For the past few months, I’ve been trying to devote a portion of every Sunday to one or more cooking projects. Yogurt, ravioli, fresh fruit popsicles, Thai curry pastes…these are all things that I enjoy making on a Sunday afternoon. But, my favorite Sunday project is homemade bread. I really think Sundays were meant for baking bread. I’ve gotten pretty good at making freshloaf.com’s Daily Bread so, this Sunday, I decided it was time to branch out and try something new: Multigrain Struan. I don’t know what a struan is, but the photos of this bread looked so good that I couldn’t resist trying it. Plus, I liked the fact that it was chock full of whole grains. If you go overboard snacking on this bread, you don’t have to feel bad about it!

There isn’t anything too complicated about this recipe; you just need to plan ahead a little bit. The day before you plan to bake the bread, you mix up a batch of sturdy whole wheat dough and place it in the refrigerator to rest overnight. You also make a sort of porridge out of milk, flour and mixed whole grains (both cooked and uncooked.) The porridge is left out at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours (I made mine right after I made the dough and let both sit overnight.) The next day, you combine the dough and the porridge together with a few other ingredients and, from that point on, the process is no different than it is for regular bread (knead, rise, shape, rise again and bake.)

I’m always a little leery about bread recipes that call for only whole wheat flour because they have a tendency to turn out rather dense. In this recipe, I used whole wheat flour whenever it was called for except in the step where you combine the dough and porridge and are told to add extra flour to achieve the right consistency. At that point, I switched to all-purpose flour. In the end, I probably used about 2.5 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of all-purpose flour. For the whole grains, I cooked up some wild rice along with the remnants of a bag of Trader Joe’s Brown Rice Medley which contains brown rice, black barley and daikon radish seeds. For the uncooked grains, I used coarse polenta and red quinoa. The colorful seeds and grains sprinkled throughout made this a very pretty dough. For added texture, I topped my loaf off with a smattering of poppyseeds.

The bread turned out delicious! It smelled and tasted just like a really good, whole-grain bread should. It was slightly sweet with a crisp crust and a soft, moist interior. My only complaint is that the overall texture wasn’t as uniform as I would have liked. The bread was a bit denser toward the bottom of the loaf. I’m thinking that, since is shaped and baked in a pan, maybe the bottom didn’t have enough room to expand. Next time, I will try making it into a couple of small free-form loaves instead. This recipe would also make excellent dinner rolls. This is the perfect bread for two of my favorite indulgences: havarti cheese, sweet onion and avocado sandwiches and toast slathered with good, crunchy peanut butter.

Last year, I joined Boistfort Valley Farm’s CSA program, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to get a CSA share again this year. With much hesitation, however, I opted to sign up with a different farm this time around. This decision had absolutely nothing to do with the quality of produce and service at Boistfort Valley Farm. They were wonderful, and I highly recommend them. Their produce was all beautiful, there was lots of variety in each box and the farmers were sweet as pie. They really opened my eyes to how great a CSA can be. The problem was that there was simply too much produce in each box for me to keep up with. Their boxes are designed to feed a family of four. Since I was cooking for just the two of us, I found it impossible to use everything up each week, and I would inevitably end up throwing some of it out (and feeling completely guilty about doing so.) Plus, there was always so much produce in the house that I was never able to justify visiting our farmer’s market, something that I really love to do.

This year, because they offer a half-size share in addition to their regular shares, I decided to join Whistling Train Farm’s CSA program. Whistling Train Farm is located near Kent, Washington, a mere 20 miles or so outside of Seattle. On top of having a CSA program and a produce stand at several Seattle area farmer’s markets, Whistling Train Farm also supplies fresh produce to some a Seattle’s most popular restaurants including Flying Fish and Brasa. They even gained some notoriety a few years back as a result of famous Seattle chef Tamara Murphy’s “Life of a Pig” dinner. Feeling the need to have a deeper understanding of where the food she was cooking actually comes from, Ms. Murphy spent eight weeks closely following a litter of piglets at Whistling Train Farm, from birth through maturity and, ultimately, to the slaughterhouse and into her kitchen at Brasa where she featured them in a multi-course feast. She chronicled the entire journey here on her blog.

