Tiramisu

A couple weeks ago, Andy and I were at the bread thrift across the street, and we found a few packages of somewhat-freshly-baked ladyfingers. We picked them up let them get really stale so that we could finally make some Tiramisu.

On a side note, living across from a bread thrift is so awesome. We stop in at least once a week and the guy always at least one item that we need.

Back to the Tiramisu. I got this recipe from Cook's Illustrated, and I didn't have to change much. They recommended using the ladyfingers sold in the cookie aisle instead of the freshly baked ones, but if you let the fresh ones get very stale they're just as good. Here's a little tip: if you get the freshly baked ones, they usually come connected, and you should try to break them up while they're still soft. We broke them up after they were ultra stale and ended up with a pile of crumbs.

First, beat together six egg yolks, 2/3 c. sugar, and 1/4 t. salt in a large bowl, then beat in 1/3 c. heavy cream. Bring about one inch of water to a gentle simmer in a saucepan, and set the bowl on top. (This step cooks the yolks, because we didn't want a dessert with raw yolks sitting around in the fridge for a few days.) Stir constantly for about 4-9 minutes until the temperature of the mixture reaches around 160F (we just used a finger to tell when it got hot). The mixture should thicken slightly and coat the back of your spatula when you remove it. Set the bowl on the counter to cool for around 15 minutes.

Mix in 4 T. of dark rum, and then add 1.5 lbs of mascarpone cheese and mix until smooth and well-combined. Set the bowl aside, and use a mixer to beat 3/4 c. cold heavy whipping cream. Beat for 1-2 minutes on medium until foamy, then beat for another 2-3 minutes on high until cream holds stiff peaks. Fold in 1/3 of the whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture to lighten it up a little, then fold in the rest of the cream until everything is blended.

For the coffee mixture, you can either use day-old strong coffee or just use room temperature water mixed with some instant coffee. Mix together: 2.5 c. strong coffee (room temperature), 3 T. instant coffee powder, and 5 T. dark rum. Working with half of the ladyfingers, dip them into the coffee mixture and put them in a 9x13 glass dish.

The best method to coat the ladyfingers with coffee is to gently dip one side into the coffee mixture, then flip and dip the other side. Make sure to coat the entire outside of the cookie. Each cookie shouldn't take more than a couple seconds to prepare. Do not submerge the cookie, or else it will become too saturated and your dessert will be mushy. Try dipping a test cookie, then break it in half and check out the middle. If the middle is soaked with coffee, it's too saturated. If the middle is white and even a little crunchy, it's perfect. The middle will become spongy when the dessert is ready to eat.

Arrange the ladyfingers in a single layer, breaking any cookies if necessary to fit in as many as possible. Spread half of the mascarpone mixture over the ladyfingers, and smooth it over and make sure it gets into all of the corners. Dust about 2 T. cocoa powder over the top to cover the mascarpone mixture.

Dip and arrange the rest of the ladyfingers, spread the rest of the mascarpone mixture on the top, smoothing it out again, and dust with another 1-2 T. cocoa powder. If you have some chocolate laying around, grate some on the top of the dessert. Refrigerate for at least six hours, then enjoy!

I hadn't eaten Tiramisu in a while, so I forgot how rich it was. Fortunately for my friends, this means that this is one dessert where I have plenty leftover to share. (As Andy knows, trying to take my dessert usually results in a fork in the hand, but I'm willing to make an exception this time.)

Homemade Butter

I learned how to make butter when I was in the third grade. The teacher passed out empty baby food jars, poured a little heavy cream inside, and we shook them and made our own butter. It was one of the first times that I knew that I wanted to be able to understand how to make food (and crafts) for myself. Even now, most people that I talk to are amazed that I can make my own butter because they don't know how easy it is to do.

Start with a large jar and some cold heavy whipping cream. The cream at the store is usually ultra-pasteurized, so the butter will last for at least a couple months or so in the fridge. (I actually tried making butter with raw whipping cream, fresh from the cow, but since I don't eat a cup of butter every week, it went rancid before I could use it up.) You'll need a big jar or any sort of big container with a tight lid, because you'll be shaking the cream and having a lot of empty space will help to aerate the cream and make it much easier to shake.

Shake the cream for about 15-20 minutes. It will thicken up, and if you have a smaller jar it will get so thick that it will be very hard to shake (your arms will get very tired, but hey, you're working off some calories before you enjoy this delicious butter). Once it gets to the point where it's whipped cream, you just have to shake it for a couple minutes more until the cream begins to separate into butter and buttermilk.

