Spring garlic, it seems, is here one minute and gone the next.  I had several heads of it in my CSA basket last week, and by the time I had a moment to post this recipe, it may already be gone.  But if you can get your hands on some and don’t know what to do with it, please try this recipe — it’s fresh, healthy and absolutely delicious.

I was ordering dinner recently from a small italian restaurant near me, and when I looked at the menu to choose what I wanted, I remembered all their bruschetta options.  At a few dollars a slice, you could try everything from sausage to artichoke bruchetta, most of which came slathered with delicious, melted cheese.

But it made me think more broadly about what we’d consider “bruschetta,” and since I pretty much love anything that involves bread and tomatoes, it was on my radar when I picked up our CSA basket.  When I saw these beautiful cloves of young garlic, everything clicked all at once.  Spring garlic is much more mild than the garlic you find in the grocery store, almost a mix between garlic and an onion, with a flavor all its own.  It’s delicious and subtle enough that you want to use it generously, and let its flavor shine.

So make this before it’s too late!  But even if your spring garlic season has passed, don’t worry — there will be plenty of delicious, fleeting summer recipes in the next few months.  Enjoy them while you can!

Spring Garlic Bruschetta

INGREDIENTS
1 demi baguette, cut into 12 1/2″ slices
3 plum tomatos or tomatoes on the vine, seeds scraped out (don’t worry if some remain)
4 spring garlic cloves, outer layers peeled away if necessary
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS
Roast the spring garlic with olive oil, salt and pepper at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes. Allow to cook, and chop roughly. Dice the tomatoes into similarly-sized pieces, and mix with the garlic and olive oil. Add salt and pepper if necessary. Spoon the mixture onto the slices of baguette, and cook at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes, or until the bread has browned on the edges. Serve warm.

Two weeks from today, I will be waking up as a brand new married person.

Needless to say, my head is spinning with all the items on my neverending to-do list.  There is so much to do, between the preparations and the planning and all the exciting, tiny, tiny details that go into a wedding — things you don’t realize take up a ton of time and attention until you actually go through it.

But I am so, so excited — it’s hard to believe that in just two weeks, I’ll be going through one of the biggest transitions of my life.  I’m lucky enough to have a wonderful, loving fiance, who inspired this recipe by going out of town for a weekend a little while ago.  Because when he got home on that Sunday night, I made a recipe I knew he couldn’t resist (even if it didn’t exactly bode well for my pre-wedding diet):  Cookies and Cream Ice Cream.

And I know I say this a lot, but this is potentially my favorite ice cream recipe I’ve posted here — the nutella ice cream is a close second, but depending on your preference, this one might take the cake.  It’s super sweet, just a little bit rich, creamy and delicious — there are a ton of oreo cookies in this portion of ice cream, and it’s like eating pure oreo flavor.  If you have to break your pre-wedding calorie diet for something, this isn’t such a bad way to go.

Cookies and Cream Ice Cream

INGREDIENTS
1 cup milk
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
15 oreo cookies
1 tsp vodka

DIRECTIONS

Process 10 of the oreo cookies in food processor until crushed into powder.   Add the remaining five and pulse briefly, to create larger pieces.  Mix in the milk, sugar and heavy cream, and mix thoroughly.  Churn in an ice cream for about 45 minutes, and then freeze for several hours until the ice cream is at your preferred consistency.

I’m very excited that this week, this site hit its millionth page view!

When I think about that, it sort of makes my head explode — the internet is really so amazing, and I constantly appreciate the fact that I get to reach so many people just by putting up my own photos and recipes.  When I get emails that people have actually tried and served my recipes, all across the country and throughout the world, it’s pretty much the quickest and easiest way to make my day.

One of the really exciting things about having a website is that it’s a slow process of regular growth.  Last year around this time, I was thrilled to get a hundred visitors a day — now it’s several thousand.  I’m thrilled to revisit this next year, and see how far I’ve come,

So, to celebrate, I’m posting a recipe that’s simple, fresh and perfect for the early days of summer.  I bought freshly made ricotta from the italian market near my apartment, but if you wanted to go all out, you could make your own with these instructions.  This is an easy, healthy weeknight dinner, and an excellent addition to your go-to recipe list.  And I’m excited for zucchinis and summer squash to come into season, but you could also make this with spinach or broccoli, if you want to convert it to a more wintery recipe.  Enjoy!

Last, but not least, the winners of the Singing Dog vanilla beans are comments #13 (AJ) and #50 (Katie) — I’ll be emailing later today for your addresses!

