Course

Shaved Asparagus Salad

June 6, 2014February 10, 2017

Sometimes, you make a meal, thinking one dish will be the star. Especially when you lay down a hefty chunk of change on a cut of meat. But things happen – you run out of time and you don’t season the meat properly or sear it the way you’d like, and then maybe you leave it in the slow cooker a little bit longer than you should have. And when that happens, there are side dishes that sneak up and surprise you. Like this shaved asparagus salad did.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew this salad would be good. I love asparagus, and there are seemingly a million shaved asparagus salad recipes out there (like this one, and this one, and this one). And yeah, they’re all relatively the same. But man, something about the freshness of this salad – crunchy, sour, salty – just got me. It was exactly what I needed after a long day of work. And it certainly was better than an underseasoned, overcooked (only slightly) piece of meat.

Shaved Asparagus Salad

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 bunch of asparagus
juice from half of a lemon
olive oil
salt (course is good, if you’ve got it)
freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup, roughly, of toasted pine nuts, sliced and toasted almonds, or shelled pistachios
parmesan cheese, though crumbled feta would work nicely too

Instructions

Don’t snap the tough ends off your asparagus just yet! Leave them on and use them as a handle. Lay the asparagus on a cutting board, and use a peeler to shave off wide strips, shaving away from you. You’ll have some thick pieces at the end, but do the best you can. Apparently the consensus is that y-shaped peelers are better for this, but I don’t have one of those. Make do with what you’ve got. Discard the woody ends. Put the peeled pieces into a bowl or on a platter or whatever you’re planning on serving on/in. Pour the lemon juice over top of the asparagus, and drizzle with olive oil. I can’t tell you how much olive oil, because I didn’t measure. A good glug should suffice. Sprinkle some salt and pepper over the top, as well as the toasted nuts. Rinse your peeler and use it to shave some thin pieces of parmesan to top the salad (or use a fork and crumble the feta over top). We’re big cheese fans, so we did more cheese instead of less.

Enjoy on a spring or summer day, preferably with a glass of refreshing white or rosé wine. I think this salad would be perfect alongside some grilled fish or chicken for a summer soirée.

Herb and Lemon Shortbread with Straus Family Butter {Sponsored}

May 30, 2014February 10, 2017

Herb and Lemon Shortbread // Serious Crust

I love butter. Let’s be clear here, I don’t like to grab a stick and eat it like a candy bar, the way my mother used to. Certainly not. But there is something to be said for a good piece of sourdough covered in melty butter. Or a roast chicken that’s been slathered in butter and salt and pepper. You know what I mean?

Recently, Jonah and I have become more interested in buying “good” butter. Butter is butter – it’s good. But we were wanting to buy butter made with milk from grass-fed cows. It started a couple months ago when our roommate’s dad, Bruce, came to visit. Bruce is very knowledgeable about diet and nutrition, and while he was here we had many conversations about foods that people think are bad for you (aka butter) but aren’t really if you eat them well. Good fats are good for you, guys! Things like good olive oil, good butter, even chicken livers (fatty, yes, but full of nutrients), are things we can enjoy without feeling guilty about it.

So when I was sent some coupons for Straus Dairy products, I knew immediately I wanted to try their butter. I started with ye old piece of toast. What better way to judge a butter’s character? It was good. It was richer and creamier than your average butter. So I took things to another level. I had bought some chicken livers the day before, so I made some chicken liver paté (Julia Child’s recipe, in case you were interested). And let me tell you, it was some incredibly creamy paté.

Let’s talk for a second about Straus Family Creamery. After spending a fair amount of time on Straus’s website, perhaps one of the things I find the coolest is that they were the first 100% certified organic creamery in the country. For real! Evolving from a family dairy farm, Straus Family Creamery was officially founded in 1994, when Albert Straus saw going organic as a way to differentiate himself and save the state of local family farming. The butter has 85% butterfat content, and is less moist than normal butter. What does this mean for us bakers? It means it’ll brown more evenly and be more flaky. And for the cooks? It doesn’t burn as easily. Now I know, this butter ain’t cheap. But when you’re making butter heavy things like paté or shortbread, I think it’s worth spending the extra few dollars. You don’t skimp on a pork shoulder or buy cheap-o chocolate for your chocolate chip cookies, do you? I thought not.

