Monthly Archives: June 2011

June 24, 2011 · 9:29 PM

Mozzarella, Tomato, and Strawberry Salad

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe is a mozzarella, tomato, and strawberry salad.  Start with sliced strawberries and grape tomatoes.  Toss them lightly with salt, pepper, and a few drops of olive oil.  Serve the strawberries and tomatoes alongside fresh mozzarella di bufala.  Finish with a drizzle of olive oil, a dash of balsamic vinegar, and a sprinkling of fresh basil.  The recipe calls for a few crushed pink peppercorns, but I don’t have any and didn’t want to buy them to use just a few.

We had mixed feelings about this recipe.  We liked the flavors well enough.  I especially liked the flavors of the strawberry and mozzarella di bufala together.  But I didn’t really care for the tomatoes with the strawberries.  Both my husband and I prefer a more traditional caprese salad with peak-of-season tomatoes.  I think the main problem we had with this recipe was our expectations.  We expect a salad of this type to be a certain way, and the strawberries threw us for a curve.

While enjoyed eating this salad and I’m glad I made it, I doubt that I will make it again.  I will wait until our garden tomatoes reach their peak and make a caprese salad that meets our expectations.

6 Comments

Filed under Cooking

Tagged as , ,

June 21, 2011 · 9:30 PM

Simple Arugula Salad

This small salad represents the very first harvest from our vegetable garden!  I harvested just enough arugula to make myself a salad for lunch.

The salad couldn’t be more simple to make.  Add a little lemon juice and salt to the arugula and toss together.  Drizzle a little olive oil, toss to coat, and serve.

While I didn’t use any exact measurements, I roughly followed this recipe from Epicurious:  Arugula with Lemon and Olive Oil.  Simple and delicious!

I haven’t posted any garden updates for a while, but a lot has been happening!  MANY tomato plants have been planted, as well as peppers, cabbage and zucchini.  Hopefully I will have some pictures to share soon.

4 Comments

Filed under Cooking, Gardening

Tagged as , ,

June 17, 2011 · 7:46 AM

Rhubarb Shortcake Sundaes

Rhubarb is something I have hardly ever cooked with.  For one thing, I used to not like it. Secondly, I have always considered rhubarb to be something you harvest from your garden, not buy from a store.  (And of course I don’t grow rhubarb because I used to not like it).  So I was excited to find out that this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe was Roasted Rhubarb.  I would get to try something new!

Making Roasted Rhubarb couldn’t be more simple.  Simply toss cut up rhubarb with orange or lemon zest (I used lemon) and plenty of sugar.  Cover with foil and roast for 15 – 20 minutes at 400°F.  Uncover and roast another 5 minutes.  (The actual recipe can be found in Dorie’s book Around My French Table on page 397).

Because this recipe is essentially a sauce to be served as an accompaniment to other things, I got to decide how to serve it.  I liked the idea of rhubarb shortcakes, but I also knew it would be good with vanilla ice cream, so I settled on “rhubarb shortcake sundaes”. I filled sweet biscuits with ice cream and topped it with the Roasted Rhubarb.

I am now a rhubarb lover!  I enjoyed the sweet-tart flavor of the roasted rhubarb against the sweet vanilla ice cream.  It was a great combination.  Perhaps I’ll have to plant my own rhubarb now…

The sweet biscuit I used came from Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts.  It’s a simple, versatile, and delicious recipe.  The biscuits were sturdy enough to hold the ice cream yet still had a tender bite.

Oh, and by the way, I did actually make last week’s French Fridays recipe (Cola and Jam Spareribs), I just couldn’t find the time to write my post.  I thought the ribs were delicious and I enjoyed the complex flavors.  When I asked my husband what he thought of them he said, “They’re ribs!”, which apparently was a good thing.  I will cook them a little less next time, but otherwise thought they were great!