Whistling Train Farm operates their CSA slightly differently than Boistfort Valley Farm. As I mentioned, they offer both half-size shares and full-size shares. Whereas Boistfort Valley Farm’s shares consisted of a mix of fruits, vegetables and flowers, Whistling Train Farm offers separate shares for vegetables and fruits. That way, you can pick and choose what you want. I opted to do a half share of vegetables only. I like fruit, but I think I’d rather choose my own at the farmer’s market each week. In addition to the weekly produce shares, you have the option of buying one of Whistling Train Farm’s “egg punch cards” which are good for 10-dozen eggs. I think they sometimes have some meats available for purchase as well, but I’m not sure exactly how that works. The CSA application form also mentioned something about U-pick vegetables for members, which is something I might need to ask about later in the season.

Yesterday, I picked up my first box of the new season! As you can see from the photo, I got lots and lots of green stuff. Thanks to the persistently cold weather we’ve been having this year, the spring greens are really hanging around. I have a feeling it will be a while before we see any green beans or zucchini (and who knows when tomatoes will show up?) This first box of the season contained two big & beautiful bunches of spinach, a small bundle of pea shoots, baby bok choy, scallions and a bag of mixed spring greens. A nice, reasonable amount of vegetables for two people (and it was so much easier to carry home than the full shares I was getting last year - I practically carried it home with one hand!) As I expected, everything in the box was very fresh and very pretty. I quickly whipped up a meal of farfalle pasta with green lentils and spinach with a side salad of Whistling Train Farm’s spring mix before heading off to my knitting group meet-up last night. Tonight, I made a delicious stir-fry of pea shoots, bok choy and scallions and served it alongside salmon burgers. Yum! The 2008 CSA season is off to a great start!

So, for as long as I can remember, I have had these recurring dreams where I discover a whole new world of shops hidden away in mysterious tunnels around Seattle. In these dreams, the tunnels are almost always located somewhere down at Pike Place Market, although sometimes they connect up with other tunnels in Pioneer Square. Sometimes they are underground and are actually very cool and cave-like and other times they are more like simple alleyways that I just never noticed before. Frequently, these shops are full of really awesome clothing (all of which fits me perfectly of course) but, more often, they are filled with unusual and delicious foods or yummy, whimsical candies. What kind of person dreams of hidden candy shops? Was I born in Whoville or something?

Whenever I have one of these dreams, I wake up really excited. I know it’s only a dream but, there are so many hidden nooks and crannies down at the Market already, it makes me think that, if I just looked hard enough, I might actually discover something new and wonderful that I hadn’t come across before. And, Seattle does have a whole underground level. Perhaps there really are special caves down there with mysterious underground dwellers selling all manner of wondrous candies! Okay, maybe not, but that sure would be exciting!

I bring all of this up because, several months ago, I stumbled upon a photo from Procopio Gelateria, located on the Pike Street Hill Climb between the Market and the Waterfront, and I was immediately hit with a sense of déjà vu. I can’t remember having ever gone to Procopio before, but, in this photo, it looked so familiar. In fact, it really looked a lot like one of the specific shops I had imagined in my dreams. Was it just a strange coincidence? Did I have some sort of psychic connection to this place? Or, did I go there once as a kid and have images of it stored away in my subconscious only to be brought forth in a dream later in life? Procopio has been in business since 1980 so it’s not completely outside the realm of possibilities that I went there as a child.

