A New Kind Of Potato Salad

 As a treat for James I reached down into our potato hills to dig up a couple fresh spuds for dinner.
I wanted a recipe to feature those tubers and show off the plentiful greens growing in our vegetable beds. As luck would have it I came across a recipe from one of my favorite chefs, Suzanne Goin, for a warm potato, frisée and dandelion salad. Now we've got plenty of dandelions but no frisée so I substituted some young kale, a few handfuls of oak leaf lettuce growing nearby and a bit of basil along with the cup of parsley leaves the chef calls for.
Goin's recipe couldn't be simpler. I tossed the potatoes with olive oil, thyme and salt and set them in a 400º oven (covered with foil) for 40 minutes. As the potatoes cooled for about 10 minutes I started cooking bacon (cut in 1/2" pieces) in a skillet. When the bacon was golden brown I added in a sliced onion and the potatoes cut into big (bigger than a mouthful) pieces. Goin uses beautiful fingerling potatoes but we don't have any of those ready to harvest so I went for the yukon golds and purple vikings ready to pull. After two minutes I tossed in a mixture of 3TB sherry vinegar and 2 TB of olive oil (I actually doubled it since we had such a big bowl of greens) and let everything heat through. I poured the warm dressing over the waiting mixed greens and tossed everything together, wilting the greens and spreading the bacony goodness through the salad.
"I like dinners like this," James declared between bites.
Three of his favorite things (potatoes, bacon, bitter greens) in one bowl. I'll be making this one again.

Pretty Quick Spaghetti Dinner

An uncooked pasta sauce -- briefly tossed with the hot, drained spaghetti is a great way to get dinner on the table in a hurry. Tonight I chopped up fresh dandelion, braised artichokes leftover from the other night's dinner, prosciutto and fresh mozzarella then sprinkled on minced garlic, crushed red peppers, shredded parmesan. All of that was combined with the hot spaghetti (just drained) in the cooking pot along with about 1/3 cup of pasta cooking water and plenty of cracked black pepper. I gave it all a good stir over just a tiny bit of heat until the parmesan and the water made a creamy coating for the noodles. Next time I'll toss in the mozzarella last minute -- it got a little clumpy, but otherwise pretty successful.

Spiced London Broil and Cauliflower Purée

There is comfort and meat and potatoes. And yet, there is edible joy in the unexpected. I went for both.

At first glance this smooth cauliflower purée seems like silky mashed potatoes but the taste is creamier, smoother and well, just a bit naughtier. Following chef John Besh's recipe I boiled the florets and, after drying them in a hot oven, puréed the vegetable with more hot cream and butter than I thought possible (or probably advisable).

With that kind of richness we needed a bit of spice. I marinated the steak in red wine and crushed garlic cloves for a couple hours and then coated the London broil in a mixture of black (1TB) , pink (2 tsp) and green (2 tsp) peppercorns, allspice (about 1/2 tsp -- the allspice was an idea from culinary historian Jessica Harris and it did add just a bit of mystery to the peppery coating), crushed red peppers (1/4 tsp), black mustard seeds (1/3 tsp) and a pinch of cayenne and ground together. I let the grilled steak (about 11 minutes total) rest while I sautéed up some fresh dandelion in garlic and olive oil -- a bit of bitter flavor to balance the rich spice and cream.