Fluffy Sweet Biscuits

(click here to print)

  • 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ½ cup butter, very cold
  • 1 large egg
  • 2/3 cup buttermilk
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Cut the butter into small pieces.  Return the butter to the refrigerator so it stays c0ld while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl.  Using a pastry cutter (or two knives), cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is crumbly and resembles a coarse meal.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg.  Blend in the buttermilk and vanilla.  Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the buttermilk mixture into it.  Stir quickly until just combined.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead gently, folding the dough over four or five times.  (I found the dough to be very wet and sticky so I had to add quite a bit of flour).  If necessary, lightly flour the surface again and flatten the dough to about a ½-inch thickness, using your hands or a rolling pin.  Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter and place on an unoiled baking sheet.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Makes about 12 biscuits

14 Comments

Filed under Cooking

Tagged as , , , , ,

June 8, 2011 · 9:59 PM

Herbed Potato Salad

I love having an herb garden!  It’s wonderful to be able to step outside and harvest fresh herbs just in time for dinner.

I discovered this recipe last summer when I was looking for something that used some of the mint and oregano growing in my herb garden, which I had an overabundance of.  This recipe uses both!  It’s also perfect for me because the dressing is olive oil-based rather than mayo-based.  I have never been a big fan of mayo-based potato salad.

This would be a great salad for packing on a picnic because it really benefits from giving the flavors a chance to blend.

I found the recipe on Epicurious.  It was originally published in the June 2000 issue of Bon Appétit.

Herbed Potato Salad

(click here to print)

  • 1½ pounds small red-skinned potatoes
  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 6 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
  • 6 tablespoons finely chopped red bell pepper
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
  • 1½ tablespoons chopped fresh mint
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cut the potatoes into 1-inch pieces.  Steam until tender, 10 – 15 minutes.  Place potatoes in a large bowl.  Add olive oil to potatoes and toss to coat.

Add the onion, bell pepper, lemon juice, oregano, mint, salt and pepper and toss together gently.

Serve right away or can be made up to 4 hours ahead and chilled.  Bring the salad to room temperature for 1 hour before serving.

Serves 3 – 4

2 Comments

Filed under Cooking

Tagged as , , ,

June 3, 2011 · 3:00 PM

Warm-Weather Vegetable Pot-au-Feu

Warm-Weather Vegetable Pot-au-Feu

Traditional pot-au-feu is like the French version of pot roast.  Take a long-cooking cut of meat and some root vegetables and braise them until tender.

In Warm-Weather Vegetable Pot-au-Feu, Dorie Greenspan puts a lightened-up, almost-vegetarian twist on pot-au-feu.  While she calls it “warm-weather”, I’m not sure this piping-hot dish would be a good choice at the peak of summer heat.  But it was a very nice choice for our cooler-than-usual Spring.

A Bushel of Veggies

A bushel of Spring vegetables goes into this dish:  onion, leek, new potatoes, slender carrots, asparagus, shiitake mushrooms, and spinach.  I stuck with the recommended veggies, but you could easily substitute whatever is freshest when you make this dish.  I can easily see this as a dish to showcase freshly picked vegetables from a home garden.

Dorie recommends using a “spring” or “Texas” onion.  I could not find either, so I asked someone at my Whole Foods.  He led me to something called a Balakian Red Onion, which he described as a cross between a spring onion and a sweet onion.  It was perfect!

Balakian Red Onion

The finishing touch to Vegetable Pot-au-Feu is an herb coulis.  This is basically an herb pesto without the nuts, cheese or garlic; just minced herbs and olive oil.  I used fresh basil to make a basil coulis, which was drizzled over the top.  The coulis really made the dish special!

Basil Coulis

Remember a couple of weeks ago when we discussed my dislike of runny egg yolks?  Well, this dish is topped-off with a poached egg with a runny yolk.  The egg is to be cut into immediately after serving so the yolk can run into the broth.  I decided to be brave and serve my eggs as intended; I can handle a yolk that disappears into and becomes one with the broth.

Pot-au-Feu with Broken Yolk

Warm-Weather Vegetable Pot-au-Feu was met with mixed reviews in my household.  My husband liked the flavors well enough, but he didn’t like the big chunks of vegetables in what he considered to be a soup.  He felt it was too much work to eat.  Serving this in shallower bowls probably would have helped, but not completely.  I really enjoyed eating this, but I had no such “soup” expectations.  While I liked the flavors, I’m not sure this will be a regular at our house.  That said, it is a great way to highlight Spring’s vegetables.

Warm-Weather Vegetable Pot-au-Feu is this week’s French Fridays with Dorie recipe.

8 Comments

Filed under Cooking

Tagged as , ,