Sunchoke, Celeriac, and Potato Purée

I bought sunchokes (or Jerusalem artichokes) at the farmer's market thinking I'd make a salad. Over the course of the day, as I mentally thought out my evening's menu (scallops with ramp butter over a sunchoke puree), I realized I would need more sunchokes. By the time I left work, the market was closed so I was out of luck. I still wanted to make a puree that was springy and somewhat lighter than potato. I picked up a celery root and one potato and it turned out wonderfully. It's tasty and like and has the consistency of whipped cream. It has a little bit of an artichoke taste (even though sunchoked/Jerusalem artichokes are not at all related to artichokes). It works very well under scallops, and would work equally well as a base for short ribs. Definitely a keeper!

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

1/2 a large or 1 small russet potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

1 medium-sized celeriac/celery root, peeled and cut in half and then into 1/2 inch slices

2 large sunchokes, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

1/2 cup half and half, warm

Ramp Butter

It's that time of year again! Ramps are back. I was googling around for ramp recipes and found ramp butter. One of the most enticing but worst things about ramps is their short season. Pretty much now until the end of May. If you make ramp butter, you can just pop it in the freezer and slice off a slab any time. Can't wait to have corn with ramp butter in the summer!

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, softened

4 ramps, roots removed, cleaned

1 tsp Maldon sea salt

Spring!

So it's 30 degrees and freezing and maybe not quite spring yet, but it's pea planting time! The tradition is planting peas on St. Patrick's Day, so Jamie and I are heading out to Long Island to plant our peas this weekend. Can't wait to be working in the garden again. It makes these lingering cold days bearable, sort of.

Thai Chicken and Spicy Asparagus Stir Fry

After Cinco de Mayo tamales (recipe coming soon) and other fun eating with Chip and Siobhan last weekend, once again, Jamie and I found ourselves craving healthy, fresh food on Monday night. I picked one recipe from the Times and one from Food & Wine, partially from the mouthwatering pictures printed alongside them - Thai Chicken with Hot-Sour-Salty-Sweet Sauce (also, can you resist that name?) and Stir-Fried Spicy Asparagus because asparagus is fresh, healthy, and so delicious this time of year. It's also nice that the asparagus takes less than 2 minutes to cook. It's delicious! The asparagus is extremely fresh and light, and the chicken is juicy. The real star is the dipping sauce. I want to make a gallon of it and pour it on everything. It's pretty much a winning combination of all of the tastes. Yum!

Thai Chicken, serves 4
Ingredients:
Marinated Chicken:
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
2 tbsp Asian fish sauce
1 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
4 whole chicken legs
Dipping Sauce:
1/2 tsp tamarind concentrate dissolved in 1 tsp water (or 1 tsp tamarind paste)
1/4 cup Asian fish sauce
2 tbsp lime juice
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 small  Thai chili (or jalapeno) seeded and minced
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp water
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Shaved asparagus salad

Quick post! Made a super easy super tasty asparagus salad last night. It's so fresh and springy, and healthy. Get fresh asparagus and make it into ribbons with a vegetable peeler. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Drizzle with lemon juice and a little apple cider vinegar and a teeny bit of olive oil. With the vegetable peeler, shred a few pieces of pecorino Romano. Eat!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Vegetable Garden Week 4

After being away for about a month, I went back out to the country last weekend and got to see my garden. Apart from being super dry, it looked great! (Especially once I watered it.) Four of the five brussels sprouts I planted sprouted, a perfect line of beets popped up (I'll need to thin them next weekend), and all the peas had sprouted! So exciting.

Brussels Sprouts

Beets

Peas

I planted another row of beets and carrots, a row of swiss chard, zucchinis, and cucumbers. I also set up a little trellis for the cucumbers and planted some lettuce underneath.

Spring!

This weather is unbelievable! Walking home in daylight makes me feel like I have so much time after work! My legs are also psyched to be free from tights at last. And, my first iced coffee of spring tastes refreshing and wonderful. I usually sprinkle some sugar in the bottom of a glass, pour in about 1 tablespoon or two of hot coffee, swirl it around until the sugar melts, dump in a bunch of ice cubes, cover them with coffee and a little skim milk, and swirl around with a spoon until the whole glass feels icy cold. Then a fish out some of the ice cubes. It's also great to do it in a cocktail shaker - you get a good frothy iced coffee. I know the best is supposed to be cold brewed, but who has the time?

Does anyone have any life-changing iced coffee tips?

Happy spring!! Hooray!

(Jamie and I are going out to Long Island this weekend to build an addition on our garden and plant our peas!)