Sunday, April 26, 2009

Resolution

I made a resolution to photograph more as I cook, and serve -I'm just not sure what to call an end-of-April resolution. It's not New Year's, it's not really solstice or even first quarter - maybe a post-taxtime resolution?

Anyways, I served a brunch today, and did a lot of the cooking yesterday - and tried hard to take pictures. It was a lovely spring menu -

Asparagus & mushroom puff pastry tarts
Scandinavian Flower Egg Salad
Rhubarb coffee cake
Dark Sticky Ginger Cake
My piece of ginger cake, bitten

It poured rain yesterday, but I did try to get as much as I could at our local Farmers' market, in between the showers and the Crazy Legs Run (which I walked as part of a librarian team). The local asparagus is not in yet, and Matt Smith didn't have any Shitakes - but I got eggs (Pecatonica), potatoes (Driftless Organics), Gruyere (Forgotten Valley) and mushrooms (button and cremini) and lettuce.

The tarts were really fun - all I had to do was cut the packaged puff paste into squares, and score a border - in the morning, I spooned in the filling and baked them. The puff paste puffed up around the filling and made a nest for it. The filling was seasoned with fresh thyme and lemon zest, and the vegetables were bound together with creme fraiche and grated Gruyere - it turned out ot be one of those combos where you could taste everything, but they blended perfectly.

The potatoes on the bottom of the salad were incredibly good - there is just enough left for my lunch tomorrow.

I went to CostCo for fruit - and it was the usual CostCo overabundance - I got a case of oranges and 4 pounds of strawberries, which I know we will eat, and I think I'll even find uses for the 8 Asian pears - (6 left), but some of the 4-lb. clamshell of kiwis that are still rock hard and I am sure will all be ripe at the same time may end up in the compost.

I made a web album of the pictures.

3 comments:

Madison Foodie said...

The tartlets and the ginger cake look amazing!

Are you willing to share any recipes (esp. the ginger cake)?

Deb's Lunch said...

Sure, the tarts are basically from the April Bon Appetit. I can never decide which is my favorite ginger cake - Mollie Katzen or Regan Daley. I make small variations in both; Mollie wants you to use fresh ginger and I usually use crystallized & replace some of the honey with brown sugar; Regan wants you to use blackstrap molasses, and I use Grandma's - much lighter!

Katie said...

Deb - the food was so delicious this morning! I am still thinking of how perfect the coffee cake was. I can't wait to come again. I was really happy that every thing was vegetarian, too!