We usually aim for a mix of tried-and-true hits along with a few new recipes: this year, the hitlist included gingerbread caramels, mocha toffee bars, peanut brittle with fleur de sel, hot cocoa blocks.…and this unbelievably delicious mix of subtly sweet, spicy and smoky nuts (they’re from Ina – so I  knew before I even made them that they’d be a hit!) These – THESE – were the hit of the day.

These nuts are a perfect foil to the sizeable sugar highs that seem to flip flop us around during December; it’s nice to have a more savory element mixed in with all the sweet treats I usually give as gifts. Spiced with chipotle powder, rosemary, orange juice, and maple syrup, the balance of flavors is pitch-perfect: slighly sweet, salty, with an herbal note from the rosemary and just enough subtle heat underneath all the flavors to warm up your mouth. We added some orange zest to the mixture which was lovely, so much so that I had to make another batch a few days later because we can’t stop snacking on them! They would be fabulous paired with drinks, and (of course) packaged up for gift-giving!

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Chipotle & Rosemary Roasted Nuts

adapted from Barefoot Contessa’s How Easy is That? by Ina Garten

I usually find Ina’s recipes to be just ever-so-slightly on the salty side for me, so I scaled down the salt to 1 1/2 teaspoons from the original 2. I also used slightly less chipotle powder than she calls for because the people I was giving these to aren’t big spice fans, but you can alter that according to your taste. If you don’t have chipotle powder, smoked paprika might make a nice substitution.

Ingredients

3 cups whole roasted unsalted cashews (14 ounces)
2 cups whole walnut halves (7 ounces)
2 cups whole pecan halves (7 ounces)
1/2 cup whole almonds (3 ounces)
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
zest of half an orange
2 teaspoons ground chipotle powder [I used slightly less than this]
4 tablespoons minced fresh rosemary leaves, divided
Kosher salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir together the nuts, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, maple syrup, brown sugar, orange juice and zest, and chipotle powder. Toss to coat the nuts evenly. Add 2 tablespoons of rosemary and 2 teaspoons of kosher salt, and toss again.

Spread the nuts in a single layer on the baking sheet. Roast for 25 minutes, stirring about halfway through, until glazed and golden brown. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with another teaspoon or so of salt and the remaining 2 tablespoons of minced rosemary.

Stir well and set aside to cool (on the sheet is fine) at room temperature, stirring occasionally to prevent them from sticking too much as they cool. Serve warm or at room temperature; store in an airtight container if not serving immediately.

Makes 8-10 servings.

We are in full-on baking blitz mode here in the Eggs on Sunday household. December usually finds me whirring around the kitchen surrounded by puffs of flour and drips of chocolate, but this year, I have a little 2-year-old elf to help me, which makes it even more fun! (Though the clean-up factor is dramatically increased.)

I’ve been trying to involve her when I bake this holiday season, which usually means that the recipes I choose are fairly easy and have some type of hands-on step in which she can participate. These chocolate mint crackles, from the December issue of Martha Stewart magazine, fit the bill: mix them up in a single bowl (no need for even an electric mixer), roll them into balls, and roll the balls in powdered sugar.

The last part — rolling in powdered sugar — was a big hit with Miss A. Most of the balls of dough made it to the cookie sheet in fairly round form, though I think she couldn’t resist squishing a few down…

They flatten and crackle as they bake, and emerge from the oven looking like a cookie covered in snow-capped craggy mountains. I’ve made these cookies (also called snowcaps, appropriately) before without the peppermint, but that little addition was lovely; they taste like a York peppermint patty in cookie form.

Chewy, chocolatey and minty — they’d made a great addition to any holiday cookie platter!

[For my readers in the Finger Lakes: looking for more holiday cookie ideas with a locavore twist? Pick up the new winter issue of Edible Finger Lakes magazine, out in stores now, to read my article on holiday cookies using locally-sourced ingredients!]

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Chocolate Mint Crackles

adapted from Martha Stewart magazine, December 2011

You’ll need to chill the dough before it’s ready to roll into balls, so plan ahead accordingly.

Ingredients
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar (plus more as needed)

Directions

1. Melt chocolate in a double-boiler (or heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, or in the microwave in 30-second burst on 50% power). Stir until smooth.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and cocoa in a medium bowl.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, and melted butter. Gradually add the melted chocolate and peppermint extract and whisk until smooth. Stir in flour mixture, cover the bowl, and refrigerate until firm — at least 3 hours.

