Easter Egg Radishes and 7-Minute Mac & Cheese

It's Easter Egg radishes this year.  Can you guess why they call them that?

The first thing out of my little garden.  We pulled up the last of them today, eating with salt and vinegar.  The kids will eat them if I cut off the colored skin - they are convinced the 'spice' of the radish is in the red skin.  Suckers.

This dish is a result of having a broken car and no groceries.

This dish is a result of a half-memory I have from years ago of eating delicious, deconstructed macaroni and cheese from a $5 noodle joint while on break from my college cashier job.

This dish is delicious.

Here is a kid.  He approves this message.

7-Minute Mac & Cheese

1 cup noodles

1 tablespoon butter

1/3 - 1/2 cup shredded cheese

splash of cream (milk will do in a pinch)

salt and pepper to taste

Cook your noodles according to package instructions.  Mine required cooking for 7 minutes.

Drain noodles, stir in butter.  This is the only stirring you will do.  Put down the spoon!

Put noodles in dish.  Splash in cream to taste, just a bit, just enough to wet them.

Sprinkle with cheese.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Consume with gusto.

I'll be grading your gusto on an A - F scale so don't let me down.

Fish Sticks

I know what you're thinking.

Fish sticks? you're thinking.  Fish sticks?

Where's the pizzazz?

Well I'll tell you what, busters.  The pizzazz is feeding my family something easy and healthy that they will actually eat.

That's the trifecta.

And honestly, humble as they are, these were completely delicious.  Crispy panko, smooth cod, tart tartar (is that why they call it that??) sauce.  A few naked cukes on the side.

The pizzazz is there.  This dish is just too much of a lady to call attention to it.  (Fish sticks be a lady tonight)

Fish Sticks
adapted from a fish

2 lbs cod
2 cups panko bread crumbs
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons lemon pepper
1/2 cup flour (or more as needed)
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350.

Stir your bread crumbs, salt, paprika and lemon pepper together.  Beat your eggs in a shallow dish.  Chop your cod into sticks.

Dip sticks into flour, then egg, then roll in bread crumbs to coat.  Place on baking sheet and bake 10-12 minutes, flipping once during cooking.  Serve with lemon and tartar sauce!

Tartar Sauce

1 cup mayonnaise
6 tablespoons chopped capers
10 tablespoons chopped dill pickles
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Stir all ingredients together, chill until using.

Simple Asparagus Pizza

Friends, I am in and out like a bad radio station.

I'm sorry, it's trip season!  What do you think?

Should have given warning though.

I have been in San Francisco.  Via Ashland, Oregon and Redding, California.

What phenomenal little towns!

Ashland, with its country folk and lush green parks and academics and performers, the usual combination of sophisticates and drunks.


Redding, with its hot sun and palm trees and olive oil and citrus fruit.  Who are you, California!

I don't even know.

And of course the wedding, the reason I traveled.  My lovely friend getting married under towering redwoods in the evening.

Then taking friends to the airport, a stop in San Francisco and chowder in a sourdough bread bowl on the dock.

Back in the car, books on tape, thirteen long, long hours and boom.  Back home again.

I love my life.

Simple Asparagus Pizza (adapted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perlman)
I love simple food in spring and summer.  No late nights up alchemically combining, stirring the sorcerer's pot.  Just good, easy food.  Eat those vegetables, eat them!

Yields 1 thin crust 12-inch pizza.

1/2 pound asparagus
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
Several grinds of black pepper
One 3/4-pound pizza dough, ready-to-go (here's a recipe for a good one)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 lb mozzarella, grated
1/4 lb cheddar, grated
1 scallion, thinly sliced

Preheat your oven to its highest temperature - about 500 degrees in most cases.  If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven.

Wash and chop your asparagus.  Discard the woody ends.  Toss the pieces in a bowl with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Roll or stretch out your pizza dough to a 12 inch round (mine wasn't exactly round...).  Transfer to a floured or cornmeal-dusted pizza peel or a similarly prepared baking sheet.  Sprinkle the dough with all three cheeses.  Pile the asparagus on top.

