No recipe today, just photos

San Luis Obispo is a small town in Central California, and is without a doubt one of my favorite places in the world! My aunt and uncle live there and I have so many great memories of going to visit them and my cousins when I was little. Years later, Gabe ended up at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for college, and now we're getting married there! We took a little road trip to SLO this weekend to take care of a few wedding-related things but we managed to fit in a trip to the beach...

We were getting pumped for our wedding - almost 5 months!

It's always beautiful there, but springtime is extra gorgeous. So many vibrant green hills! I was sticking my camera out the car window to get these photos.

Then we drove out to the venue for our wedding for a little peek...yep, it's still awesome!

Avocado, Citrus, and Roasted Beet Salad

Ouch, it has been too long since I last posted! I didn't mean to neglect my blog, I just felt like I was lacking cooking inspiration. Sometimes I dream about what it would be like to be able to stay home every day and just cook and take pictures...sadly real life doesn't quite allow for that at this point! 

When you're busy (or at least when I'm busy) it's easy to loose the motivation to cook new, exciting recipes and experiment in the kitchen. So for this post, I'm putting out a request to anyone reading: share some inspiration with me and with each other! Leave a comment with a link to a recipe you love or ingredients you're interested in, and I'll incorporate your suggestions into upcoming posts!

We had this salad for dinner a while ago, after a weekend of almost non-stop eating. I wanted something healthy and light, but substantial enough to feel like a meal. It was refreshing and delicious, and while I loved the roasted beets, I might try keeping them raw next time and either thinly slicing them or grating them for some crunch.

Avocado, Citrus, and Roasted Beet Salad (serves 2)

2 large or 4 medium-small Chioggia beets (or any type of beet)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 oranges, peeled and segmented (I used one blood orange and one tangelo)

1 avocado

For the dressing:

1 tablespoon lime juice

3 tablespoons olive oil

Pinch of salt and pepper to taste

Slice the beets into 1/4 inch thick segments and toss with olive oil and salt. Roast them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 20-25 minutes, until they're slightly soft.

Aren't they so beautiful with those stripes?!

Once the beets are done, set them aside to cool. Meanwhile, make the dressing by combining lime juice, olive oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper.

When the beets are just slightly warm, toss all ingredients together with the dressing. Top with a little lime zest like I did, or an herb like mint or basil would be equally delicious!

A few weeks ago, we took Poppy to the vet for a check-up. Our poor cat was told that she needs to lose a few pounds, so she's been on a diet. To make matters worse, she had to get three shots and was a little miserable afterward. Here she is, looking forlorn and sore. Have you ever seen such a sad face?!

Lemon Bars on Brown Butter Shortbread

Happy Superbowl Sunday everyone! I can't say I'm usually much of a football fan, but I have to represent San Francisco! Unfortunately I don't have a classic football-watching recipe for you, like potato skins or chicken wings. These lemon bars are quite the opposite - delicate and ladylike, but so, so delicious.

I've had the Tartine cookbook for a long time, but I've always been kind of intimidated by it. The recipes are all very thorough, which I appreciate, but five pages on croissants and proper croissant folding and rolling technique scares the crap out of me. I'm sure it would be well worth the effort, but for now I'm sticking with these simple, tart, beautiful lemon bars.

Lemon Bars on Brown Butter Shortbread (recipe from Tartine)

Crust
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

Filling
1/2 cup flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Zest from 1 lemon
6 large whole eggs
1 large egg yolk
Pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and butter a 9 by 13 inch baking pan. For the crust, sift the confectioners sugar into the bowl of a mixer, and add flour and stir to mix the two. Be careful with this part - I mixed on too high of a speed and sprayed flour everywhere...oops! Add the butter and beat on a low speed until a smooth dough forms. 

Press the dough into your prepared pan so it's about 1/4 inch thick and about 1/2 inch up the sides of the pan. Use a fork to score the dough, which prevents it from puffing up too much. As you can see from my photo, my crust was definitely not very beautiful and probably could have been more evenly distributed, but no one will know once the filling is on top! Bake the crust for about 25-30 minutes, until it is a deep golden brown.

While the crust is baking, you can make the filling. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour and sugar. Add in the lemon juice and zest and stir well so that the sugar dissolves. In a separate bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, egg yolk, and pinch of salt. Finally, add the egg mixture to the lemon juice mixture and whisk well.

