good amount of minced crystallized ginger in with the dry ingredients - since ginger can be a little sticky, whisking it in with the flour first coated the tacky pieces, keeping them separate so they are evenly distributed.

Before you scoop this into your bundt pan, be sure you are using one that holds twelve cups as there is plenty of batter to go around - if you try and use a smaller one, you risk a messy spillage. Go with your instincts - if you still find that the pan looks like it won't hold all the batter, hold some back if you like and bake it off in a ramekin or a muffin pan for a baker's snack! Once it tests done, it is best to let the cake rest in the pan for at least 10 minutes or so, giving it time to finish setting up and allowing the crust to release from the sides.

Slicing into the cake once it had cooled down revealed to us what we had hoped for - a dense, buttery yellow cake that perfurmed the room with its light, lemon-y fragrance as soon as I guided my serrated knife out. Ginger can be a little staggering at times if it is too heavily used, but we both thought there was just enough that the cake didn't seem void of it, yet you knew it wasn't just a plain 'ol lemon cake either. See those darker bits around the edges? That would be the ginger chunks getting caramelized from being so close to the sides of the pan - almost the best part of the cake! If you wanted a more flashy finish than just a shower of confectioners' sugar, a simple glaze made from fresh lemon juice, confectioners' sugar and a touch of softened butter, slowly drizzled over the top, would definitely be appropriate.

Recipes
Lemon-Ginger Bundt Cake

Asparagus-Ham Lasagna

We picked up some asparagus from the market in anticipation of using it this week, but as the season has pretty much come to a close, it wasn't as brilliant as it had been the past few months. That's not to imply the asparagus was horrible or anything, but they just were not as snappy - rather than using it in a dish where it would be the star, we used the spears in this Asparagus-Ham Lasagna instead.

To set the color of the asparagus, we dropped them in a large pot of boiling, salted water for just a minute, then rinsed them in cold water to stop them from cooking any further. Don't drain away the water though to get at the asparagus - just fish them out with a slotted spoon. This way, you can cook the lasagna noodles in the same batch of seasoned water.

While the noodles were busy, we started creating the sauce we were going to smother this dish with. Butter, melted into a golden pool, gave us a spot to soften a finely chopped onion before we sprinkled in the flour used to thicken the sauce. Make sure you stir that flour around for a minute or two, giving it a chance to cook out its raw pastiness. Using entirely milk as the liquid for the sauce gives you a silky mouthfeel - however, you could use equal amounts of milk and broth to make the sauce a little lighter. To make sure the flour has been activated to thicken the milk, be sure it comes up to at least a boil. After stirring in a duo of cheeses, fresh grated Asiago and Parmesan, our milk sauce turned into a cheesy pool that was ready to be lifted with a bit of fresh grated nutmeg (try not to leave this out as it adds an intriguing complexity that works well in a white sauce).

Built as a typical lasagna, the assembly included the cheese sauce, noodles, thinly sliced ham, the crisp-tender asparagus and a bit more Asiago and Parmesan in each layer. To trap the moisture inside, creating a steamy package to finish the noodles off and warm through the dish, we covered the top with foil just before we placed the heavy dish into the oven. While it could be considered done after a half hour, to finish off the top layer, that foil is removed during the last ten minutes of baking. You could serve this pipping hot out of the oven, but I highly suggest setting aside an extra fifteen or so minutes to let this lasagna meld and cool down first. This gives the sauce a chance to set, allowing you to pull out slices that don't slip and slide off your plate!

Lasagnas loaded with meat and tons of cheese are certainly lip-smackingly delicious, but they can also come across as being heavy and quite rich, which doesn't always sit too well during the warmth of spring or summer. What Jeff and I both liked about this version was how clean and refreshing it felt, with the lighter ham, tender fresh asparagus and nutty cheese blend. It also happened to make plenty to go around, leaving us with a few nice lunches to look forward to!

Recipes
Asparagus-Ham Lasagna

Four years!

Jeff said to me this morning "Do you know what day it is today?" I said, "Um yeah... it's Sunday?". He looked at me when one of those single eye brow raises and then I said "Okay... other than being Sunday, it's market day?". That got an eye roll... so I asked what else could it be and he said "Did you forget it has been 4 years since you started the blog?!". Oh crap - he's right! Really? Four years already? Dang!

Jeff and I decided to sit down a little earlier and go through our recipe sections to pick out some of our favorite recipes to post - but once we started scrolling through and figured out we have taken pictures and posted about 1,690 recipes, we figured there was no way that was going to happen. That's at least one new recipe every single day for 4 years straight! Craziness. Will we make it to five years? I'm not sure, though I do know I can't wait to find out.

Other than that news, it is a fairly busy day today... but I do want to take some time to share another treat we made with our bounty of fresh strawberries! When Jeff and I were going over our options on what we should do with them, the dehydrator came up - we thought about drying the berries themselves, but then decided on making Strawberry Fruit Leather!