4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Roll tablespoon-sized scoops of dough into balls with your hands, then roll the balls in the powdered sugar until coated. Transfer to parchment lined baking sheets, spacing each ball about 2 inches apart.

5. Bake until slightly firm in the center, about 15 minutes. Let cool slightly on the pan, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Well hello! Long time no blog. In late September, my beloved Macbook died a painful death — hard drive permanently ka-put. But while I was terribly sad to see it go, I am warming up quite nicely to its successor (hellooooo, Macbook Pro. You are so sleek, so fast, so lovely!) But, it meant a longer hiatus from blogging than intended, as I scrambled to recover — unsuccessfully — a batch of recent food photos.

So now I’m making a fresh start with my new, sleek laptop, and I’ve finally gotten my act together to tell you about one of our new favorite weeknight meals: honey-mustard chicken with thyme. It’s a classic combination that I’ve made endless times, tweaking and streamlining the recipe method along the way. One of the realities I’ve  had to come to terms with since having a child is that honestly, I just don’t have hours and hours to tinker around in the kitchen anymore with finicky recipes. At least for the time being, the name of the game around here is delicious food with a minimum of fuss.

One of Miss A’s favorite things to do with me is help prepare meals. Now, granted, she’s only just about 2 – so this mainly entails stirring, mixing, pouring, and washing vegetables under my hawk-eyed supervision. But when I hear her little voice chime “I want to help mommy cookin’!,” I pull out the step stool and find her favorite spatula, and we get to work.

Into a measuring cup goes the honey, dijon mustard, some white wine, a little oil and vinegar, salt, pepper, and thyme leaves. She stirs it all together, then I pour it over some chicken — either a whole chicken cut up into parts, or if I’m pressed for time, chicken thighs — and let it marinate in the fridge for a  few hours.

When dinnertime approaches, I pop the whole pan, chicken and marinade together, in the oven. When the chicken is just about done and the sauce is bubbling, I switch on the broiler and brown it up for a few minutes, letting the marinade bubble and boil and thicken slightly.

Serve the chicken, with generous amounts of the sweet-tart sauce spooned over it, with oven-baked brown rice (that’s a post for another day, and boy does it rock my world!). Alongside some garlic-roasted broccoli, you’ll have happy tummies indeed.

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Honey-Mustard Chicken with Thyme

loosely adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup dijon mustard
3 tablespoons white wine
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
1/2 tsp each salt and pepper
1 whole chicken, broken down into pieces and backbone removed, or 1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs

Directions

Place the chicken in a single layer in a container. In a medium bowl, mix together the marinade ingredients — honey through salt and pepper. Pour the marinade over the chicken, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours.

To bake, preheat the oven to 425 degrees and take the chicken out of the fridge while the oven preheats. If the chicken has not been marinating in the dish you’re going to bake it in, transfer it along with its marinade to a baking dish. I like to use a ceramic 9×9 casserole dish, or a 9×13 pyrex dish. There will be lots of marinade, and that’s okay (you’ll boil it and use it as a sauce later.)

Bake the chicken until the sauce is bubbling and the meat is cooked through, about 20-25 minutes for boneless skinless thighs, flipping the pieces halfway through. Turn on the broiler and broil the chicken for about 5 minutes (I keep the pan on the rack about 8 inches from the broiler – not the very highest level) until starting to brown in spots. You’ll want the marinade to be briskly bubbling and boiling for at least 5 minutes.

Serve, spooning the sauce over the chicken.

Serves 4-6.

Let’s take a little departure here from super-seasonal foods to talk about granola bars. Considering the fact that they’re the perfect back-to-school lunchbox treat (or heck, mid-afternoon coffee-break-at-work treat), it’s a great time to try making a homemade batch.

I’ve been searching for years for a good homemade granola bar recipe. When I was in college, I went through a period where I was hooked on Nature Valley Oat & Honey bars, but I started to get frustrated with how easily they’d crumble into a mess of oats with the slightest bump in your backpack. My tastes have changed with age, too — I can’t stomach the intense sweetness of the commercial chewy brands anymore. Many of the recipes I’d tried didn’t hold together well, or seemed better suited to crumbling into yogurt as granola…

(you know where this is going)

…UNTIL I found this recipe! Of course I should have known, considering the origins, that it would be a keeper. The beauty of this granola bar recipe is its adaptability: use whatever nuts, seeds, and/or dried fruit you have on hand (I usually do a combination of walnuts, almonds, flaxseeds, and currants). Toss in some chocolate chips if you’re in the mood (I usually am). Use nut butter, or not (though I have yet to try it without the peanut butter).

