Roasted Beet, Goat Cheese and Candied Walnut Salad

If my grandmother could see me now she probably wouldn't believe what was before her eyes. Beets. On my table. And I'm enjoying them. Perhaps it's her influence leading me down this road; I do live in her house after all. I can remember sitting in this same kitchen refusing to even touch her home-pickled beets. What I wouldn't give to have a bite of her home-canned beets today! Until I figure out how to do pickle them myself this roasted-beet salad will have to do. Something tells me that Maw Maw would be just as happy to see these beets on my table as the ones she prepared.

While I wasn't a fan of beets when I was younger I did always love their crimson hue. I can remember how they would stain my fingertips, and sometimes I'd even rub them across my little lips, pretending to put on lipstick. (It was a quick and dirty way to get around Mama's no-makeup-until-you're-older rule.) Back then their earthy fragrance and their pure-spring taste weren't qualities that interested me. Now I understand the attraction to these colorful orbs. They're pure nature. They taste of mornings in the garden and sun-kissed afternoons. They taste of hard work and dirt under your nails. And they're exactly the kind of treat I expected to find when I signed up for a CSA box.

I found with this salad that maple syrup, orange juice, goat cheese and beets are a wonderful combination. And while I no longer use beets for makeup I was still happy to let them pass over my lips - and right to my tummy. This was a wonderful salad, and one I'll welcome to my table every spring.



Roasted Beet, Goat Cheese and Candied Walnut Salad
Adapted from Allrecipes
Makes 4 to 6 servings
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In my salad I used walnuts and sunflower seeds, but you can of course use any nut you like best. I think pecans would be lovely. While this orange vinaigrette is quite good I'd also like to try this salad with a raspberry one, and perhaps add mandarin oranges as an accent.

Ingredients
3 to 4 medium-sized beets, unpeeled
Olive oil to rub on beets
1/3 cup walnut halves or pieces
2 tablespoons sunflower seeds (optional)
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 bag salad greens
2 ounces goat cheese
1/2 cup frozen orange juice concentrate
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rub beets in olive oil, then cover each one in foil and place on a cookie sheet. Alternately, you can place each oil-rubbed, foil-covered beet in the cup of a muffin tin. Roast about an hour, or until you can easily pierce the flesh of each beet with a knife. Set aside to cool until you can handle them, then cut off top and bottom, and slide skins off. Chop and set aside. (Leftover beets can be stored in the refrigerator.)
2. Over medium heat, add nuts to skillet and toast until just brown. Do not walk away from the stove or you'll run the risk of burning and ruining your walnuts. Pour syrup over hot nuts and stir to combine. Remove skillet from heat and allow nuts to cool. When you can handle them pick them up, break them apart, and set aside. (Leftover nuts can be stored in an air-tight container.)
3. In a small bowl, whisk orange-juice concentrate, vinegar and oil.
4. Plate your greens. Top with nuts, beets and crumbled goat cheese. Pour dressing over salad and serve.

Roasted Spring Vegetables Over Sticky Rice

There is no doubt that when it comes to food I am Southern to the core. Fried chicken is my favorite food. I'll choose a buttermilk biscuit over toast any day of the week. And I'd rather have a big, warm piece of my Mama's pound cake than any fancy, bakery cupcake you throw at me. But. (But.) When it comes to vegetables I think I first had them during some out-of-body experience. Because you see most Southerners cook their vegetables to death, and I just can't handle them that way. Apparently, my mother's canned green beans are the best thing since sliced bread, but ever since I was able to make my own decisions I've politely declined them. Although of course my parents made me eat just one spoonful in the hopes that the taste would grow on me. It didn't. Mooshy and I just don't mix. Sorry, mama.



I was once told that I prefer my vegetables the West Coast way. Brightly colored. Cooked, but with a bit of bite. Misted with oil. And yes, you can pan-fry them, but I prefer the hands-off approach: oven-roasted. This bunch of carrots came courtesy of my CSA, and they were the sweetest, most tender carrots I've ever eaten. Roasting them this way, with salt, is like eating kettle corn at the movies - you know, sweet and salty - except I was eating roasted carrots in front of Say Yes to the Dress, instead. And the asparagus? Well, when it's fresh and thin and packed in that tight little bunch it's hard for me to say no.

Take it all, douse it with a bit of soy sauce, perhaps a runny egg, and serve it over sticky rice. And you've got breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner! Or all three.



Roasted Spring Vegetables Over Sticky Rice
By Confabulation in the Kitchen
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This is really a non-recipe and more of a suggestion. You don't really need me to tell you how to roast vegetables, but you might need me to suggest that it's the best spring or summer meal you've ever eaten. As I type I have freshly picked green beans roasting away to serve tonight alongside barbecue chicken. Which goes to show you that most any vegetable is perfect served this way: Brussels sprouts, sweet onions, sliced sweet potatoes and maybe even fresh, sweet corn on the cob.