The buttermilk made in this process is not the same as the stuff that you buy in the store, which is cultured buttermilk. This is old-fashioned buttermilk, and you can use it anywhere you'd use the cultured stuff (pancakes, muffins, mashed potatoes, etc.). Just don't throw it out!

When the cream has separated into butter chunks, just shake it a couple times more to get the butter to stick together. Put a colander over a bowl and dump out the contents of the jar into the colander. Put the buttermilk into a container and refrigerate for later.

Now the important step: put the butter into a bowl, and just rinse it out until the water is clear. Work the butter a little with your hands to get out any extra buttermilk, because if you leave any in there the butter will become rancid more quickly. Your hands will get pretty buttery, so have some paper towels on standby.

You're all done! You can mix in some salt to the butter at this point, but you don't have to. I prefer to leave it creamy. About two cups of heavy cream yields about a cup of butter and a cup of buttermilk.

There is actually an easier way to make butter if you have a food processor, or you can also use a mixer and just blend the cream until it separates. I prefer the jar method because I don't have a nice food processor (yet) and it also works out my arms.

Andy and I bought a Butter Keeper just for the homemade butter (on sale at TJ Maxx of course). It's a neat little gadget that lets you keep your butter out of the fridge so it's always at perfect spreading consistency. Especially because the bread thrift store across the street always has a loaf of cinnamon raison bread and we hate waiting for the butter to melt before we can eat it.

I still buy regular butter from the store for cooking since it's easier to measure, but the homemade butter is a nice treat to spread on our baked goods.

And on an unrelated note: here is a picture of our kitties, Josie (left) and Sabrina. This was taken a few weeks ago after they got shaved for the spring, so that's why Josie's hair looks funny. They're in their favorite spot, in the cat basket at the front window. A wasp wandered in the house today, and while it was stunned on the floor, Josie went over and sniffed it and got stung close to her nose. Hopefully this incident won't curb her bug-eating skills.

Our Tiny Garden

Andy and I went to the Farmers' Market today, for the first market of the year. One good thing about having such a terrible winter is that it really makes you appreciate it when spring rolls around! The first few Farmers' Markets usually just have plants and early spring veggies (peas, salad greens, swiss chard). It was a nice, partly sunny day so it was a perfect time to plant.

I took the above picture after I finished planting all of our new spouts. As you can see, the chives survived the winter beautifully! The people who live on the floor below us were nice and raked the whole yard, so all I had to do was dig a few holes for my plants. You can see where I planted all of the salad greens, a daisy plant, and in the background is the basil. (I can already taste the basil mayo and the chive omelets.)

The salad greens are so tiny and cute! I don't eat salads on a regular basis, but when I do it will be pretty cool to just go get some from out back. Maybe I'll plant another tomato plant.

Our yard is pretty nice, but unfortunately since the houses are so packed in, the garden only gets part sun. Most plants that I plant require full sun, but I just plant whatever I like and hope that it will grow. Last summer, we had great luck with the calendulas (which practically took over the garden), the chives, and the golden cherry tomatoes, but unfortunately nothing happened with our melon plant, even though we watered the hell out of it. Lesson learned. I have high hopes for the salad greens and everything else we planted, but we'll see.

I also planted some creeping thyme and candy-striped flox this year. This year, we didn't participate in a CSA because we have no idea about when we're moving to Boston this year (if that ever happens), which means more regular trips to the local markets and maybe planting more stuff in my garden. I have no idea what else I want to plant so far, but we'll see what next week's market has to offer.

Lemonade Cake with Raspberry Lemonade Frosting

All of the recipes I've posted so far on this blog have been savory ones, but my real specialty is desserts. I've been anticipating the arrival of spring pretty much since last October, so I decided to make a Lemonade Cake to last me through the last week of winter. Also, Andy and I just recently finished all of the desserts I got for my birthday and I always keep a little sugar pick-me-up somewhere in the apartment.

This cake was super easy to bake, mostly because I used a cake mix from a box. Let me explain: the oven in our apartment is a little unstable (if you set it for 350F, it usually ends up around 400-450F, but if you set it at 325F it gets around 300F). As a result, it tends to burn anything I bake (easily fixed by covering items with tinfoil) or it really dries out my homemade cakes.