I’ve decreased the sugar even a little further, and they’re still really terrific. The oat flour binds everything together to give just enough cohesiveness and chew…they’re sturdy bars, dense, and chock full of good-for-you ingredients. Miss A adores them. They’ve been my go-to edible gift for new moms, since they’re packed with nutrients, protein, and come in a super-portable package.

And, they were the perfect treat to make for our annual camping trip to the Adirondacks in August — except that we ate them all before we even left the house. Oops! Next time, I need to freeze a batch ahead of time.

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Chewy Granola Bars

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted from King Arthur Flour

One tip: you really do need to let these cool fully before attempting to slice them. If I bake them during the day, I let them cool until just warm, then pop them in the fridge to chill down before slicing. Even better, sometimes I make them in the evening and let them cool on the counter overnight — they’re ready to cut in the morning. They store well in the fridge for up to a week, or can be wrapped and frozen.

Ingredients

1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
1/3 to 3/4 cup granulated sugar (I use 1/3; use more if you like things sweeter)
1/3 cup oat flour (or 1/3 cup oats, processed till finely ground in a food processor or blender)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 to 3 cups dried fruits and nuts
1/3 cup peanut butter or another nut butter (optional, though I’ve never tried it without)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup (I like maple syrup)
2 tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola
1 tablespoon water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8″x8″ pan with parchment paper (I don’t even bother to grease it). Set aside.

Stir together all dry ingredients (oats through fruit & nuts). Separately, in a microwave-safe bowl, combine the melted butter, honey or maple syrup, oil and water. Add the nut butter if using, and microwave for about 1 minute at 30% power to soften (this makes it easier to mix into the liquid ingredients.) Whisk together to combine, then stir in the vanilla.

Pour liquid mixture over dry ingredients and stir to thoroughly combine. Transfer the mixture to the baking pan, using the back of a spoon (or your hands) to firmly press the mixture into the pan.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Let cool completely in the pan.

Use the parchment paper as handles to lift the baked mixture out of the pan, then slice into bars with a sharp knife.  (If the mixture seems to crumbly, try chilling in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.)

I store the bars stacked in an airtight container, preferably in the fridge. They also freeze well.

Late last week, while digging through my fridge for something unrelated, I discovered a pile of zucchini and yellow squash that I’d (oops) forgotten about from the previous weeks’ CSA share. I know most people get pretty sick of the green squash when August rolls around, but as my garden crop has yet to be harvested (I was waaaaay late in planting this year), we’ve been eating zucchini at a pretty steady pace this summer and not yet tiring of it.

We like zucchini a number of different ways in our house – zucchini with parmesan is a favorite side dish of mine — but the steady volume we’ve been receiving this summer has “encouraged” me to branch out a bit. With a 20-month old at the table, you can bet that pasta is regularly on the menu, and this recipe was a huge hit with all of us.

I diced up the zukes into tiny cubes, browned them up in a pan with garlic, then tossed them with hot pasta, creamy ricotta cheese, some of the pasta cooking water to make it a little more “saucy,” and slivered basil from our garden. Zucchini and basil are a great flavor combination, and even Little A, who’s usually skeptical of zucchini’s mushy texture, gobbled up a full plate’s worth. Nothing makes me prouder.

For more ideas on cooking with zucchini, plus a recipe for Cheesy Zucchini Sticks, check out my recent post on the Edible Voices blog!

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Pasta with Zucchini, Ricotta & Basil

Adapted from “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman

Ingredients
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound zucchini and/or yellow summer squash, diced
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 pound dried pasta
1/2 cup basil, chopped, plus for more serving
grated parmesan cheese, for serving

Directions

Bring a pot of water to boil and salt it. Set the ricotta out at room temperature

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until shimmery; add the diced zucchini and season generously with coarse salt and pepper. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring occasionally, until the zucchini has started to brown. Add the garlic and stir for another minute or two, then turn off the heat.

Cook the pasta according to package directions. A few minutes before the pasta is done, remove about 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. Turn the heat back on the pan with the zucchini, and add about 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water, scraping up any brown bits that have formed on the bottom of the pan. Reserve the remaining pasta cooking water.

Toss the hot, drained pasta with the zucchini mixture, ricotta, and chopped basil, adding a little of the remaining pasta cooking water if it looks a little dry. Serve with grated parmesan cheese and sprinkled with a little additional chopped basil.