There actually isn't much to this at all and it is surprisingly easy, with quite the short ingredient list to boot! It can also adapt to several variations, allowing you to choose what direction you want the flavor to be.

With our first batch, we were looking for just the pure essence of strawberry, so the only ingredients we used were strawberries, honey and a pinch of Fruit Fresh. Fruit Fresh is basically ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and is used in home canning to retain color - this is what I use when I make dried banana chips to keep them from browning. If you can't find this in your market, a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice would be a good substitute. Honey isn't there to sweeten the leather, especially important since our strawberries are plenty sweet already, but it helps keep the final product pliable.

Pureed until smooth, we poured the ruby sauce onto our dehydrator's fruit roll-up sheet and set it on the machine to dry. After a few hours and a few peeks later to check on the progress, the puree was finally leathery and not sticky to the touch anymore - which meant it was ready! Chewy and full of potent strawberry flavor, we decided that the crunchiness from the tiny seeds was a plus and were glad we opted to leave them in. Straining them out is an option though if you wanted an extra-smooth leather.

We tore through the first fruit leather in no time and it didn't take us long to make another batch. Three more, in fact! We made another simple strawberry version, but then saved a handful of the berries out of the next two and replaced them with a ripe banana in one and applesauce in the other. We didn't measure for this, but we took out roughly a half cup of strawberries and added the same amount of the other two fruits. I did find that those two needed an extra hour or so to dry and while the flavor change was pretty subtle with strawberry still dominate, the banana and apple did come through in both taste and aroma! You can store them rolled up as sheets between parchment paper, but how about breaking out the cookie cutters to start stamping out shapes? Which, by the way, could be a fun and an edible activity for the kiddos - can you tell Gus had a say in what shapes we chose?!

Recipes
Basic Strawberry Fruit Leather

On this Fourth...

Happy Fourth of July!

I hope everyone is having a safe holiday! Jeff, the pups and I will be heading out to the deck soon to watch the fireworks - it looked a little ominous earlier, but the blue skies reappeared an hour or two ago, leaving us with a beautifully clear evening!

Out of all the strawberry goodies we've made over the past couple of weeks, I think what we did with them tonight almost (but not quite!) trumps them all! No real recipe here - all I did was slice up a mounds' worth of strawberries and gave them a light shower with granulated sugar, making sure to show restraint since the berries are already plenty sweet. On top? Fresh cream from a friend who runs a dairy, whipped into a pillow-y blanket with a pinch of salt, a drizzle of vanilla and a touch of confectioners' sugar. To complete the holiday theme? Blueberries, almost bursting at the seams with their juicy insides, dropped all around the plate. Definitely the way to go when you want the essence of summer all wrapped up in an unpretentious, delicious portion.

Calabrese Potato Provolone Pizza

You may have to do a little searching for one specialty ingredient in the Friday Night Pizza we made this evening, but I'll tell you now it is worth seeking out.

What makes this Calabrese Potato Provolone Pizza top notch was the sausage used on top. Calabrese is a dry Italian sausage that is made with pork and seasoned with hot chile peppers for a vigorous bite - you'll often also find it flavored with garlic and fennel. If you absolutely couldn't get your hands on some, you could swap it out for salami or even pepperoni.

The other way this pizza is tuned up? Sliced potatoes! Waxy Yukon gold potatoes, in fact, which are sliced as thinly as possible - preferably using a mandolin to get paper-thin slices. They need to be as thin as possible as they are not pre-cooked before arranging them onto the pizza. If you do end up with thicker slices of potato, you may want to give them a quite dunk in salted boiling water for a few minutes to give them a head start - tender potatoes are a good thing, where raw potatoes might not be as pleasing!

We used the twelve ounce version of our whole-wheat pizza dough to give us a thinner crust, but if you wish for more chew, try out the pound version instead. Once the stretchable dough was pressed out, the top was slathered in marinara sauce, followed by the thinly sliced potatoes and spicy sausage rounds.

For a savory herbal note, we snipped a few leaves from our sage plant outside and gave them a quick run through with a knife, leaving us with shreds to sprinkle on top. Cheese was on tap next to be added, but we didn't go single here - we went with two... mozzarella and provolone!

We didn't opt for just any provolone - we decided on one that was aged, luring us in with its full, extra-sharp jolt. Baked on our stone until the crust was richly golden and the cheese on top melted together, flooding the top of the pizza in a slick of gooey browned cheese, we made sure to give it a few minutes (though not many) before we sliced into it, giving it a chance to set. I couldn't even get the whole thing cut into wedges before I swiped a bite from one of my slices! I tuned out all the background noise and just stood there for a couple silent minutes, letting the flavors wash over my taste buds, shocking them from their slumber as that heat in the sausage brought them to life. Jeff was getting antsy, so he had to cut himself a slice (oops...) and found out exactly where I was taken to. Seven ingredients coming together to create one naughty pizza and a couple of stuffed stomachs - what a way to start the weekend with a bang!

Recipes
Calabrese Potato Provolone Pizza