Hazelnut Shortbread

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cardamom
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup ground or finely chopped hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 350˚F.
Beat butter, sugar, salt, and cardamom until light. Add flour and stir until completely combined. Stir in hazelnuts. Press into 2 9-inch round cake or pie pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until edges begin to turn golden (be sure to check shortbread a few times toward the end of baking to avoid brown edges-they will taste burnt). Cool slightly in pan, slice into wedges, and serve, or remove to cooling rack.

Cocoa Coconut Citrus Cake

1st layer: Lemon cake with lemon glaze

2nd layer: Coconut cake with shredded coconut and hardened coconut milk caramel

3rd layer: Chocolate cake with chocolate-coconut topping.

Outside: Lemon cream cheese frosting with shredded coconut, chocolate chips, and lemon slices.

The end.

Homemade Blender Mayonnaise (Joy of Cooking)

Mayonnaise is not worth consuming unless it is homemade, in my opinion.
This fabulous recipe is from the Joy of Cooking.

1 egg
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons lemon juice

Put in the blender container: egg, mustard, salt, cayenne, sugar and olive oil.
Cover and blend on high until thoroughly combined.
With blender still running, take off the cover and slowly add 1/2 cup vegetable oil,
and then the lemon juice until thoroughly blended.
Add slowly the remaining vegetable oil and blend until thick.
You may have to stop and start the blender to stir down the mayonnaise.
Yields 13/4 cup.

Garlic Tops and Morels with Fresh Mayo

Garlic tops are the young above-ground parts of garlic plants. They can be cooked similarly to asparagus: sauteed, steamed, boiled, etc. However, I believe that the very best way to eat them is like french fries; fried with mushrooms and then dipped in homemade mayonnaise.

1 lb. garlic tops
1/2 lb. morel mushrooms (or any other mushroom, if morels are not available)
2 tbsp butter
1 recipe homemade mayonnaise

Loosely chop garlic tops and remove any inedible dried parts. Heat butter over medium high heat in large frying pan with cover. When butter bubbles, add garlic tops. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes, or until softened. Add mushrooms. Continue to cook, covered, for another 5 minutes. Uncover, and finish cooking by sauteing until garlic tops begin to brown and get crispy. Serve hot, as finger food, dipping in mayonnaise as necessary.

Spring Greens Salad with Pesto and Poached Eggs

Miners Lettuce, cucumber, green pepper chopped and sprinkled over a base of lettuce leaves.
A nest of chopped tomatoes combined with fresh pesto.
A poached egg with parmesan, salt, and pepper sprinkled on top.

Strawberry Tart with Cashew Crust

Strawberry overload!

While making strawberry jam, I ran out of jars for my jam. I mean, I could have gone out to the garage to get more, but I figured, why not make a strawberry tart?

So I combined the freezer jam with a few tablespoons of flour and a few of butter. For the crust I made a pretty typical pie dough recipe, but added cinnamon, a bit of sugar, and ground cashews to half the dough. I pressed the cashew dough into the bottom of a springform pan, poured in the filling, and latticed the remaining dough on top. I had some extra strawberries and extra dough, so I wrapped the strawberries in the dough and floated them between the lattice. The tart baked for a long time, maybe an hour, until the center was pretty firm, and the edges were darkening.





And of course, it would hardly be worth eating without vanilla ice cream.

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