My quest to weigh 476 pounds by Christmas.

I started making ice cream.

Left to right: olive oil with buttered pecans, mint, chocolate, beet with mascarpone and poppyseeds.

My favorite is the mint, picked from my container garden and steeped for four hours. It is excellent with white chocolate chips and coconut thrown in it. I intend to make rosemary, basil, and "Manhattan" ice cream with a carmel bitters ribbon and roasted cherries.

Recipes later when I'm not blogging from my phone. I have two kinds of carrot ice creams yet to be frozen tomorrow. Something tells me I'll be needing another ice cream maker soon.

Nom.

Cantaloupe Salad

1/2 a cantaloupe
8oz package pearl mozzarella
3 slices proscuitto
12 leaves mint
Splash lime juice
Salt and pepper

I may eat the entire thing myself for dinner. That's ok, right?

Food. Close up.

Hi there.  While I unpack my family's bags from a week's vacation and wrap my head around the concept of "121 degree heat index" that I came home to, please enjoy these gorgeous magnification shots of food.

Closeup of me.

See you soon.

Love,

V

CSA Week 2: My Adventures with Rhubarb

Here's what I got in my CSA box in late May (I know, I know, I'm trying to catch up.)

The most interesting thing to me was not the garlic scapes (though, YUM, love those), or the broccoli rabe (make this if you have some).  It was the rhubarb.  Now, people in my neck of the woods (and probably all kinds of other necks of other woods) use rhubarb all the time.  Me?  Never had it before.  Supposed to be pretty bitter, leaves are poisonous, I like strawberries all by themselves just fine, thank you very much.  HOWEVER!  When the CSA hands you rhubarb, you find something to do with it:

All that rhubarb, chopped

One lemon, quartered

Zest of said lemon

Whole bunch of rosemary, chopped

Cover with water, bring to boil, return to simmer, cover 20 minutes.

Set sieve over a bowl, strain out this yucky stuff, pressing to get all the good syrupy stuff.

Good syrupy stuff.

 Add to vodka, gin, or soda water for a delicious drink.

Or better yet, freeze into ice cubes, add to gin and soda with a squeeze of lime, sit on your deck in your bathing suit, and watch the kids play on the slip-n-slide.

Big EVOO Night

I just wrote three paragraphs that don't sound like me.  I'm starting over.

I belong to an amazing group of people called the Minnesota Food Bloggers.  We get together once (or more) a month and eat, talk and learn about food.  This week we went to Cafe Levain and ate an obscene amount of olive oil from California Olive Ranch.  Ok, maybe it was just me that ate obscene amounts. 

Here's what we ate.

Olive oil tasting! You warm this with your hand underneath it and your other hand cupped over it and swirl it around.  Then you breathe in the aroma and drink it.  Seriously.  What's sexier than an olive oil tasting? 

Amouse Bouche:  Split pea and kohlrabi soup with fresh herbs.

Farmer's market salad with buttermilk-tarragon vinaigrette, candied nuts, goat cheese

Sitka Sound Red King Salmon, EVOO poached shrimp, marinated white beans, sugar snaps in chili oil. That crust was AMAZING.

It starts getting dark here, I might eventually need a camera other than my iPhone.

Hangar steak, fingerling potatoes, local mushrooms with a balsamic, perserved lemon glaze.  I ate the mushrooms.  That's how delicious it was.

Dessert!!!!!!

EVOO cake, EVOO panna cotta with an EVOO tuille, EVOO ice cream (gotta figure out how to make that), and an EVOO gel that had SALT IN IT!!!  This was heaven.  

I licked my plate. Yes, in public.  If you can't lick your plate in front of 50 other passionate food people at the end of a sexy meal like this, then when can you?!

Soooooo happy.

Bonus: Gift bags!!

Extra Bonus:  Senior Picture pose!

I love you, #MNFoodBloggers.

Here are more posts about the night.  Most of them have cameras with flashes....: Thyme in our Kitchen, Girl with Blog, Amy on the Prairie, Eat Drink Life Love