Bake the pizza for 10-15 minutes, until the edges are browned, the cheese is bubbly, and the asparagus might be lightly charred.  Remove from the oven, sprinkle with scallions, and eat.

Banana Doughnut Muffins with Banana Frosting

Now I'm going to tell you about one of my favorite things.

It's after baby/toddler falls asleep in the next room, and I am sitting on my couch blogging.

Yeah, I blog from a couch.  What about it?

I'm writing and uploading and thinking about whatever delicious thing I just ate, and then I hear something.

A cough, a whimper, the scuffle of blankets and pillows.

The pat pat pat of tiny, footy-pajamed feet.

The door skreeks open, but since the bottom half of it is blocked from my perspective I can't see anything.  It's like a ghost just opened the door.

And then he emerges, my tiny little human being.  All PJ'd out and blinking in the lamplight, rubbing his fat cheeks.  His unfocused eyes go straight to my couch (he knows I am a creature of habit) and zero in. 

He toddles over, seeming about to collapse any minute, calculating just enough energy to get to my arms.

He throws himself into them, is hoisted onto my lap, immediately burrows into my chest and, seconds later, is sound asleep.  Soft and heavy and warm and cuddled in just right.

It interferes with blogging, I'll tell you.  Sometimes I have to put it off for a whole day.  Sometimes I go lay him down in his bed again so I can get back to work.

Sometimes I hit save, put in a movie, and hold him with me for hours.

And that is one of my favorite things.

(It's also why I blog from a couch.)

Banana Doughnut Muffins with Banana Frosting (adapted from Cooking for Isaiah, by Sylvia Nardone)

This recipe is another victim of my lack of a doughnut pan.  Who needs a doughnut pan?  I said.  What a silly contraption, I said.  I can make doughnuts any way I want without a doughnut pan, I said.  Well, that's true of raised, yeasted doughnuts but it turns out for some of the cakier variety, you do need that pan.  But silver lining is, they turn out great in muffin form!  And it just FEELS healthier, right? 

makes 12 doughnuts

1 1/4 c flour (or GF flour mix, which is what she uses)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Frosting
1/4 cup butter
2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup mashed banana (about 1/2 banana)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350.  Line a muffin tin with papers. 

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, bananas, vanilla and oil.  Stir in the dry ingredients until just combined; fill each muffin cup about 2/3 full.

Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 12 to 15 minutes.  Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on a rack until room temperature.

Meanwhile, to make the frosting, in a small bowl beat together the butter and confectioner's sugar until fluffy.  Beat in the banana, cinnamon, vanilla and lemon juice.  Spread the frosting over the cooled muffins.

Lavender Lemon Yogurt Pound Cake

Dear diary/public blog.

I have made some food!

I used to keep a real diary as a kid.  I have them stacked up, from about age eight up until I got married.

I stopped then.  I mean, I have one, but I have been married almost six years and still haven't managed to fill it up.

There are things in there.  Mostly doodles and lists.  I guess part of me figured the story was told by the time I got married.

Ha.

I re-read my high school and college years last summer and I cringed.  In high school, I was so high school!

It's so nice to have found something important to write about [food].

Do you keep a diary?  Do you write in it regularly?  Do you want your children/friends/future archaeologists to see it, or would you rather burn it than see it in the hands of anyone else?

(You like that?  Blogging about blogging?  META.)

**Don't forget!  The giveaway of the Sucrose Pendant from Boutique Academia is still going on!

It lasts until this Wednesday night.  For details and to join in, check out these blintzes!

Lavender Lemon Pound Cake (adapted from Bake Your Day)

Today we witness the return of one of my favorite flavor combinations - lavender and lemon.  Floral for sweet!  Lemon for bright!  They compliment each other well.  I wasn't so sure this recipe was seasonally appropriate at first...it's hard to imagine eating lavender lemon anything outside of June.  Maybe it's the colors?  But then I thought, naaah.  Dried lavender flowers are good all winter and lemons are in season right this second!  This recipe would have been totally fine with our pre-food preservation/globalized agricultural ancestors.  You know, if they actually had access to things like lemons.  And Greek yogurt.  Unless your ancestors were Greek...then you're good.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup 2% Greek yogurt (6 oz.)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon dried lavender

Preheat oven to 325.  Grease one 9x5" loaf pan and set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the first four ingredients.  Set aside.

