Seven Salads

One - Quinoa Fennel 

Key ingredients are quinoa and thinly sliced fennel bulb. Incorporating a grain into your salad can be an easy yet amazing transformation for a salad. I use warm grains, on fresh salads to lightly steam and soften the fresh veggies or chilled grains to add additional crunch, especially during the warmer months. I highly recommend adding fennel bulb into your salad regiment, it also can be grilled or sauteed in olive oil for a warm salad topping, a refreshing substitute to onions! Other ingredients featured are avocado, thinly sliced baby red cabbage, red bell pepper, butter head lettuce, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, olive oil, lemon.

 Two - Yellow Beet Parmesan 

Key ingredient is the grated beet, the sweet beet juices are combined with a balsamic vinegar and Parmesan cheese. Several types of greens were mixed for the base of this salad including fennel leaves, arugula, mustard greens, butter head lettuce, chopped leeks, lemon, and olive oil. 

Three - Pea Shoot with Mustard & Dandelion Green

Key ingredient is the sauteed mustard greens and Dandelion greens which add bitterness and spice combined with the sweet sauteed pea shoots. Lightly sauteed in olive oil and garlic and arranged upon a bed of fresh mixed greens (baby lettuce, fennel, arugula) and blossoms. Dressed with Meyer Lemon and coarse sea salt.

 Four - Rainbow Chard-Sunflower Sprout-Tahini 

Key ingredients are steamed rainbow chard chopped and cooled. Fresh sunflower sprouts, avocado, steamed and cooled sweet potato, red cabbage, parsley, cilantro, mint, fennel. Dressed in a homemade Tahini dressing-sesame butter, olive oil, garlic, lemon, salt, turmeric, cumin, black pepper blended until smooth and creamy. 

Five - 100% Backyard Gardener

Key ingredients are steamed rainbow chard chopped and cooled. Fresh sunflower sprouts, avocado, steamed and cooled sweet potato, red cabbage, parsley, cilantro, mint, fennel. Dressed in a homemade Tahini dressing-sesame butter, olive oil, garlic, lemon, salt, turmeric, cumin, black pepper blended until smooth and creamy. 

Six - Carrot Avocado

 Key ingredients are fresh baby carrots, roasted in olive oil and plenty of garlic and topped with salt and pepper. Let roasted carrots cool and mix in with fresh cut avocado, dress with additional lemon if desired. This is such a simple but delicious salad.

 Seven - Rosemary Garlic Potato 

Key ingredient is the rosemary garlic olive oil roasted potatoes. I found a large selection of miniature potatoes at the local market this past weekend. Roasting them was amazing because they we so small and tender and only took 25 minutes to roast at 400 degrees! The warm potatoes steamed my fresh greens. I used the left over garlic rosemary olive oil from roasting to dress my salad. Other ingredients in this salad include, arugula, parsley, cilantro, sliced white, orange and purple carrots, grated beet. 

Zucchini Bread Three Ways

'Tis the summer season of backyard gardens overflowing with fresh summer veggies and herbs. This past Sunday was our first find of an over grown zucchini. I was actually very surprised because we only have harvested 3 zucchini's total this season and they were on the smaller side-a lack of patience and excitement for summer harvesting! The only use for this big guy was to shred him up and make zucchini bread. I obviously browsed Smitten Kitchen for recipes first looking to see if there were any recipes that could tolerate an over sized, woody zucchini like the one we had... zucchini fritters were a possibility but I already had my mind set on something sweet and on the addition of dark chocolate chips, so I stuck with the plan. The recipe I used can be found here Smitten Kitchen's Zucchini Bread. 

 After grating the zucchini and finding that I had 4 cups, I decided to double the batch. This was an easy decision because my refrigerator is overflowing with fresh eggs from the chickens (this recipe calls for three eggs per two loaves!). I split the batter into three large loaves (instead of the recommended four) and mixed pecans into one loaf, dark chocolate chips into the second loaf and left the third loaf to be a plain Jane. The list of possible additions is endless, cranberries, raisins, all types of nuts, seeds, chocolate, spices....sesame seeds or sunflower seeds are next on my list.

I was so incredibly happy with how this recipe turned out...moist...crumbly...and a perfect ratio of spices and sweetness level.

The advice I have...be careful not to over stir the wet and dry ingredients, gently mix them until just combined. If you over stir the result will be doughy and not crumbly like a muffin. Also, if using an oven with confection bake, remember to decrease the temperature set by 25 degrees from whatever the recipe calls for and check for the bread to be finished after 30 minutes. After the three breads were out of the oven, I cut each one so we could do a tasting of the three, and compare.i obviously ranked the chocolate chip first, Plain Jane second and pecan (not my favorite nut) third. Enjoy!

