I love potato salad, but don’t love it when it is dressed too heavily. Roasting the potatoes also makes a much tastier “salad,” I think, and the addition of fresh herbs is also a plus. Recently I made some lacto-fermented mayonnaise and it came out interesting especially since I used part coconut oil and good quality olive oil and raw apple cider vinegar. I thought it tasted great and it was a nice change from the usual potato salad!
Added in:
Thank you to the real farmers who are doing it right. That is all! :)
I really love banana bread and I’m sure I’ve written other blog posts about it. I especially love banana bread when I find a recipe that blows me away every time I make it. I’ve only been baking with sprouted whole wheat, spelt, or rye flour when I do bake now and I like this recipe a lot. I usually like a mix of sprouted whole wheat & spelt flours and I like to add 5 bananas instead of 4, 2 eggs, some cinnamon, a splash of milk (depending on how dry the day is) and sometimes some dark chocolate chunks, some good quality unsweetened coconut, or a mix of nuts. When I don’t have ghee, I use virgin coconut oil and a little bit of homemade yoghurt.
The smell of freshly baked banana bread always makes me happy!
My husband and I recently had a date night in Denver and we decided to make reservations at Duo, which is a nice seasonal farm to plate restaurant. We both really enjoyed the meal from start to finish and the service was also excellent. They really did a great job with highlighting the fresh, seasonal Colorado ingredients without over-seasoning anything. I’m usually hesitant to get dessert because a lot of the times I’m disappointed, but I can’t say enough how excellent their desserts were as well! Just like our appetizers & main courses, the desserts were a perfect balance of flavors. More importantly, they were not overly sweet! This was hands down the best meal we’ve had in a Colorado restaurant (so far)! There are so many restaurants to explore here, of course! I can’t believe we haven’t gone to more restaurants in Denver and Boulder and we’ve been here a year.
Our dinner also brought back a rush of memories of when I used to work in restaurants in NYC. Front and back of the house. It seems so long ago and I suppose it really was! What good, brief, and crazy times those were. I literally fell into those jobs mostly by accident, but I thought I was going to be a professional chef. In the end I realized that wasn’t for me.
Anyway, I recently found a few notebooks that I used to jot down recipes or thoughts in and I found a ratatouille recipe from a French sous chef. Well, it wasn’t so much a recipe but a list of ingredients and funny comments. I figured since we had so many lovely vegetables from our CSA, I needed to make a batch.
Ratatouille is always so much better 1-2 days after preparing it, especially at room temperature. I like roasting the eggplant while I sautée the other vegetables separately and then cooking the ingredients together so that the flavors blend nicely. I used 1 eggplant, 4 different kinds of smallish squash, a green bell pepper, 3 small leeks, 4 crushed garlic cloves, dried thyme, fresh basil, and a few tomatoes. I like adding some dried chili flakes as well to give it a bit of a kick.
We ate it with a fried egg on top and a bit of California mission extra virgin olive oil. The leftovers will be eaten with some grilled pastured pork chops. So simple and satisfying!
I’ve been waiting for tomato season it seems like forever! Now it’s here and even though Summer started back in June, it’s “official” for me now. I decided to use our lovely raw milk to make a small batch of mozzarella to go along with some Costoluto Fiorentino tomatoes (from Larga Vista Ranch) and basil (from Venetucci Farm). I recently bought a nice bottle of California mission extra virgin olive oil and voilà, our Saturday lunch!
So now I have some whey leftover which I can use in lacto-fermenting and of course to make ricotta!