I became kind of obsessed with Procopio for a while after that. I really felt that I knew this place from somewhere. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore so I had to go check it out and see if I could resolve this mystery. Since today was my birthday, I decided a birthday gelato was in order. My friend and I took a break from work and headed down to Procopio. Well, I am sad to report that no major revelations took place. The shop from my dreams was several stories high with walls of glass and mirrors on all sides and a tall staircase winding down from the entrance. Procopio has some windows and mirrors and there is a long staircase outside the building but the similarities end there. I was more immediately struck with how similar Procopio’s layout is to that of Zig Zag, a bar a few shops down from Procopio, than I was by anything from my dreams or childhood memories. I don’t know where that initial feeling of déjà vu came from, but I was definitely not feeling it today.

That’s not a very thrilling end to my story, I know. But, do you know what is thrilling? Delicious gelato from Procopio! They only had about 10 or so flavors available today, but they all looked really good. I was tempted by the prickly pear, kiwi, blackberry and lavender. In the end, however, I couldn’t resist my two favorites - coconut and pistachio - so I got a scoop of each. The gelato was so creamy and the flavors were subtle but amazing. It was the perfect treat for this first day in June that actually feels like summer (the sun actually came out on my birthday for once!)

Sunday is normally Robert’s night to cook. Frequently he gets the night off due to family events or those times when I feel like making a meal with lots of prep work that just isn’t suited for the weeknights when I normally cook. So, for a long time now he has gotten by on a pretty small repertoire of tried and true dishes including tuna fajitas, green (or red) chili stew and his famous “bastard ramen” (noodle stir-fry.) Recently, he decided it was time to branch out a little. I suggested that he try making a chowder (yes, in case you’re wondering, it is still chowder weather here in Seattle.) Last night, Robert took my suggestion and made chowder but not your average, everyday chowder. Instead, he made a very special Salmon & Sunchoke Chowder!

They have been selling sunchokes (also called Jerusalem artichokes) at our farmers market for a couple of weeks. Sunchokes are knobby, brown tubers similar in appearance to ginger. They can be eaten raw, in which case they taste sort of like a nutty water chestnut, or they may be cooked just as you would cook potatoes or any other root vegetable. I don’t know if this is always true with sunchokes, but the ones at our farmer’s market have been amazingly cheap ($1.00 per pound) making it nearly impossible to resist buying them. Last week, I used them to make a delicious sunchoke and potato puree. When he decided to try his hand at chowder this week, Robert thought it would be fun to add in a few sunchokes.

To make Robert’s Salmon & Sunchoke Chowder, do the following: Open a beer and turn on some sort of punk rock or 1980’s music. Relax for a moment, then begin cooking. Cook about a cup of diced onions in bacon fat (or oil) until soft. Then, add a couple pinches of dried thyme and a spoonful of flour and cook for another minute. Add a couple handfuls of cubed sunchokes and/or potatoes and then slowly stir in a few cups of chicken stock (enough to just cover the vegetables.) Simmer until the vegetables are just cooked through. If you like, add a small handful of frozen corn. Gently, lower a fillet of skinned and deboned salmon into the soup and cook through. Once cooked, break the salmon apart into bite-sized pieces using a large spoon. Add cream, half and half or whole milk until it looks like chowder and season with salt and pepper as needed. Serve with crusty bread and a salad on the side.

Robert rarely follows recipes when he cooks so this is my approximation based on what I observed. This is obviously a very rough recipe but that makes it very adaptable too. You can add or subtract vegetables as you wish. You can also easily substitute any seafood for the salmon. Salmon does make it a very colorful chowder, however. I buy the frozen skinned and deboned salmon at Trader Joe’s. It’s not the most premium fish out there, but it is wild (very important) and cheap and incredibly easy to use in this recipe. Sunchokes need only to be scrubbed before eating, but I prefer them peeled for this dish. They are firmer than potatoes, even after lengthy cooking, so this soup has a nice texture to it (or, as Robert says, it gives you some breathing room - if you accidentally cook the soup for too long, you don’t have to worry about everything turning to mush.) We enjoyed this chowder very much. It was tasty and unique and the perfect remedy for a cold, rainy June evening. Yippee, Robert has a new recipe to add to his list!

