blue_dolphin

First figs of the year spotted at the farmers market so ricotta and figs on toast with ras al hanout walnuts

Thanks! Credit for my repertoire goes entirely to my cookbooks! Yes, I usually aim for breakfast and a late lunch as my main meals. I might have a little snack in the evening with a cocktail or glass of wine. Or not.

A pale comparison to @gulfporter's delicious-looking shrimp burgers....Shrimp on Toast with Capers, Dill and Chervil from Getaway. This week, my local fish share offered an option of little Oregon Bay shrimp and with this recipe and one for Potted Shrimp also from this book in mind, I decided to get them. This recipe dresses the shrimp with sour cream and crème fraîche with lemon zest, lots of dill and chervil. No chervil so I used a mix of parsley, cilantro and basil, plus plenty of dill. I added a squeeze of lemon juice, as I do. I think I'd prefer this as a dip with chips or crackers. I was a bit overly enthusiastic grilling the bread but the shrimp and herb flavors are delicate enough that I don't think they're enhanced by any sort of char.

@C. sapidus has been making great breakfasts with green beans. Me? I'm still on a buckwheat crêpe roll.... or fold? 🙃 This is my third of the five variations offered in Grist and the only sweet one. They're filled with mascarpone that's been whipped with a splash of cream and a little honey (I used buckwheat honey to stay with the theme), warmed gently in the oven and topped with fresh berries. I added the lemon zest to garnish. Since I had the crêpes stashed in the freezer, this treat was both easy and delicious.

The first link it to a recipe for butter tarts so not sure that's intended for this topic but I just read the article and recipe for the Hawaii-style sherbet made with strawberry soda, Jello and sweetened condensed milk this morning. Sounds very sweet but I'd still like to try it. Just a spoonful though not 9 cups!

You need to come around to the back door and press the doorbell firmly until you can hear the classy Westminster chimes. Patrick and Michael and I will all come running to greet you. Only Patrick and Michael run to the ding dong front doorbell, I ignore it 🤣

Sausage & Gnocchi from I Dream of Dinner. Another quick and easy recipe from this book. Take Italian sausage out of its casing and brown it up. Remove from the pan and fry purchased gnocchi in the fat, chop a handful of pickled peppers (I used Matiz piparra peppers) and use them with a slosh of the brine and splash of olive oil to dress a pile of arugula. Throw everything in a bowl and eat.

Filing this away for future usage!

Toasted Cheddar and chili jam sandwich with a beet and orange salad with pecans and feta on arugula

Sugar + a little water in a pan. Cook into a syrup. Add fennel seeds. Continue to cook and stir 'til the syrup crystalizes on the seeds. There's a recipe in the book but I already had some hanging around from making this Ottolenghi pineapple herb sorbet and his recipe is much more detailed!.

Beet Carpaccio with Strawberries, Flowers and Fennel Seeds from Abra Berens' book, Pulp. The beets are roasted and mandoline-d into thin slices, dressed with a lemon/orange vinaigrette, decorated with strawberries, edible flowers and candied fennel seeds.

It's been less than a month since Tenderheart, the Hetty McKinnon book I mentioned, was published in the US and Canada so chances of getting that might be slim. At least in my area, a lot of libraries are reluctant to send books out on ILL when they are new and may have waiting lists. My library won't even request an ILL on a book that's less than a year from its pub date. All the others that have been mentioned are older. Another Deborah Madison book that may be worth seeking out is Vegetable Literacy. And another oldie (1984) is Bert Green's Green on Greens.

Roasted Broccoli and Crispy Chickpeas with Sichuan Dukkah from Hetty McKinnon's Tenderheart... ... with a scrambled duck egg and cherry tomatoes

collard greens - these guys need long cooking. You can also stuff them as you would make stuffed cabbage. Vivian Howard's Deep Run Roots has a great collards section as does Six Seasons, mentioned above. fennel - I think of fennel more as a stalky bulb than a green, though it has plenty of feathery fronds. It has an anise flavor that's muted by cooking. Raw, it's delicious in salads with oranges and other citrus. As mentioned above, Tenderheart has a great fennel section. chard, beet greens, turnip greens - I put all these in the "cooking greens" category along with mustard greens. Sneak them in anywhere you put cooked spinach kale - I much prefer the dark green lacinato kale (aka dinosaur kale, Tuscan kale, cavolo nero) to the common curly kale. Takes longer to cook than the greens above but can generally be used in the same way. Baby kale is available in my local farmers markets and can be used fresh in salads or cooked. watercress, arugula, endive - I generally eat all of these fresh, though endive (which comes in many varieties) is lovely braised. See here for more endive ideas.

