This is not your mother's potato salad.

Over Memorial Day weekend I was asked to bring potato salad to a friend's house for dinner. I am personally not a big fan of the usual potato salads you find at the store or at Midwestern potlucks.
My sister makes a lovely German potato salad, which I do like. I had a feeling my host was hoping for something more traditional. I have never made potato salad from a recipe, it was time to try. I applied my usual technique of looking at several recipes online, and combining them into one. As my host and my husband shoveled seconds on to their plates that evening, I thought "well, that worked".

The first thing I learned was to use small potatoes, no huge russets please.
Secondly, I was admonished in one article to treat those little potatoes gently !! They said to use a pan big enough for almost a single layer of potatoes when boiling.
Several of the recipes had me sprinkling them with vinegar and oil once they were drained but before they cooled, who knew ??
Most of the recipes called for small amounts of buttermilk, who has that sitting around in their fridge??  I found my homemade yogurt worked just fine.
I was shocked by how much salt one recipe had me add after I dressed the potatoes, amazingly  it was correct. 
Little potatoes cook very quickly, don't over cook them !!
While beautiful, purple potatoes cook much fasted that all others and turn to mush. I removed them before I made the salad.

Here's what I came up with...

Laurie's Potato Salad

Ingredients

2 1/2 -3 pounds little potatoes, avoid the purple ones but a variety of other kinds is nice.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon cider or rice vinegar
4 radishes
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 large carrot grated
1 tbsp chopped sweet onion

Note: the next time I made this salad I used some other veggies: cooked asparagus, finely chopped red cabbage, use whatever you have around that will add textures and interesting tastes.

The Dressing

1 cup good quality mayonnaise
1/4 cup yogurt /buttermilk or sour cream
2 T Dijon mustard
2 T wholegrain mustard
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1-2 T chopped fresh dill/fennel
1 T chopped fresh chives

Note: you can use dried dill and chives, and could add some fresh parsley or basil.

1) In large pot with salted water, boil the potatoes for 10-15 minutes, until just cooked. Check them at 10 minutes by cutting one with a knife, if it yields, it's done.

Notice how they are in one layer in the pot.

2) Drain and toss gently with olive oil & vinegar, set aside to cool.
3) While the potatoes are cooling, prepare the vegetables you plan to add.

4) Mix together the dressing ingredients with a whisk. Save a little of the fresh herbs for garnish.

5) Into a bowl, carefully slice the potatoes into one inch cubes or whatever size you like. The skins may come off a little, just discard them.
6) Gently moisten the potatoes with the dressing, you may have more than you need. Set is aside for another round of potato salad or use it as a dip or green salad dressing.
7)  Add the other veggies plus 1-2 teaspoons salt , 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
As I mentioned above I was shocked by the addition of MORE salt but it really does need it and I am not one who likes really salty food. The salt soaks into the potatoes, so if it tastes too salty don't worry that should go away during the chilling.
8) Chill several hours, garnish with fresh herbs before serving.

Burma Superstar, Clement St. and art in SF.

The other day my lovely friend, Susan and I went to The City for an art date. We do this several times a year usually taking in special exhibits at the De Young and the Legion of Honor both in the same day. We drive up highway 1 to 35 to the Great Highway, it's a beautiful, stress free drive.

Both museums honor the same ticket which is great. Last week we saw the Botticelli to Braque exhibit from the national galleries in Scotland.

At the Legion we enjoyed the High Fashion exhibit from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection.

Susan had a recommendation for our lunch spot, half way through our day we are ready to sit and rejuvenate. Burma Superstar was the perfect place.

It was between our two museums on Clement St. and lucky for us it wasn't crowded when we arrived about noon. The decor is unassuming but easy on the eyes. The waitstaff efficent and pleasant. I knew I would be happy here when I discovered their house special tea was an rose tea, just tiny rosebuds in a pot.

We ordered samusas as an appetizer, similar to the Indian samosas, they were stuffed with a nice potato filling, wrapped in a thin wonton like skin and deep fried. They paired well with my rainbow salad, which you can see in the right of the photo below.

I wish I had been quicker to photograph my salad. It has 22 ingredients, including four kinds of noodles and a tamarind dressing.The plate comes to your table with many little piles of ingredients and the server tosses it, as you watch. It was light, crunchy and full of interesting flavors.