Ingredients
One bunch of any vegetable of your choice.
Olive oil
Fresh ground black pepper
Coarse salt
1 tablespoon fresh or 1/2 tablespoon dried herbs of your choice (I used dried parsley, but you could use rosemary, dill or chives, for example.)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
2. Clean, dry and place vegetables in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Gently toss with your hands until every piece is coated.
3. Place in single layer on prepared cookie sheet. Roast 20 to 30 minutes, or until vegetables are tender, slightly wrinkled and browned to your liking.

A Pink and Green Baby Shower / Key Lime Bars

My sister Elaina's baby shower has now come and gone, and it was so much fun! It was given at my house, along with help from my mom and my youngest sister. I worked from dawn until dusk for a week on the planning, designing and food (which explains the silence around here last week), and it all came out exactly as I'd hoped. My feet hurt, my back hurt and a couple of days my head even hurt, but I wouldn't change a single thing. We all three have a baby now, well, almost ... little Miss Scarlett isn't due until the end of August, and oh how I can't wait to meet her! Since this is the last first baby we had to go out with a bang, and I think everybody was impressed. We kept the food simple and the details sweet - all in shades of pink and green. I love doing this kind of stuff; it would be so fun to be a professional party planner! But since you're ultimately here for the food let's just get right to the menu:

* Vanilla cake squares
* Prosciutto-wrapped grissini
* Tomato, mozzarella and pesto skewers
* Watermelon and kiwi salad
* Pink and green key-lime squares, made by my sister Emily
* Pink and green M&Ms
* Bottled water and pink lemonade to drink
* Chocolate-covered pretzel sticks
* White-chocolate-covered strawberry marshmallows, dipped in chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, for favors

See? Easy-peasy and thoroughly enjoyed. Almost every morsel was consumed, and the few things that were left went home with the mother-to-be to share with the father-to-be! Oh, and that cake? It's made of diapers and receiving blankets! Isn't it darling? Almost too pretty to take apart, don't you think? If you live in my area and you're in need of a party planner, or a diaper cake, or chocolate-covered anything then I'm your gal. Unless I'm babysitting my sweet baby Scarlett, of course!

Key Lime Squares
Adapted from Big Oven
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Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
2 cups plus 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, beaten
2 cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar, divided
8 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pink and/or green food coloring, optional*
Powdered sugar for sprinkling, optional

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9 by 12 inch metal baking pan.
2. In a large bowl place the butter, salt, one tablespoon of sugar and two cups of flour. Using a pastry blender, mix until ingredients are combined and become small lumps. Press into pan and bake 15 to 20 minutes, watching carefully so that the crust doesn't get too brown. Remove from oven and set aside.
3. Meanwhile, in a separate bowl beat eggs, sugar, lime juice and a few drops of food coloring (if desired) on high speed until well-combined. Reduce speed to low and add four tablespoons of flour and baking powder, and mix well.
4. Pour wet ingredients over crust and bake about 25 minutes, or until set. If you find top browning too quickly and distorting the color, loosely cover with foil. Cool completely on a wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before cutting into squares. Serve at room temperature.

* Emily made two recipes of these squares, one colored pink and one colored green.

Blueberry Buckle

My dad called me last weekend with a fabulous invitation: "The blueberries are in; do you want to come pick them today?" You see I had been waiting, maybe not so patiently, for that phone call. And I'm sure he had been ready to call me so I'd quit bugging him. But all I had been hearing was "Not sure we're going to get any berries this year. All these storms have beat the blossoms to death." But the berries did survive, and now we're eating them by the handfuls. And we're washing and freezing them by the cup-fulls.



One of us can't get enough blueberries and have eaten them at every meal. And one of us ate them right off the vine, too, to the point that our mama wondered if a tummyache would follow. It didn't. So one of us ate more blueberries for breakfast the next morning while we watched Sesame Street. (I'll just let you guess who that little somebody is.)



I have always wanted to make a blueberry buckle because I just think the name is so cute. While that's not usually a guideline for most people when they're choosing recipes I happen to be a sucker for a cutesy, clever or intriguing title. I mean, just look around here and you'll see what I mean: whoopie pies, mud hens, popovers and Santa buttons. How could you not bake those goodies? And blueberry buckle belongs right in there with them. Before I made it I thought that perhaps it's called a buckle because it's just so good it makes you weak in the knees. But it's actually called a buckle because while it bakes the baking powder makes the cake rise, which makes the blueberries and streusel fall, creating a buckled look on top. That's right. I said cake and streusel. My friends, a buckle is what most of us call coffeecake.

Whatever you call it, it's good eating. Blueberry buckle is good for breakfast, it's good for a snack, and it's good for dessert. And it's a great way to use up fresh blueberries - if you haven't already eaten them plain. And if you have eaten them all? Get to pickin'! The season isn't over yet.



Blueberry Buckle
Adapted from Allrecipes
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This is not a super-sweet cake, which makes it perfect alongside the obligatory cup of coffee. I think it would be made even better with pecans in the streusel, which I didn't use but will next time I make it. (The recipe reflects this addition.) I also think the blueberries could easily be switched out with fresh raspberries, fresh sour cherries or fresh, chopped peaches.