Pasta with Riccota and Zucchini

INGREDIENTS

1 box (1 lb) gemelli pasta, or similar
1 fresh zucchini, jullienned into 2″ slices
1 fresh yellow squash, julienned into 2″ slices
2 tbsp white wine
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup fresh ricotta
1 tbsp chopped fresh tarragon
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Cook pasta according to the directions on the box. drain it and reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water for sauce. In a separate saucepan, saute zucchini and squash in olive oil, then add the ricotta, white wine and tarragon and heat through. Add enough pasta water to thin out the sauce, then add salt and pepper to taste, and toss with the pasta. Serve.

Usually, I am a lazy person when I make ice cream. That means no custard bases for me — my ice creams have milk, cream and sugar, but never will you see an egg yolk in the ingredient list.

But when I thought about a traditional vanilla bean recipe, I realized that if I wanted the subtle, deep flavor that accompanies the best vanilla recipes, it needed to be a custard base.

And, even more importantly, it needed a really good vanilla bean. When I was contacted by Singing Dog Vanilla a month or two ago, I agreed to try their vanilla beans, not really knowing what quality they’d be. When they arrived, I was so impressed with the biodegradable packaging and the “Free Trade Plus” program they use for their farmers. But, as great a selling point as both of those are, they would have meant nothing if the beans hadn’t been good.

And they weren’t good — they were amazing. Without hesitation, I will say that they were the best vanilla beans I’ve ever gotten my hands on, and I’ve bought them locally from spice importers in NYC, in bottles and packages in grocery stores, and tried them in cooking classes. These were so moist and fresh, and I got more seeds out of one bean than I usually do out of two — I would have felt totally comfortable using half of one of these beans in the recipe, still guaranteeing strong vanilla flavor.

Which brings me to the exciting news: Two of you, lucky readers, can win a package of these vanilla beans I’m raving about! Just leave a comment to this post, and I’ll pick two winners randomly next week. Hopefully you guys will love them as much as I do!

Honey Vanilla Ice Cream

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup heavy cream
2 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup milk
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out
1/4 cup honey

DIRECTIONS

Over low heat, mix the heavy cream, sugar and egg yolks, and heat, stirring frequently with a whisk, until the mixture thickens and will coat the back of a spoon. Remove the mixture from the heat, and whisk in the milk, vanilla bean seeds and honey, stirring until combined. Process in an ice cream maker for 45 minutes, and then freeze overnight until the ice cream reaches the consistency you prefer.

No, before you ask, I am not sick (but I do have a bowl of this reserved in the freezer, just in case).

Whenever I roast chicken, it always makes about four times as much chicken as Chad and I could reasonably eat. So when that happens, I like to shred the leftovers, to use in another dish later on — it works for risotto, soup, or even just heated in pasta sauce for some added protein in a quick, easy dinner.

This is actually a fairly traditional chicken soup recipe, although I swapped the usual celery for leek to give it a slightly more interesting flavor. Sometimes I wonder why I spend a decent amount of time making soup that looks relatively similar to what you get from opening a can, but I’d always rather eat the version where I know exactly what foods are used to make it, and I can both recognize and pronounce all its ingredients. Sounds like a simple thing, but it’s frightening how much food we all eat that don’t meet either of those qualifications.

So the next time you feel like a good, healthy bowl of chicken soup, whether you’re feeling under the weather or perfectly healthy, take an extra half hour, and make this one.

Chicken Leek Soup

INGREDIENTS

10 cups chicken stock
2 large carrots, diced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 large onion, diced
1 tsp smoked paprika
Cracked pepper, to taste
2 large leeks, white parts only, diced
1 box spiral-shaped pasta (8 ounces)
3 cups roasted chicken, white meat only, shredded

DIRECTIONS

Briefly saute garlic in olive oil until fragrant. Add the chicken stock, and bring it to a boil. Add the carrots, onion, garlic and leek and boil for 10 minutes.  Taste and salt if necessary.  Add the pasta and chicken, and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the pasta is cooked. Allow to cool slightly, and serve.

Oh, baby.

And –

Are you ready for this?

This recipe is low fat, low sugar, and really, really good for you.

I’ll give you a moment to gather yourself.  Are you still with me?  Are you ready to make it?  Are you chomping at the bit, screaming into your monitor, “What are the ingredients already?!?”

Apples, bananas, flour, sugar, honey, eggs, flour, spices, salt and baking powder.  That’s it.  No butter, no oil, no kidding.  And you wind up with a dense, delicious flavor-filled cake, and you don’t even have to feel guilty about going back for seconds.

