raw vegan avocado gazpacho

I have never been a fan of cold soup.

Not until I tried Mark Bittman's Watermelon and Tomato Gazpacho. That changed my mind for good. Now I look forward to the cool, thirst-quenching goodness on a hot summer day.

I was very tempted to make Joanne's Sweet Pea Goat Cheese Gazpacho this week, but I went for this Avocado Gazpacho instead. Just as refreshing in the hot weather. And super yummy with all my favorites: cilantro, lime and cucumber.

I am entering this in Kahakai Kitchen's Souper Sunday.

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focaccia pizza {working with yeast}

I was a little worried. You would be too. After buying a humungous container of yeast at Costco I read that... yeast goes bad! Oh no. How would I ever use it before the expiration date?

So I tried it out with this focaccia dough and as I suspected, the yeast did not foam. Not ready to give up so easily I turned to the Net and read that you can coax 'sleeping' yeast into life by adding some sugar. Well now, that is easy enough. And low and behold it worked.

So if your yeast is a little sleepy, perk it up with some sugar. Always works for me.

Focaccia Pizza
Makes 2 personal sized pizzas
Pour 3 tablespoons olive oil into each 8 x 8 baking pan. Stretch 2 balls of focaccia dough into pan to cover the bottom surface. Add toppings - whatever you like. Goat cheese is awesome on this! Here's what we used.

My Toppings:
4 tablespoons  spaghetti sauce
1 small bunches sauteed ramps
1/4 cup capers
1/2 cup goat cheese

His Toppings:
4 tablespoons  spaghetti sauce
1 small bunches sauteed ramps
1/4 cup capers
1/2 cup goat cheese
Sliced ham
1/4 cup halved cherry tomatoes

the cloisters

One of my old haunts, The Cloisters museum still enchants me. Something about the spaces and old stone and hush surrounding those interior gardens really appeals.

We had planned to visit the New York Aquarium on Tuesday, since Simon has been asking to go to the shark museum, but alas it had not opened yet, still cleaning up from hurricane Sandy.

Hard pressed for where else to go on such a beautiful day it came to me in a flash. Of course. It is where I spent many a beautiful day while living in Inwood many moons ago.

The museum was nice but the real attraction was the environment surrounding it. It sits within Fort Tryon Park, which is wonderfully wild with huge rock outcroppings all beckoning an avid climber to take a try. My son couldn't resist.

strawberry-rhubarb and meringues

I finally spotted rhubarb at the Farmers Market. While researching what to make with them I noticed a disproportionate amount of recipes that include meringue. I would never have thought to put the two together.

This seemed the perfect opportunity to try out my meringue abilities, as well make something sweet and refreshing with the rhubarb.

Have you tried to make meringues yet? They've been on my list for some time. They came out a bit soft, didn't hold their cup shape. But no worries, they still taste great. My husband asked if they were homemade marshmallows, and that is exactly what they taste like, toasted marshmallows.

I paired them up with some Strawberry-Rhubarb compote. Yum!

And then I strained the strawberry-rhubarb compote and added it to some fizzy water. Double yum. And very refreshing. 

{strawberry-rhubarb recipe}

{meringue recipe}

melted daiya sandwich

I have been hearing the praise of Daiya 'cheese' for some time now and have been on a search for a while now. You may think, Well it is not all that hard to find... and you'd be right. But my kind of searching is looking at my local produce shops over and over again until it magically appears... which it did just last week.

I bought the provolone and Swiss flavored slices and immediately had to make a melted 'cheese' sandwich. This sandwich was all I had hoped for. It was nutty due to arugula. It was crunchy and spicy due to pickles. And, most of all it was creamy and melty and sticky ooey gooey. It was perfect.

But was it cheese? Of course it was not. But did it taste like cheese? Again, I would have to say, of course it did not.

But it did hit all those comfort nostalgic notes you look for in a grilled cheese sandwich. I have to wonder why that is, since my mother never let us eat American Cheese, and this was a pretty close approximation to that very thing. With hipster undertones.

Grilled Daiya Sandwich
Serves One


Two slices crunchy, hearty, whole grained bread
4 -5 slices Daiya 'Cheese'
1 dill pickle, sliced
A handful arugula leaves, halved
2 teaspoons vegan butter

1. Place all ingredients except butter onto one slice of bread. Cover with the other slice. Spread one teaspoon of butter on one side of the outer bread.

2. Heat a frying pan and carefully place the sandwich onto the hot pan, butter side down. Add other teaspoon butter to top outer bread. Cover and cook on low flame for 5 minutes intervals, checking each time to see if the cheese is melting. Flip over at some point and brown the other side. When the cheese has melted to your liking remove from pan and enjoy!

homemade ginger ale

It is kind of spectacular, the alchemy of the kitchen. I went into this challenge, posed by Lindsay and Taylor of Love and Olive Oil with reservations. To be honest, I didn't think I would end up with anything but some sweet tasting water. Boy was I wrong!

I used the simple Alton Brown recipe that they posted, and it worked like a charm... in one bottle. You see, I had two one liter plastic bottles so I ended up splitting the ingredients between the two bottles. One bottle ended up the perfect bubbly spicy goodness I demand of a ginger ale. The other ended up flat and sweet, kind of what I'd expected from the whole exercise. I am going to leave the second bottle out of the fridge another day and hopefully it will come around. If not, no worries. I plan to make this again. I love me some spicy ginger ale!

simple ramp and asparagus soup

I thank my lucky stars that I have never been allergic to anything (as far as I am aware).

My husband has very bad hay fever. Because of this he cut his alone-time vacation short by one day. The pollen is just too intense upstate right now and he couldn't even sleep at night.

Part of me was happy. Selfishly happy. He came home early and I was excited to see him.

I found this soup on Laura's blog, The First Mess. She adorned her soup with violets! Beautiful! And she writes about how ramps have become over harvested of late due to their foodie fame. Interesting.

I made this soup for his return and adorned it with parsley. Not violets, but it'll do. The soup has a real kick - just how my husband likes it. The cayenne really pops out of an otherwise mild melange. Potato is the mild filler with mild ramp and asparagus for flavor. I used white wine vinegar instead of white wine, and omitted the lemon juice, but think it probably is better as written.

Spring brings us wonderful new produce as well as pollen. Here is my celebration of the positive side of new growth.

I am entering this soup in Kahakai Kitchen's Souper Sundays. Check out what other people made on her website.

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