Homemade Pasta

Homemade hand cut papardelle with brown butter balsamic, toasted walnuts and parmesan cheese. Amazing.

Popovers with Strawberry Butter

Strawberry butter with fresh strawberries

1 stick softened butter

2 tablespoons strawberry jam

1/2 c diced strawberries

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp sugar

Combine strawberries, lemon juice, and sugar to macerate the strawberries. Place in the refrigerator and let stand for at least 30 minutes, or longer. 

Mix butter, jam, and strawberries together. Enjoy!

Grilling

Last night we grilled for dinner! I made herb grilled shrimp, and grilled corn from the farmers market. I also made a simple salad to go along with it, and this bread from 101 cookbooks.

Family Dinner

The other night I made a really yummy and simple dinner for my family. We recently planted a raised bed garden, and got to use lettuce from it for our salad! It was really exciting. In the salad we also had goat cheese, toasted pine nuts, carrots, and a lemon vinaigrette. We also had artichokes, chive roasted fingerling potatoes, and sole with lemon butter sauce. 

Sole with Lemon Butter Sauce

4 filet sole (any kind will work)

1/3 c lemon juice

1/3 c white wine

3 tbsp butter

salt

pepper

olive oil

Salt and pepper the fish on both sides. Set aside while you make the sauce.

For the sauce, melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan. When melted, add the lemon juice, white wine, and a pinch of salt. Simmer and reduce by half, then turn off the heat. Melt in the last tablespoon of butter. 

For the fish, put a few tablespoons of oil in a pan and turn the heat on medium. Add two of the filets, and cook for two minutes on each side, or until done. Remove from pan, add more oil, and cook the other two filets. 

Spoon the sauce onto the fish and serve. 

Cherry Ice

Cherry Ice. It's kind of like a granita and is a great light and refreshing dessert for summer.

Fresh Pea Soup

This morning I went to the farmers market and stocked up on a lot of amazing food. One of the highlights was the english peas. I got to taste some at the stand and they were really sweet and delicious, so I decided to make Ina Garten's fresh pea soup. 

It took a really long time to get the peas out of the pods, but it was worth it. The soup also has mint and is finished off with a little creme fraiche, which really makes the peas taste fresh and delicious. I also had a little extra mint, so I made mint lemonade with the lemons from my backyard. It was a great, light spring lunch!

Restaurants

I finished up all my finals a few days ago, and spent a very long (and very stressful) time packing up my whole dorm room, but now I am finally home! 

Yesterday I went to two really great restaurants, True Food (which is one of my new favorites) for lunch, and Fraiche for dinner. 

For lunch I had a coconut curry soup, and farmers market salad (so many great vegetables!!!). I also had a cucumber lemonade.

For dinner I had monkfish with lemon butter sauce, spinach and mashed potatoes, and my friend Amina had branzino papillote (cooked in paper). It was delicious! 

Brasserie V

I have finals next week. So today I woke up thinking that when I finished class I would just go back to my dorm and study all afternoon and evening. This would have been pretty boring, but reasonable since I do have a lot of studying to do. But instead, I got a text from Richard, and had way much more fun.

Richard said he was hungry and wanted to get something to eat, and I am always up for food, so we decided to try a new restaurant that we've discovered called Brasserie V. Most of the restaurants we go to here in Madison are by the capitol, but this one is in the other direction in a cute little neighborhood on a street called Monroe. We walked around afterwards and it is a great area with lots of other tasty-looking restaurants that we want to try.

Brasserie V is a French-Belgium restaurant with delicious food and a large selection of beers. Richard had the Croque Madame, which is a Croque Monsieur with a fried egg on top. It was delicious.

I had Moules Frites and got Truffle Fries instead of regular fries. They were so good! They had a white wine base with garlic, and the bread was super crusty and delicious. 

After we ate, we went to the Trader Joe's that is right across the street. We got some regular groceries, but I also got Speculoos Cookie Butter! I had read about it before but had never tried it. And it is just as good as it sounds. It basically tastes like ginger snap cookies, but in butter or spreadable form. I am going to try it on everything, but so far I've just been eating it out of the jar... with my fingers... and I don't even feel guilty about it, its that good.

Richard also got me these flowers for my room. They are bright and springy, and smell wonderful.

I guess now I have to actually study, but at least I have my cookie butter to keep me company.