I was browsing through past winesday posts, and I realized that, in all this time, I have never featured a wine from Australia. That’s just crazy! How could I have neglected Australia, one of the major players in the world of wine? I guess I just love those New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs so much that I forgot to pay any attention to New Zealand’s big next-door neighbor. To remedy this oversight, I picked up a bottle of Australia’s most popular wine to highlight this week: Shiraz!

Originally from the Rhône region of Southeastern France, where it is known as Syrah, Shiraz has been planted in Australia since the early 1800’s. It is a dark-skinned grape that produces very powerful wines with intense flavors and deep, rich colors. Shiraz wines have highly variable aroma and flavor profiles, but common descriptions include dark berries, spice, chocolate, coffee and black pepper. They are generally able to be paired with a wide range of foods. Meats and cheeses are always a good choice with red wines, but Shiraz can also sometimes be paired with less obvious choices such as grilled ahi tuna, roasted vegetables and spicy Mexican, Indian or Cajun dishes.

Not surprisingly, Shiraz wines from Australia are very different than Syrah wines from France. Because of Australia’s warmer climate, grapes ripen more quickly and to a greater degree producing sweeter, more fruit-forward wines. They tend to be less tannic, higher in alcohol and drinkable at a younger age. These wines are the very definition of New World wine (also commonly referred to as “fruit bombs.”) In Australia, there are several styles of Shiraz. South Australian regions, such as Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, produce some of the most highly-regarded Shiraz. Wines from this area are typically lush, dense and full-bodied with high alcohol contents. Western Australia and Central and Southern Victoria produce wines somewhat closer in style to those of the Rhône Valley in France. Shiraz wines from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, Australia oldest wine-growing region, usually have complex, earthy qualities.

My wine of choice for this week, Layer Cake 2006 Shiraz, comes from the Barossa Valley. As mentioned above, wines from this area tend to have very concentrated flavors and high alcohol contents. The Layer Cake Shiraz was no exception coming in at a whopping 14.9% alcohol! Although the idea of pairing my Shiraz with spicy Mexican or Cajun food was enticing, high alcohol content and spicy foods are not a good match (too much burn!) Therefore, I chose to take the more pedestrian route by serving this with a cheese-based dish. Shiraz can be served with many different cheeses, young and old, soft and hard, but one that I saw recommended fairly frequently is Taleggio. You can never go wrong with Taleggio in my book so I decided to make Truffled Taleggio and Mushroom Pizza. I served this with a salad of spicy lettuces and radishes from our farmer’s market. It was a very simple but very indulgent dinner.

As expected, the Shiraz was very rich and flavorful. It had a deep purple color, soft tannins and a strong blueberry/blackberry flavor. It was a bit sweet: think blackberry jam rather than fresh blackberries. Robert thought it also had a subtle savory quality. It was very drinkable and, although it was an intense wine, it didn’t overpower the Taleggio cheese in any way.

This wine is highly controversial as it turns out. After reading the reviews on the internet, I get the sense that people either completely love it or completely hate it. Some people think it has a great, pure Shiraz flavor and extraordinary, silky mouth feel whereas others find it to be overly jammy and artificial tasting. I fall somewhere in the middle actually. It wasn’t my favorite wine of all time, but I thought it was easy to drink and tasty (then again, I have yet to discover a wine that I didn’t enjoy drinking!)

I was charged with making the dessert for our family get together this weekend. The prospect of making dessert is always exciting for me because I rarely make dessert and, therefore, this gives me the opportunity to try something completely new. The only problem is figuring out what to make. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there are billions of dessert recipes out there! It’s like a whole other world of cooking that I know nothing about. When you only make dessert a few times a year, choosing a recipe from the masses can be pretty tough.

In general, I prefer fruit-based desserts (notable exceptions being creme brulee, anything made with spicy Mexican chocolate, and my family’s Christmas cookies which all fall into the nutty, buttery category.) Since it is spring and rhubarb is really the only “fruit” in season in Seattle right now, I narrowed my choice down to rhubarb something (crisp, cobbler, pie, something.) Not only would this be in keeping with my goal to eat more seasonally, it would also allow Robert to dust off his pet name for rhubarb: disco celery!