Susan had the lunch special, a tea leaf salad and samusa soup. That's right they put samusas in a light broth for an satisfying and very unusual soup.

After lunch we were delighted to find that Clement Street is full of interesting places to window shop, Asian markets and eateries, cool bookshops and more. We found it so interesting we agreed to come back this summer just to explore more, hopefully another lunch at Burma Superstar.

As we left Santa Cruz that morning, Susan's husband Steiny had one word for us : "Schubert's". It's a bakery that's been around since 1911, just down the street from Burma Superstar. Luckily our lunch was light enough we could indulge in one of their famous mousse cakes, the small ones, of course.

 It took us a while to choose...as you can see it was a feast for the eyes as well.
We both brought home treats for the husbands, as well :-)

We both agreed it was a very successful day, feeding all our senses.

Infused sugars and the May Day Art Faire.

I was surprised to realize that I have not posted since April 22. Mostly this is due to art fair last weekend, I was busy making things to sell there. I had my usual assortment of jams and jellies, a few body products and my photo cards. It was a fun two day show with lots of friends coming by to shop and support local artisans !

There was so much beautiful art, this fused glass work by Randie Silverstein.

These adorable bags by Dawn O'Regan.

Our hostess, Nancy Howells is queen of pique assiette or broken plate mosaic.

I was happy with how well I did considering it was my first time at the this show. I do still have jams for sale in case you missed it: sunrise marmalade, rose champagne jelly, apple pear butter, hot pepper jelly, pumpkin chutney and raspberry jam.

It was fun to introduce a couple of new products at this show: infused sugars ! They are all the rage in the foodie world, you can use them for tea or coffee, mixed drink or in baking.

I offered three flavors: fresh lemon, mandarin orange and cardamom. Each uses a slightly different technique. For the fresh lemon I used fresh peel with the sugar in the food processor. The mandarin sugar has peel that I dried and powdered, it also has a couple of drops of orange extract. The cardamom uses the whole crushed pods as well as some of the powdered spice. Each jar comes with a recipe. The lemon sugar has my favorite lemonade. The mandarin sugar is great in the orange cake I recently posted. My chai spice cookies are divine with the cardamom infused sugar. I made the cake and cookies as treats for the shoppers at the show.

You might notice that there is a jar of brown sugar in the photo, that's another thing I wanted to try. I always make my own brown sugar, and while it is relatively easy, most people won't go to the trouble to do it. Homemade brown sugar tastes so much better than what you buy at the store, it makes your morning hot cereal a gourmet meal.

Look for these new items to be at my show in November !!

Oatmeal Cookies Go Western

Yesterday I needed to make cookies as reward for the email Survivor Challenge I run. Wait what ?? Survivor the reality TV show about people living in the "wild" with little food ?? What does that have to do with fine cuisine, baking or do it yourself recipes ?? Not much, but it is one of my guilty pleasures and I have been running this fun and crazy Survivor Challenge for over 6 years now.

Each week before the show airs I send out three questions, participants send me their answers. After the show I discuss the episode, post the answers and add comments from my players. It makes watching the show more fun and my players love the camaraderie of sharing with other fans. Every four weeks there is a reward question added, get that one right and you win cookies baked by yours truly.

Back to those cookies, I wanted to do a take on Cowboy Cookies but they didn't need to be vegan.
In looking online the recipes I saw called for vegetable shortening: Crisco, that white awful stuff my mom always had in a huge tub.
I decided to go with my favorite oatmeal cookies and add one cup each of shredded coconut, and chocolate chips, I used walnuts instead of pecans.
They came out great !!

May Day Art Faire

I am excited to be a new member of this great art fair. It's the weekend before Mother's Day and the perfect place to buy something for your mom or other special woman in your life. Maybe there are birthdays or graduations coming up or you just want to treat yourself.

I will have a nice selection of my usual jams and jellies. I am trying out a new product: infused sugars. They are great for baking, morning tea or evening cocktails. I will be offering mandarin, lemon and cardamon, each will come with a recipe.

Bath salts, soaps and dryer sachets with be in abundance. I will not have lippies and only a limited amount of body butter and scrubs. If those items are on your shopping list, be sure to let me know ahead of time.

I will have lots of great new photos to share on my cards, they make the prefect gift for anyone on your list.