Enough waxing poetic about butter, Annie. Let’s get on to this recipe for herb and lemon shortbread. On our front steps, we have a little pot of herbs that we carried with us from our last home. Our thyme isn’t looking so hot, but the sage is coming back strong this spring. And every time I walk by that pot, I start thinking of things I could do with those herbs. This week, I had an idea for this herb and lemon shortbread. And lo and behold, I had one stick of this beautiful butter left. It was perfect.

Herb and Lemon Shortbread

Note: I used solely sage for this recipe, but any combination of sage, rosemary, and thyme would be great, I think.

Ingredients

1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbl plus 1 tsp sugar
1-2 tsp freshly chopped herbs (I used 1 tsp of freshly chopped sage, and wish I had used more)
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1 stick (8 oz) Straus Family butter, unsalted, at room temperature

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Sift flour and salt together in a medium bowl, set aside. In a small bowl, combine 2 Tbl sugar plus chopped herbs and lemon zest. Rub these ingredients together with your fingers – this will make sure the sugar absorbs the oils from the herbs and lemon, making it perfectly aromatic. Add the sugar mixture to the flour, and stir until combined. Cut the butter into chunks, and combine it with the flour/sugar mixture with a fork or a pastry knife, blending until you’ve got a beautiful soft dough.

Gently press the dough into a 9×9 baking dish or a 9-inch pie plate. Sprinkle the remaining teaspoon of sugar over the top. Bake until it’s golden brown around the edges. Once you’ve removed it from the oven, carefully cut it into wedges or squares or whatever shape you like while it’s still hot. Allow to cool before separating it. It helps to run the knife along the lines again.

I think this shortbread would make a fantastic base for lemon bars or rhubarb bars or any kind of bar topped with curd. Just saying.

This is a sponsored post. I was given coupons for Straus Dairy products, and all of the opinions below are my own.

Rhubarb Poppy Seed Bread

May 21, 2014May 8, 2018

Update: It is spring (nearly summer, really) 2018, and I thought this recipe could use a little love. It is one of the recipes I most frequently make from this here blog, and I think perhaps that may go for some other folks too. You’ll find one new ingredient and some new instructions that help the rhubarb distribute more evenly throughout the loaf instead of floating to the top the way they used to do, but it’s still perfectly moist.

Hi, my name is Annie. I have a problem. The problem is rhubarb. I seemingly can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop talking about, can’t stop cooking with it. Between the baked rhubarb at Passover, the rhubarb bourbon sours, the rhubarb themed weekend finds post, and now this poppy seed bread sprinkled with rhubarb, I’m starting to worry myself. But oh well. It tastes too good to stop.

A couple weeks ago, I was wanting to make some poppy seed bread, but I wanted it to be not just your normal old poppy seed bread. I prefer almond poppyseed to lemon poppy seed, so I knew I wanted to lean that way. I also knew I wanted to add fruit. And once I thought of the tartness of the rhubarb combined with the nuttiness of the almond and the poppy seeds, I knew I had to try it.

If you’re interested in a sweeter flavor combination, try subbing strawberries for the rhubarb. But really, you should try it at least once with rhubarb. I swear, it’s really really good.

I first made this recipe for a brunch with my roommates, and between the six of us we finished a whole loaf. In one sitting. It wasn’t even hard. The second loaf quickly disappeared over the next two days. The house smelled incredible, even up on the third floor, and even out on the second floor deck. This bread is a perfect quick bread for the spring (and summer) – it’s unique and dotted with fruit. I recommend bringing it to a friend’s house for brunch: it gets it out of your kitchen (yeah, it’s that dangerous), and they will think you are brilliant.