First, I took one box of cake mix and I mixed it with all of the recommended ingredients (oil, eggs), except for one change: I substituted thawed lemonade concentrate for the 1 cup of water in the cake. I greased and floured (or rather, used that flour/oil in a spray can stuff) a 9x13 cake pan, and poured the ingredients in.

While the cake was cooking, I whipped up a quick lemonade raspberry buttercream frosting. It's basically one stick of butter (room temp), around three cups of powdered sugar, two tablespoons of pureed raspberries (I just happened to have some left over from my Darwin Day Chocolate Raspberry cake), and two tablespoons of the leftover lemonade concentrate. Since it's a buttercream, leave it out at room temp to make it easy to spread over the cake.

I got the cake out of the oven and I tasted a little bit of it and it didn't quite have the lemon taste that I was looking for. So I took the rest of the lemonade concentrate (probably around 1/4 cup), and I added 1-2 tablespoons of water to it. I pricked the cake all over with a toothpick and dripped the lemonade mixture over the cooling cake, just to moisten it up and give it an extra kick of lemon. Later, when the cake was cool, I spread the frosting over it and put it in the fridge to let the frosting set.

I really enjoyed this cake because it was easy, and the extra lemonade I poured over the cake made it super moist and tart. If you don't have any raspberries to puree laying around the house, just regular lemon buttercream frosting would be good as well. Next time, I think I'll use a smaller pan or double the cake recipe because the cake was only around 1-1.5 inches thick.

*****

Recipe: Lemonade Cake with Raspberry Lemonade Frosting

Cake Ingredients

1 box of yellow cake mix (plus all of the ingredients it calls for except for water)
1 c. of thawed lemonade concentrate (or enough to replace any water the cake mix calls for)

Frosting Ingredients

1 stick butter (room temp)
3 c. powdered sugar
1-2 T. lemonade concentrate
1-2 T. pureed, de-seeded raspberries

Directions

Mix all cake ingredients together and pour into greased pan. Bake according to directions on box. Mix together all frosting ingredients until you get a creamy consistency. Set aside and wait for cake to cool. While cake is cooling, prick all over with toothpick and drizzle over the extra thawed lemonade concentrate (with a little water added if you don't have enough to cover the cake). Frost, refrigerate for an hour, and serve!

Projects: Somewhat-Restored Farm Table

We bought this table just a couple months ago from a little antiques shop across the street that was going out of business. It only cost $35! I don't have a Before picture to show, but the table looks pretty much as it did when we bought it. Except we had to buy all new screws and hinges, replace some rotten pieces of wood on the underside, and remove the polyurethane coating and restore the old finish of the top piece of wood.

The table is made of oak (I think), and the legs are painted with this really striking retro-seafoam green color. I fell in love with this table when I first saw it, and it was fun for me to spend a few weekends redoing the fine details

Here's a shot of the table with the polyurethane coating still intact. I just did a quick-and-dirty sanding of the table to get off the topcoat, and we disassembled the rest of the table to see which screws could be replaced.

This was my favorite part: after I sanded the coating off, I wiped the table down with water to remove the dust, then I rubbed in some Restore-A-Finish. I didn't sand enough to remove all of the old finish, so the wood still retained most of its lovely color.

Then I rubber on some orange-scented beeswax stuff and let it soak into the wood for about 30 minutes before buffing it off.

We were able to replace all of the old screws on the table, but we had a little bit of a challenge with the hinges. I couldn't find any hinges at the hardware store that were the same size as the old hinges, which was bad news because the hinges had been chiseled into the table. However, Andy chiseled out a few more chunks (which was easier than I thought it would be), and we screwed in the new hinges without many incidents (note for the future: don't invest in cheap screws!).

The table is in the kitchen right now, which gives me extra counter space for food prep. I just love finding cheap furniture at yard sales/antiques stores/street corners and restoring it! (Except since I don't have a garage, all the dust from sanding gets everywhere!)

Baked Ziti

I got this recipe from the latest issue of Cook's Illustrated. I didn't change much from their original recipe, except I added extra cheese on top and I used dried basil instead of fresh because apparently everyone else at the store bought all of the fresh stuff. I'm already looking forward to eating these leftovers all week!

To start, mix together 2 eggs, 16oz cottage cheese, and 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese in a medium bowl. (Use the fancy cheese instead of the stuff that comes grated in a can, because it adds a lot of flavor to the dish.) The magazine cooks decided to use cottage cheese instead of ricotta cheese, because the ricotta caused the dish to be bland and grainy. Set aside for later.

