monavano

Garlic scapes are in season here in the Washington DC area. I made pesto!

I would recommend that you contact Wu's Garden in Tysons Corner, VA (which is Fairfax and very accessable). It's very traditional and large. Great for large parties.

For Memorial Day, I made slow cooked pork ribs and Ina Garten's bbq sauce, cheddar corn chowder (another Ina fave) and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Lovely chives...just gorgeous.

Lovely dinners, everyone!! Last night's dinner started with a salad of watercress, strawberries, gorgonzola dolco and candied pecans with a champagne vinaigrette. Recipe here.

Sup Tulang

I'm looking forward to trying them at home this year-so I'm keeping my eyes open at the local farmers markets. I did have pickled fiddleheads on a charcuterie platter at a restaurant recently-perhaps they're not too far away. BTW-they are very good pickled and I may try this myself.

Oh MiFi, that burger, the cheese, the BREAD!! My mouth is watering just looking at it!

Dinner was pork and sauerkraut which cooked in my crockpot during a rainy afternoon. It tasted great, but wasn't photo-worthy. Dessert was balsamic strawberry and rhubarb cobbler.

Asparagus with Sun Dried Tomato Vinaigrette and a Soft Boiled Egg.

I bought a lot of produce at the farmers market this weekend, so tonight our plates were piled with greens and ramps! Potatoes and ramps (likely the last of the season, or close to it), rainbow chard with a dash of oregano and lemon, oven roasted balsamic cherry tomatoes and carrots, talapia.

Fettuccine with Rainbow Chard and Grilled Chicken in a Gorgozola and White Wine Sauce.

Sausage, carmelized spring onion and fresh mozzerella pizza. I baked it at 475 degrees for 8 minutes after heating up the pizza stone for about an hour. It really helped to do that.

Frittata with kielbasa, ramps and cheese potatoes, onions and green peppers herb salad with balsamic, honey and spiced apricot mustard vinaigrette

I think they all should have a macro mode-I have the SD850 IS and can attest to the quality of the photos I take with it. Love it!!

takadi-the Canon Elph is in your price range and I can't recommend it highly enough. What you will be able to get with this camera is an excellent macro mode. That means, when you want a great close-up, one that makes others mouths water, you can get it. It's also wonderful all around. Just magic. DSLR-digital single lens reflex. They are expensive and are the lenses. But, you don't need one. I recently bought one because of my blog and fledgling food journalism career. But, I always carry my Elph. I wouldn't part with it for anything. http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-Digi...09760287&sr=8-2

I agree completely. Get your blog up and running consistently before you add advertising. Sex sells, and so does screed and slams. It gets attention, for sure. I agree-don't sell your soul-there's rarely any real money that comes from it. Regarding your camera choice-are you planning to get a point and shoot, or DSLR?

Ethnocentric my wide butt. What a blithe way to dismiss a considered assesment of a bad dish. The winner was a stir fry. The loser was"'nt appealing", a "sloppy" "lacking" curry that was judged, in part, by an Indian woman and Oprah's self-professed curry lover. ← Perhaps the poster was referring to the raised eyebrow "hmm....really?" look that Tom gave Mark when he found that Mark was making curry. That surprised me.

Amish sage sausage with yam hash browns and a poached egg.

Here's a salad made with shaved country ham, pears, shaved Pecorino, toasted walnuts, evoo and pepper. Patrick O'Connell of The Inn At Little Washington recently gave this recipe to the Washington Post-I used what I had on hand (Pecorino) could buy (endive, for a peppery green-no baby arugula). Most importantly, I used Calhoun's Country Ham, which O'Connell has been using for years. I am very fortunate that I can get the ham at my local farmers market in Alexandria, VA.!

Frittata with asparagus, ham and smoked gruyere. Spinach salad with warm bacon dressing. Baked rosemary potatoes.

Exactly. I didn't think their decision NOT to use Polish sausage was a bad one. First, they can only shop at one place, so they're at the mercy of whatever kind of PS Whole Foods has. What if they only have one kind? What if it sucks? Does the average chef even know what goes into a PS if they did want to make it, and does Whole Foods have what they'd need (like casings?). I could easily imagine them doing store-bought PS then being told, well, this was an improv challenge, why didn't you improv? ← Just a guess-but I imagine WF in Chitown has polish sausage. They didn't even look, or try any, from what we got t see.

What the bleep? That sums up my feelings about judges table this week. I just watched this week's episode on Tivo, and was very suprised at the decision that was reached. I think Stephanie and Jen's dish was a bit of a trainwreck, I admit. However, Antonia and Lisa didn't even meet the criteria of the challenge. To dismiss Polish sausage out of hand like that-to not even TRY-shows a real lack of imagination and desire to rise to any occasion. Why is kielbasa deemed "bar food"?. Sausage making is an art. Just because it isn't boudin noir or boudin blanc doesn't mean it's in another food group. It's sausage! And, it's packed with flavor!! Lisa going on, and on, and ON about her pityful station in life because she has to cook a dish that "drunk people" shouted out. And her n=1 experience with kielbasa. And woe is me....stop already! My ears are bleeding! A sure sign of insecurity and lack of true talent is blaming, excuse making, and cheating. You call it improvising. I call it cheating. The BS flag is thrown. PS..Lisa, they say "when in Rome, do as the Romans do". Well, when in Chicago, a town full of Polish, don't look down your wrinkled nose at their food. Let me start a list of dishes that came to me within minutes of thinking about it: Beer braised mussels with smoked kielbasa Choucroute Cassoulet Anyone else?

Matthew and Suzilightning-wow! those meals could seriously make a vegetarian fall off the wagon. Both steaks are done just perfectly! Gorgeous photos too.

Oh god, add some jumbo lump crab, and that's one of my favorite dishes in the world. It looks awesome, monavano. Did you steep the cream with the shrimp shells before adding the butter and parm? ← Wow, I didn't think of steeping the shells-that would have really been great. I seared off the scallops and shrimp until med/rare and set them aside. I then added shallots and deglazed with white wine and added the cream and the cheese, nutmet, lemon, salt and pepper. Then I returned the seafood and the al dente fettucine to the pan to finish. Thanks!