Cathy's Kitchen

Today's garden bounty. Beets, potatoes, cucumbers, and mint. I have a few Brussels sprouts from last week's farmers market, some carrots, and a nice leftover pork chop. Tonight's dinner will be roasted vegetables with slices of pork. Cucumbers on the side.

Cucumber water and mint iced tea will be in the refrigerator chilling very shortly.

I love my gardens. One of my favorite things to grow in the vegetable garden is garlic, and its so easy! Plant in mid October, mulch in, leave it all winter. It sprouts and grows in the spring....harvest in late June. It's time to order my seed garlic. I have ordered many times from Filaree Garden Farms. Very good quality, but you have to order early because they do run out.

I love these hardneck purple stripe varieties. They work well with our cold Ohio winters.

Purple Stripe Organic Seed Garlic | Filaree Farm Filaree Farm only sells organic seed garlic varieties, including purple stripe. Ships in October. Over 35 years in organics!

My first attempt at Kombucha. I started with just a starter tea. After mixing up the recipe and patiently waiting for five weeks, my kombucha grew a nice scoby. I did a first fermentation with four different flavors...strawberry, lemon lime, pineapple, and pineapple tangerine. After leaving at room temperature for 3 days, today I strained them, added 1 scant teaspoon of sugar to each of my flip top bottles, and bottled it. I'm leaving on the counter for 2 more days to allow the active cultures to work down the sugar to create a little more carbonation. We'll be enjoying our carbonated fruity drink and feeding our gut biome in a couple of days.

A couple of weeks ago I shared a Cobb salad recipe and noted that I believed the dressing would pair well with salmon or chicken. I was right. Tonight I paired the garlic dill dressing with grilled salmon. Together with fresh asparagus and jasmine rice with red pepper, red onion, and a honey soy sauce we enjoyed a tasty dinner.

I made this salad today (with a couple of substitutions) to share with friends for lunch. Two of my friends can't eat dairy, eggs, or wheat. I subbed chickpeas for eggs, eliminated croutons, and left the dressing on the side. With the freshness of spring produce, it was delicious. Bonus...I think the dressing would be an excellent pairing for salmon or chicken.

This Colorful Spring Cobb Salad Is Guaranteed To Brighten Your Day 'Tis the season!

One of my favorite herbs. Besides all this, it's great for your hair as well!

We are having dinner tonight with friends, and my contribution is dessert. I opted for a chocolate cheesecake. As you can see, I garnished with blackberries and confectioners sugar. I'll be serving with raspberry syrup I canned last year from my garden's berries. You could choose to garnish with chocolate whipped cream and chocolate sauce or strawberries with white chocolate shavings. The recipe and steps are in the comments.

Busy morning in the kitchen. My better half is ready to limit his consumption of processed foods...YAY.....so I went to work to make up food he can quickly and easily make when I'm not here. Check the comments for what I was able to do with my morning.