Come join me and seventeen other artisans, May 2 and 3 from 10 AM to 5 PM.
Hope to see you there.

Simple Vegan Vanilla Cake

The other day, on my birthday, a fellow yoga student asked me what kind of birthday cake I was going to have. The question caught me totally off guard and I spent the rest of class thinking about cake ( which is actually not a bad thing to be thinking about ).

I love cake but these days I am the one who makes them and I hadn't really thought about a birthday cake. My celebration had been spending the previous week with daughter and husband in daughter's new home of Baton Rouge ( I plan to blog about that trip soon...).

My husband was taking me out to dinner...but wait, the next evening I was getting together with friends for a potluck and game of Cards Against Humanity. I could make my own birthday cake to bring to the party. I had two parameters I wanted to work within: something with strawberries and a cake my vegan host would enjoy.

I was so happy with the vegan orange cake I recently posted, I decided to adapt that recipe. I wanted a vanilla cake that would showcase the fresh strawberry frosting I had in mind.
Here is the result.

Laurie's Vanilla Spice Cake with Strawberry Frosting

Ingredients

Cake
1 cup soy milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon & 1/4 teaspoon cardamon (optional)

Frosting
2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup earth balance ( vegan buttery sticks)
3-4 tablespoons pureed strawberries
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6-8 strawberries for decoration

1) Preheat the oven 350 F. Grease and flour an 8 inch round cake pan, a 9 inch round or 8 inch square would also do. The recipe stressed the flouring part. You could also use a piece of parchment if you are concerned. I had one with the little "cake release bar" at the bottom.

2) Add the vinegar to the soy milk and allow to sit while you prepare the other ingredients.

3) In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients.

4) Add the canola oil and vanilla extract to the soy milk, mix together well.

5)  Add the liquid ingredients into the dry, mix just to blend.

6) Pour into the greased and floured pan, bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Do the toothpick trick to test for doneness. In the 8 inch pan my cake took 35 minutes to bake. It will be a golden brown.

7) Cool for 10 minutes then carefully transfer to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before frosting.


8) To make the frosting use a electric hand beater or Kitchenaid to mix the powdered sugar and earth balance together until very well blended.

9) I made the strawberry puree using a mini food processor. Chop the berries first to make it easier.

10) Add the puree a tablespoon at a time until the frosting reaches the perfect spreading consistency.

11) Add the vanilla extract, mix well.

12) Frost the cake once it has cooled and decorate with slices of fresh strawberries.

It was such a hit at the party one friend ate THREE pieces !!

It's asparagus season !!

This last weekend our house guests brought us this bag full of freshly picked asparagus from their family farm.
There is nothing that quite expresses spring like fresh asparagus !! I still prefer it lightly roasted best of all.

Here's my post from a couple of years ago, that gives you my VERY simple recipe.

Go forth and eat lots of asparagus while it is in season !!

Crazy Pecan Toffee

Over the holidays in December my dear friend and fellow foodie, Mita, gave me a bag of her homemade confections as a holiday gift. Genna and I immediately scarfed most of the bag. Once I came up for air I asked about recipes...there were two different amazing preparations.
I have already posted about the dark chocolate bark, it's rich and studded with dried fruit & nuts !!

The other treat tasted of brown sugar, dark chocolate, salty pecans and a delightful crunch, but when I read the recipe from Mita's post, I just couldn't believe one of the ingredients...pretzels ?? Really ?? I have never been a fan of chocolate covered pretzels, in fact I would rather avoid most pretzels altogether.
Being the inquisitive and experimental cook that I am, I had to try making this version of toffee.
Mita touted it as a very simple recipe. She has tried to make my almond toffee (which uses a candy thermometer) with varying success.

She doesn't use just any pretzel, she recommended using this pretzel chip from Trader Joe's.
They are flat and very crunchy. When I gave my sister a sample of this toffee, between large bites, she mentioned that I could make some for her using her favorite Wheat Thins, that just might work too.

I can't quite call this stuff pretzel toffee so I have renamed it, Crazy Pecan Toffee.

Crazy Pecan Toffee

Ingredients

1 cup salted butter
1 cup brown sugar 
2 cups* TJ's pretzel slims or other salty cracker
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup chopped pecans
sea salt

*Enough to cover the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch pan with only slight overlapping.