My 18-month old daughter LOVES strawberries, to the point of obsession. Every mealtime, our conversation goes something like this:

Me: “Okay, Miss A, time for lunch!”

A: “sta-WAH-bewwies? More sta-WAH-bewwies!”

Me: “No, we’re not having strawberries right now. Let’s have a sandwich first.”

A: “San-wich. I like it!…MORE sta-WAH-bewwies?”

and, repeat.

Seriously, it’s gotten to the point where I have to consume my strawberries in secret, lest we have another meltdown when the strawberries are gone. Good thing we planted a few rows of strawberry plants in our garden for next year!

In the meantime, we’ve been reveling in June’s strawberry harvest: In the past month, I’ve consumed more strawberry shortcake than I can remember eating in a long time. We’ve had it in smoothies, tossed into salads, on cereal, in oatmeal, stirred into yogurt, over pancakes, and (perhaps my favorite) in this easier-than-pie strawberry ice cream.

The ingredient list for this ice cream is short — strawberries, sugar, and cream — but the payoff is huge. It’s not a custard base, so prep is incredibly simple. Little A helped me blend this up and was fascinated by watching the pink liquid whirr away in the ice cream maker. Strawberry season is almost over, so whip up a batch before it’s too late!

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Strawberry Ice Cream

Ingredients

1 lb strawberries, stemmed and hulled

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup sugar

Directions

Heat cream and sugar in a saucepan, stirring occasionally,  until the sugar is dissolved. Let cool slightly.

In a blender, combine the strawberries and warm cream mixture (be careful when blending hot liquids! I usually leave the lid cracked a bit, with a towel over the top.) Start on the lowest speed to blend, then increase speed until the mixture is pureed. Refrigerate the mixture until cold.

Pour mixture into the ice cream maker and freeze according to your machine’s directions.

Makes about 1 quart.

Our CSA started this week! We couldn’t have been more ready. This is our third year in a row getting a share with the Full Plate Farm Collective, and the second year in a row getting a fruit share with Finger Lakes Fruit Bowl. The Full Plate Farm Collective, for those of you non-Ithacans out there, is a group of three farms that work together to grow produce for all the shareholders in the collective. The model allows each farm to specialize in a few crops, and we as shareholders get to enjoy the bounty! Our share usually runs through mid-October, and we’re continually impressed with the variety of produce we receive each week.

To kick off the season, our first share included a (beautiful) head of lettuce, a spicy salad mix (baby kales, mustards, etc.), baby arugula, garlic scapes, a large bunch each of dill and basil, a bunch of kale, an overwintered beet, and a pint of jewel-red strawberries. We also received strawberries and rhubarb in our fruit share, so it was like Christmas came in June this year at the Eggs on Sunday household. We are so ready for locally-grown fruit!

I’ve been really into making homemade salad dressings lately, especially since late spring/early summer around here is salad green central. I like to make a big batch on the weekend, then have it on hand to drizzle over salads, spread on sandwiches, and use as a dip for vegetables throughout the week.

The big bunch of basil we received in the share beckoned to me to be used as something other than pesto (honestly, I’m just not enough in summer mode yet to want basil pesto). I remembered a Basil Green Goddess dressing I made a year or two ago after seeing it on the Barefoot Contessa, and knew it was this bunch of basil’s destiny.

There are a few things I adore about this dressing: it’s delicate pale green color, the way the creaminess of the dressing slightly mellows out the basil flavor, and the fact that it makes a TON so you can make it once and enjoy it all week. Plus, who doesn’t love a dressing with the name “green goddess?”

We had it spooned over a salad made with the head lettuce, spicy salad greens, and thinly shaved beet. It was a perfect start to the CSA season!

(PS – Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads out there!)

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Basil Green Goddess Dressing

from Barefoot Contessa at Home

I’ve made this dressing both with and without the anchovy paste, depending on whether or not I have it in the house. I’m happy to say it’s delicious either way!

Ingredients

1 cup good mayonnaise
1 cup chopped scallions, white and green parts (6 to 7 scallions)
1 cup packed fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
2 teaspoons chopped garlic (you could also substitute the equivalent amount of garlic scapes)
2 teaspoons anchovy paste (see note in recipe header)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup sour cream

Directions

Combine the basil through salt & pepper in a food processor or blender. Blend until creamy and smooth. Add the sour cream and pulse just until blended. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Makes about 2 cups.

No need to bury the lede here: this is my holy grail of coffee cakes. My quest is over. Happiness is a slab of this.

