Genkinaonna

Here's how my dessert turned out last night it tasted pretty yummy...and I totally second the roasting with vanilla approach. The cake is the Vistandine cake from Around My French Table. It's buttery, vanilla-y and very springy, a perfect foil for the rhubarb and pastry cream.

Thanks for all the hard work this week! I know what it's like to juggle kids, cooking, and working from home... BTW I'm making your veggie soup (the first one, with the cream, not the one you just posted although that looks good too) tomorrow night for dinner. Cheers!

Strawberry success! We went early (8:30) instead of waiting until we usually go and came home with 4 different cherry tomato plants, three kinds of strawberries (hoods, shucksans, and seascapes), potatoes (teeny little red finns and big ones for soup), three huge bunches of basil, spring onions, carrots, zucchini, and some gargantuan hot dogs (like 13 inches long) from these guys. Here's my haul (minus meat and tomatoes): I also saw quite a bit of growth of the produce variety, even from last week. It seems like things are finally growing! It was a long, cool spring so we're a little behind this year. Here's a particularly pretty artichoke I saw: Next on the agenda: Strawberry Jam!

Wow! 5 kids! You're brave...I go crazy with three...do they help you out in the kitchen? Do you cook separately for them or do they pretty much eat what you do?

Soba- You've inspired us all with your gnocchi.. way to start a trend ...glad to see your on the mend, though. Shelby-Seriously, that pork looks amazing. And with macaroni and cheese to boot! Kim- I have peach envy...ours are another month away, at least. My daughter keeps asking me when she gets to have "peaches with the fuzzy skin again" as opposed to the canned ones that are naked... Robirdstx-Gotta love anything wrapped in bacon...any meal with multiple meats is perfect in my book! Dejah-That looks so healthy and fresh, makes me eager to hit the farmer's market tomorrow morning. Tonight was my French Fridays with Dorie cooking club night so I made these: Cola and Jam Baby Back Ribs. On the side was corn cooked in brown butter and thyme, and a salad with a walnut oil vinagrette. The rib recipe was killer, went together super fast and I reduced down the cooking liquid to make a glaze that was so good my DH was eating it by the spoonful out of the pan. I think it'd be really good on chicken wings as well. Edited to take out about 10 too many exclamation points...

Wanna hear something crazy? I didn't try rhubarb for the first time until about a month ago. That's thirty one and half years of perfectly good rhubarb eating time wasted! Well, maybe thirty, since I'm pretty sure you need teeth to really enjoy it... Anyways, I had an amazing rhubarb crumb cake from one of my favorite bakeries and now I'm hooked. Who knew something that looks like mutant red celery could taste so good? Well, everyone here, obviously... I just made the roasted rhubarb from Around My French Table, a butter cake, and some lovely vanilla pastry cream. When they meet, they will be dessert...

Thanks! I might make that for dinner tomorrow night. And I have french bread for croutons, it's like it was meant to be!

I went to two markets Saturday and Sunday (Beaverton and Hillsboro) but all the strawberries were sold out. I'm going early this week and hopefully I'll have better luck. Otherwise I'll just cheat and go right to one of the farms!

Peanut butter, honey, and banana. On squishy white bread, with an extra slice in the center to soak up the honey, which I add in copious quantities. The peanut butter has to be Jiff, smooth, although I usually like the crunchy in everything else. With a big glass of milk. I've also substituted applesauce for the bananas successfully, although it does make for a much messier sandwich. I ate one almost every day growing up. I also like ham and provolone with pesto mayo and lettuce on sourdough or an italian roll. Hmmm...breakfast time! And here I am, out of both bananas and applesauce ...

That soup looks great! Care to share proportions? Have you ever eaten it cold, or is it better warm?