In a stand mixer, cream the butter until light and fluffy, about three minutes.  Slowly add the sugar, still mixing, and cream for another four minutes.  The longer you cream your butter, the lighter your cake will be.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing each for about a minute.

Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients, mixing slowly.  Add 1/2 of the yogurt, then another 1/3 of the dry ingredients.  Add the last 1/2 of your yogurt, and the final third of dry.  Stop the mixer and mix in the lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla extract, and dried lavender by hand.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the edges begin to brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (the top of my cake stayed very pale).  Cool in the loaf pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.  Slice and serve!

Sweet Potato Cottage Cheese Blintzes and a Boutique Academia Giveaway

Mmm blintzes!

It's like a crepe sandwich.  A pancake burrito.

I love trough foods.  You know what I mean...things you can just throw whatever leftovers you have hanging around into and suddenly they're delicious.

Quiche, pasta, fried rice.  And blintzes!

My grandma used to make blintzes with cream cheese.  That is a good memory

These are filled with a sweet potato/cottage cheese mixture that cooks up sweet and hearty and lovely.  The kind of food that makes you feel good after eating.  Like a Russian farmer.  In a movie.

And bonus!  My baby loved them.

He's a picky one, is he.  But wait, there's more!

My friend Maile over at Boutique Academia has authorized me to give away one (one!) of her gorgeous necklaces.

Boutique Academia is a collection of jewelry that celebrates and aestheticizes the sciences.  Thus, here is the cellular makeup of sucrose, or sugar.

Pretty appropriate round these parts, eh?  And you wondered what this had to do with food.

Plus, I just love beautiful things and the creative people that make them.  Here are some more of Maile's amazing things.  Can you figure out what they all are?

Here's a hint - bottom left corner are the cells of a rose petal.  Valentine's is coming!

To participate in the giveaway, do one of the following three things:

1.  Become a follower of this here blog, Icy Violet's Kitchen, and leave a comment here.  If you are already a follower, just say so in the comment.
2.  Head over to Boutique Academia and check out Maile's stuff!  I told you Valentine's is coming!  Come back over here and tell us in a comment what your favorite thing in the shop was.
3.  Like Boutique Academia on Facebook, and come back over here and leave a comment saying so.

There, that'll do nicely.  The giveaway will close Wednesday, January 23rd at 8 pm Pacific Time.  The winner will be announced next Thursday night!  Good luck I hope you win!

Sweet Potato Blintzes with Cottage Cheese (borrowed and adapted, with love, from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook)

wrappers:
1 1/2 cups milk
6 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

filling:
4 medium sweet potatoes
2 cups cottage cheese
2 large egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg
pinch of salt

topping:
raspberry jam (or any other kind)
plain yogurt or sour cream

In a blender, combine all the wrapper ingredients and blend until smooth.  Pour the batter into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour or up to 2 days.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Bake the sweet potatoes for about 40 minutes, until soft.  Let them cool in their skins.  Once they're cool, peel them and mash with a fork.

Preheat a medium skillet or crepe pan over medium-high heat.  Once it's heated, brush lightly with melted butter or oil and pour 1/4 cup batter into the skillet, swirling it until it evenly coats the bottom.  Cook, undisturbed, until the bottom is golden and the top is set, about 2 minutes.  No need to flip them.  Transfer the wrapper to a paper-towel-covered plate, cooked side down.  Continue with remaining batter.

Once sweet potato puree is cool, stir in the cottage cheese, egg yolks, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

Once wrappers are all cooked, you're ready to make blintzes.  Put a slightly heaped 1/4 cup of filling in the center of each wrapper, and fold it up like a burrito.  Opposite ends together, then pull the end of the crepe nearest to you up over the filling and roll to completely enclose it.  Like an eggroll.  Repeat with remaining blintzes and filling (I had extra filling...it's okay, more blintzes!).  Reheat your skillet over medium heat and brush again with butter or oil.  Cook the blintzes, seam side down, until golden brown and crisp - about 5 minutes on each side.

Serve topped with a dollop of jam and a dollop of yogurt.