Cauliflower Tagine

We’re harvesting the biggest cauliflowers we’ve ever grown.  Big white, perfectly formed cauliflowers.  My usual fallback recipe is my creamy cauliflower and carrot soup, but with the warm weather and the beauty of this vegetable, I didn’t want to puree the thing beyond recognition.  So, I turned to the internet to find a new cauliflower recipe and actually found two that sounded tasty.  The first one was a roasted cauliflower dish that required ingredients I didn’t have on hand so I turned to the second one, Cauliflower Tagine.  This North African spiced dish is a wonderful combination of cumin, ginger, bay and cinnamon with a little lemon and cilantro mixed in.  It will probably become a new “go to” recipe for cauliflower.

Why I Love Spring

I love Spring!  Those first warm days when you can work outside in the garden without a jacket and everything starts to bloom.  The air is warm and sweet with the smell of lilacs.  You can hear the sound of cicadas and the crows calling to each other.  I love buying seeds and trying new varieties of melons or beans.  It’s the anticipation of things to come.

Black Bean and (vegan) Chorizo Soup

We could eat Mexican food every night of the week.  We love it that much.  When a friend of mine, who lives in Mexico, linked this recipe on her Facebook page, I knew I needed to give it a try.  I wasn’t disappointed!  The original recipe can be found on the website, What’s Cooking, Mexico?

This soup is balanced perfectly, much better than my other black bean soup recipe.  It’s just spicy enough to warm you up on a rainy night but not so hot that it masks the flavor of everything else.  I topped it with some non dairy sour cream, avocado and cilantro, and we both had seconds.

Almond Tart

Almond tarts are also called Bakewell Tarts in England.  They’re a variation of the Bakewell Pudding which was first made by accident in 1820.  The cook at the White Horse Inn in Bakewell misunderstood the landlady’s instructions and a new dessert was born.  There are Italian and Swedish versions of the almond tart but I haven’t been able to determine if the British version came first. 

Daring Bakers Challenge: Dutch Crunch Rolls

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker Hostesses!  Sara and Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping.  Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

Having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area, I never realized that Dutch Crunch bread was a local phenomenon.  The recipe originates in the Netherlands, where it’s called “Tiger” Bread, but no one is quite sure how or when it came to the Bay Area.

Polenta Onion Pizza

I bookmarked this recipe from Heidi Swanson’s blog 101 Cookbooks some time ago but I never got around to making it.  She called it Cornmeal Crunch but I think it’s more like an polenta onion pizza.  I really like this recipe because it’s gluten free and delicious, even without all the cheese.

Start Your Tomatoes

After I wrote that heading I realized that it sounded like “Start Your Engines” which is what they say at the beginning of a car race.  Can you tell that Mr RK is a race fan?  I guess I’ve been influenced by the sounds of cars racing around a track as background noise more than I thought.  It does apply to gardening though.  Growing a garden is somewhat of a race, with nature.  You have to start your seeds at the right time, and strategize about when to plant them in the ground in order to take full advantage of the summer weather.  it’s a race to grow as much as you can before the cold weather starts again.