Gorgonzola and Sun-Dried Ravioli with Walnut Radish Green Brown Butter

I've been neglecting the blog lately, but I've got a good excuse, I've been tending my garden diligently. I've got a few great recipes to share in the next week, and I'll start with tonight's dinner featuring my first veggie crop of the season!

While making fresh ravioli is definitely on my culinary bucket list, I didn't tackle that task tonight. I had this gorgeous gorgonzola and sun-dried tomato pasta in the deep freeze, so I pulled it out and got my water boiling.

With such a rich cheese, I didn't want to overpower it with a heavy sauce, so I decided to go with brown butter.

Start with about 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Get it melted and add about 1 teaspoon crushed garlic cooking for about a minute. Add a handful of crushed walnuts and let both the nuts and the butter brown for about two minutes. Now you could add a generous handful of spinach or arugula if you have it on hand, but I just pulled up some radishes and instead of throwing the verdant tops in the compost heap, I threw them in the skillet and let them wilt in with my brown butter.

At about this point your pasta should be good to go. Drain it and add it to the pan with your sauce. Give it a good flip and get it on a plate. I added a chiffonade of fresh basil from my kitchen garden, some shredded parm and a few turns of fresh pepper.


I have to say this was a wonderful meal, and it was on the table in about 15 minutes! I loved the greens, they didn't get that sorta slimy texture that spinach can get once it wilts, and I had the satisfaction of using my own fresh veg!

Stay tuned for lots of fresh recipes from my garden and some recurring ingredients. I just added five quart-sized bags of rhubarb to my freezer, so even though July 4 ends Rhubarb season (or so says my grandma) it won't stop the flow of yummy rhubarb recipes including rhubarb rosemary lemonade, so yummy!

Veggie Stock

I've been neglecting my veggie bin. We just keep adding to it and ignoring the plenty good produce towards the bottom. An unidentified funky smell started to strike me in the kitchen, so I've attacked the veg on the verge with gusto.

A fridge cleaning is usually part of our weekly routine (and by our, I mean chef Flaco). In the past anything that looked a little wilty or droopy usually hit the trash. This summer we've taken the step of composting. Not sure what compost should hit the bin? Check out this link to learn more.

Instead of wasting the veggies that have lost their snap but that haven't yet hit funky town, I'm making veggie stock that I'll use in a risotto prep for tomorrow.

Stock is so simple and requires little hands on time.

Heat olive oil in a soup pot.
Add garlic and sautee for a minute
Add veg - my list includes asparagus, pea pods, red onion, carrots, celery, radish microgreens, green onions, and cherry tomatoes. No need to peel or prep!
Add more flavor - thyme, rosemary, summer savory and two dried bay leaves made the grade
Sautee this mix for about five minutes
Cover with water, add salt to taste and some peppercorns.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for as long as you've got.
Strain, let cool and use for your favorite veggie recipe.

The longer this simmers, the better it gets! You save on buying stock, don't waste questionable produce and if you're like me, you've got a project to keep you out of mischief!

Fruit Salad Smoothie

I attended a picnic at my parents house on Saturday, and they had an unholy amount of fruit salad leftover (it didn't complete with mom's fab pulled pork and Carolyn's delish deviled eggs). I took a Hefty sack of the stuff home, but after a day in the fridge I knew I had to take action before it turned into a huge pile of mush. I grabbed a bunch of sandwich style zippy bags and loaded each up with about 3/4 of a cup of the fruit salad. I was a bit concerned that the melon wouldn't make it, but there were no worries. I flattened the fruit so it lay in an even layer and tossed it into the deep freeze.

This morning I grabbed my first sack and emptied the contents into my blender. This salad hadn't been sweetened so I added a good squeeze of agave nectar. If you don't have agave in your pantry, stock up! This sweetner is natural, low in calories and makes a mean margarita.

The I added about a half cup of plain greek yogurt, if you've got the good ole American variety that'll work great too - it's all about using what you have on hand. I prefer Greek, see the benefits of both types of yogurt.

Next I added about 1 cup of OJ. If you wanted to, now would be a great time to flip the switch and get this sucker blending, but I added a "booster" Jamba Juice style with some Chia seeds my pal Luke hooked me up with a while back. That's right Chia, like the pet. Chia boasts endurance building properties as well as a healthy dose of Omega-3s, which is great for a gal like me that doesn't necessarily love fish and pretty much always forgets my daily dose of fish oil.

I never add ice to smoothies, preferring the frozen fruit as my chiller. This was a great morning snack and totally saw me through til lunch!

Strawberry Rhubarb Bread Pudding

There's nothing so simply delicious as a fresh baguette. There's nothing as disappointing as it's texture on day two!

So as I stared at 3/4 of a loaf of two-day old bread, I knew that an olive oil dip wasn't going to salvage my bakery.

I had a few options: breadcrumbs and croutons, too boring!