Ingredients for cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
2 cups fresh blueberries

Ingredients for streusel
1/4 cup cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375. Prepare an 8-inch, square baking pan.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl mix butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. And flour to sugar mixture, alternating with milk. Gently fold in berries, and spread batter in prepared pan.
4. Make streusel: Combine butter, sugars, cinnamon, flour and pecans in a small bowl. Using a pastry blender, mix until ingredients resemble coarse meal. Sprinkle it over the cake batter.
5. Bake 50 minutes then check to see if cake is done. If it is a cake tester inserted in the center will come out clean. If it needs more baking time, check on it again after five more minutes. Serve warm, and with a dollop of sweetened whipped cream, if desired.

Slow-Cooking Saturdays: Crockpot Dulce De Leche Brownies

You know the old saying, "There's no such thing as a new idea"? Well, it's true, and the Internet reminds me every single day. I kept seeing (and clipping) dulce de leche recipes all over the web, but I wasn't exactly sure how to find this sweet concoction so I could taste it myself. Thus, I turned to the Almighty Google Monster and ta-da! A DIY version exists! But that first version I found? It called for a pot of hot water with a metal can submerged. Well, go ahead and call me a chicken if you want, but this lady was not about to try something that might just blow up in her face. Literally. That trick did get my gears turning, however, and I thought, "Hmmmm. I wonder if I could make dulce de leche in the crockpot." I'm a genius! Except I'm not. Because the Internet reminded me once again that "There's no such thing as a new idea."

But that was okay. At least I had a plan!



My second genius idea? Turn that homemade dulce de leche into a mix-in for brownies. I could just taste it: rich, chocolatey, fudgy brownies with swirls of creamy, caramel sauce in every bite. Sticky. Messy. Addictive. Three words that should describe every brownie I ever eat. But guess what? I'm not a genius. I'm a copycat (without even knowing it.) I should have guessed that the Dessert King himself, David Lebovitz, was a step ahead of me.

But that was okay. At least I had a plan.



I think it goes without saying that the people in my house loved their can of DIY dulce de leche. (Some of us more than others. Some of us may have followed Mama around, big-boy spoon in hand, saying "Morrr, Mama? Morrr?" And maybe some mamas were all too happy to oblige.) It took a lot of control to keep from eating the dulce de leche all by itself, but we managed. And it took a lot of control not to stand over the kitchen counter digging into a pan of hot brownies, too. But we managed. Well, we managed long enough to take a few photos. But we're not responsible for any carnage, er, crumbs, left behind post-photo shoot. In fact, let's just keep that part to ourselves.



Crockpot Dulce De Leche Brownies
Adapted from David Lebovitz
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Mr. Lebovitz says these brownies taste better the second day, but unfortunately I can't attest to that fact because ours, uh, didn't quite last that long.

Ingredients
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup cocoa
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup dulce de leche (or cajeta)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Prepare square, metal or glass baking pan.
3. In saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Add chopped chocolate and stir until chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, whisking well after each addition. Stir in sugar, then vanilla and then flour.
4. Pour half of chocolate batter into pan. Drop half prepared dulce de leche over batter in small mounds. Swirl with knife. Carefully smooth remaining chocolate batter over dulce de leche. Then dollop remaining dulce de leche over the top and gently swirl once more.
5. Bake 35 to 45 minutes. Brownies are finished baking when the center is slightly firm. Cool completely before slicing. For cleaner-cut brownies, clean your knife in hot water between slices. Store in air-tight container up to three days.

* For the instructions to make crockpot dulce de leche, please visit A Year of Slowcooking. Please note, however, that the makers of canned sweetened condensed milk don't recommend heating their cans. Thus, neither do I, natch.

Grilled Turkey Burgers

I don't know about you, but for me summer begins on Memorial Day. That's the day when grills are pulled out all over this land, and Americans gather together to break bread and remember those men and women who made this country great. I spent Memorial Day with my grandfather (a former Navy man) and family on the Crystal Coast. And of course we came back to our house, covered in sand, to devour grilled hamburgers, sliced dill pickles and potato chips. Is there any better way to eat than sun-kissed and surrounded by littles who can't stop talking about the big water? (Which Cash was not a fan of, he'll thankyouverymuch. "I no like it, Mommy." Heard that one a lot this past week...)



Okay, I admit it. These are not the burgers we ate on Memorial Day. In fact I broke that cardinal summer rule and pulled out the grill before Memorial Day. I have a feeling some of you have already done the same, however. While we eat these burgers year-round, sauteed on the stovetop, I was ready for sizzling, hot, grilled meat. Steamy, sweet onions. And smoked, flavorful rosemary. Kara's recipe delivers every one of those requirements, and bonus, they're good for you! While at home we may be catching fireflies instead of waves, and running through sprinklers instead of sand, we're still making memories. So yes. It's official. Break out that grill and get to cooking! There are many summer nights ahead, and these turkey burgers are a great way to ring them in.



I had the great opportunity to meet Kara in person awhile back, and now I'm excited to call her a real friend after all these years talking through our blogs! Be sure to visit What's Kookin' for this great Turkey Burger recipe, and be sure to look around at her blog. Kara takes fabulous photos and always shares some of the greatest recipes.