So the next time you’re about to melt a stick of butter to make banana bread, put it back in the fridge, and pull out this recipe.  You’ll be glad you did.

Apple Banana Cake

INGREDIENTS

2 large, very ripe bananas
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
Pinch of salt
2 large golden apples, sliced
Additional honey, for drizzling

DIRECTIONS

Arrange the sliced apples on a baking sheet and drizzle honey over them. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes, or until apples are moist and tender. Remove the apples from the oven and lower its heat to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mash bananas and sugar until combined and creamy. Add the honey and eggs and continue to beat until well combined. Add the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, and mix until combined.

Grease an 8″ round cake pan, and arrange one layer of apple slices on the bottom of the pan (use a little less than half the apples). Pour the banana batter into the pan, and arrange a second layer of apples on the top, in an overlapping pattern. Bake the cake in a preheated 350°F oven for one hour and ten minutes.

I love, love, love, love, love homemade bread.

More specifically, I love this bread.  It shocks me sometimes how simple, how easy, it is to create gorgeous loaves of bread at home.  How moist, delicious and insanely addictive they are fresh out of the oven, and how quickly they disappear when I leave them on the countertops.

And I love how easy it is to create yummy new variations, just by changing a few ingredients.  Lately, as I’ve said before, I’ve been partial to the half bread flour, half whole wheat flour combination.  But I’ve also usually added butter, eggs, or some other ingredient to the bread to make it moist and richer.  This time, though, I tried something different. This one was simple — flour, water, salt, sugar.

Who would believe that it would turn out just as moist and delicious as any more calorie-dense recipe I’ve made?  Well, it did. This bread is really, truly great, and would make an awesome snack on the way to work in the morning, after school for the kids, or before dinner on a special night — it’s that versatile, and that good.

Finally, the winner of the Stonyfield Farm giveaway, is Comment #38, Steven!  I’ll be emailing today for your address, congratulations!

Oatmeal Wheat Bread

INGREDIENTS

3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour
2 cups warm water
1 packet yeast
1/2 cup instant oats, plus additional oatmeal for sprinkling on the loaf
1/2 cup water
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt

DIRECTIONS

Proof the yeast in 1/4 cup of water with 1 tsp of sugar. At the same time, microwave the oatmeal grains and water until oatmeal has absorbed the water, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. When the yeast and water turns milky/creamy, mix it with the flour, the oatmeal, the rest of the water and salt and knead for about 10 minutes. If dough is too sticky, add a little bit of flour to make it easier to knead. Place the dough in a greased bowl and allow it to rise for 90 minutes, or until doubled in size. Punch down the dough, knead it again briefly, and place it in a greased pan for baking.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees, and allow the dough to rise for an additional 45 minutes, or until it rises to the size you want. Sprinkle some additional oats on the top of the loaf. Bake for 25 minutes, allow to cool, and slice.

And a giveaway!

Sorry, I sometimes get a bit ahead of myself. First, this awesome ice cream. I was scouring the aisles at my grocery store, looking for something that would perfectly epitomize a delicious summer treat. Knowing that I wanted to make ice cream (our air conditioner is broken, it is 80 degrees inside our apartment, and I cannot even *think* about turning the oven on), I wanted spring flavors that were a little bit unexpected, but still completely accessible.

When we were in Hawaii in September, we had this milkshake-type drink made with fresh ginger that was, basically, the best thing Chad and I ate the whole trip (and I think it was about $2, unlike many of our rather expensive dinners). So I figured the combination of fresh ginger, sugar, and some creamy base would be a winner. And then I added the mango because it wasn’t light or summery enough without a little bit of fruit.

And I did something else, which I’ve done a few times with great results: I used half regular yogurt and half greek yogurt as the base for the frozen yogurt, which gives a creamy richness that’s hard to achieve in a frozen yogurt, as opposed to ice cream. And it’s even fat free! No joke, I’m pretty sure this is the perfect dessert for this time of year.

Which brings us to the giveaway. A few weeks ago, Stonyfield Farm emailed me to see if I wanted to sample their new organic greek yogurt, called Oikos. And, even better, they agreed to send a bunch of coupons to one of my lucky readers! So if you’re in the mood to make this recipe, or any other greek yogurt recipe, leave a comment below, and I’ll randomly select a winner! The winner will receive 4 coupons for 5.3 oz Oikos yogurts and 1 coupon for a 16 oz container of yogurt, along with a reusable shopping bag. The cutoff for posting comments is Sunday at noon, and I’ll post the winner on Monday morning!