The Beaverton Farmer's Market started the weekend of Mother's Day, and it's the family destination every saturday morning, although the week of my blog I missed it due to a birthday party. It's pretty big, 6 aisles wide with about 20 vendors in each aisle. It's a really good mix of ready to eat food, food to prepare at home (ie fish, soups, noodles, pestos/condiments) plants, and produce, plus a couple of wineries, breweries and an aisle of crafty-type stuff off to one side. I took a bunch of pictures during the first week of the market: Here's the entrance: My favorite cheese place (followed closely by Rogue Creamery, who also has a booth here): This place is new this year, they have various fermented stuff, which I'm generally not a fan of, but it's interesting nonetheless: This place has tons of different produce, I love their golden raspberries and peaches later in the summer, clearly new potatoes were the focus this week although they also had lots of greens, fava beans, and rhubarb: And of course gelato is a must, even when it's cold and damp, like this day was: There's a guy selling beneficial insects, this week the preying mantis egg case had hatched and there were about 100 leetle teeny praying mantises (manti? mantisees?) bopping around in a jar as well. Here's the ladybug cage, much lower ick factor and popular with the little folks: I generally get breakfast here, it's usually either a sausage roll or a spinach and cheese pie: My husband is fond of this place, they do Montreal-style bagels. He likes his with hummus, although they have lots of different sandwich options. This week I'll take some more pics, there's quite a bit more fruit now that it's actually been warm for a while. I'll try to get some of the more interesting produce as well.

Oooh fun! I think a trip to Seattle might be in order! Maybe I can blend it with an overnight stay and meet some other eGulleteers for dinner...payback for my husband leaving me with all three kids while he's in Vegas all week ...

So excited to see what culinary magic you can pull out of your hat this week! The pork looks like a pretty delicious start ...

I couldn't order it on Amazon...it just had the option to email me when it was available...where did you guys get yours?

Rico-It's here. Nice pie though! It's a long time 'til peaches in my neck of the woods...

Hey there's nothin' wrong with grilled cheese in my book! I got inspired (as I'm sure lots of other people did) by SobaAddict's ricotta gnocchi, so here's my take: Ricotta gnocchi with roasted chicken, green garlic, bacon, wilted arugula and crispy baby yukon golds. The sauce was based on the bacon drippings and chicken-y bits in the pan, with some highly reduced chicken stock I made earlier this week. It could have used a little bit of white wine or vermouth, unfortunately I was out, but still, it was pretty tasty overall.

EmilyR- I use the Hersheys recipe with Penzey's cocoa all the time! Kinda ironic that the recipe is vastly improved by NOT using the ingredient that it was developed for Love the way that icing oozes down the cake, it definitely looks like it could handle any chocolate craving thrown at it! Darienne-I'm thinking I'm going to have to make that Idiot Cake sometime soon...tonight, though, it was "New Bittersweet Brownies" from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich. They pretty much melted in your mouth, really chocolate-y and not too sweet, just how I like them. For a 8" pan they used 8 oz of 70% chocolate, although I fudged (haha no pun intended) it and used half 85% and half 64% because that's what I happened to have on hand. The topping is vanilla whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Good stuff... Jakey-I bet those Twix were waaay better than the store-bought ones! Curls-Can't beat the classics, yellow cake with chocolate frosting...adding pistachio paste definitely couldn't hurt anything either! I bet that'd be good with some orange segments snuck in the middle too...chocolate, pistachio and orange is one of my favorite combos.

I'd say I'm probably on the younger side (born in 1979) and I still hate loud restaurants. But then again, I never liked clubs either. If I have to text message my dining partner because I can't hear them from across the table, I'm not going back, don't care how good the food is...

I have a book for making the "tortas gelatinas" but it's in spanish ... I need a set of those tools and a translator

Okay, I want to go make those ricotta gnocchi. RIGHT NOW! Darn doctors appt and playdate killing my afternoon Have you seen the cookbook Olive Trees and Honey by Gil Marks? I got it based on an eGullet recommendation and although I've yet to cook from it, everything in it looks yummy... I think that there's an eGullet blog computer gremlin, my hard drive blew up the day after my blog ended! Thank goodness for Tapatalk, or I'd have been internet-less until DH could fix it.

I love the triangle thin Triscuits. The only problem is finding a hiding spot where my husband won't oink down the whole box!

I can't imagine what I'd do if someone wanted stuff back they sold! The stuff I give away, I'd hug and kiss the people who take it just to clear up some space! But then again, I wouldn't sell a smoker if I had one...

We get Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwiches, and they are amazing, but I don't think they're available outside the Pacific NW. I'd say you should just bake some cookies, buy your favorite ice cream, and DIY it, there are even ice cream sandwich molds you can use so they look all purty and professional...

Ooh, pistachio orange and chocolate would be great too!

I get mine on ebay from the seller vanillaproducts. Super fast, really reasonable, and I've been very happy with the quality.