1) Preheat your oven to 350 F. Cover the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch baking pan with foil, then cooking spray.

2) Cover the pan with a layer of pretzels or crackers.

3) Begin to melt the butter, then add the brown sugar and stir to combine. Once it starts to bubble, cook over medium high heat for 2 minutes.

4) Pour the caramel mixture over the pretzels trying to cover them as much as you can. Don't worry too much as once they are in the oven it will spread more.

5) Put the baking pan into the oven for 10 minutes.

6) Once it's out of the oven, let it sit for 1 minute, then gently cover with the 2 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips. Most the recipes I looked at claimed that 5 minutes on the hot toffee would melt the chocolate enough to spread it. I never found that to be true. Instead I turn off the oven and put the toffee with the chocolate on top, back in the cooling oven for 5 minutes. Then the chips melt enough to spread. Or you can melt them in the microwave instead.

7) Top with 1 1/2 cup of chopped pecans, carefully press the nuts into the soft chocolate.

8) Measure 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt into you hand, carefully sprinkle it on the toffee.

9) Allow to cool, break into chunks and then try not to eat all of it in one sitting !!

Note: A lot of the other recipes I looked at used a pan twice the size with the same amount of butter, sugar and chocolate. They also used mini pretzels. I like the fact that this is a thicker toffee with the pretzels becoming unrecognizable. These other recipes baked it for half the time at at higher temperature. Here is one of the recipes in case you want to try it.

Vegan Feast

I just saw that it has been 10 days since my last post...life has happened. I found out last Thursday I had to find a new place for my almost 98 year old father to live, long story. The happy ending is that yesterday I moved him into a new abode with lovely blooming gardens.

Now I have time to post about this great vegan feast I made for my favorite vegans. Most of it you may recognize from past posts but reminders are good, right ??

I did try a new appetizer, roasted chickpeas. To give them some zing I added fresh lime juice which worked well but meant that the next day they were soggy. I will work on this recipe before I post it.

My fresh spring rolls are one of my dinner party stars. I stuffed them this time with grated carrots, avocado, baked tofu, fresh cilantro and kolhrabi.

The spring rolls are a great excuse to have lots of fun dipping sauces.

From left to right: soy citrus dipping sauce, pear ginger chutney, peanut sauce and homemade yogurt.

All of these sauce were a nice complement to the main course of stuffed flatbread, as well.

,

I made the  spinach, pea and potato filling up the day before and used whole wheat tortillas instead of making my own. This helped to simplify the dinner prep.

To end the meal I made my new favorite orange cake, which happens to be vegan.

We were all very happy and sated after this feast !!

Making your own body scrubs.

In keeping with my goal to post more body product recipes, here is the body scrub recipe I use.
It should not be used on your face it's too abrasive for that sensitive skin.

Use in the bath or shower, rubbing the scrub all over your body then rinsing. Your skin will feel smooth and soft, use once every week to two weeks.

This recipe is embarrassingly simple, you can make your own in 2 minutes with ingredients already in your kitchen !

I used to teach workshops in making your own bath and body products. Here's information from the handout.

" The skin is one of the largest organs in the body; it protects us from the environment and regulates our body temperature. Body scrubs help to exfoliate or remove dead skin cells and impurities from the skin; this allows the skin to retain more moisture and for new skin to appear. Body scrubs also help to stimulate circulation. "


You can make your scrubs either with salt or sugar. Don't use fancy organic sugar or any salt with large crystals, your scrub will be too abrasive. As for which to choose, it's personal preference, salt can sting if you have any scratches or open wounds but other than that they are very similar.

Use an inexpensive olive oil not the fancy extra virgin kind.
You can use other kinds of oils like sweet almond oil, avocado oil, apricot kernel oil etc... if you prefer and have access to those.

You can keep your scrub unscented or use a small about of essential oil or extract.

Here is the basic recipe.

Ingredients
Yields 1 cup.

1 cup sea salt or regular white sugar
1/3 olive oil
10 drops essential oil or 1/4 teaspoon vanilla or lemon extra (optional)

1) In a measuring cup mix the olive oil and essential oil or extract if desired.

2) Place the sugar or salt into a small bowl.

The color in this scrub comes from the orange essential oil.

3) Add the olive oil and mix well. 

