This was, quite surprisingly, a hit in our house. With one of us (me) picky about meat, and another one low-carb, and another one with food "texture" issues, and another who would prefer to eat nothing but vanilla yogurt and icecream...  everyone ate this meal and liked it!  The trick was to season each element well and separately.  That way the kids could skip the "spicy" (by kid standards) gingery brown sauce and eat separately the noodles that could've stood on their own flavored with oil, garlic, and basil.

I've always had a soup fascination, and so I guess this is just the next logical permutation of that, but I was thinking:  I pretty much am permanently craving takeout chinese soup.  It's something I've never been able to replicate at home... so they must be using a stock base that I haven't tried out yet.  Lo and Behold:  The answer is pork.  PORK! 

I've started looking in a few new directions for inspiration. Admittedly, I know very little  about authentic Greek cooking but I'm glad I finally cracked open the book that's been sitting on my shelf, staring at me, for the last 10 years!  I'm learning plenty as I'm going though The Complete Book of Greek Cooking: The recipe club of saint paul's greek orthodox cathedral , but I think the biggest take away has been the joy of cooking for a crowd.  Filling a grocery cart with a TON of produce and using entire "family sized" packages of meat and fish has been fun and the leftovers have been amazing.

As with everything, I've modified certain parts of each original recipe to suit everyone's dietary needs and I'm beginning to see that it's  not only very easy to do this with Greek dishes, it's almost assumed that you're going to switch up ingredients to use what's on hand.  My kind of cooking! So, without further ado, here's my take on Greek Fish Plaki.

"Plaki" is a method of cooking that includes the use of onions, tomatoes, parsley, and olive oil and it usually uses fish or seafood as a protein. It is noted, however, that Plaki can also be made of beans or vegetables.

It's asparagus season and I wanted to really dig in to using a big amount of this ingredient.  This soup calls for 2 lbs of seasonally delicious asparagus and is pureed with creamy cashew milk.  The tips (the BEST PART) are left whole and serve to highlight the entire experience.  This is a really quick and relatively easy recipe that I was able to pull off on a weeknight.

This was a perfect addition along side grilled anything (burgers, hot dogs, ribs... anything picnic really) or it can go over a green salad.

Asian soups are great.  Lately I've been obsessed with creating super-flavorful/authentic-tasting bone broth based soups.  This will probably be the first in a series of similar soups I'll be trying out. This one was actually fairly quick and easy to make and went great with a side of brown rice.

Spring is here in full force and the weather is starting to hint toward Summer.  We've been grilling and having campfires  and LOVING being outside in the warm weather.  Well, the other day it was 90 f. and humid outside.  I looooved it, but my family was complaining "IT'S SOOOOO HOT!!!"... I blame their Scandinavian bloodlines for their inability to take the heat!


We didn't want to turn on the stove, or the grill, and all the kids wanted to do was play outside in the sprinkler.  It was dinner salad night.  We ate our salads outside just before a thunderstorm rolled through and ate almost an entire watermelon for dessert.




Pictured here is a green salad with fresh veggies cut into it. Leftover sliced roasted summer squash, marinated artichoke hearts, pickled beans and asparagus, red sauerkraut, melon, and a couple dolmades for good measure.  The Wild Rice Lentil Salad topped everything off and rounded it out so that it was a super-filling dinner salad.  I topped mine with Mustard Balsamic Vinaigrette (1 tbsp brown mustard to 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar and 1/4 cup olive oil).

Lately Dandelions have been getting some attention because they are among the 1st food sources for honeybees at the beginning of Spring. So, this year I waited a bit until the trees and other flowers started blossoming before I harvested ONLY the wide open flowering tops of dandelions to make Dandelion Wine! I've done this every year for the last 3 years and am in LOVE with both the process of picking and preparing and with the beautiful golden wine that results. My girls love to help pick flowers too!
I blogged about the recipe and process last Spring and am currently at the point in the process where I'm waiting for the must to activate with the yeast. In another day or so I'll bottle it up in a 1 gallon carboy.

Here's our haul

Quinn helped me "Pick and Pluck" this year!

Ani helped me stir the ingredients together for wine!

As the weather heats up, this recipe is fantastic either eaten hot as a light dinner or eaten chilled as a pasta salad.  Either way, it's great to eat out on the porch in the sunshine.

This is a spinoff of my recipe for Pasta Shrimp and Peas that I shared last year around this time.  Both of these recipes have proven to be kid pleasers. 

Last year was a scouting year in the woods by my house.  I kept my eyes open while walking the dog (and the kids) and located an area near the creek that was heavily populated with nettle and ferns.  On the Summer Solstice last year I harvested a whole bunch of nettle and used it to make various things, but the ferns, while beautiful to look at, were well past the edible "fiddlehead" phase for the season. 

I noted where those gorgeous ferns lived, and headed back to their patch last week.

Our dog, Oscar, helped me that day!

 I was rewarded with fresh fiddleheads (harvested sustainably, only 1 or 2 from each fern plant) that I sauteed up with some tamari and olive oil and ate as part of a side salad served alongside some "Ramped-up" blackbean burgers.





So, why do I keep on referring to my blackbean burgers as being "ramped-up"?  Well, it's because on this particular fiddlehead-gathering trip to the woods, I happened to realize that there were colonies of ramps EVERYWHERE.  Super abundant this year (and about 14.99/lb at the local grocery store).  So I gathered some of these beauties as well.





You use ramps just like you would use green onions. 