Heat a couple tablespoons of olive or canola oil over medium heat in a large skillet, and add 5-6 medium cloves of minced garlic until fragrant (about 2 minutes). Add one jar of tomato sauce (I keep a few jars of Bertolli Tomato & Basil sauce handy in a pinch), one can of diced tomatoes, and a little oregano and basil to the skillet. Let it sit and stir occasionally until the sauce thickens (about 10 minutes). Take off the heat and stir in 1 tsp. sugar, and season with salt and pepper.

Now to boil the noodles: bring four quarts of water to boil in a large pot, add 1 T. of salt and 1 pound of ziti or any other tube-shaped noodle. The trick here, according to the magazine, is to only cook the noodles halfway (so for dried noodles, about 5 minutes), so that they don't become overcooked when you bake them in the oven. Drain the noodles and set aside in a colander.

Take anywhere from 8-16 ounces of real mozzarella cheese (in ball form, not pre-shredded), and chop into small cubes (I did about 1/2 inch). The reason you use the moist cheese instead of the shredded cheese is because the shredded cheese has extra cornstarch added, in order to keep the cheese from clumping, and this doesn't melt as smoothly in the dish as the moist cheese. The original recipe calls for 8 oz. of cheese, but I love mozzarella so I added some extra cheese I had taking up space in my fridge.

Mix together 3/4 t. cornstarch with 1 cup of heavy cream in the large pot you just drained, and bring to a simmer over medium heat until slightly thickened (3-4 minutes). Remove from heat, add your cottage cheese mixture, 1 cup of tomato sauce, and 3/4 cup of mozzarella. Mix together, and then stir in the ziti noodles until coated.

Add the noodles to the bottom of a 9"x13" baking dish. Top with the rest of the sauce then the rest of the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cover dish with tinfoil and bake at 350F for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for an additional 30 minutes. Let cool on the counter for 20 minutes before serving.

This dish smelled really good when it came out of the oven. The cheese was browned perfectly, without that gooey layer on top like I usually get from shredded cheese. I've already reheated a slice from the fridge for lunch, and it was just as good as when it was fresh from the oven.

The recipe turned out excellent, as usual, which is what I expect from every Cook's Country or Cook's Illustrated recipe. These magazines are best for cooks who want reliable recipes with good explanations for why certain ingredients are added or omitted. I've tried reading other cooking magazines, but they seem to focus on exotic or complicated recipes, and they don't always work out right. (Don't even get me started on the bread recipes from French Women Don't Get Fat, ugh.) The articles that come with the recipes are just as fun to read as the recipes are to make, plus they have product reviews in the back.

If you don't like a bunch of magazines, subscribe to the online version. You get access to the archives and the most recent magazine, and it's nice to be able to search through the archive when I'm stuck for meal ideas.

Recipe: Baked Ziti (source: Cook's Illustrated)

Ingredients

16 oz. whole milk or 1% cottage cheese
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese (about 3 oz.)
Table salt
1 lb. ziti (or other tube-shaped pasta)
2 T. olive or canola oil
5 medium garlic cloves, minced
1 jar (28 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 t. dried oregano
1 t. dried basil (or a heaping 1/2 cup of the fresh stuff if you have it)
1 t. sugar
Ground black pepper
3/4 t. cornstarch
1 cup heavy cream
8-16 oz. mozzarella cheese, cut into cubes (about 1 1/2 cups)

Directions

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk cottage cheese, eggs, and 1 cup Parmesan together in medium bowl; set aside. Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in large Dutch oven over high heat. Stir in 1 tablespoon salt and pasta; cook, stirring occasionally, until pasta begins to soften but is not yet cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes. Drain pasta and leave in colander (do not wash Dutch oven).

Meanwhile, heat oil and garlic in 12-inch skillet over medium heat until garlic is fragrant but not brown, about 2 minutes. Stir in tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, and oregano; simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Off heat, stir in ½ cup basil and sugar, then season with salt and pepper.

Stir cornstarch into heavy cream in small bowl; transfer mixture to now-empty Dutch oven set over medium heat. Bring to simmer and cook until thickened, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove pot from heat and add cottage cheese mixture, 1 cup tomato sauce, and ¾ cup mozzarella, then stir to combine. Add pasta and stir to coat thoroughly with sauce.

