Happy Friday! I’ve decided to expand my post-types a bit with weekly “Left Field Friday” posts, which will allow me to focus on one of my favorite things: randomness. These posts will include a mix of foods I’m obsessing over, things that make me smile, and other random thoughts/observations that come to mind. This will be a good chance for us to get to know each other better. It’s like an awkward first date, except I’m the only one talking…which, ironically, is the opposite of most of my first date experiences.
It’s March! That’s the start of spring, right? The Beast and I went on a vacation last week (more on that later…) and on the first day The Beast said to me, “You know what’s nice? When we come home it’ll almost be golf season.” The next day he said the same thing, but replaced “golf season” with “spring,” and then he went so far as to say we’d basically be coming home to summer. Welcome to the mind of a Minnesotan.
We ended up flying home in the middle of a snow storm…welcome to the life of a Minnesotan.
When warm weather becomes such a foreign concept that I can’t even remember what it feels like to walk outside without the cold stealing my breath away, I like to eat something that at least reminds me of summertime. Take this salad, for instance. It’s jam-packed with fresh veggies, bright flavors, and pretty colors…which sounds silly, but when you live in a monochromatic winter world, colorful food helps.
As a bit of a texture freak, I love the multiple crunches that come up as you bite through the raw onions, red pepper, and sliced almonds. Alongside that crunch, you get juicy tomatoes, nutty quinoa, and bright, creamy lemon tahini dressing. It’s so refreshing you might just think summer has a chance of coming around…eventually.
I actually made this salad a few days before we left for vacation, thinking it would help get me in the spring/warm weather swing of things. Mission accomplished!…until we actually arrived for our vacation and experienced a very cold, very windy version of Florida. Oh well, it’s almost summer here anyway.
I rarely buy desserts when I’m out and about, but when I see chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons, I need them. Neeeeeed them. Do not pass go, do not collect your things or walk away, just get your wallet out and pay for the damn macaroon. I’ve come to embrace my weakness…because embracing it means I get more macaroons.
I love that most restaurants sell HUGE macaroons, because you can eat the whole thing and truthfully say, “I’m just eating one cookie!” (side note: this same logic also works for a large glass of wine). However, when I make macaroons at home I try to be much more responsible. Take this recipe, for instance, where the macaroons are not only a normal cookie size, but they’re also gluten AND refined-sugar free! What?! I know.
Part of my inspiration for these little bites of heaven came from the honey in our pantry; I geek out at any opportunity to use our super flavorful clover honey from the Beast’s family farm in Wisconsin. No matter where your honey comes from, using a combination of honey and applesauce instead of white sugar keeps the inside of the macaroons chewy, soft, and without even the slightest hint of dryness. The chocolate coating is daaaark, silky smooth, ever-so-slightly bitter, and absolutely perfect.
Warning: you NEED to double, triple, or quadruple this recipe. 24 hours later, almost all of my macaroons were gone. Not only can I physically not stay away from them, but the Beast loved them, and even my mother, who always suspects that I put “weird” stuff in food, and hates baked goods without “real” (aka white) sugar, devoured the one I brought to her. Who even needs white sugar and gluten? Not me, and not even my mom, as long as we have macaroons.
You know those tasks that sit in the back of your mind, making themselves quietly comfortable until the most inopportune times? Then, when you’re doing something like falling asleep or driving, you remember that one thing (or those twenty things) you need to do, think “dang it!” momentarily, but then those responsibilities fade away away as quickly as they came.
There are several (SEVERAL) tasks that fit this description for me, ranging from paying my dental bill to organizing my closet, but the only one I acted on recently was making a Recipe Index page. I can’t even describe to you the satisfaction and pride I felt after completing that task on Friday.
As I built the “Burgers/Sandwiches” section of the page, I came to the realization that I’ve never posted a sandwich recipe. Not a one! Plenty of burgers, but no sandwiches. You’d probably think this means I’m not a big sandwich eater, but you would be dead wrong. In fact, I’m obsessed with sandwiches. I eat them all the time, so why not share them with my internet friends?
To remedy this huge, HUGE issue, today I’m sharing my very favorite type of sandwich: tomatoes two ways (including a pesto!), creamy mozzarella, and rich avocado, all sandwiched between hearty, seeded bread. I literally eat something along these lines at least once a week. The Beast and I call it our “Grown-Up Grilled Cheese Night,” so it’s obviously a very adult, refined meal.
If my grown-up grilled cheese needed to get ready for a fancy night out, it’d drench itself in this balsamic drizzle. It makes the whole delicious combination even more appealing; The tomatoes get sweeter, the subtle flavors of the mozzarella and avocado are heightened, and when the drizzle hits the basil you will INSIST that you’re eating bruschetta for dinner…and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
At long last, there is a sandwich on this blog, listed on my fancy new Recipe Index page. Whew, it feels good knowing I can check that one off the list. My dental bills may still be sitting in the office, and my closet may still be a hot mess, but dang it now you know I eat sandwiches in a big, bad way.
All I want in the winter is comfort food. This means that I often end up cooking any variation of mac and cheese, ridiculous grilled cheese sandwiches, or pizza. Fortunately, the Beast switches things up when he cooks for me. One of my favorite Beast creations occurred a few months ago when he made potato gnocchi for his Italian mother who came over for dinner. Only after he began the recipe did he realize we had no potato ricer, which is pretty necessary for gnocchi. Instead, he ended up improvising by cutting the potatoes really fine, and making the most amazing, melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi I’ve ever had. His Italian mom approved in a big, big way.
The meal stuck with his mom, and she ended up giving him a potato ricer as a Christmas gift. On Valentine’s Day last week he took it out for the first time, and made perfectly creamy, buttery lemon-thyme gnocchi. As much as I loved the gnocchi, I couldn’t stop thinking of the possibilities with the potato ricer. My mind immediately went to sweet potatoes and brown butter, which is a combination I’d never tried, but knew I had to…as soon as possible.
This dish has a similar depth of flavor as my butternut squash mac and cheese, but with the added plus of dumplings that are so intoxicatingly rich and delicious that you will be thinking about them for days. Especially how the caramel-hinted brown butter perfectly highlights the slight sweetness in the potatoes…that’s just not something that can be easily forgotten.
In the recipe below I say that this serves 4, because it SHOULD, and I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did. I’m not proud of this, but we ended up eating the whole recipe for dinner on Sunday, and then didn’t talk about anything other than our fullness level for a good half hour. This gnocchi is ridiculously satisfying, but try to stick to one serving. It will be hard, I know, but do your best. Although the uncomfortable fullness hurt, the worst repercussion of our overeating was the lack of leftovers for weekday lunches. I miss you, sweet potato gnocchi.
