food heaven for today

toasted sesame semolina bread, melty Camembert cheese, and smoked salmon.

balsamic broccoli & mushroom pasta salad

simple & delicious hot or cold!
start a pot of salted water to boil, cook the pasta. i used three different pasta shapes - including one whole wheat pasta.
grab a pan, saute a drizzle of olive oil with chopped broccoli until coated, then add in some Italian seasonings (half an Italian dressing packet works too) & balsamic vinegar, this stuff goes a long way, so go a dash at a time.
when the broccoli is almost to your liking, add in the mushrooms and cook till the mushrooms are done. salt & pepper. medium to low heat, or just keep your eye on it.

then toss all together and eat. or cool and then eat.
As far as measuring goes, I probably used just one head of broccoli chopped, and perhaps two cups of roughly chopped mushrooms. the proportion to the pasta salad was very small -but you can certainly beef this up...I keep thinking how great it would be to make this same salad, but add in roasted red peppers, garlic, or perhaps some grilled cherry tomatoes....

sourdough french toast

i love french toast. anyone who knows me well, knows that i must try every french toast i come across. oh, and then re-try it. because i love it.

my favorite way of making french toast is very simple, and often you get to use up the last couple pieces of bread that otherwise might get thrown away...in my case, I used the sourdough bread I make several times a week.

eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon & nutmeg
all wisked up in a low bowl - dip or soak your bread in it.

the longer you soak, the tastier the french toast will be, but your bread may fall apart if it is too full of mixture, and might take a long time to fully cook through. try it out, you will find the right amount for you. i set them in for a few minutes on each side, then they hop in to a preheated pan or griddle for cooking. i like medium heat for french toast because i don't like burnt outsides.

i like cutting my french toast up into bite size pieces, toss in some powdered sugar and my bramble berry preserves that i made last fall from my berry bushes.

since it is sugaring season, its only fair to use boatloads of fresh maple syrup if you can get it!
i'm lucky to have some very sweet neighbors in the business for many generations - if you have not hit a sugaring house, you are missing out.

now again this french toast recipe could be changed to kahlua, or chocolate chip & coconut - or apples & cinnamon....you get the drift. mix it up, i do all the time, i love french toast. especially on sunday mornings.

fiddlehead soup recipe

I'm a seasonal food person for sure, and have a serious penchant for fiddleheads in spring.
fiddlehead soup. it is still too cold here for the fiddleheads, but I keep one serving frozen from last season just for this recipe, when I need a serious dose of spring memories. like last week.

this is a simple recipe, I make it to taste, not by measurements, so try it out and have fun!
fiddleheads frozen, thawed (fresh works too, be sure to boil to soft consistency)
milk, cream or substitute
romano cheese
garlic, chopped/diced - if you dont care for chunks, garlic powder does the trick too.
pinch of salt



Directions: cook it all up, dont get it boiling, there is milk in there :) then eat it.

this is also an amazing sauce to put over pasta - the ferns uncoil to make little green noodles.
I'm sure you could also puree this whole mix to make baby food or insanely awesome bread dip.

fiddleheads are the delicious edible fern coils that have a short spring season. I'm very lucky to know a couple folks here in southern Vermont who hook me up so I'm not foraging high and low for them, all I need to do is grab a bag and start prepping. Lots of prepping. but these little green guys are fresh only a few weeks out of the year, so enjoy it! Trim off the ends of each fern, pluck /rinse away any debris. It is easiest to think of fiddleheads in terms of pasta - in order to get them to edible state, you need to soften, at the very least par boil them to freeze for later. Oh, and salt the hell out of them. Boiling takes the bitterness and the extra brown stuff off. The water looks um, well, gross when you're getting close to done - I like my fiddleheads "al dente" in pasta terms....others like mushy and soft - I get you! my favorite recipe with fiddleheads include sliced oyster mushrooms, garlic, some good butter, white wine and a saute pan. thats it.


PS - if you want to go foraging for your own, that is awesome! keep check on how many you forage on any one plant, 3 heads max on a plant or you may do damage to the future health of the ferns.

amish friendship bread

today was my first baking day of amish friendship bread - there is a 10-day cycle it goes through - see the recipe cards I made for you to download & print out if you wish...

I really enjoy recipes that give latitude - keep the basic bones of this, but flair it up as you wish. our friends joe & luci who passed us our first amish friendship bread starter add gorgeous fruits and spice or nut blends that will drop your jaw. vanilla pudding mix makes a nice addition too! with all the care you give to your bread, you will find the best part is the comradeship you feel. it is nice to know that 10 days from now, each friend I passed a starter of this bread, will be making theirs as I am making mine... and luci & joe will be too!

the time and work going into your amish friendship bread is positively worth it, and of course, you get to connect with a couple friends a week in so many ways - which, can't we all use a little more of?

PS - everyone remind drew that he needs to make me some big ole glass bowls! lets just say my glass blender was involved in this recipe, as there is only one non metal bowl in my house - and taking up residence is our sourdough bread starter! I happily liken this to another case of the glassmaker's wife, similar to the shoemaker's children... :)

Cranberry Chocolate Chip cookie recipe

This recipe makes a crisp, crunchy cookie with a slightly softer inside. These just so happen to be the ingredients I'm using today... I like replacing pretty much everything in my baking at any point in time, so switch it up! Add in coconut and flax seeds vs cranberry and hemp seeds, use eggs instead of egg substitute, other sweeteners instead of cane sugar..try it out, believe me, they will still taste amazing, I am sure of it!


pre-heat oven: 375*

2 sticks butter, unsalted or similar (soften to room temp, try not to microwave if you can avoid it)
1 tsp vanilla extract (I make my own, it is very easy to do!)
1 1/2 cups sugar (I keep a vanilla bean in this too)
2 eggs or egg substitute

*Beat the ingredients above until creamy. like below.

now take another smaller bowl, add 2 1/4 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, stir or hand whisk up a bit, and add slowly to your main batter. should look something like the image below, once all the flour is incorporated.

Now, my favorite part! add ins. With this particular recipe I added a bag (or half) of chocolate chips, 1/4 cup of hemp seeds, 1/4 cup of dried cranberries. hand stir these into your batter. now you are ready to bake!!

Teaspoon batter onto cookie sheets, bake from 13-15 minutes, depending on how you like your cookies done....keep on cookie sheet to cool for a couple minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack, then on to the cookie jar...Voila!

leftover spinach salad omelet

Any day I can make an omelet for breakfast is a good day. Any day I can recycle last night's salad into a omelet is even better!

This only works if you don't put dressing on your main salad, dressed salad gets icky too fast to reuse in the morning. The greens really need to be spinach, kale, collard- any green bit of goodness that is good cooked.

My salad leftovers were whole baby spinach leaves, chopped broccoli, slivered almonds, hemp and flax seeds. Tons of vitamins, minerals and protein for a busy day ahead.

I threw all that into a pan with a bit of olive oil on medium heat and got it all nice and wilty (i'm sure that is not a cooking term)

In the meantime, take two eggs, scramble with salt and pepper in a bowl with a whisk.
I use one yolk, two whites, you should use however much you need for your family, or for the amount of leftover salad you want to use.

Pour in the egg mixture once your salad is "wilty". Scrape your omelet into the center until it starts creating a solid mass - cook it up on both sides, toss on a bit of shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese if you wish, then fold up and let melt for a minute or so. flip it once more for good measure, and voila!

It always makes me happy to make the most of my food, waste not, want not!
What could you throw in to your omelet this morning?