Chickpea, Tuna & Caper Orecchiette Pasta Salad

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Tuna, Chickpea & Caper Orecchiette Pasta SaladI thought I was done blogging.  I thought I’d finally had enough of the self-imposed stress and enough standing on chairs, photographing my dinner.  I’d thought I was ready put the project on the shelf for good.

The first couple of weeks were fun and it was certainly refreshing to cook without a notepad and a camera at my side.  I drank wine while I made dinner and didn’t worry about low-lighting or measuring cups.  I ate the same thing for days on end because, dang it, I felt like it and it wasn’t like I needed to come up with fresh content for a blog anymore.  

But then it started making me feel kind of sad.  And lonesome.  I missed the game, missed putting a little piece of myself out in the world.  So I’m taking it on again, with more of a relaxed approach.  I’m not going to feel bad if I don’t post every week, if my pictures aren’t perfect, if I don’t blog my way out of my day job.  I’m not going to worry that someone might not think something I post isn’t creative enough (who wants “creative” food all the time anyway?).  I’m going to remember why I started a food blog in the first place: because I love to cook and eat and my home kitchen is one of my happiest places.

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Croatian Chard with Potatoes & Garlic (Blitva)

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Croatian Swiss Chard with Potatoes
It’s been a little while since I’ve shared a new recipe here.  I didn’t mean for it to be that way, it’s just that a switch flipped and, magically, summer began.  Suddenly, I was less interested in spending time in the kitchen and a whole lot more interested in digging up dirt and taking long walks.    

Now, of course, I’ve still had to eat but it’s mostly been a lot of mishmash salads and really simple dinners.  One of my recent favorite simple (and slightly extravagant) dinners was an evening spent on my patio, eating a giant T-bone and a big pot of garlicky Swiss chard and potatoes.  And don’t get me wrong, though the steak was certainly nothing to sneeze at, I think I was actually more upset when I finished my last strand of chard.

So let me give you a little background on this side dish–I certainly didn’t invent it and, quite honestly, I think a few years ago I would have thought it was an odd combination.  Around this time last year, I took a trip to Croatia and was first introduced to blitva, garlicky sautéed Swiss chard with potatoes.  I saw it on darned near every menu, ordered it a few times, and worked it into my repertoire once I got home. 

Dubrovnik Rooftops

 

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Asparagus & Fresh Ricotta Grilled Flatbread

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Grilled Flatbread with Asparagus Ribbons & Ricotta If I don’t post any new recipes here for a while, just assume it’s because I’m making and eating this flatbread for every meal.  

The flatbread is a piece of pizza dough stretched into a rectangle and grilled until it gets a little charred here and there.  It’s topped with a crisp salad of asparagus ribbons and mixed herbs, dollops of fresh ricotta, and a handful of crushed pistachios.  It screams springs and it screams “yes, I’m a pizza, but I’m also a vehicle for salad so you can eat me whenever you feel like it.”  Which will be quite often.

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Fava Bean & Ramp Risotto

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Fava Bean & Ramp Risotto
Sometimes, grocery shopping can seem like the most mundane task.  Must buy food, must think of ways to prepare food to sustain myself.  Nutrition, budget…ugg.  But other times, I’m like a kid in a candy shop and the experience leaves me positively giddy.

Yesterday was a perfect example of the latter.  I went shopping, hoping to find something at least reasonably interesting to make for dinner.  I set my hopes fairly low, aiming for decent salad greens and maybe a piece of fish.  Well, I never quite made it to the fish counter because I got side tracked by all of the great spring produce.  Finally!  Ramps!  Fava beans!  Beautiful artichokes!  Asparagus!  Oh my!  I scraped my original plans, loaded my basket with spring greenery, and came up with a plan B.

The asparagus is going on a flatbread tomorrow night, the artichokes were prepared in my favorite way (and something I should really share here one of these days), and the ramps and fava beans were folded into this luxurious risotto.  Eaten with good wine on a relaxed evening in, it was just the way to pass a(nother) rainy spring evening.

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Asparagus & Gruyère Croque Madame

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Croque Madame with Asparagus
Here in Minnesota, it feels like we’ve endured more than our fair share of rain this spring.  I’ve gone weeks wearing nothing but ugly, green rain boots.  I’ve never wiped up so many muddy paw prints, nor have I’ve ever wanted to spend more time napping.

It’s not all bad though.  The grass is vivid, the trees have started to bud, and I feel completely justified in eating my favorite comfort foods–bowls of spaghetti showered with Parmesan, brothy bowls of soup with crusty bread, and grilled cheese sandwiches.  

My latest (and arguably greatest) grilled cheese concoction was this open-faced asparagus croque madame sandwich.  A croque madame, if you’re unfamiliar, is a croque monsieur topped with an egg and a croque monsieur is a delicious French sandwich made with béchamel-smeared bread, a slice of ham, and cheese.  You pop it under the broiler and let the cheese melt and the edges get toasty-crunchy.  It’s pretty wonderful whenever, but as lunch on a rainy afternoon, it’s absolute perfection.

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