Oh, how our garden grows! 2

More lovely photos from the garden, thanks to Frank!

Very small handful of blueberries

Head of green leaf lettuce

Basket of greens; lettuce and red chard

Pink mystery flowers

Red Dahlia Elixir

One of my all time favorite restaurants is Red Dahlia in Carlsbad CA. We used to go for their supper clubs that happened once a month and became the only way to enjoy their food, unless you were going to have them cater an event. The supper clubs haven’t happened for a while now, and I hope they have something soon because it is really a fantastic experience. Before the supper clubs they actually used to have regular restaurant hours and you could go for lunch or dinner. One time with lunch I had the Red Dahlia Elixir, an infusion of ginger, lemongrass, lemon, cinnamon, and mint. Everything comes in a French Press and it steeps at your table. It’s tangy, mint-y and spicy! Here is my version of it using everything from my garden, except for the cinnamon.

Silver mint
Ginger mint
Cinnamon
Ginger slices
Lemongrass stalk sliced
Orange zest and slice

Place everything in a French press or infuser and add hot water. Steep for about 10 minutes. Sweeten with honey, if desired.

Bulgarini Gelato

Okay, here is Altadena's newest and best addition, Bulgarini Gelato!!! They recently opened up a permanent shop, aside from their cart, that would appear in Pasadena. Mr. Jonathan Gold had a few nice words about them. It's been very difficult not going every day after work. I am not a connoisseur of gelato, but I know when I like something and I really like this! The flavors are intense and bold. The texture is smooth and rich, but also sometimes airy, as with the pineapple sorbet, which seemed to evaporate and leave just the taste of ripe pineapple on your tongue. In the photo above, going clock-wise, apricot gelato with pineapple sorbet underneath, hazelnut and coffee gelato and special today was a blood orange granita. The stuff is amazing. We are fortunate enough to live a few blocks away, but folks are driving in from all over town. The owners are so nice and willing to chat and they let you sample everything! I have also had their pistachio, which is so delicious, it taste like they were fresh roasted, as well as their strawberry, cinnamon and chocolate with orange. Everything is just so good!

Pan-Seared Salmon

I love to cook, but I am at a job all day. This makes dinners, and our lunches, a little difficult for me sometimes. I often start to plan our meals when I wake up, or the night before, so I can do some prep work. I will say now, those of you with children who cook wonderful wholesome meals are superhuman! The problems arise, because I begin to think “Oh! I should make this or that, with this sauce or this thing as a side dish!” But, when you start cooking at 8 or later, reality sinks in and we are hungry and can’t wait for the glorious feast I have in my head. So I tend to do a lot of seared pan dishes or things I can put in my Delonghi oven/broiler, which I absolutely love! I use it more than anything else in the kitchen, except for my coffee pot. But, yet again, the cooking bug creeps in and I feel the need to make something in addition to the main seared meat/veggie thing. So, different garnishes or simple sauces usually appear, and one of the best helpers any cook can have is a garden stocked with fresh herbs. This always helps to liven up a dish. I learned a lot about cooking meat from one of Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s cookbooks that my father had. Unfortunately, I don’t recall which one, or I would buy it. Essentially, it broke down the basics of various common cooking techniques and times, and they have never failed me since.

Pan-Seared Salmon
Serves 2

2 fillets Salmon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small pat of butter
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a pan heat the olive oil and butter over medium-high heat till butter begins to turn golden.
2. Place the salmon in the pan skin side up and cook for about 5-8 minutes or until it starts to brown. Watch your heat, and lower if needed.
3. Turn fillets over and put heat up to medium-high and cook for about 10 minutes, depending on how well done you like your fish. We like ours a little on the underdone side of things.
4. Transfer to a plate and season with salt and pepper to taste.

In the photo above, I sprinkled some fresh dill and fresh horseradish on top.

Chesapeake Bay Bloody Mary

This has to be one of the meatiest Bloody Mary’s I have ever had! It’s like a meal in a glass with the fortunate addition of alcohol. I have to give all the credit to my cousin Mike who made this concoction for me at one of our family gatherings. My cousin makes some of the best cocktails and pours a mean Guinness. Since there are so many ingredients in this, I figured a picture diagram would be useful.
The ingredients are as follows, going clock-wise:

Blue Crab Bay Co. Sting Ray Bloody Mary Mix (It’s from the Chesapeake, so it must be good!)
Tabasco
Worcestershire sauce
Your favorite Vodka
Old Bay (More Chesapeake Bay goodness!)
Freshly grated horseradish
Pickled green beans (or asparagus works really well), and jalapeno stuffed olives
Fresh limes


1. In a tall glass filled with ice pour 1 part Vodka to 3 parts Bloody Mary mix. Chill Vodka and mix thoroughly before making.
2. Add a dash of Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce.
3. Add a pinch or more of Old Bay
4. Add a squeeze of lime juice
5. Sprinkle with a large pinch of fresh horseradish (pre-made works well but it just isn’t quite the same)
6. Skewer 1 or 2 olives and the green bean (or asparagus, or both!) to use as a stirrer
7. Serve!