Inspired by this delicious-sounding recipe for Cornmeal Cake with Buttermilk Ice Cream and Rhubarb Compote, I decided to try my hand at making a rhubarb upside down cake. I followed the cornmeal cake recipe exactly as written. Instead of making a separate rhubarb compote, I whipped up a simple rhubarb topping for my cake. For the topping (or I guess it would actually be the bottom since this was an upside down cake,) I cut up about 4 cups of rhubarb. In a large pan, I melted 2 tablespoons of butter and added the rhubarb along with 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 teaspoon grated orange zest. I let that cook for only a minute or two and then turned off the heat. After resting for a few minutes, I was left with a pretty watery mixture. I knew the liquid would thicken up eventually during baking but, since I was using a spring form cake pan rather than a one-piece cake pan, I was worried that the sugary liquid would leak out of the pan and cause a fire in my oven. And, sure enough, as I was spreading the cake batter over the rhubarb, some of the liquid began to dribble out the sides. To be safe, I placed a large baking sheet on the rack below the cake to catch the drippings. 45 minutes later, I had a perfectly cooked upside down cake and one very caramelized baking sheet!

Later that evening, my mom told me I should have just lined the cake pan with tin foil (duh - why didn’t I think of that?) Oh well, it didn’t matter in the end. I didn’t burn the house down, and now I know, if I ever make an upside down cake again, not to use an unlined spring form pan. And, the cake turned out really good! It tasted like sweetened cornbread with a nice, layer of rhubarb jam on top.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned how tiny our Broadway farmer’s market was compared to the more established markets around town such those in Ballard and West Seattle. Well, I am happy to report that things seem to have picked up a bit this year. There are still only a handful of farm stands selling fresh produce, but I know for a fact there is at least one that wasn’t around last year. Although the offerings are kind of slim at this point, it is still very early in the season. I’m sure the produce will become much more abundant over the next few months. In addition to the farm stands, there are more prepared food vendors this time around which helps give this year’s market a much livelier spirit. The recent sunshine is no doubt helping out in that regard as well. Many of my memories from last year’s market involve farmers huddling under their tarps trying to stay dry while the few patrons brave enough to face the rain ran around trying to do their shopping as quickly as possible. Give us a sunny day here in Seattle and people will gladly spend all morning wandering around the farmer’s market.

Although the variety of produce is much more modest this early in the season, I still managed to find a number of interesting things; things I probably never would have paid much attention to if it wasn’t for my brand new cookbook: Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America’s Farmers’ Markets by Deborah Madison. This was actually part of our annual staff gift at work along with a reusable shopping bag (can you tell I work for an environmental company?) This is a perfect gift for me as I am a longtime fan of Deborah Madison. Her early cookbooks, The Savory Way and The Greens Cookbook, are classics in my family and, although I’m only part of the way through it, I wouldn’t be surprised if this new book also makes the list of favorites. Not only is it a fantastic collection of recipes, Local Flavors is also a really great reference guide for some of the less common fruits and vegetables that you often see at farmer’s markets. In preparation for this book, Deborah visited farmer’s markets across the nation, and she recounts plenty of interesting stories from them making this a very pleasant book to read. Deborah’s recipes are all very simple, allowing the exceedingly fresh and flavorful produce that farmer’s markets are known for to shine through. Some recipes feature regional fare that may not be available everywhere, but most rely on ingredients common to all farmer’s markets.

