From the category archives:

Recipes for Spring

Pink Grapefruit Curd with Honey

by Laura 14 April 2012
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This pink grapefruit curd is buttery and silky and pleasantly piquant with a strong note of honey. Eat it smeared on toast, biscuits, or scones; stirred into plain yogurt or oatmeal or porridge; rolled up in a jellyroll or between cake layers; or piped into plain cookies. Share This: Recommend on FacebookShare on PinterestShare with [...]

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Maple Pudding Cakes (Pouding Chomeur) + Sugarbush Spring

by Laura 23 March 2012
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Spring came in with such a rush this year.  By mid-March—mid-March!—the snow had receded, the grass greened, the buds burst, the crocuses bloomed, and people were out swilling cold beer on patios, the smell of charcoal grills in the air.   A week later now, the ice on Lake Minnetonka has gone out, the first vinca [...]

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Italian Cream Cake

by Laura 21 March 2012
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Work is so engrossing for me that, when my Sweet Boy is away, I often realize I am sitting in total darkness, the sun has set, the black sky has swallowed up the day, and the moon has appeared out my window.  The television set in my neighbor’s window flickers across the way and lights [...]

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Braised Lamb Shanks

by Laura 1 March 2012
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My grandma was a letter writer.  I have sheaves of her letters, all typed and on thin, pale green paper.  They detail the buses she took, and in what weather, to the bank, to Mass, to help with the church rummage sale; the breakfasts and lunches and dinners she ate—toast with butter or peanut butter, [...]

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Violet Tea Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting & Candied Wild Violets

by Laura 5 June 2011
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I’ve been holding back this post.  The moment for wild violets has passed, at least in the woods and marsh banks near our home where I gather them.  Perhaps there are still a few beneath the greenery that has grown up seemingly overnight, tempestuous, lush, aggressive.  I spied two violets waving together amongst the wood [...]

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Rhubarb Compote-swirl Cornmeal Coffee Cake

by Laura 1 June 2011
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The specter of spring cleaning has filled me with a certain dread this year, but I am coming around slowly and with much coaxing.  The days when our home was deeply clean and organized feel like a phantom life to me.  I still open closets with expectation, a clear vision of their former lives.  But [...]

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Rhubarb Baked Oatmeal

by Laura 26 May 2011
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It has rained and rained and then rained some more here this spring. So it’s put us in the mood for something warm and comforting for breakfast.  I sweetened my version of baked oatmeal with rhubarb sauce, and then a couple of days later with rhubarb conserve, and scattered the top with diced rhubarb, which [...]

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Potato & Fiddlehead Fern Gratin

by Laura 25 May 2011
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Thin slices of creamy potato and tender fiddlehead ferns baked in a bath of cream and topped with a crust of melted Emmenthaler.   Share This: Recommend on FacebookShare on PinterestShare with StumblersTweet about itEmail a friend

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One-pot Rhubarb Cordial, Sauce, & Compote

by Laura 24 May 2011
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I really should have posted this as the three-in-one it is in the first place.  So here it is, in all its glorious simplicity.  You start with a three and a half pound bouquet of rhubarb.  Once you have it diced, 15 minutes of cooking yields three cups cordial, three cups compote, and two cups [...]

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Savory Breakfast Bread Pudding with Fiddlehead Ferns, Sausage, Caramelized Leeks and Red Spring Onions, & Gruyere

by Laura 23 May 2011
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One pan, some pork sausage browned, caramelized leeks and red spring onion tossed in behind to caramelize, then in go fiddlehead ferns to sauté with some garlic.  All of this is tossed into a buttered baking dish over a cubed loaf of crusty country bread.  It’s topped with grated Gruyere, and eggs and cream are [...]

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Stinging Nettle Soup

by Laura 22 May 2011
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Spring has come to Minnesota, hesitantly and then with a rush.  This week the trees have leafed out, apple and plum trees have blossomed, and the lilacs are ready to burst into bloom.  Winter is a barren season in Minnesota, and spring comes begrudgingly.  When it finally arrives, seemingly overnight, from dim gray to shades [...]

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