My maternal grandma did not particularly enjoy cooking. Despite that fact, our extended family get-togethers at my grandparents’ house often featured delicious food; her chili and lasagna were some of the best I’ve ever tasted. Family gatherings were often busy affairs with lots of laughter and people and chatting, and being the oldest grandchild, I often wanted to straddle the worlds between the “adults” and “children.” My grandma and I shared a special relationship, and while she had no interest in baking a batch of cookies, she kept a stash of Drake’s coffee cakes hidden away in a cupboard just for me. She’d say, “Amy, you know I’m no baker, but these cakes are here just for you whenever you want one. No one else knows where they are. You take one and come into my room and we’ll talk.” And I loved it.

There are a few reasons these cakes were such a treat: (a) we never had packaged baked goods at home. My mom enjoyed baking and was good at it, and while I loved her cookies and treats, something about the forbidden nature of the packaged coffee cake was irresistible to me as a child. And (b), the ratio on these coffee cakes of brown-sugar-crumb topping to cake was highly tipped in the favor of the topping. I loved pulling chunks and boulders of the crumbs off the top of the cakes. (I still do, though now I eschew packaged baked goods for the real deal.)

So, as I grew older and cooked many more recipes on my own, my ideal coffee cake remained this kind of specimen; rich, tender yellow cake topped by a thick layer of brown sugar crumbs. I’ve tried lots of different recipes, some very good, but none with the boulders and crags of crumb topping that I envisioned. And then, a few years ago, Deb posted this recipe and I’ve been hooked. We’ve eaten it many times over, swapping in whatever fruit is in season, and I never, ever tire of it.

It’s fantastic with rhubarb, by the way. The tart layer of rhubarb under the sugary topping is a perfect foil for the sweetness of the cake. And as rhubarb is now in season, I can only advise that you pick up a bundle of the rosy stalks at your local farmer’s market and make this coffee cake as soon as possible…perhaps for a nice lingering breakfast on this long holiday weekend?

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Rhubarb ‘Big Crumb’ Coffee Cake

From Smitten Kitchen, who adapted from The New York Times

I’ll echo Deb’s note that if you make this with fruit other than rhubarb, consider decreasing the sugar amount in the filling.

Ingredients

For the rhubarb filling:
1/2 pound rhubarb, trimmed
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

For the crumbs:
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 3/4 cups cake flour (I’ve used all-purpose as well and it works fine, but do use cake flour if you have it)

For the cake:
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour (see note above about AP flour substitution)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons softened butter, cut into 8 pieces

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8×8 inch baking pan.

2. Slice the rhubarb into 1/2-inch pieces, toss with the sugar, cornstarch and ginger, and set aside.

3. Make the crumbs: In a large bowl, whisk together the sugars, spices and salt. Add the melted butter and whisk until smooth. Dump in the flour and stir it into the sugar/butter mixture until fully incorporated. It will look and feel like a solid dough. Set aside.

4. Make the cake: In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the pieces of butter along with a spoonful of the sour cream mixture, and mix on medium speed until the flour is moistened and the butter is broken into bits. Increase speed and beat for 30 seconds, then add remaining sour cream mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and set aside 1/2 cup batter.

5. Scrape the remaining batter into the pan, spoon the rhubarb over the batter, and dollop the reserved 1/2 cup batter over the rhubarb (don’t worry if it’s not even).

6. Break the topping mixture into big crumbs with your fingers. Deb recommends crumbs that are about 1/2 to 3/4 inch in size, which is good advice, though I know I usually have some bigger and smaller than that. Sprinkle the crumbs over the cake, and bake cake until a tester comes out clean (it might be moist from the rhubarb), 45-55 minutes. Cool completely before serving.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

March into April is always a rough period for me in the kitchen. Inspiration is hard to come by, and every cold/wet/gray day that passes adds to my frustration at how slow full-blown spring is to arrive. I stare despondently at my crisper drawer, trying to ignore the root vegetables that have been in there forever and are starting to look long in the tooth.

The Ithaca Farmer’s Market begins its season in April, but with this year’s loooooooooong winter and seemingly endless spring rains, we’re only just starting to see some greens. Peas, strawberries, and asparagus still seem like a long way away to me, even though I know I’ll see them in another month or so.

And even though it’s been rain central around here, the slightly warmer temperatures and occasional peek of sun (how I live for those moments!) has kick-started my craving for things that are crisp, green, and fresh. In other words, if I see another bowl of stew I think I’ll lose it.