Note: I made this again but put it into a cocktail shaker and strained the drink. I think it came out much better! No ice to dilute the final results!

Thanks Mike!

Lemongrass Crab

Frank was making me extremely jealous this weekend over his dining experiences while on his trip to Southeast Asia. We were looking at some of the photos he took while on a boat in Ha Long Bay and I started going crazy after looking at the freshness and utter deliciousness of the seafood they were eating. I started to whine and demanded we go get some crab! Now, I am a Maryland girl, so I almost always cook my crabs with beer and Old Bay. The crab he had in Ha Long was cooked with lemongrass and seemed very pure and simple. Actually, aside from the Old Bay, I believe seafood should be eaten simply so you can enjoy it's “essence” as Frank likes to call it. So off we went to get our fresh crab. I like to go where I can pick them out myself, so I can grab the fighters! There is something primal about your food trying to attack you. Not that I have a lot of experience with menacing ingredients, so far it's been just crustaceans. We got 4 rock crabs at a very cheap price of $1.99/lb (they weighed in at about 1lb each) and of course bought some beer to wash it all down. I’ll tell you right now that we didn’t get enough beer. So based off of Frank’s memory, which isn’t so great when it comes to food and his photos, I tried to recreate the dish. I don’t think it was exactly the same, but it was really claw sucking good! I always cook my seafood with a little alcohol, in this case some sake because it seems to enhance the sweetness of the meat. He also remembered that he had some dipping sauce with the seafood, so he found a recipe at Food Lion’s site of all places! I barely used it, but it was a wonderful match and it would be delicious with prawns. You know when you are with the right person when you can sit and have a meal and not say a word to one another for about 2 hours (yes, we are very thorough crab eaters). So here you go, my recipe for lemongrass steamed crab. My next crab fantasy will be filled when I get a bushel or 2 of blue crabs for Frank’s birthday and cook them up the old fashioned Maryland way. I LOVE CRABS!

Lemongrass Crab
serves 2

4 small live crabs (about 1lb each; either blue or rock crab or your favorite)
3 stalks lemongrass cut into rounds
2 cloves chopped garlic
1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger
1/2 cup sake
1 tbsp canola oil

1. In a large wok, heat the canola oil and quickly sauté the ginger, lemongrass and garlic.
2. When the pan is really hot out in 1/4 cup of sake and add the crabs (I had to do these 2 at a time as they were to big to fit in my wok) and cover with a lid.
3. Steam for about 10 minutes. Watch the liquid level and add more sake or water so the pan doesn’t dry out. I also flipped them about half way through cooking.
4. Transfer to a platter and serve with dipping sauce.

Mystery Squash Soup

Ok, so this is actually a soup I made last summer. I froze a batch and we thawed it out for lunch the other day. There is a funny story about this soup. When we started gardening last year we first set up a compost bin in the fall. We are really into the compost experience. I call it that, because Frank and I see it as though we are offering sacrifices to the garden gods. Frank actually really gets into it. I think one of his favorite things in life is to go outside and stir and hack at the compost.
Jump ahead to the spring and there is a squash-like vine growing out of the compost. I said we should chop it up and put it back in, because I don’ know what it is, Frank wants to grow it. He usually gets his way without too much fuss. So the vine grew and squashes appeared, but they didn’t look like any I had seen before let alone eaten. Remember, this is our compost, so we ate the things that went in there. We were at a local Mexican market and they had some squash called “White Squash” that looked identical to ours. Ah Ha! That’s what we must have, even though I never ate one before. I started to figure the squirrels planted it. Actually I am still waiting on the peanuts they hid to start growing.
So home we went and I started picking the squash figuring it was a summer squash variety. It was really very pretty. You can see it here in this photo with other goodies from our garden. It's the green things in the center.


I think the first thing I did was sauté it and it was really very good, with a mild squash flavor, similar to yellow squash. Then I started to give it away because we couldn’t eat it fast enough. Everybody loved it. One family friend couldn’t get enough of them. I think she may have even eaten it raw. I froze a bunch and made the soup you see above. Inevitably some were left on the vine and I forgot about them. I think we became busy with our eggplants. Well the mystery squash transformed into plain old Butternuts, which I eat a lot of! It should have been obvious…

I can’t suggest what to substitute for immature Butternut squash, but if you have some growing try them when young. A good replacement in fact, may be any summer squash.

Large chunks of chopped Mystery Squash (summer variety, pick your favorite, or green Butternut)
Onion chopped
Roasted corn kernels (TJ’s sells them frozen)
Minced rosemary
Minced garlic
Chicken or vegetable stock
1 tbsp bacon drippings
Smoked sea salt
Fresh black pepper
Black truffle oil (optional)

1. Heat bacon drippings in a large pot; add the onions, rosemary and garlic and sauté till soft.
2. Add the squash, corn and stock till it covers the ingredients. Bring to a boil and let simmer till the squash is soft. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. When cool, puree in a blender. It doesn’t need to be perfectly smooth.
4. To serve, reheat and if desired drizzle black truffle oil on top just before serving.