4)  Store in a container. You should use it with 3 to 4 months or refrigerate part of it. There are no preservatives so the oil will go rancid eventually. 

You can experiment with adding a teaspoon or so of other ingredients to your scrubs such as ground dried herbs, cosmetic clay, baking soda, almond meal, and ground oatmeal. Mix your dry ingredients together before adding the oil. Just be aware that with “food” ingredients your shelf life is shorter and may need to be refrigerated.

I love this French rose clay.

 It makes the scrubs a nice color and the clay is good for your skin as well.

Radish greens, who knew ??

She has done it again. I am referring to my daughter, she too is a major food freak.

She will try anything and everything. Over the holidays she was doing something with our carrot greens, which I mostly ignored.

 Recently she tried turnip green which she pronounced too bitter, next she tried radish greens and had to tell me all about them. This time I listened, sort of, actually Bob was the one who bought the radishes at the farmer's market last weekend. He topped the radishes, carefully cleaned the green and put them in a glass container in the fridge.

The other morning I was getting eggs out to make breakfast when I spied those radish greens. That same daughter has gotten me into the habit of putting something green in my eggs, usually spinach, I have ventured into other more traditional and non traditional greens. Those radish greens called to me. I grabbed a small handful and tossed them into my pan with a little butter, you could use olive oil.

I gave them a minute or two to wilt and then added my two egg whites. I am not a fan of egg yolks, it has nothing to do with cholesterol, just personal preference. I save them to make lemon curd, that will be another post.

I added a little salt and pepper, flipped them over to finish cooking.

With a piece of my homemade whole wheat toast, I had a delightful breakfast. The radish greens are amazingly mild and sweet, not at all like the radish itself, they also give a nice crunch to the eggs.



Moral of this story....listen to your daughter, don't be afraid to try new things !!

PS: Did you know people will actually ask to have the greens removed from the beets at the farmer's market because they don't want them ? Daughter taught us that trick too, ask if they have any leftover beet greens, free produce ! Now we will start asking for radish greens too ;-)

Very Orange Cake !!

Last weekend we were supposed to host some friends for dinner and cards. Being the planner I am, I made the dessert ahead of time. They ended up having to cancel due to illness so Bob and I were left with the cake all to ourselves, so sad ;-)

My inspiration were twofold, my sister has been sharing her incredible navel orange crop with me. They are so juicy with just the right balance of sweet and acid. I wanted to showcase them in a dessert.
My dinner guests are vegan, I needed a cake that did not contain eggs or butter.

When I looked up vegan orange cake, I was surprised by all the entries. Apparently that venerable old favorite Joy of Cooking has a very tasty orange cake that fit my parameters.

One of the recipes I looked up had you decorate it with candied orange peels.

I followed the orange peel recipe but I wasn't very pleased with them, most likely due to operator error. To be honest they didn't add anything to the cake itself. It's certainly sweet enough especially with the glaze.Instead I would add some zest or tiny peel curls to the glaze for show.
If you decide to make them, here is the recipe .

The cake is delightful, moist, easy and very adaptable.

Very Orange Cake

1 cup orange juice
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
 orange zest from one orange

Glaze

1/4 cup powdered sugar
1-2 teaspoons orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest or tiny curls of peel

1) Preheat the oven 350 F. Grease and flour an 8 inch round cake pan, a 9 inch round or 8 inch square would also do. The recipe stressed the flouring part. You could also use a piece of parchment if you are concerned. I had one with the little "cake release bar" at the bottom.

2) Grate the orange, and make juice to one cup. I was lucky and already had  a large jar made up.

3) In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients including the zest.

4) in a smaller bowl combine the liquid ingredients.

5) Add the liquid ingredients into the dry, mix just to blend.

6) Pour into the greased and floured pan, bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Do the toothpick trick to test for doneness. In the 8 inch pan my cake took 35 minutes to bake. It will be a golden brown.

7) Cool for 10 minutes then carefully transfer to a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before adding the glaze.

8)  In a small bowl mix 1/4 cup powered sugar, 1 teaspoon zest or tiny curls of peel. Start with 1 teaspoon of juice and add more to get a thick paste.

9) Apply the glaze to cover the top of the cake.

10) I know it doesn't look as cool without the candies peel. I would have been more creative with the glaze if I didn't have the peel. Not that it matters, because it won't last that long !!