Kitchy Boards

This is a teaser for what is to come. Introducing Kitchy Boards, handmade with love my two fine young urban farmers and woodworkers in Santa Cruz, California. It all started when I began to brainstorm Do It Yourself  wedding gifts. Then came the Pinterest post of a beautiful cutting board. It clicked as I had flashbacks to woodworking classes in 7th grade, where we had made cutting boards as one of the assigned projects. Not long after these thoughts all messed together, I found myself sander in hand creating, cutting, sanding, and oiling a few of the most beautiful cutting boards I had personally ever seen.

We used Brazilian Cherry, the darker boards, because it is a very hard wood, resistant to cut marks and potential for contamination and mold growth. They sanded so smoothly a reflection could nearly me made out when looking in them. The lighter board is made of Maple, which is a wood naturally antimicrobial due to a compound found in the sap of the wood. Although the lighter look is nice and I was able to find a cool knot, it did not sand as smoothly nor will it hold up to knife marks like the harder woods will. The recycled leather strap was definitely key, maybe the addition of glass beads to personalize and spice them up?

We were able to personalize the boards using a dremmel to etch initials, and shapes. I did a simple heart on the handle of the Maple Board. The recycled leather strap was definitely key, maybe the addition of glass beads to personalize and spice them up? Stay tuned because we have plans to increase production of Kitchy Boards. I may venture out to see what Etsy has to offer, but at the very least these bad boards will be out for sale soon!

Discretion Brewery-Santa Cruz, California

My little sister turned 21 so while visiting me in Santa Cruz, we figured it would be appropriate to take her to the new local brewery for her first formal beer tasting.Discretion Brewery is located in Santa Cruz and feature several different beers, ranging from a light and refreshing Pilsner to a crisp and hoppy Rye IPA. My favorite during our tasting was their Saison beer, a farmhouse style beer, which was very refreshing and full of funky flavors. 

Discretion Brewery features a beer garden patio with hop plants trellised up the building and tomato plants in raised garden beds, designed and built by Loamstead. A great atmosphere to enjoy the warm summer night and a pint or to order a meal prepared by Main Street Garden Cafe.

Gold Spray Paint...Pots....Jars...and a Desk Organizer

My favorite blog to follow is Cupcakes and Cashmere. On one of her recent post Emily describes that gold spray paint can make anything look new again. 

 This is probably the easiest Do It Yourself yet. Since I luckily had gold spray paint, all it took was a walk outside with some news paper, two old mason jars, some painters tap, two empty terracotta pots and an old desk organizer. Within 20 minutes I was walking back inside with my new adorable vases, succulent pots and a chic desk organizer now displayed on the top of my workspace.

 I was able to find a rose bush in my backyard that was overflowing in pink roses so these were the first to be displayed in my gold hipsters mason jar vases!

Clip small succulent flowers off larger succulent plant from friend, neighbor, random person, park, beach, leaving a 1-2 inch stem. They seem to grow everywhere. Let the succulent clippings sit in a dry area until the place where you cut the plant has completely scabbed over. Plant cutting in succulent soil, which can be purchased from most garden or hardware stores (don't skip buying specicial succulent soil, these plants need a very well draining soil to grow). You hardly need to water succulents, just a teaspoon every month or so.With so many varieties I have developed an obsession and desire to collect them all!

Fluffy Marshmallows with Golden Graham Crackers

 Recent backyard bonfires brought some nostalgia and helped me to relalize how much I do love roasting marshmallows to make s'mores on warm summer nights. While shopping at Whole Foods I couldn't help but notice their fancy and flavored marshmallows, which run $6-$7 for a pack of 10. I swiftly went to my computer and checked Smitten Kitchen for a homemade marshmallow recipe. To my delight I found not only a recipe for Marshmallows but also for graham crackers! The combination was absolutely amazing!

Using cookie cutters to cut the graham crackers instead of the traditional graham cracker squares.

 Here are the two recipes I used, choosing to flavor the marshmallows with classic vanilla. Smitten Kitchen http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/06/springy-fluffy-marshmallows/ and http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/05/graham-crackers/. Since these marshmallows contain more than just gelatin and sugar, they have a beautiful texture and weight to them. Be careful roasting them because the cook much quicker than the store bought jet-puff.

Redwood Bookshelf

 A large do it yourself project ended up more than rewarding. I purchaced redwood from a local lunber yard, cut, sanded and screwed together this bad boy. Stained with a simple linseed oil for a shine. Fits perfectly at the end of my bed and hold every single book I own!