Summer paid us a brief visit, but now it's cool and wet again. I think my vegetable garden is doing better than my day lilies (see below!), but since it's been so rainy, I really haven't been out there to check on it much!
I've been trying out a few recipes from a cookbook Full of Flavor by Maria Elia who also wrote Smashing Plates. I found it in the sale area at my local independent bookstore and thought her approach was interesting. She gathers recipes around some of her favorite flavors (many of which also happen to be some of my favorites) and encourages the reader to improvise a little.
One of my goals in teaching cooking is to give others the confidence to know that they can deviate from the written recipe, so I thought I'd experiment with this book a little. The first recipe up was this one which, of course, I had to change around some and adapt to what I had on hand. I used spring onions instead of onion and added some diced up radishes and red cabbage to the mix to avoid some food waste. I used a mix of herbs as we are cilantro soap tasters around here and a very little goes a long way for us. In addition to a tiny sprig of cilantro, I used some lemon verbena, mint, and lemon balm. We topped the salad with Israeli feta and the almonds that Elia calls for. Quite good!
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| Yes, this deer is eating all the heads off of my day lilies |
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