Transfer pasta mixture to 13- by 9-inch baking dish and spread remaining tomato sauce evenly over pasta. Sprinkle remaining ¾ cup mozzarella and remaining 1/2 cup Parmesan over top. Cover baking dish tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

Remove foil and continue to cook until cheese is bubbling and beginning to brown, about 30 minutes longer. Cool for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with remaining 2 tablespoons basil and serve.

Chicken Tenders

Back in college, when my food budget was about $20/week, I discovered this recipe for chicken tenders. Andy and I would make it on an occasional Saturday night as our splurge meal. But even now that I can afford a decent dinner, I still love making these tenders.

First, I bought a package of chicken tenderloins (or if you want, you can buy a package of skinless, boneless chicken breasts and just cut them into halves or thirds). Then, I sandwich the chicken between two sheets of plastic wrap, spaced about 2-3 inches apart. Now the fun part: pound the chicken to flatten it until it's about 1/4 inch thick. You can use a meat tenderizer if you want, but I just use a bottle. It works the same for me. Just be careful not to pound the chicken too hard, because it flattens very easily.

Next, get your breading ingredients ready. I set up a breading assembly line with one plate of flour, one bowl of whisked eggs, and one plate of breadcrumbs. This part is kind of messy, so it's nice if you have someone helping you out so that you can wash the breading gunk off your hands occasionally. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the flattened chicken tenders, then coat one tender in the flour, coat with the scrambled eggs, and finally coat with the breadcrumbs.

You should end up with a nice, breaded tender, as seen above (although after a couple tenders, your hands get really gunky). Now, in a 12-inch skillet, heat a few tablespoons of canola oil with a couple tablespoons of butter over medium heat, and add some tenders to the skillet. Fry about three minutes on each side, and set on some paper towels to drain.

Like most fried foods, these tenders are best eaten fresh. If you have to reheat this, try reheating it for a few minutes in the oven at 350F. It just doesn't taste that good when it's microwaved. I serve this with a lemon wedge squeezed on top and some honey mustard (the only one I buy is Ken's Honey Mustard Salad Dressing, because I like it sweet). Enjoy!

Quick Breakfast: Hearty Steel-Cut Oats

Like most people, I usually don't have time in the morning to cook a fresh, healthy breakfast. I either eat a quick bowl of cereal or nothing at all. Until I found out about steel-cut oats. Unlike instant oatmeal, steel-cut oats take about 30 minutes to cook, but the difference in flavor makes up for the extra cooking time. The oats are a little puffy and they pop right in your mouth. I usually make a large batch of oats on the weekend, and then pop it into the microwave for a good, quick breakfast during the rest of the week.


To start with, I add four cups of milk to a pot and heat over medium heat (to prevent burning the milk on the bottom) until boiling. Don't turn your back on the milk or you'll end up running over to the stove to prevent the milk from foaming up and boiling over the edge of the pot (as seen on my wooden spoon). The recipe on the box says that you can either use milk or water, but I use milk to add some protein and make my breakfast more filling.

Next, I add one cup of the steel-cut oats, turn down the heat to low, and let the oats and milk simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Since I used milk, I really had to scrape the bottom of the pot to prevent the milk from scalding on the bottom. But even if it does, it's no big deal. You just end up with funny looking orange chunks of milk in the oatmeal when you're done (but they're perfectly edible).

After 30 minutes, the oatmeal will have thickened and will be deliciously creamy. I didn't add any sugar or anything else to the oats, because I like to leave them in the fridge as they are and add sugar right before I reheat my bowl of oats. My favorite ingredient to add to my oats is a ripe, mushed up banana. Andy likes to add brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. I tried adding a little jam once, but it made it too sweet for my tastes.

This dish is perfect for all of the lazy weekday cooks like me. I never have enough time in the morning for anything, but at least I can still have a hot, healthy breakfast.

Takeout: Crab Cakes and Sweet Sesame Seed Bread

One of the things that I love about living in New England is all the excellent seafood available up here. Just recently I even boiled my first lobster from the local Winter Farmer's Market (and no, it didn't scream or make any sort of noise). Recently, a Hannah Foods market opened up just down the street and they have the most delicious crab cakes I've ever tasted, served with a citrus remoulade sauce.

Every Friday, I treat myself to a few crab cakes and a lemon-lime Maine Root soda. (Hannah is also the only place I've found that carries this flavor--it's so yummy!)

