ariel tries to make cardoons ... fails ... and makes asparagus instead

first off -- i'd like to say a big thank you to karina for the most amazing wedding cupcakes -- ever! they were so creative, beautiful and flavorful! seriously -- you should all hire her for all your cupcake needs! they added so much to our wedding and our friends are still taking about them! so thank you love! they were great!

so now -- that i'm officially a married lady -- here's my first post -- where i totally failed! great.

sam and i went to the castro farmers' market on wednesday night for the first time. it's a fantastic market! and one organic vendor had this long, green, celery looking veggie called cardoon. the farmer said it tasted like artichoke! yum!

i took it home and last night did a little research. i found a recipe for cardoon gratin on youtube and thought it sounded good. well ...

this cardoon takes some prep. you have to pull off the long fibers, soak it in lemon water and then boil it. i did all that -- but then when i tested it -- it was SO bitter. i mean -- gross bitter! what a bummer! it was even too bitter for sam, who loves eating bitter melon ... which is really bitter. so total fail! anyone have this problem with cardoon before??

anyhoo -- while the bitter cray-cray veggie was boiling ... i had already made a bechamel sauce for the gratin ...

for the sauce, i melted some butter and added about a 1/2 c. of organic whole wheat flour.

i melted that together and then i added a huge spoon of powder milk and water and whisked it together.

it got lovely and creamy -- and then i added salt, pepper and some chopped white onion.

i had already invited my parents to eat with us (since i had been so excited about the cardoons!) so now i needed a back up plan. we had also got some really lovely asparagus, so i chopped it up, steamed it for about 5 minutes, and then threw it in a baking pan.

then i covered it with the sauce and added some parmesan cheese and threw THAT all in the oven -- at 350* for about 25 minutes.

it came out great! really creamy and rich -- very yummy.

someday i hope to try non-bitter cardoons. maybe ...

kisses,

ariel

Karina and friends whip up spicy eggplant pasta!

When I arrived over at my friend Jen's the other night for a small dinner gathering, she quickly introduced me to the pile of fresh produce on her counter that she wasn't sure what to do with. I was thrilled when she asked me to step in. There was a large eggplant, an apple, onions, garlic, asparagus, a half an avocado and part of a tomato.


She also had a bunch of pasta, so we decided to go that route and immediately started sauteing onions in olive oil and added some garlic and the chopped up eggplant to make the base of a sauce.

I spiced the eggplant mix with salt, pepper, chili flakes, Teriyaki Sauce, sesame seeds, lemon and dried basil, and when it was soft and cooked, I added a little over half of it to the blender where some pine nuts and the leftover avocado and tomato were waiting to mix up a sauce. The blender had a hard time going, so I added a little more olive oil and water to it, and within a minute we had a delicious and creamy thick eggplant sauce. I added more garlic, salt, cayenne and lemon to get the flavor just right.


I returned to the remaining onions, garlic and eggplant in the saute pan, and added the apple and asparagus that Jen had chopped up.


We started boiling vermicelli noodles and later added cooked udon noodles to the mix to make more.


Once the cooking veggies were perfected, I added in our spicy eggplant sauce to get it all nice and warm for the noodles.


Job Well Done. Delicious!


Sometimes you have to be creative when there is a shortage of matching dishes!

ariel's making ... garlic asparagus

i love spring veggies, especially asparagus. but you gotta act quick with these babies -- they're only in the market for a few weeks! at the farmers' market this weekend i splurged on two beautiful bunches, and cooked them up for sunday dinner.


we also had this lovely fresh garlic, so i decided to marinate the asparagus with lots of garlic.


steam the asparagus for about 5-10 minutes until they easy to poke with a knife, but not mushy.


then top them with garlic, olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, vinegar ... really anything you want!


here's the hard part -- wait! that's right ... try to wait as long as you can to eat this dish ... the longer it sits, the tastier it gets. but that's kinda hard to do, so just make a big batch, eat half, and let the other half soak 'til tomorrow.

now go marinate on that recipe ... and let me know what you think!

kisses,

ariel