Ideally, you'll have the filling ready just as the crust finishes baking (it helps to juice all the lemons first - that part took me forever!). Remove the crust from the oven and carefully pour the filling into the pan. 

Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake for about 30 minutes, just until the filling is solid and not wobbly.

Cool the bars completely, and dust them with powdered sugar. You can cut them into bars or just start attacking them with a fork like I did...no shame!

Here's a behind the scenes look at my photography process, which usually involves shooing Poppy off the table. Nobody likes orange cat hair in their food, sorry Poppy!

Tortilla Soup

Between a cold going around and some freezing weather (for the Bay Area...I know I sound like a wimp if you're an East Coaster), there has been a lot of soup-eating going on in our house lately. Being half-Italian, I looove anything pasta based and gravitate towards those hearty pasta, white bean, and kale type of soups. Nothing against those, but it was starting to get a little old after a while - time to spice things up!

This tortilla soup is definitely not super authentic, but that's not really what I was going for. I just threw together some easy to find ingredients and the result was just spicy enough to be warming and hearty enough for a winter dinner.

Tortilla Soup (serves 6)

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup red or white onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

26 ounces canned chopped tomatoes (a few ounces more or less is fine)

4 cups chicken or veggie broth

15 ounces each canned (or fresh if you have it!) corn and black beans

1 teaspoon each salt and pepper

1/2 teaspoon aleppo pepper (or substitute 1 teaspoon chili powder)

4-5 tortillas (corn or flour)

1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Lime wedges for garnishing

In a large, heavy bottomed soup pan, heat the olive oil and saute the onions and garlic over medium heat for about five to seven minutes, until the onions are translucent.

Add in the tomatoes, aleppo pepper or chili powder, salt and pepper and simmer for about five minutes more. Then pour in the chicken/veggie broth and the beans and corn and bring to a boil, stirring to combine all ingredients.

Boil for about 10 minutes, then turn the heat down a bit and let the soup simmer for a good 15-20 minutes more. I have definitely noticed with soup that the longer it cooks, the more the flavors meld together. It's even better as leftovers the next day!

While the soup is simmering, heat a small saute pan over medium heat. To crisp up the tortillas for garnishing, place them one at a time in the pan - no oil needed! Keep an eye on the tortilla and as it starts to brown and bubbles form, flip it to crisp the other side. This just makes them more crunchy and delicious as a topping for the soup!

When you're ready to serve, garnish the soup with grated cheese, cilantro, lime wedges, and tortilla pieces.


Finally...Poppy "helps" with laundry. No wonder I have orange kitty hair all over all my clothes...

Panettone French Toast

I hope everyone had a great holiday and a happy New Year! If your New Year's resolution is to eat healthier, then I'm sorry, this recipe is not for you...but you should try the salad from my last post!

In my family, it's a tradition to have Panettone at Christmas. Panettone is an eggy, sweet Italian dessert cake made with lots of spices, citrus zest, and rasins. You can normally find it at any grocery store around the holidays - I just saw some on sale this morning, score! It's pretty delicious on its own, or toasted with a little butter, but my favorite way to eat it is in the form of french toast. 

It's basically a standard french toast recipe with a little extra cinnamon and some orange zest to bring out the flavors of the bread. Since the bread is so dense, it soaks up an ton of the dipping mixture, and once cooked, it becomes crispy on the outside and custardy on the inside.

Panettone French Toast

Makes 6 pieces, serves about 3, and can be very easily doubled or tripled to feed a crowd!

6 medium-thick slices Panettone

2 cups milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons orange zest

Butter for frying and topping

It really couldn't be easier - just mix all ingredients together in a wide, shallow bowl. Use a whisk to make sure the eggs are well combined with the milk.

Dunk the Panettone slices into the wet mixture, flipping them over to make sure they are soaked through.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and melt a generous pat of butter. I like to use salted butter just because I think it's a nice contrast to the sweet french toast, but you can use whatever you have!

Cook all slices until they are golden brown and slightly crisp on the outside. I'd recommend keeping it simple with the toppings - jam or syrup can overwhelm the flavors, so I love just a little butter and powdered sugar.

Here's Poppy, napping as usual. She's a little depressed that Christmas is over and there are no more shiny ornaments to play with and trees to try and knock down.