Mango Ginger Frozen Yogurt

INGREDIENTS
1 large mango, peeled and de-pitted
1 tsp fresh grated ginger
3/4 cup sugar
1 6 ounce carton vanilla yogurt
1 5 ounce container plain greek yogurt
1 tbsp vodka

DIRECTIONS
In a food processor, puree the mango, ginger, vodka and sugar until combined. Add the vanilla yogurt and greek yogurt and process until blended. Churn in an ice cream machine for about 40 minutes, and then freeze for 2 hours or to the consistency you prefer.

Most residents of New York city (and, I imagine, many other places in the country) have a sacred weekend tradition:  brunch.

We do not eat breakfast on the weekends.  Even if, on any given Friday or Saturday night, we go to sleep at the same time we would on a Monday or a Tuesday, we sleep in that extra hour or two, wake up and think:  Brunch.

And given that we live in a city with about 10,000 restaurants, there is generally one located 1) near your apartment, 2) serving food you like, and 3) that doesn’t make you do dishes afterwards.  So it is a relatively rare day that I cook an entire weekend brunch myself (bagels and cinnamon rolls, however, become excellent late night snacks in this confusing little paradigm). 

But when I finally realized that our refrigerator had seven cartons of eggs from our CSA, I had to put my foot down.  So I made a three egg omelette.  And now I have to make 22 more 3-egg omelets to use up our egg stash, but this omelette was so good, I am up to that challenge.  Quick and easy, and you don’t even have to get out of your pajamas.  The next time you (gasp) stay home for a weekend brunch, I heartily recommend this.

Spinach and Caramelized Onion Omelette

INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 small or medium white onions, sliced
2 cups fresh baby spinach leaves
1 tsp coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
3 eggs
1 tsp water

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a small saute pan, saute the onions in olive oil on medium heat until translucent (it’s ok if they look slightly charred). Add salt and balsamic vinegar and saute for an additional 5 minutes on low heat. Add the spinach leaves until they wilt.
2. Remove onions and spinach from the saucepan and set aside.
3. In another bowl, mix three eggs with 1 tsp water. Whisk to break yolks and lightly beat.
4. Grease another pan with 1-2 tsp olive oil, and pour eggs in. Stir for 30 seconds, or until eggs start to solidify. Let cook for 3 more minutes without stirring.
5. Pour onions and spinach across half of the omelette. Fold the other half of the omelette over the spinach and onions, and remove the pan from heat. Flip the omelette out onto a plate. Serve.

Serves 1.

Why, oh why, does anyone ever remove the skin from a chicken?

Ah, ok, calories, fat.  But there is a time and a place for boneless, skinless chicken breasts (which I find, frankly, completely unappealing) and there is a time for perfect, crispy, golden roasted chicken.

When we made roast chicken in a cooking class I took a few years ago, we did it using a traditional french technique — compound butter, and a lot of it, stuffed inside the chicken’s skin, to melt and tenderize the meat.  But when I am cooking at home, butter is for baking, and that’s that.  For just about anything involving cooking, I use olive oil.

But butter is solid at room temperature, and obviously olive oil is not — and therefore, inherently, much harder to stuff into pockets of chicken skin.  But with a little garlic powder and salt, I think I managed to get more than enough of it in — the meat was seasoned, moist and had tons of flavor, no butter necessary.  And the best part, of course, the crispy, browned skin, was even better.

And this is a simple, easy, no-fuss recipe.  No rotating the chicken every ten minutes, no basting.  Just put it in, turn on the oven, and broil a bit at the end if its skin isn’t golden enough for you.  Perfect for a summer dinner party, no planning ahead necessary.

 Perfect Roast Chicken

INGREDIENTS
1/2 roast chicken (or use a whole chicken and double the recipe)
1/2 cup olive oil (use good quality, but not extra virgin)
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp garlic powder

DIRECTIONS
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Mix together the olive oil and spices until evenly combined. Gently rub the olive oil mixture beneath the skin of the chicken, pulling the skin away very carefully, with your fingers, so you don’t break it. For any places where the skin won’t pull away easily, rub the olive oil mixture on the outside of the bird. Rub any remaining olive oil all over the outside of the chicken’s skin.

Roast at 450 degrees for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the meat reads 165 degrees. Broil for 1-2 minutes if the chicken isn’t sufficiently browned but the temperature has reached 165. Allow to rest for 10 minutes, and serve.