Seasonal Favorites: Spring Recipes
The foggy coastline of Northern California is artichoke country. Like finding small hole-in-the-walls that serve clam chowder in New England, here one can sometimes find local diners that sell delicous artichoke soup. I first developed a taste for artichoke soup...
Selland's market-cafe in Sacramento is an uncommonly good café and often a source of inspiration for foods to prepare. Recently I had some of their asparagus and loved the texture - slightly crunchy (definitely not mushy!) - and the hint...
My father got bit by the frittata bug this week and made these for us for lunch a few days ago. This is a quick and easy, no-nonsense recipe that makes a terrific frittata in hardly any time at all.
From the recipe archive, spring is here! And so are asparagus. ~Elise A while ago I got together with Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks to try out one of the recipes from her cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. The recipe we...
In California winter can transition to spring in a flash. It seems like yesterday we were beset by chilly storms while the forecast for this week is all sunny and 70s. Daffodils are blooming, as are cherry trees, and the...
Have you ever attempted to make a soufflé and it just didn't live up to your expectations? That's when it pays to have friends who actually know what they are doing. After trying unsuccessfully to recreate a fabulous soufflé I...
Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic. ~Elise As a child I despised the asparagus my mother served. It was steamed to a dreadfully pathetic wilt and tasted, I assumed, no better than the old grass clippings trapped...
I first encountered a crab mango salad at Fringale, the exquisite French-Basque restaurant on 4th St. in San Francisco. Recently at a restaurant in LA I had another delicious crab mango salad, this time with avocado and surrounded by peeled...
Spring here means strawberries and rhubarb, sweet peas and asparagus, and dreams of the summer bounty to come. Asparagus are everywhere, big, fat, and fresh. And yes, although we can get them all year round, I'm especially happy to eat...
Deviled eggs. Easter egg hunts and summer picnic potlucks. I have been known to devour a dozen of these in one sitting. These were quick and easy. If you want them to be a little prettier, put the egg filling...
Fresh fava beans require patience. You have to shuck them twice, once to remove the thick shell, and then again, after cooking the beans, to peel the outer skin. Are they worth the effort? You tell me. Fresh favas, or...
Where to start? Somehow I suspect that the following method - fat is good, flame is good - is going to get me in trouble with some of you. But since this was the best lamb roast I've ever eaten...
For the Easter holiday, I thought I would adapt my mushroom quiche recipe into a Spring brunch dish, with asparagus and ham. It turned out great, my one note is to not add any salt as the ham brings enough...
Around St. Patrick's Day I notice many people coming to this site looking for an Irish lamb stew recipe. After some experimentation and a lot of research into Irish stews, I've settled on a stew that has its roots in...
What a blessing it is to have friends, and parents of friends, who cook. I had this dish at my friend Elizabeth Abbott's parent's house and begged her mother Maria for the recipe, which, thankfully, she gave me. I changed...
Preparation time: 2 to 2 1/2 hours. The trick to delicious lamb shanks is to brown the shanks first.
The word primavera refers to being served with fresh vegetables; it is from the Italian (alla) primavera, or (in the) spring (style). Pasta primavera is almost always a simple-to-prepare dish using the fresh vegetables of the season. In spring you...
Canned tuna has never tasted this good. I came across this recipe on Sher's What did you eat? blog, where she got it from the San Francisco Chronicle. You make a sauce for the pasta with tuna, olive oil, garlic...
Please welcome Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who ushers us in to Spring with this rustic rhubarb tart. ~Elise Early Spring, sadly, is a time of wanting. Where we pace back and forth, twiddling our thumbs, rolling our eyes, waiting...
Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic as he celebrates spring with rhubarb sorbet. ~Elise I'm not sure what first drew me to rhubarb. I think, perhaps, it was the name. Rhubarb. It sounds so strange, intriguing, even...
The most important thing to remember about cooking a lamb roast is to not over-cook it. Lamb has such wonderful flavor on its own, and is so naturally tender, that it is bound to turn out well, as long as...
Have you ever had roasted asparagus turn out tough and stringy? Here's a tip from my friend Alanna: use the fat spears, not the skinny ones, for roasting. This is a quick and easy recipe for beautifully roasted, tender asparagus.
I was told by my friends, "whatever you do, don't call it a rhubarb anything, or no one will want to make it." Ever since Garrett gave me some of his rhubarb rosemary jelly a few weeks ago, I've been...
For years I've walked by those packages of baby artichokes at Trader Joe's not willing to try them because they just didn't seem worth the effort. I'm glad to report that I was completely wrong. They actually take less time...
Spring has sprung here in Northern California. The sweet peas are blossoming, the snap peas are climbing, and I have peas on my brain! Today I had a hankering for snow peas and cooked up a bunch this afternoon just...
Fava beans are a gardener's dream. The come up early in Spring, they're easy to grow, and their roots fix nitrogen in the soil, helping to prepare the soil for vegetables planted later in the season. They are delicious, though...
Several weeks ago, strawberries and rhubarb both began to show up in quantity at the store. Strawberry rhubarb pie is one of my favorite desserts on the planet. But it's a pie. And being a pie, it takes some work...
Rhubarb is one of those strange vegetables that acts more like a fruit - the bright pink rhubarb stems that is; the leaves are poisonous. Strawberry rhubarb pie is one of my favorite pies in the world; in fact everyone...
Strawberry and rhubarb has to be one of the world's best pairings. We love the way tart rhubarb (ever try to eat raw rhubarb?) dances with sweet strawberries in cobblers and pies. In this terrine, orange zest makes an appearance...
What better way to conjure up memories of the joys of youth than strawberry shortcake? Strawberry shortcake consists of sliced strawberries that have been macerated with whipped cream served over a white cake or biscuit. I'm from the camp that...