French Toast, possible but it was mid-week and there was no way I'd convince my lovely hubby to eat breakfast before work.

I settled on bread pudding and began to scour the internet for recipes.

My bread pudding is based off of this recipe. However, I've substituted 1/2 cup of strawberries for 1/2 cup of the rhubarb, my cooking method also differs. Click over to All Recipes for your ingredient list, and then ignore the prep instructions as I think the ones I nabbed from this website are better!

Preheat the over to 350. Place bread cubes into a nice big mixing bowl. Combine the milk and butter in a saucepan, and heat just to the boiling point. Pour over the bread cubes, and let stand for 15 minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, cinnamon and salt. Stir in rhubarb and berries. Pour over the soaked bread, and stir gently until evenly blended let this hang out for at least 30 minutes so the bread gets nice and saturated.

Grease five large ramekins, evenly divide the mixture and sprinkle walnuts over the top. Put a kettle on to boil. Put foil over each individual bread pudding careful that the foil doesn't touch the mixture and place in a large baking dish.

Once your water is boiling pour into the baking dish about 3/4 of the way up the sides of the ramekins. This method of baking is known as a water bath and it's used to more evenly cook custards, and I'm of the opinion this method of individually cooked bread pudding gives you a moister, much more appealing end product!

Put the pan containing the ramekins in the oven and bake for roughly 30 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for another 20-30 minutes until it is puffed up, the liquid has been absorbed and the tops are just lightly browned. Compare yours to the photo, if they don't look like this, they aren't ready to pull out (well unless they are black, and then it's time to hit square 1).

Rhubarb Mocktail

I've had a crazy busy week for the memorial day weekend. I've got an awesome strawberry rhubarb bread pudding to share with you later in the week, but I'm going to keep you in suspense for a few more days. Today is just going to be a real quickie as I share this recipe for a rhubarb and rosemary simple syrup that stirs into seltzer for a refreshing mock-tail! Check it out! Great for my prego buddies Maureen and Kristen!

I'm looking for more great N/A drink recipes for refreshing summer sippers, so if you've got one, shout it out!

Vegetarian Split Pea Soup

I spotted this recipe last week when I had zero groceries to my name and found myself rooting through all sorts of dry goods to piece together a meal. I was missing the onion and lemon, but today I had both of those essential ingredients for this vegetarian split pea soup, and it seemed the perfect day to discover if the myth that eating hot food on a hot day was fact or crap.

I halved this recipe and the only other alteration I made was to keep the quantity of lemon juice in tact as my lemon wasn't very juicy. When juicing lemons at home, a basic reamer will do ya, but if you do any more aggressive home juicing, I recommend this nifty gadget. It's perfect for when the mood for fresh agave margaritas strikes!

I always start with the best ingredients I can get, and this goes doubly so for a recipe with such a short ingredient list, so when I saw that the recipe called specifically for smoked paprika and mine was labeled "Spanish" I hit the interwebs to see if there's a difference. Pondering the provenance of your paprika? Hit this link for a little knowledge and use these tips to conduct a spice audit if your seasonings saw the better half of the last decade.

This soup was fast, tasted fresh and was very filling. I'm still sizzling, but that could have to do more with the fact that I'm too cheap to turn my Flintstone's era A/C on.

I've gotta bolt and get a kettle on for a water bath (as long as I'm already sweating!). Tomorrow I'll let you know how my first attempt at bread pudding goes. If you don't see anything, you can assume the answer is bad!

Watermelon Mint Salad

Produce stands mounded with watermelons are a sure sign of summer as are the sweltering temps we're already suffering through as we lead into the Memorial Day holiday. I whipped up this simple watermelon and mint salad for lunch, but it could easily be scaled up in size as an ideal dish to pass at your next holiday picnic. I saw a similar recipe online that also called for some diced jalepeno pepper. If I had one, it would definitely be in the mix!

The ingredient list is basic:
Watermelon
Mint
Flat leaf parsley
Green Onion
Olive Oil
White Wine Vinegar (Champagne or Red wine would work too)
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the watermelon into large chunks, toss in finely chopped parley, diced green onion and a chiffonade of mint. Click here for a great video of this technique.

I stole the mint from Jane next door as per usual, and I'm now the proud owner of a mini herb garden of my very own. I picked up some mixed herb pots at Stein's Garden Center for about $6 a pop. Each included three different herbs. I was at the market later and priced out those packaged fresh herbs and they're about $3 each. If you've got a sunny spot in a window and can remember to water your herbs, you'll come out way ahead in the long run and will always have some fresh flavor to add to any meal.

For the dressing mix 2 parts olive oil to one part vinegar and add salt and pepper to taste. Toss with the other ingredients and let it hang out for a few minutes to really soak in the flavor.

Garnish with a few sprigs of the mint, and you're ready to be the toast of the potluck party.