After reading through the chapters related to spring vegetables, I felt ready to approach my farmer’s market with new eyes. I excitedly picked up two vegetables I had never used before: sorrel and lovage. Sorrel is a leafy green with a bright, lemony flavor. It can be used raw in salads or may be cooked. Lovage is an herb that has a flavor similar to that of celery. From my new cookbook, I decided to make Risotto with Sorrel because it was so simple and therefore seemed like it would be a good showcase for the sorrel. The basic risotto is made from nothing more than butter, onion, Arborio rice, vegetable stock and lots and lots of sorrel. A few herbs and some cream are stirred in right at the end, but I actually thought it tasted great even before adding those extra ingredients. The sorrel cooks down to a deep olive-colored puree. It was amazingly buttery in texture, and I was quite surprised at how little of its signature tart flavor was lost even after cooking for nearly 45 minutes. The risotto tasted very Greek to me, like a complex spinach & dill flavored rice with lemon even though it was only made with sorrel. I served the risotto with salmon and a mix of braised spring vegetables including baby turnips, asparagus and green garlic which I seasoned with a dusting of minced lovage. It was a perfect springtime meal!

It was an amazingly sunny and hot day in Seattle yesterday, and Robert and I took advantage of it with a trip to the Ballard Locks. On the way, we decided to swing by Lunchbox Laboratory, Ballard’s new burger shack, to see what all the fuss is about. I’ve been hearing about this place everywhere for the past few weeks it seems. All of the food blogs are raving about it. It even came up in my knitting group forum. Lunchbox Laboratory is apparently the new hotspot in town so, of course, I had to go and check it out!

At first glance, Lunchbox Laboratory looks like your average burger joint: casual, kitschy and tiny (and, when I say tiny, I mean tiny - there are only three tables inside!) As evidenced by the long line of people waiting to order, however, it is anything but average. Moments after we had secured our place in line, the line behind us had doubled in size. I guess I’m not the only one who’s been hearing all the buzz about this place. There was only one woman taking orders and serving food so the line was moving pretty slowly. Although there were only 5 or so people ahead of us, it still took about 20 minutes for us to even get to place our order.

20 minutes is actually the perfect amount of time to wait, as it turns out, because Lunchbox Laboratory’s menu is huge! It takes at least 10 minutes to even read through the thing. Then, you have the challenge of actually making up your mind. The menu is written up on two big boards: daily specials and drinks on one and burgers and sides on the other. The burgers are “build your own.” You start with a choice of patty which includes standards such as beef and lamb as well as some more unusual options like kielbasa and “the dork” (a duck and pork blend.) Then, for toppings, you choose from a list of a dozen or so cheeses and an even greater number of creative sauces (satan’s tears ketchup, million island, and stone-ground horsey aioli to name just a few.) There are some other toppings available as well such as maple bacon and crushed green olives. Sides include fries (skinny, krinkle, tater tot, sweet potato) as well as onion rings and mac and cheese. As if that wasn’t enough to make your head spin, even the fries come with your choice of salt (bacon, smoked tea, etc.) A variety of daily specials and shakes and sodas round out the menu. We had barely managed to get it all figured out before it was time to place our order (I’m guessing this is a common problem since the woman taking orders actually complimented us on our ability to place our order in an organized and efficient manner, a feat I’m quite proud of!)

We took our burgers down to the locks and found a nice shady spot to sit and eat. All of the food was still piping hot and crisp when we took it out of the bag, always a good sign. The burgers, which were absolutely enormous, came wrapped up in tin foil with a little box of sliced tomato, crisp romaine hearts, shredded onions and pickles on the side. I had a falafel-quinoa burger topped with havarti cheese and basil aioli. It was great but impossible to eat politely! The patty itself was crusty, tasty and very moist (a rare quality among veggie burgers.) I could see pretty little flecks of red quinoa throughout the patty which made me happy. Robert had a buffalo burger with havarti and BBQ sauce. He loved it. We both ordered the same fries, skinnies with bacon salt (which is magically vegetarian.) They were delicious! I washed my burger down with a Jackson Hole huckleberry soda.

