We found fresh garden carrots in our CSA farm share box this week. And I found a recipe for “out-of-the-box” not-your-regular cookies—these yummy soft and gently spiced carrot macaroons. What a way to eat your vegetables!
These cookies are delicious and different, but not that easy to make. Yeah—you read that right. You cook the batter in a double boiler before you even bake them. But don’t let that stop you—I think they are worth the effort. Crunchy ground almonds, unsweetened coconut, pumpkin pie spices and a pinch of cayenne, plus grated carrots–you can only win with those ingredients! Continue Reading…
This could be the fastest sauce in the West. Because soft goat cheese makes a Sassy Simple Sauce. All you have to do is stir the soft cheese and some of the pasta cooking water into the hot pasta–and it’s ready to go. Here we have tortellini pasta, plus roasted yellow beets and their greens–and the sassy simple goat cheese sauce. So easy. And delicious!
Tortellini Pasta with Golden Beets and Greens in a Goat Cheese Sauce
We visited our friends in South Lake Tahoe over Labor Day weekend. John and Julie planned 3 full days of fun for six of us–another couple from Salt Lake made the trek as well. We all enjoyed plenty of boating, hiking, biking, dining and toasting to golden and dear friendships.
Early Tuesday morning, east bound back to Utah, we stopped at Trader Joe’s in Carson City. We picked up road salad and some hoppy microbrews, and yes, we brought the beer home–no sampling in the car. We also grabbed a roll of goat cheese and a couple bags of TJ’s dried Italian tortellini–and a few other essentials. (Have you ever noticed how fast a Ben Franklin disappears in Trader Joe’s?)
Tender and chewy barley grains tossed with sweet golden beets and sautéed greens, with crunchy toasted walnuts and salty feta cheese, this barley salad with golden beets is so good it will sell beets to professed beet haters.
Featuring a not-so-common herb, this summer savory garlic salt is absolutely delicious sprinkled on fresh sliced tomatoes or lightly steamed green beans.
My friend Teri religiously listens to The Splendid Table on NPR radio. Knowing I’m always looking for fun and easy recipes using the fresh herbs we find in our farm share box, she recommended a Splendid Table broadcast about Sally Schneider’s Tuscan Herb Salt. This summer savory garlic salt is a riff on Ms. Schneider’s Tuscan herb salt.
Summer savory garlic salt is super easy to make. You pulse the garlic in a food processor, and then mix in the salt and fresh summer savory herbs. Transfer onto a baking sheet and let dry a few days in open air. Use it to season vegetables, eggs, pasta, or whatever you want. Follow this easy method to make any flavor herb salt you wish.
A little bit about salt that you’ll find in my pantry:
I use Kosher Flake Real Salt. For its sweet taste (as opposed to bitter), its slight pink color, and calico flecks of brown and grey from the extra minerals, Real Salt is the best! Real Salt is mined in Redmond Utah, in the center of this state. It comes to us unrefined, with more than 60 trace minerals intact. It is not processed by heat nor does it come from a huge industrial plant that makes sodium chloride mainly for fertilizer and de-icing.
I have some specialty“ finishing” salts too. Like Australian Murray River flake salt, which is fantastic on fresh vegetables. To dress up potatoes and eggs, I like to sprinkle them with black truffle salt.
Is all salt–table salt, kosher salt, flake salt, rock salt and sea salt nothing more than NaCl, sodium chloride? Technically and chemically yes, salt is salt, but I’d like to convince you that when it comes to seasoning with, and enjoying it, there is much more to salt.
Learn more about salt:
In his beautifully illustrated book, Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes (affiliate link), Bitterman explains how and why and to appreciate salt’s diversity, especially when it comes to the kitchen. He details the craft and history of salt, with sidebars about our sense of taste, and the science of salt. He discusses salt’s relationship to our body, and the iodization of salt.
Years ago I was lucky to attend a salt tasting workshop with “selmelier”Mark Bitterman. I learned how geography, environment (terroir), and production methods affect salt’s crystal shape, its flavor, color, and mineral makeup. We sampled more than 20 salts, including a Japanese flaked salt that’s evaporated over fire. In miniscule pinches, We got to try a fine delicate grey salt skimmed from the sea and then evaporated by the sun, and a pink rock salt mined in Pakistan.
Learn for yourself. Choose a few of the salts suggested in Bitterman’s book and try them on something simple, like potatoes.
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Make more of this herb salt than you’ll need, put it in little jars and give it as gifts! This salt takes 10 minutes to put together and a couple of days to dry on the kitchen counter.
Drop the garlic and the first 2 teaspoons of the salt into the work bowl of a food processor while the food processor is running. Process until the garlic is uniformly chopped.
Add the summer savory leaves and pulse until the leaves are well chopped.
Transfer to a baking sheet and mix in the remaining salt.
Let the pan sit out for a few days until the herbs and garlic are obviously dry.
High protein quinoa substitutes for traditional bulgur wheat in this flavorful quinoa and parsley tabbouleh. Tabbouli, tabouli, whichever the spelling, here is a fabulous and easy summer salad.
Tabbouli salad, which is sometimes served warm, is from the Middle East. The usual mix-ins include chopped tomatoes, onions, parsley, mint and lemon juice. We found arugula and carrots in our farm share box this week so they became part of this quinoa variation of wheat tabbouli.
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I’m Letty.
Here you'll discover healthy meatless and plant-based recipes made with seasonal whole foods, all with the goal to inspire your cooking!
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