May 3
Soft, smooth, creamy and yielding… somehow I don’t think those adjectives came to mind to the first Mesoamericans that stumbled across an avocado. Fortunately, their discovery was the world’s gain. I love to celebrate that discovery every now and then by smashing together some avocados along with other new-world crops and making what the Spanish called “the butter of the poor”, but what we’ve all come to know and love as “guacamole”.
If you’ve never tried gluten-free baking, you don’t know how hard it is to get yeast to cooperate to produce light and spongy doughs. Fortunately, we’ve done plenty of experimentation and found a way to reproduce airy and fluffy cinnamon rolls typically made with conventional flour. If you’re tired of gluten-free rolls that are heavy, dry and chalky give this recipe a try and start enjoying baked goods again!
Lately, I’ve been craving lentils – or poor man’s caviar, as they say. Sure, they’re a cheap and quick source of protein, but I find something comforting about a bowl of lentils. Despite the long, and seemingly daunting ingredient list, this dish is actually very simple, and hopefully will get you to try a different combination of flavors and textures that you never knew went together so famously.
Fennel is one of the most under-utilized vegetables I can think of. I know I’ve been guilty of ignoring it in the past due to my strong dislike of licorice. However, once I started using the bulb (rather than just the seeds, like most recipes use), I noticed how delicate and refreshing fresh fennel can be and I was hooked. I wanted to take advantage of this flavor profile and see how I could use it to enhance the flavor of rainbow trout, which is abundant in rivers throughout Colorado and try to match its various attributes with other mild flavors, such as pine nuts and sweet, roasted garlic. The result? Nothing short of amazing. If you ever need a dish that can knock the socks of your dinner companion(s), spend the extra minutes preparing this dish… the ingredients alone sound like they came out of some haughty modern-American bistro menu.
When you think of pea soup, do you (like many people) automatically think of a bland, green mush that is as tasteless as wet cardboard? Well, perhaps this version of pea soup that is short on ingredients and big on taste will help change your mind. In order to create a light and delicate soup, we ditch the pork many recipes use, and rely on fresh tarragon to complement and enhance the natural sweetness of peas.
Demystifying Dinner 