Delicious

Hi! How was your weekend? Ours was busy, busy, busy. I've needed some time to recover. Most of our weekend centered around food. Ok, let me be honest, all of our weekends center around food. Shopping for food, preparing food, and of course, eating.

We started with a trip to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. Oh, how we love the Farmer's Market! The morning was cold. The wind and rain would come out of nowhere, and then would disappear again. My hands turned red and icy. My sister always jumps when I touch her, because my hands are always so cold, and they would seem warm in comparison to Saturday morning at the Market. Despite that, it was truly lovely. The cold had kept many people at home, so we could really take our time and look around. We were happily surprised to find one of our favorite local performers playing. We stood, sharing our breakfast burrito, and listened to him sing an old Edith Piaf tune. (I came home & requested one of her CD's from the library. Why hadn't I done so sooner?) We stopped at our favorite stands, and left with so many treasures that our shopping bag could barely contain them all. I wanted to show you how it all looked, bursting from the top of the bag, but Ryan was too quick to unload it all. Above are this week's treasures, spread on the counter.

Have you tried these little white turnips, shown with spring radishes and bunched arugula? You should, they are divine. Yes, I used divine to describe a turnip. The smaller the turnip, the better, in my opinion. Ryan roasts them for me, and sautes the greens in olive oil. So good. We had some that way last night, with leftover ham and scalloped potatoes from Easter. But I'm getting ahead of myself...


On the left, in the above photo, looking like large green onions, are bunches of green garlic. These will be combined with the bag of spinach on which they're lying to become Spinach and Green Garlic Soup, from Molly at Orangette. We eat this soup several times in the early spring. Green garlic isn't around for very long, so we have to enjoy it while we can.

The leeks and potatoes we brought home were made into Scalloped Potatoes with Leeks, and accompanied our Maple Glazed Ham and roasted asparagus. All of it fantastic, all made by Ryan. (He's amazing, have I mentioned that before?) Btw, we got the ham at the market, too. It came from here.

While we waited for dinner, Ryan, Lex and I all dyed Easter Eggs. I won't show you the results. They may not have all been pretty, though some were, but we had fun dying them. Without any consultation, Ryan and I both made one with a bunny face that said "Hoppy Easter." How pathetic that we both made the same terrible joke. Ryan made one that said "Ham," and somehow he managed to dye it the exact color of ham...


To finish our delectable dinner, we had Cream Cheese and Mascarpone Cheesecake with Stewed Rhubarb. I haven't made a cheesecake in six years. Not a bad thing, really, considering this particular cheesecake called for 1 1/2 lbs of cream cheese and another 1/2 lb of mascarpone, in addition to 5+ eggs and heavy cream. For all that, it had a lovely light texture. Much nicer than New York-style cheese cakes, which always seem too dense for me. This cake had just a hint of citrus, zest from an orange and a lemon, which really set off the flavor of the rhubarb. We really love rhubarb in our family. It's Lex's very favorite, and I happily share my rhubarb desserts with her all season long. Anyway, isn't the color of the rhubarb sauce fantastic?

Today, I had an open-faced butter and radish sandwich for lunch, sprinkled with salt and accompanied by one of my Easter Eggs. I'm also loving sandwiches made from lightly toasted bread, topped with cream cheese, fresh arugula, and ham. Sometimes I also add a little homemade jam. Doesn't matter what kind, they're all good counterpoints to the saltiness of the ham and the bitterness of the arugula. Goodness, I love spring.

Thanks for your patience with my rambling, disorganized post. I'll try to better marshal my thoughts and will get back to you in a day or two. There are really so many things to chat about...