At the market, they were also running a special on a sweet sesame seed bread. The bread itself tasted like naan, because it was soft and chewy, and it was topped with honey and dusted with sesame seeds. The honey had crystallized in a couple places, which made the bread even better. It was perfect as a dessert, especially served with some fruit, because it was sweet, but not too heavy. Plus, the sesame seeds added a very nice contrasting flavor to the sweetness of the honey.

Black Bean Turkey Chili

I've never been a big fan of chili, mostly because I don't like pinto beans or peppers. But when I saw a recipe for black bean chili, I decided to give this meal a try. Plus, it's a perfect meal to eat during these last few cold days of winter. This chili would still be good even if the turkey was left out as a vegetarian option.

I started by chopping up three shallots. I got hooked on using these instead of regular onions because they're smaller and easier to work with and they chop up very nicely. When they're cooked just right, they melt in your mouth.

Of course, chopping shallots and onions is serious business. So I use Andy's ski goggles to get the job done, so I don't end up looking like I've just watched a few Lifetime movies.

I minced 4-5 cloves of garlic, since I'm such a big garlic lover. Then I warmed about two tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat and I added the shallots and garlic to the pot. (Side note: if you ever cook with olive oil, just use the cheap store brand instead of the expensive stuff. Save the better stuff for adding to meals after they've already been cooked, since the cooked oil loses a lot of its delicate flavor.) I stirred it all up until the shallots were translucent and everything was fragrant. It made my kitchen smell wonderful!

I added a little more than a pound of ground turkey and browned it, then I added three cans of undrained black beans.

Then I added one giant can of crushed tomatoes, some chili powder, oregano, chives, and some apple cider vinegar and stirred everything up. (Check out that Cooking Action Shot I got with Andy's camera!) Then I covered the pot and turned the heat to low and simmered the chili for about an hour.

I really enjoyed making this recipe because I don't have a crockpot and this recipe was simple enough and flavorful enough that I didn't even need one. The apple cider vinegar really balanced out the chili powder flavor very well and I ended up with a delicious chili that wasn't too spicy or peppery.

Recipe: Black Bean Turkey Chili

Ingredients

2 T. olive or canola oil
3 shallots, finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb (approx.) ground turkey
3 14-oz. cans black beans, undrained
1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 T. chili powder
1 T. oregano, dried
1 T. chives, dried
2 T. apple cider vinegar

Warm the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the shallots and garlic to the pot, cook until shallots are translucent. Add turkey and brown, then add beans, tomatoes, spices, and vinegar and stir. Cover pot, turn down heat to low, and simmer for at least one hour, until the flavors combine.

Serving suggestions: topped with cheddar or served with a side of jasmine rice.

(Adapted from this recipe.)

Caprese Salad & Pesto Sandwich

I was inspired to make this sandwich because I'm always looking to add more vegetarian options to my diet, and I had a mid-winter craving for some simple summer food.

I made some pesto this past summer, but instead of basil leaves, I used garlic scapes (the flowering part of the garlic plant). It added a lot of flavor to the pesto, like a garlic-buttery taste. The pesto freezes excellently, so this summer I'm going to make sure to stock up on plenty of garlic scapes. (I got mine from the excellent farmers at Meadow's Mirth, which is an excellent organic farm if you're in the area.)

Anyway, I haven't used up much of my pesto this winter. I spent a good portion of the summer freezing my vegetables and sauces so that I would have something to cheer me up in the winter, but instead I have a whole freezer of great food that I haven't used yet.


Originally, I wanted to use ciabatta rolls, but the local supermarket has excellent onion rolls and the extra flavor went really well with the caprese salad. I also bought some small tomatoes and a roll of mozzarella cheese. I sliced a few thick slices of each, spread some thawed pesto sauce on my onion roll, and stacked the tomato on top of the mozzarella.

The sandwich turned out really well. The oil from the pesto soaked into the bread, and the tomato and mozzarella didn't get squished out of the sandwich when I was eating it. This is a nice sandwich to prepare for a bag lunch. I just sliced up some mozzarella and tomatoes ahead of time, put a few slices in a tupperware container, put a little pesto in small container, and bagged up a sliced roll. (I know refrigerating tomatoes takes a lot of the flavor out, but the pesto I used was flavorful enough to make up for it.)

This sandwich was definitely a refreshing change from my usual turkey-and-cheese. And now I can finally start to whittle away at my frozen leftovers!