Poppy Seed Bread with Rhubarb

Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients

1/4 and 1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
2 1/2 cups rhubarb, cut into a half inch dice
1.5 cups AP flour
1.5 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups olive oil
1 1/2 cups milk, preferably 2% or whole
2 tsp almond extract
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 Tbl poppy seeds
2-3 Tbsp turbinado sugar (optional)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two bread pans. In a bowl, toss the rhubarb with 1/4 cup of sugar to coat. Set aside.

Combine the remaining sugar, flour, bread flour, salt, and baking powder in a mixing bowl, whisking to combine. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the eggs and olive oil. Mix on medium speed with the whisk until emulsified, 1-2 minutes. Add in the milk and two extracts and mix again until smooth. With the mixer running, add the poppy seeds to the bowl. When they look to be evenly distributed, stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl, reaching all the way to the bottom – you wouldn’t want any part of the batter to be missing poppy seeds! In two batches, mix in the dry ingredients, mixing until smooth and uniform.

You’re going to pour the batter into the 2 pans in 3 batches, so start by simply pouring enough to heavily cover the bottom of each pan. Leaving any juices in the bowl, split half of the rhubarb between the two pans (so 1/4 of the rhubarb in each pan). Pour more batter on top of this (but not all!), add more rhubarb, then finish by covering all the rhubarb with the rest of the batter. Scatter the turbinado sugar over the batter.

Bake for 60-75 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown on top, and a knife or skewer inserted comes out clean.

Allow to cool for 20 minutes in the pans, then run a knife around the edge of the pan, and gently turn the loaves out onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely, 20-30 more minutes. Slice and enjoy.

Thai Larb with Lettuce Wraps

May 14, 2014February 10, 2017

A couple of weeks ago, my roommates had a problem. I had gone with them to the climbing gym, and on our way home, we decided to stop at the store to get some food for lunch. We were thinking about what we already had in the house that we could use, and they started talking about how they had too much lettuce. See, they’re more spinach eaters (in salads and scrambles and such) than lettuce eaters, and so had a head of lettuce that they didn’t particularly want to eat or know what to do with. I had an idea: Thai larb.

This Thai larb, a chicken dish with lettuce wraps, immediately popped into my head. I quickly looked up a couple recipes on my phone, and grabbed the ingredients at the store. It was a warm day, and this bright, tart, crunchy dish was perfect. Plus, they were impressed that I made lettuce into something so delectable.

Today it was 85 degrees in Portland, and tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter. In fact, it’s supposed to be beautiful (and hot) until Saturday. My suggestion? Make this Thai larb: it’s so refreshing on a hot day. I’d serve it with maybe a green papaya salad and rice (sticky rice if you can swing it).

Thai Larb with Lettuce Wraps

Serves 4

Ingredients

Dressing

1/3 cup lime juice
1 Tbl fish sauce
2 Tbl light brown sugar
1/2 tsp Sriracha

Chicken

2 lbs skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into roughly 1-inch pieces
1 large shallot, chopped
1 stalk lemongrass , thinly sliced (see this article for instructions on prepping your lemongrass)
1-2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 red chile, jalapeño, or thai chile, depending on your desired spice level
2 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp kosher salt
3 Tbl vegetable oil
1 head romaine or iceberg lettuce, rinsed
Cilantro for garnish (optional)

Instructions

To make the dressing, stir all of the ingredients in a bowl until well combined. Set aside.

In a food processor, combine the chicken, shallot, lemongrass, garlic, chile pepper, fish sauce, and salt. Add 1 Tbl of oil, and pulse until the chicken is finely chopped, or how you would imagine ground chicken would look. In a large nonstick pan, heat the remaining 2 Tbl of oil over medium-high heat. Once the pan and oil is hot, add the chicken mixture and cook, breaking up into smaller pieces with your wooden spoon, until the chicken starts to turn golden brown and is cooked through.

To eat your larb, spoon some chicken onto a lettuce leaf, and top with the dressing and a little cilantro if you like. Be sure to eat over a plate – I can guarantee there will be dripping.