farm fresh blueberries make the best ice cream!

finally we’re getting some serious summer weather here and after going a little overboard with the blueberries at the market this week, we decided to try our hand at Blueberry Cheesecake Ice Cream.

So glad we did! Delicious, rich, creamy, and just enough tartness from the fresh (awesome) blueberries to balance it all out. Tastes like summer and a celebration in your mouth.

Happy summer!

Market Wednesdays…

…always lead to the best recipe testing of the week.

Today:

fresh cranberry bean, baby artichoke, leek, bacon, and gruyere crostini, on fresh toasted hunks of country boule.

 

the classic melon prosciutto, er, post

if you’ve never tasted the classic prosciutto wrapped melon, you’re definitely missing something.  this post has nothing to add to that quintessential summery salty sweet juicy chewy combination of deliciousness, except that it’s a post about two of the most extraordinarily perfect versions of each component.

our weekly trip to the farmer’s market this week held a fun surprise (it always does, but this one’s post-worthy!):  the cute Jheri curled (not an oxymoron, i swear) irish dude who –week in, week out, summer, winter, hell, highwater–sells the market’s BEST potatoes had a table full of MELONS.  and not just melons.  spectacular melons.  transcendent, blissful halves of juice and sugar and sunshine and sweetness that you just can’t imagine without actually experiencing yourself.

as we spent the usual embarrassing amount of time lingering over the plump beautiful potatoes, we happened to overhear our jheri-curled celt farmer friend describing the melons to a local chef….  it didn’t take long before we had our hands all over the melons and ran home with ’em.  hardly taking the time to splash some water on them and our hands, we split the beauties right open and enjoyed some of the most delicious, amazing, juicy, sweet, and sublime honeydew and cantalopes ever.  the noteworthy part of this experience is that natural honeydws and catalopes are the size of baseballs!  not the Anna Nicole Smith-sized, almost dirt flavored version your local Ralph’s tries to peddle off.  who knew!

the other bit of information we learned this week was about La Quercia prosciutto.  Mark Bittman posted this piece to his opinionator column in the NY Times and we think it should be required reading:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/a-better-sort-of-pig/?ref=opinion

Go forth and eat yummy pork!

and again with the salads…!!

the freshness of summer continues to inspire us…

Tomato, plum, pecorino salad with a lemon basil vinaigrette.  Simple, lush, salty, sweet, and SO juicy!

We’re dealing with some exciting new bakery orders – lots of fun summer birthday cakes.  Can’t wait to update and post pictures!  Just need to figure out how to download all our images to the fancy new computer.  🙂

Stay tuned!

Summer salads

We’ve been testing a lot of new salad recipes as the bounty of the farmer’s market grows, and so far we’ve had a fair amount of success…

1) Watermelon, tomato, arugula, feta with caper-chive vinaigrette.  Delicate flavors, salty, sweet, crunch, and just a little peppery from the wild arugula.  And the croutons take it over the top.  Woohooo for sun-ripened tomatoes that actually TASTE like tomatoes!

2) Lentil, baby red chard, grilled summer vegetables, diced fresh apricots, and pistachios.  Tossed in a sherry wine brown sugar vinaigrette.  Savory, but bursting with fresh sweetness and that delightful salty nutty crunch from the best pistachios around.

3) Straight up farmer’s market panzanella.  Choc-full of the crazy delights of the market last week…  green beans, fresh barely blanched asparagus (both so tender and young and fresh they hardly needed blanching at all!), aforementioned cherry tomatoes – golden this time – and sweet new crop red onions mellowed the tiniest bit in some barreled red wine vinegar.  Sweet and salty and fresh again blowing our minds and keeping us beach-ready.

 

And now on to tonight’s dinner…  chicken spinach mushroom quesadillas, fresh english pea soup al pistou, and another salad experiment….

Tuesday dinner

We tested a couple new unrelated recipes tonight…

Artichokes, fresh dill, fresh mint, toasted almonds, dried red chilies, and some great local armenian feta cheese.  All tossed over pasta (spaghetti was in the pantry this week).  Some excellent olive oil drizzled on top and a generous sprinkling of Maldon.  Buen Provecho!

Also tested a persian cucumber, fresh grilled pineapple, and garden-picked basil salad.  Another hokey-sounding combination, but beautiful on the plate and stellar on the palate.

Sour cream coffee cake is next up tonight…just wondering if I should add strawberries or blueberries??  Anyone ever have a BDBIT (Best Darn Breakfast In Town?  …  at some place across the street from Stanford…. with the side of blueberry coffeecake….mmmmmm….decision made….)

Hello world!

We’ve finally joined the blogosphere…  a cheap crack at our fledgling company’s very own website!  I hope you’ll come back often to see what new exciting things we’re cooking up (literally) and tinkering with (not necessarily literally).

Thanks for checking us out!

-the Eat Well crew