Apricot & Rhubarb Galette With a Scottish Shortbread Crust

Spring is here and in full swing, which means the time has come to get started on all our spring cleaning. If you are a procrastinator like myself, fear not! For I have an exciting little something to share with you all. I am hosting an event on the 25th of this month with Kinfolk Magazine, where I'll teach you how to make your own natural and safe cleaners with everyday items like lavender and vinegar. We'll be enjoying the great outdoors, stationed in picnic area in Griffith Park in front of the former LA Zoo (where some of the scenes of Anchor Man were filmed). It's a beautiful part of the city surrounded by wooded hills and hiking trails. The air over our table will smell like lavender and rosemary and there will be scones for one and all! Yes, after we make our useful cleaners I will be providing some homemade spring snacks and baked goods for us to munch on. Yum!!

~ Click here to purchase tickets ~

It's going to be such a fun event and I hope to see some of you Southern California residents there! And of course if you have any questions about the event feel free to post a comment here or email me any/all of your thoughts about it.

Olive Oil Ice Cream

I had olive oil ice cream for the first time at the little Italian coffee shop down the street from our house.  I took my first bite expecting to get a mouthful of intense olive oil flavor, but what I experienced instead was sweet, silky smooth, and subtly fruity. It shook everything I thought I knew about ice cream and olive oil to the core, and that was when I decided I had to try and make some myself so I could eat it whenever I wanted/all the time.

Very Lemon Loaf with Poppy Seeds

I originally made this for me and Jeremy as a little treat, but we enjoyed it so much I decided to share it here with all of you. Because I wasn't originally planning on posting it, I don't have any step-by-step photos for this post, unfortunately. But I DO have a lot of pictures of the final loaf and detailed instructions for each step. This is a sweet yeast loaf with lemon zest, lemon juice, lemon extract, and a poppy seed marble. And for a bit more tartness I covered the top with candied lemon slices before serving. The result was a sweet and slightly yeasty lemon loaf with the wonderful little textural crunch of poppy seeds mixed into the moist bread.

Butterscotch Pie & King Arthur Flour

I know I've been talking about it for a while now, but here it is! I am finally posting about my trip to the  state of Vermont. A little over a week ago I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with Carey from Reclaiming Provincial and learn from the incredibly knowledgable employees of King Arthur Flour. Vermont is a long ways away from Los Angeles and my plane ticket wasn't anything to sneeze at, but nothing was going to stop me from meeting my good friend and learning about baking from the people who live and breathe it every day (Literally. Flour poofs = everywhere.)

Rabbit Stew

I have returned from my trip to Vermont, and I had even more fun than I could have hoped for. And while I did come home with a terrible case of jet lag and was barely able to peel myself off the floor of my shower enough to slouch myself into bed, it was more than worth the incessant dizziness. I will be posting about it all soon (along with a tasty pie recipe!), but for now I am just going to talk about rabbit. Yes, rabbit. That adorable yet tasty mammal that much of the world eats but is fairly uncommon in most American kitchens. I grew up eating rabbit a few times a year because my mother loved rabbit and my father had some tasty Greek recipes for it tucked away, including this one. He grew up on a pistachio farm on the small island of Aegina, Greece. His family lead a very simple life and ate the livestock they could raise, which was limited to rabbits and chickens. Rabbits are very easy and inexpensive to raise for several reasons: 1) They have a very low carbon footprint (particularly when compared to larger mammals like beef) and don't need an entire field to roam around in 2) They eat pretty much any vegetable you toss their way, and 3) They reproduce like...well, rabbits; which makes for a constant and reliable food source.

PB & J Pavlova

A few weeks ago when I posted about my last batch of mustards, a got a few comments from friends who thought it was a post about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at first glance, and that got me thinking about the good ol' PB & J. We've all had them and we all know that they taste good, but I think when you get older and try a wider variety of foods and tastes, you can forget just how good those kinds of simple flavor combinations really are. So, I decided to make a more grown up version of a PB & J sandwich by fusing the flavors into a pavlova (there are layers! That is...kind of sandwichy.)

Baked Walnut & Rosemary Encrusted Salmon with a Sesame Ginger Kale & Quinoa Leaf Salad

What a whirlwind the past week has been! First of all I want to thank all of you for your kind words and support regarding Adventures in Cooking's Saveur Best Food Blog Awards: Best Original Recipes nomination. Voting ends Friday so if you haven't voted yet, pop on over and take a look at all the beautiful blogs in the pool. I've been busy sprucing up the garden, doing some major spring cleaning, and just starting to pack for my first real vacation in a long while. I love traveling, but haven't gone outside of the state of California (other than home to Oregon to visit family) for a few years now, which has definitely begun to feel far too long as of late. But all that is about to change!! Yes, in a few short days I will be heading to the wonderful world of maple and organic farms that is the state of Vermont (or at least, what I know of Vermont).

Baked Buttermilk Doughnuts with a Strawberry Rhubarb Brown Butter Glaze & The Saveur Best Food Blog Awards

A bit of an extended post today, as I have some exciting and wonderful news to share. Adventures in Cooking has been nominated for Best Original Recipes at Saveur's 2013 Food Blog Awards. I was driving in my car when I found out (yes I looked down at my phone when it beeped that Brianne had tweeted me a congratulations) and I promptly freaked out and shouted with joy, alarming the many other drivers stuck next to me on the 405 southbound. I feel so honored to be nominated along with so many other talented bloggers and so grateful to have such an involved and supportive readership. You are all awesome and wonderful and reading your comments makes my life a better place to be. If you have a moment, it would mean a lot if you hopped over to the Saveur website and gave me a vote before Friday, April 19th. Thank you again for your support! I can hardly contain my excitement and plan on going out tonight and getting this sandwich to celebrate.

Roasted Beet Balsamic Mustard & Honey Chipotle Dippin' Mustard

A few weeks ago I posted a couple mustard recipes, one for a rosemary grapefruit mustard and the other for a spicy indian one, with the promise to deliver a couple more mustard recipes in the coming month. Well, after much more mustard-making, and even more mustard-eating, here are my two favorites.

Lavender White Chocolate Almond Truffles

Last weekend Jeremy and I left behind the hustle and bustle of the city for a couple days of calm and sun out in the desert. Being an Oregonian at heart, I love my green northwest scenery; trees, rolling hills, tall grass, etc. But there's something about the emptiness of the desert that relaxes me. It's like nature wiped its slate clean, leaving behind only warmth and dust and mile upon endless mile of open space.