May 9, 2015 by Liz @ spades, spatulas, and spoons

May in the Kitchen – Roast Carrots with Harissa Aioli and Seedy Mix

I’m on a roll with the Seedy Seasoning Mix, this time with roast carrots and a spicy harissa garlic mayonnaise. The combination of sweet roast carrots, spicy garlic sauce, and crunchy seeds is quite delightful. The original recipe called for dukkah but I think it is just as wonderful with my seedy mix. You can substitute dukkah if you have it and haven’t had a chance to make yourself a batch of seedy mix.

Roast Carrots with Garlic Mayonnaise and Seedy Mix

Roast Carrots with Harissa Aioli and Seedy Mix

2 bunches of skinny carrots, scrubbed and trimmed. Cut any large ones in half lengthwise. Since the carrots I used were young, I didn’t peel them.
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of honey
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons of seedy seasoning mix
Seedy Mix
3/4 cup ofHarissa Aioli
- 3/4 cup of good quality mayonnaise
- 1 large garlic clove, minced
- 1 teaspoon of Harissa sauce

Mix the mayonnaise with the garlic and harissa sauce in a small bowl. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F and place one rack in the upper third of the oven
On a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, toss the carrots with the olive oil and honey, season with salt and pepper.
Tricolored carrots

Carrots ready for roasting
Roast the carrots, turning once, until brown and tender. This will take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes depending on their size.
Roast Carrots
Transfer the carrots to a warm serving platter, sprinkle with the seeds and add a few small spoons of the garlic mayonnaise. Serve any extra mayonnaise on the side.

Roast Carrots with Spicy Garlic Mayonnaise and Seedy Mix

Recipe inspired by one in Seven Spoons.

April 15, 2015 by Liz @ spades, spatulas, and spoons

April in the Kitchen – Carrot and Avocado Salad with Crispy Kale and Hijiki

The pictures don’t do this dish justice, it was absolutely delicious. You can serve this vegetable dish either warm or at room temperature as a salad. It’s an amazing combination of flavors and textures. It’s also a powerhouse of nutrition. Sweet spring carrots, creamy avocado, crispy baked kale, and crunchy hijiki seaweed combine to make a stunning salad.

Recipe adapted from “The Fat Radish, Kitchen Diaries“.

Carrot and Avocado Salad with Crispy Kale and Hijiki

(serves 6)

1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons seasame oil
1/4 cup mirin
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1/2 ounce dried hijiki (about 1/4 cup), rinsed and soaked in warm water for 15 minutes, drained
1 bunch curly kale, stripped from the stem and torn into small pieces
5 tablespoons of olive oil, divided
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 pounds spring carrots, scrubbed and trimmed
2 ripe avocados, peeled, pitted and cut into wedges.
Black sesame seeds for garnish (optional)

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, seasame oil, mirin, fish sauce, garlic and ginger. Add the drained hijiki and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F
Place the kale on a baking sheet and rub with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Sprinkle with the five spice powder and salt. Place in the oven and bake, turning once, until crispy, about 20 minutes. Set the kale aside to cool.
Crispy Kale
Bring a pot of salted water to a bowl and add the carrots. Cook until nearly tender, about 10 minutes depending on size. Transfer to a paper towel lined plate to drain and cool. Cut in half lengthwise.
Place the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil in a heavy skillet on medium-high heat. Add the carrots to the pan and cook, stirring until brown and caramelized, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl.
Spoon the drained hijiki and its marinade over the carrots, add the kale and avocado wedges (if not serving immediately, wait to add the avocado), stir gently to combine.
Add the avocado just before serving and combine gently.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

This dish would be suitable for vegetarians and can be gluten free if you use gluten free soy sauce.

January 6, 2015 by Liz @ spades, spatulas, and spoons

Janurary in the Garden – Garden Share Collective

Happy New Year! This post is part of the Garden Share Collective. Each month a group of dedicated bloggers and gardeners share the stories of the vegetable gardens. I’m adding mine to the group although I am definitely off-season to the gardeners in Australia and New Zealand! My mouth waters at their tomatoes. I try to avoid them until our season opens in July. My garden doesn’t usually produce the first tomato until August or September. But, I can look and enjoy and enjoy the pictures. Click on the link to take a look at gardens around the world.

I haven’t done much gardening in the past few weeks; some harvesting but we’ve had rain, cold weather (for Northern California), and frost. All growth in the vegetable garden has slowed. I’ll be seeding lettuce and arugula later this month.

Frost bitten Nasturtiums

And, the seed catalogs are coming! I received the first ones in the mail last week. Time to dream of spring and summer.

I had some carrots seeded in containers on my deck which were going well until I noticed that something (squirrels?) had eaten the greens entirely off! Frustration!!! It’s too late to try seeding again for a month. Do squirrels like carrot greens? Hopefully it’s not mice.

Carrots eaten by????

What is on the garden schedule for January?

HARVESTING: salad greens, chard, beets, kale, fava leaves, herbs, and sprouting broccoli.

Lettuce

Chard

Beets

Baby Cauliflower

Thyme

Parsley

PLANTING: more salad greens

TO DO: Continue clean up, watch for snails and slugs, add compost to beds. I’m considering the purchase of an indoor grow light to start seeds. I’ll have to figure out a way to keep the cat from eating the greens.

November 15, 2014 by Liz @ spades, spatulas, and spoons

November in the garden – salad greens, broccoli, peas, carrots, artichokes

Thank goodness we got some rain overnight. My garden has been getting along with occassional water from the hose but I don’t think veggies like it as much as rain water. Do you notice a difference after a rain? I do, they seem to perk up and go through a growth spurt.

