A few weeks ago my roommate’s friend hooked us up with free VIP tickets to The Treasure Island Music Festival. To thank him, I promised to cook dinner.

The menu looked like this:

Watercress Salad with Spring Carrots

Garganelli with heirloom tomato sauce & asparagus

Quesedilla of Vella’s Dry Jack, habenero peppers, & zucchini blossoms w/ avocado mash

Assorted Cheesecakes (Thanks Berkeley Bowl!)

We started with one of my favorites, stolen from Cafe Jacqueline in San Francisco. I’ve never been able to perfect the dressing, as the one at CJ tastes almost like butter (I suspect it’s her olive oil), but it’s live watercress (or “fancy” watercress) dressed simply in lemon juice, good olive oil, salt, pepper, and minced fresh garlic. This time I topped the salad with warm spring carrots, blanched for just a few minutes in boiling, salted water.

Garganelli (a ribbed, diagnoally rolled version of penne, often with higher protien dough and thinner) was served in an heirloom tomato sauce (see about two entries ago, when Peter made this for a dinner party), and I added fresh, blanched asparagus. It’s a simple recipe, just olive oil, a shallot, pepper flakes, salt, & heirloom tomatoes.

The quesedilla was by far the highlight–the combination of flavors came to me while in the grocery store. I’m always happy to see zucchini blossoms, and when I can find them, try to use them in everything. The spiciness of the peppers, the sweetness of the avocado, and the fresh aromatics of the blossoms worked fantastically. I’ll be making this for a long time.

So for a dinner date last night I came up with a great menu centered around a live lobster. I didn’t manage to take pictures because I was hectically preparing the meal, but here’s the menu:

White pluot with lemon zest ricotta & olive oil (stolen from Peter’s prosciutto wrapped pluot & ricotta)

Lobster with fresh fava beans, corn, chanterelles, and sorrel (with a Petit Chablis which paired really nicely)

Heirloom tomato spaghetti (sweet, no onions, also stolen from Peter)

Bergamont olive oil with chocolate ice cream & salt (Stolen from Peter who stole it from somewhere else!)

The date ended up pretty crappy (I should have sacrificed Jeff the lobster to one of my friends instead of this guy!) but my meal turned out fantastic.

When my roomate’s girlfriend came to visit from out of town and brought a gigantic thing of blueberries with her, I knew I had to make blueberry muffins. I first tried to procure my ex boyfriend’s mother’s recipe, but when I wasn’t able to get it searched for a good metric recipe. I normally dislike using recipes, but for baking feel that they are somewhat necessary for success.

I realize many of you don’t have metric scales, but using one worked really well because I was able to adjust the recipe to the amount of blueberries I had. I’ve included a link to the original recipe which includes American measurements.

Makes 12-15 muffins

115 g unsalted butter
250 g white sugar
3 g salt
2 eggs
250 g all-purpose flour, divided
7 g baking powder
120 ml buttermilk (or whole milk, combination of half & half & other milk, etc)
400 g fresh blueberries – rinsed, drained and patted dry

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.

Cream salt, butter, and sugar together. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until smooth. Add flour and baking powder together (reserving a few tablespoons of flour to coat the blueberries) through a sifter alternating with buttermilk (or milk/milk mixture-I used mostly half & half with a touch of 2%, as it’s what I had on hand). Stir until smooth.

Crush 1/4th of the blueberries and mix in. Toss remaining blueberries in reserved flour and mix into batter.

Fill paper lined cupcake pan with batter to top (but not overflowing) of liners. Top each muffin with a sprinkling of white sugar to help with color and texture.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until risen and pretty color on top, with only a healthy jiggle and not a “that’s still liquid in the center” jiggle. Let cool, remove from pan, enjoy.

Original recipe from AllRecipes where you can find the US measurement version. The metric version can be easily adjusted for the weight of your blueberries by multiplying each measurement for proportion.