I could only eat about half my burger before I felt like I was going to explode. Robert had to lay down for a bit after finishing all of his. I’m pretty sure these burgers are potentially coma-inducing. I can only imagine what might happen to a person who orders the cheese-stuffed beef patty topped with more cheese and maple bacon. Yikes! Feeling the need to work off some of our gigantic, delicious lunch, we wandered around the locks for a bit. Robert hadn’t been there before, and I always forget how neat it is. We spent some time watching the water levels being raised and lowered to allow the boats to pass through. We saw tons of baby salmon passing through the fish ladder on their journey out to sea where they will mature into adults. We were even lucky enough to spot a greedy sea lion on the other side waiting for the baby salmon to come through!

Robert and I took a trip to the Ballard Farmers Market last Sunday. Our Capitol Hill Farmers Market opens this coming weekend, and, although I’m super excited about it, it really can’t hold a candle to the Ballard Farmers Market. The Capitol Hill market is very small with only a handful of farmers selling their produce and an even smaller number of vendors offering baked goods or other prepared foods. The Ballard Farmers Market, on the other hand, has everything! Organic meats, fresh shellfish, tons of cheese vendors, pizza fresh from Veraci’s mobile pizza oven, live music, you name it. I’m so jealous that it isn’t in my neighborhood. I’m hopeful that our little farmers market will begin to catch on and grow a bit over the next few years (it’s still pretty new.)

Aside from the fact that a trip to the farmers market is generally a fun way to spend the morning, our main reason for going was to get our hands on some tamales from the Patty Pan Grill stand! The last time we visited the market, back in early April, we had just eaten breakfast so we weren’t in the mood to eat anything more. But, after catching a whiff of the grilled onions and veggies coming from the Patty Pan Grill stand, we made a pact to come back as soon as possible. All of the tamales at Patty Pan Grill are vegetarian, and you can order them solo or with a side of their delicious grilled vegetables. The grilled veggies – that day a mix of cabbage, kale, gai lan, and onions – are cooked on a large cast-iron griddle with ground cumin and chili powder. The aroma coming off that griddle is amazing. We ordered a tamale and a grilled vegetable quesadilla (pictured.) The tamale and quesadilla were both good, but it was the grilled veggies that really did it for me!

Robert decided to pick up a 3-pack of tamales to take home and have as his Cinco de Mayo lunch the next day. We also bought a poppy seed-filled bread and a raspberry strudel from the Little Prague Bakery, a half loaf of Tall Grass Bakery’s awesome pumpernickel-dried cherry bread, a small wedge of “Tipsy Cow,” a cabernet-washed cow’s milk cheese from River Valley Ranch (which went beautifully on the pumpernickel-cherry bread) and some baby carrots and rapini which Robert used in a delicious noodle stir-fry for dinner Sunday evening. Hooray for the farmers market!

Still looking for the perfect dish to serve at that upcoming Mother’s Day brunch? How about Blueberry Cream Cheese Braid? I made this last weekend, and it was awesome. I’m not really in the habit of making extravagant breads such as this, but I might just need to start. Although it looks complicated, this bread is actually pretty easy to put together, and much of the work can be done the night before. The dough is much easier to work with than a regular bread dough because it contains butter which keeps it from being too sticky during the kneading process. The end result is a soft, rich, slightly sweet bread. The blueberry and cream cheese filling is wonderful, although nearly any filling would be good here. Poppyseed with rum-soaked raisins or lemon curd with sweetened ricotta cheese sound like excellent alternatives to me. Or, like the recipe suggests, you could even do a savory version with mushrooms and cheese. Yum!

This recipe comes from a really great baking website called The Fresh Loaf. If you are interested in learning to make delicious bread, be sure to check out this site. They have wonderful written lessons for beginners and even a few helpful videos. There are also book reviews, a community forum, baker blogs, and plenty of recipes for scrumptious-looking breads (and some desserts too.) All of the recipes have step-by-step instructions with pictures. So far, I have only had a chance to try the Daily Bread and the Blueberry Cream Cheese Braid. My sister made the Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal Bread, and she said it was really, really good. It’s enough to make me want to buy a huge jar of yeast and spend each day baking a new kind of bread!