Lately I've been using dinner salads as a place to finish up all of our leftover side dishes (grain salads etc) along with getting my daily intake of ferments, and foraged goodies.  

Yep, I said FORAGED goodies.  The weather finally broke and the green things are HERE!   It's almost impossible to go outside with my girls lately and NOT pick up a few flowers.  


This absolutely isn't a new topic for me.  Last year I covered the use of foraged wild sweet violets, bittercress flowers, and onion grass in this gorgeous post. 

This time around, I kept it simple and added the flowers to our salad plates along with baby dandelion greens, homemade purple sauerkraut, and a Quinoa salad made with some of this season's first onion grass (which, for all intents and purposes tastes very much like mild chives.  I substituted Onion grass for the green onions called for in the original recipe, and carrots for the daikon radish). There's also a couple dolmades on there.  I cheated and bought those from the Greek bar at the store, BUT here's a recipe for those as well!

And here it is, in all it's HUMONGOUS dinner salad glory.

 

Ingredients for Quinoa Salad

Enjoy!!

I have to say that now that I have a reliably wonderful pie crust recipe and technique I've been looking for ways to use my new found skill.  I  think I nailed it with this one.  Flakey, savory, crisp and just downright perfect for early Spring (today it was 18f.  no, really). Oh, and it's vegan too.

For as long as I can remember, I've been enchanted by everything Victorian (and Renaissance, and Medieval, and... old).  I have seen plenty of recipes calling for rosewater for both bath and body and for baking. When the wild roses bloomed this year is huge CRAZY amounts in the backyard, I couldn't help myself.  Making my own rosewater was so easy to do and a really fun project.  I can't wait to try it out in some recipes which I plan to share on here as I go.  The Rosewater from this particular recipe is supposed to keep for up to 1 month in the refridgerator.

This has become a fast favorite in my family and it is modified from a recipe for apple cake that we got from a multi-generational farm family who live upstate.

A perfect dessert on a warm Spring evening.

Well, I made a pie.  If there's one thing about me and my cooking that you should know is that I really, REALLY don't like pie crusts and I don't ever make pies.  I make crisps, and crumbles and cakes and quickbreads and muffins... but I do not like making pies.

But, come on, I HAD to.  Who doesn't make pie out of rhubarb? I caved and I did what (probably most) people do when they make a "homemade pie"...I bought the crust at the store!  Yep, I cheated.  Check this out:  Dairy free, corn free, and they even have a gluten-free version.  I have to say I'm in full support of Wholly Wholesome pie shells.  

And so, while my shells thawed, I put together the filling.

About a week and a half ago I brought my 2-year-old to the far side of the neighborhood pond.  She threw rocks and sticks in the water and picked a few early Daiseys, and then came home for a nap.  While we were out there, I noted that the Red Clover were high and almost ready to blossom and when I got home, I made note that last year's clover stash was dwindling. 


Lets rewind a bit here.  Whatever prompted me to make red clover flower tea in the first place?  Well, I read up on it a while back and found out these things regarding the effect of  this flower's estrogen and isoflavones on women who were dealing with infertility and other menstrual issues (it took us a year to get pregnant with child #1 due to some of the imbalances I was dealing with).  The medical community finds many of the claims made for the usefulness of Red Clover to be inconclusive, but does note that women use it to control symptoms of PMS etc and to even out estrogen levels (as long as the quantities taken aren't in excess).   Susun Weed, my favorite herbalist, attests "Dozens of women have told me that they had successful pregnancies after drinking a cup or more (up to four cups) a day of red clover infusion"  and notes that "An infusion (not tea, not tincture, not capsules) of red clover blossoms, leaves, and stems is not only very high in protein, macro- and trace-minerals, and vitamins (except B12), it is an excellent source of phytosterols. Phytosterols are hormone-like substances found in many plants that can be bio-converted in the human gut into active anti-cancer estrogens and other helpful anti-stress hormones. Calling phytosterols phytoestrogens is confusing, as it implies harmful, not protective, effects."

Well, I ended up finally getting pregnant with baby #1 during the winter months, and didn't get to try out the Red Clover idea (not safe for pregnant women, btw).  

HOWEVER!  18 months after my first baby was born, I decided that if I wanted to have another child, fairly close in age to my first, I should start getting my body back to healthy/fertility mode sooner than later.  Also, it was June at this point and the Red Clover were out and beautiful.   I picked a bagful and dried it over the next couple of weeks.  I started drinking the tea and THAT MONTH I found myself pregnant with baby #2!   I didn't even get to finish my stash.   Now, whether this was complete coincidence, phytoestrogens, restored trace minerals or what, I don't know...but this is my personal experience with Red Clover.

It also tastes nice as a tea or infusion (think "grassy" or fresh mown hay), looks pretty, is nutritionally beneficial, and it's FREE and abundant!


So, yesterday I took a shopping bag over to the far side of the pond and it was a good thing that I did... here's what I found: 



I picked just the ariel parts ( flowers and top leaves). Brought them home and spread them out on trays lined with paper toweling to dry.

I'm convinced 1 single layer is key to drying.  I've had people tell me they have problems with their flowers molding, but I've never run into this issue.  Just make sure to dry them in a well-ventilated area.


Dry for 2-3 weeks and then store in an airtight container.   My favorite way to prepare these is to take a handful and put it in a teapot and then cover it with boiling water.


Let it steep for a while, then enjoy!

... And don't say I didn't warn you if you find yourself pregnant out of the blue ;-)