Carrot cake is a quintessential dessert of spring. This recipe is moist slightly sweet, and perfectly spiced. It is paired with a rich and velvety cream cheese frosting.
Asparagus is so beautiful this time of year, so I wanted to create a recipe around it. I made some basil and pumpkin seed pesto, and drizzled it on toasted bread with asparagus, avocado, and shaved Parmesan.
Because his family is a true-to-the-bone pancake family, I really wanted him to share with me the secrets to making a good pancake, thin and delicate, perfectly browned on the outside, soft on the inside. He gave me a recipe, one that he has memorized. A set of very specific instructions, the right temp, the right amount of time for frying. I followed it to a tee, and sure enough, the pancakes came out the way I had always dreamed they would.
After my last trip to the grocery store, where I impulse bought way too many oranges (don't know what I was thinking, how many oranges can one person eat?), I have been trying to come up with inventive ways of using them in recipes. After my failed attempt at making beet pasta, I was now left with a big bunch of beets. Clearly, the beets and oranges were meant to be together, tucked away in the vegetable crisper by themselves.
A week ago, while cleaning out the fridge - a necessary routine as a food blogger - I noticed a lonesome bunch of carrots, a few beets, and a sweet potato. Recalling a recent conversation with Brent about the flavor changes that occur when roasting vegetables, I thought it to be an ideal opportunity to roast these sweet gems before they hit their expiry date.
These beets would not be served as a side, like so many fancy pickles. I wanted these beets to be the lead character, so I roasted them with some olive oil, which brought out their flavorful earthiness and then peeled off their skins with my fingers. I paired them with a few simple ingredients: arugula, goat cheese, and cashews.