So when Dana tweeted about a recipe for a Broccoli and Sweet Sesame Salad she recently posted, I made sure my next trip to the grocery store included the snap peas and broccoli to make it (I love you local produce, but I just can’t hold out any longer.) Luckily for me at our market this past weekend, I was able to find some lovely spinach at Stick and Stone Farm, as well as some French Breakfast Radishes from Red Tail Farm. Along with some eggs from our meat share, I knew I had the makings of exactly the kind of lunch I was craving.

This salad comes together in a snap, and the tahini/sesame dressing is so good I plan to keep it on hand to dress other salads this spring and summer. Dana adapted the recipe from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, which looks like a gorgeous book full of the kinds of food I want to fill myself up with right now. I’m sure the salad is knockout in its original form (with broccoli, snap peas, string beans, and dressing) but I really enjoyed it dressed up with some sliced finger-thin radishes and chopped hard-boiled egg.

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Broccoli and Sweet Sesame Salad

Adapted from Dana Treat, who adapted it from Plenty

Ingredients

1 pound broccoli, cut into small florets
½ pound snap peas, strings removed
¼ cup cilantro leaves, chopped
3 tbsp. sesame seeds (I, like Dana, used gomasio)

accompaniments like torn spinach leaves, chopped hard-boiled egg, sliced radishes

Dressing
4 tbsp. tahini paste
¼ cup water
1 small garlic clove, pressed
1 tsp. tamari
1 tsp. honey
1 tsp. rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp. mirin
2 tbsp. hazelnut or other nut oil [note: I used peanut oil]

Directions
Combine all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk together. You’re looking for a smooth, thick, pourable consistency — add more water if needed (I had to add a little to make it pourable.) Taste and add salt and pepper according to your taste. Set aside and refrigerate as you assemble the salad.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the broccoli and snap peas for 2-3 minutes. Drain and immediately rinse with cold water, or shock in a bath of ice water to stop the cooking. Pat dry with towels.

Divide the spinach among serving plates, and top with the broccoli and snap peas. Sprinkle with the cilantro and gomasio/sesame seeds (and chopped egg and radishes, if using.) Drizzle with the dressing and serve. You may have more dressing than needed, so just refrigerate any leftovers.

We’re big oatmeal eaters in this house, even little A. Our darling girl is also an early riser, and until only recently, would awaken us at 5:30 or 6am with a combination of wailing, screeching, and “ma-maaaaaaaaa….” Oy. Thankfully, she’s been throwing us a bone lately and waking more around 6:30, turning on the music box attached to the side of her crib, and jabbering away to her stuffed animals. Which is a MUCH nicer way for Mommy and Daddy (and her, I have to think) to wake up in the morning. All of this is to say, when we were getting up so early, it was all I could do to carry her downstairs, flip on the coffeemaker, and pop our bowls of oatmeal into the microwave (minimal assembly required.)

I gave up on quick-cooking oats awhile ago — their texture was too gummy for me — and was doing the old-fashioned oats thing for awhile. I tried cooking a big batch of those for us for the week, and wasn’t really happy with how they reheated. I then turned to steel cut oats, which are just the whole oat groat chopped up a bit, and in doing so stumbled upon our new favorite way for making big batches of delicious oatmeal ahead. The steel cut oats retain some texture without being excessively chewy, have a pleasant nuttiness, and (best of all) reheat really  nicely.

The process: boil steel cut oats for 1  minute the night before. Let them sit, covered, overnight; in the morning, turn the heat back on and cook an additional, oh, 5 minutes or so. Eat some then, and save the rest to eat throughout the week — just a quick zap in the microwave to warm is all that’s needed. Finish with your favorite toppings: mine is apples, walnuts, cinnamon and local maple syrup; Little A’s is (of course) blueberries.

Next up for us: locally-grown oats. We have a great local food producer, Cayuga Pure Organics, that grows and sells all sorts of wonderful dried beans, flour and grains (I love their farro). They recently started selling live oat groats, which are the whole, minimally processed oat grain. A quick buzz in the coffee grinder gives you — presto! — steel cut oats!

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Overnight Steel Cut Oats

1.5 cups steel-cut oats

6 cups water

Directions

The night before, bring 6 cups of water to a boil. Pour in the oats and boil for 1 minute. Turn off the heat, cover, and let sit overnight.

The next morning, turn the heat back on and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes (at the end of 5 minutes on my stove, the oats are nice and soft and fully cooked but it might depend on your stove.)

Save the cooked oats in a container in the fridge; they only require about 30 seconds to 1 minute in the microwave to reheat.