You know of my affinity for cookbooks, so that's where I'd start. I'd recommend paying a visit to the cookbook section of your bigger library to see if they have any vegetable cookbooks available. Deborah Madison is reliable and has a lot of titles out there. Joshua McFadden's Six Seasons is a great vegetable cookbook and I'm really enjoying Hetty Liu McKinnon's Tenderheart (great fennel section in this one.) An oldie but goodie is The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash. I really like Abra Berens' book Ruffage which has lots of great ideas but may not be for everyone (few photos, very brief recipes, some are just sketches (literally just little pen & ink drawings with minimal text.)

Baked Ricotta w/Black Pepper, Raspberries + a Big Salad from Pulp by Abra Berens.

Buckwheat crêpes with goat cheese, shaved Brussels sprouts + hazelnut rig from Grist After filling and folding, the crêpes go back into the pan to warm the cheese and crisp the bottoms. The hazelnut "rig" is one of the simple toppings that abound in this book: toasted hazelnuts, tart dried cherries, sherry vinegar and olive oil.

As mentioned in that LATimes article that @heidih linked, Huy Fong used to get all their red peppers for Sriracha from Underwood Farms here in Ventura county. They had an interesting exclusive contract that required Huy Fong to use their peppers and prohibited Underwood from selling them to anyone else. Worked well until Huy Fong decided they wanted to grow their own and tried to hire Underwood's farm manger to run the operation. Fingerpointing and lawsuits (won by Underwood) all around. Now Huy Fong is sourcing peppers elsewhere and Underwood is making and selling their own Sriracha at their farmstand!

I'm not a hater. I like them. This thread is making me want grilled sausage with peppers and onions 😋 Or squid with black beans and green peppers 😋 Or GBP diced up in a Western omelet or egg sandwich 😋

Fennel and Gnocchi Salad with Fennel Frond Pesto from Hetty McKinnon's Tenderheart. When I get fennel at the farmers market, it's priced per lb and they alway have tons and tons of fronds which annoys be because I have limited use for them. This used up a lot of them and it's quite nice. Tastes very fresh and green but doesn't scream, "FENNEL!!!" Should have sliced the fennel more thinly but still OK.

I had something else in mind but got hangry and warmed up leftover Tomato, Zucchini + Chickpea Stew w/Mint Almond Relish from Grist.

It's a nice spatula/flipper, I think you will like it. For the crêpes, I would normally use a thin spatula to lift up the edges and then switch to a bigger one to flip but this one was able to handle both tasks. Not sure how durable that thin edge will be over the long term so I won't be using it for chiseling anything!

Last week, I bought one of these silicone GIR Ultimate Turners. They are $12.95 elsewhere (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) and $9.99 at TJ's so no huge deal but they are quite nice. The leading edge is very thin so it was perfect to flip the buckwheat crêpes that I made yesterday.

I agree. I think it's impressive that he does his own photography as well. He has a new book coming out in October, Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I don't need another vegetable cookbook but I pre-ordered it a few weeks ago when Now Serving was offering 15% off all pre-orders.

Whitefish, Tomato, Zucchini + Chickpea Stew w/Mint Almond Relish from Grist. I suspect the author had smaller freshwater fish in mind but I used some of the Pacific white seabass that I got in my fish share this week. This was surprisingly good. The vegetable stew is seasoned with ras el hanout, lots of onions and garlic and is quite good on its own, although plopping a big piece of fish on the bowl seemed a bit incongruous to me at first. The mint almond relish includes lots of lemon zest and juice along with shallot, toasted almonds, parsley and mint. It brightens everything up and really knits the dish together.