Thanks to P for the inspiration.
This dish is extremely quick to prepare if you have the right equipment (a mandolin or julienne tool) and 100% doable on a weekday. Took me about 15 minutes, healthy, tasty, and very presentable.
For the Salmon
1/3 lb salmon per person, fillet, non farmed
5 spice powder
berbere spice mixture or a [...]

My mother loves using these as appetizers by wrapping bacon around them, tooth-picking them and cooking in the oven until crispy, salty, sweet.
They’re relatively annoying to find in local markets and for a variety of reasons I expect them to be better made at home–organic watermelon, spices hand carried back from India, quality control. In [...]

Served with Zuni Cafe Zucchini Pickles and lettuce from our organic container garden.
I make this salad in several variations, the classic being with croutons, romaine lettuce anchovies and the dressing.
Here’s the recipe for homemade caesar salad dressing.
3 anchovies, minced finely
3 cloves garlic, minced finely
3 tsp capers, rinsed lightly and minced
1 T whole grain mustard
2 T [...]

You could also use pumpkin blossoms for this recipe, so long as they are not too large/brittle/old.
I have finally figured out how to make my fried zucchini blossoms less oily, more light and all around prettier. The secret is really two things: 1) Thin batter. The texture of crepe batter. 2) Use something carbonated in [...]

A few days ago, I was browsing around Saveur for some ideas on using up excess zucchini, cucumber, etc from my farm shipment. They have a seasonal produce guide which provides brief descriptions of fruits/vegetables, such as how to pick good ones, typical uses, seasonality, etc.
And lo, I found a solution for not only the [...]

Feel free to improvise the dairy combo in this; I used what I had on hand–full cream or whole milk would suffice, or you can combine skim and sour cream, whatever you have around.
For two
150 grams rigatoni
1 cup milk
2 T creme fraiche
1/2 tsp Italian dried herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, any combo thereof)
2-3 [...]

Yesterday we had some new friends over for dinner, and I planned the menu while starving after my morning yoga class. I resurrected the tomato soup (tomato soup recipe) I always make (but haven’t for about a year), took a hint from a restaurant we went to recently and constructed a fried-chicken breast nuggets dish [...]

You might notice from here on out that my dinnerware is increasing in attractiveness/quality. Gone are the 70’s Mikasa stoneware plates (re-purposed to the space we used to live in below our unit, where an office is nearly complete in renovation), hello nice new modern neutral white porcelain.
This is also a new tart pan, hoping [...]

The recipe is here; I swapped out the ricotta for sheep’s ricotta, which I do whenever possible as a recipe calls for ricotta, swapped the mozzarella for a semi firm american cheese - Wagon Wheel also known as “batch” from cowgirl creamery, and swapped the sour cream in the crust for creme fraiche from cowgirl [...]

Prosciutto wrapped Pluot
Simple–great fruit, slices of it, wrapped in very thin prosciutto, paired with a soft cheese like burrata in this case, or seasoned ricotta (season with olive oil or flavored olive oil, salt, pepper), drizzled with aged balsamic vinegar.
Halibut on Truffled Corn
I’ve made this as an appetizer as well, and substituted asparagus shavings steamed [...]