The broccoli rabe is starting to form little heads. I may harvest a bit to add to pasta this weekend. Planting three varieties of broccoli is an experiment, in addition to the broccoli rabe I’ve planted purple sprouting broccoli and regular ones. We’ve had some warm weather during the day so they are getting a good start. In the past the cabbage worms and aphids got most of the harvest. I’m being diligent this year about picking off cabbage worm eggs and watching for aphids.

broccoli rabe

The cauliflower is standing tall, but there are no heads yet.

The lettuce is looking amazing! We had our first full salad from the garden last night. It was gorgeous with all those colors, textures and leaf shapes. I added fava leaves and trimmings from the pea plants.

fava beans and lettuce

I plan to scatter some more arugula seeds this weekend. We love it so, and it gets eaten quickly.

Arugula

The watermelon radishes I planted seem to have become squirrel food! I’ll replant and cover them with a wire basket to keep the critters away. The radishes were purposely inter-planted with some spicy mixed greens, that usually keeps the furry pests away. Not this time, they selectively dug up all the young radishes.

The snap and snow peas are growing tall though.

snap peas, snow peas, and mesclun

That’s some spicy mesclun in the front, see the holes where the squirrels dug up the radishes? Grrrr…

carrots and radishes in containers

Although I have many gardening failures over the years, the one that frustrates me the most are carrots. They should be easy to grow, right? Well, I have had terrible luck so far. Recently I decided to try another method, containers. I had some deep nursery containers that were sitting around waiting for me to stop being lazy and recycle back to the nursery. I thought I would use them, plant some radishes in the same container. So far, so good. I initially planted pelleted seeds (which are larger and supposed to make it easier to space the carrots), but the germination rate was terrible! So, I purchased several seed varieties and plan to thin the carrots when they are a couple of inches tall.

mini coldframe – greenhouse

This mini-greenhouse is on the back deck, I’m hoping it will allow me to keep growing lettuces throughout the winter. It will get more sun once the magnolia tree looses the rest of it’s leaves.

artichoke plant

The artichoke plants are coming back with the cooler wet weather. Last spring we had tons of them. This plant looks as if it could use separating out into at least 3 new ones. They grow like weeds here. Because my neighbor likes the flowers, I let some of them go to seed. Every since they have been self sowing themselves everywhere, even into cracks in the sidewalk.

artichoke plant growing from a crack in the sidewald

November 9, 2014 by Liz @ spades, spatulas, and spoons

November in the kitchen – Roast Carrots with Farro and Goat Cheese

Roast Carrots with Farro and Goat Cheese

I love goat cheese. There is not much that can’t be improved with a bit of goat cheese on top, at least in my opinion. This recipe uses thinned goat cheese as a sauce for slowly roast carrots and farro.

I got the idea for this recipe from one on the blog My Kitchen Stories. On her blog, Tania suggests using cooked Buckwheat in place of the farro. If you want this to be gluten free, it would be a good substitution. I used farro (which is made from a wheat grain) as I had a package in the pantry. The oven was already on; I was slow roasting some lamb shanks at 300 degrees F for 6 hours. I decided to pop the carrots in the oven with the lamb to roast slowly.

This would be a wonderful vegetarian meal on it’s own, gluten free if you substituted Buckwheat or another grain for the Farro.

Roast carrots with farro and goat cheese

Roast Carrots with Farro and Goat Cheese (serves 2-4)

1 cup (8 oz) of soft goat cheese
3 tablespoons of buttermilk
1 cup of cooked Farro
2 bunches of baby carrots, peeled
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin
Grated rind of one lemon
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
Garnish – parsley or cilantro or pomegranate seeds (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (if not already on at another temperature). Mine was at 300 degrees F, you could go as high as 400 F. The cooking times would be shorter.

Most of this could be done ahead, reheat and assemble at serving time. It would also be good at room temperature. In that case I recommend you be more aggressive with your dressing of the grain. Maybe a bit of mustard, more vinegar and oil.

Cook the farro.

Rinse the farro in a strainer, then cover with about 2 inches of water in a saucepan.
Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 25 minutes until cooked.
Drain the farro and set aside until ready to assemble (if serving at room temperature, toss the farro with oil and vinegar, a bit of Dijon mustard, taste for salt).

Prepare the sauce by mixing the buttermilk with the goat cheese until it is softly spreadable. Place in the refrigerator until you are ready to assemble.

Carrots

Cook the carrots

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large ovenproof skillet.
When hot, add the carrots and sauté on medium-high heat until browned in spots.
Sprinkle the carrots with salt, grated lemon rind, and cumin; stir gently to mix
Transfer the carrots to the oven (still in the skillet or on a baking sheet) and cook for about an hour at 300 degrees F, shorter if your oven is higher
When done to your liking, transfer the carrots to a plate to cool slightly

Assemble the dish

Add the final 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the same skillet you used for the carrots
When hot, add the drained farro and rewarm
Sprinkle with the balsamic vinegar, taste for salt
Spread the goat cheese mixture on one side of the plate
Lay the carrots over the goat cheese
Spread the farro on the other side of your platter
Garnish with chopped cilantro and pomegranate seeds

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Adventures in gardening, cooking, and eating

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May in the Kitchen – Roast Carrots with Harissa Aioli and Seedy Mix

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April in the Kitchen – Carrot and Avocado Salad with Crispy Kale and Hijiki

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Janurary in the Garden – Garden Share Collective

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November in the garden – salad greens, broccoli, peas, carrots, artichokes

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November in the kitchen – Roast Carrots with Farro and Goat Cheese

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