Carrot Ribbon Salad

I am a big fan of carrots, and I am a big fan of salad, but I could never figure out how to combine them in a satisfying way. Cutting the carrots into round slices just made them too thick and woody in comparison with the lettuce, and shredded carrots tend to clump up unattractively. But, when I was peeling carrots, I realized that the peels were the perfect thickness for a salad. So I just kept peeling, even after the skin was long gone, to make carrot ribbons.

I used 2 carrots to get about 1-1.5cups of loosely packed ribbons (I would use a third carrot if I made this again). To continue my salad, I decided to add a small handful of cranberries and toasted pecans to add a bit of interest, and I topped it with a box of spring greens.

For the dressing, I made a mustard vinaigrette with a large spoonful of mustard, a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar, a larger spoonful of red wine vinegar (too much balsamic makes a salad cloyingly sweet instead of light and refreshing), an equal amount of olive oil, and a crank of freshly ground pepper.

I brought this salad to a Track pasta feed (where we feast on carbs the night before a race) and it was a nice change from all of the pasta and cookies. At the pasta feed, my friend and I actually ended up making a lemon-olive oil dressing with the hosts home-grown lemons for some of the plain pasta people had brought, and it was delicious: lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, mustard, and "italian seasoning" tossed with pasta.

Bacon Avocado Sandwich

     Last week, my friend brought an avocado sandwich to school. It looked really good. I wanted one too. So, on Thursday morning, instead of making my usual ham and cheese or pb and j, I decided to make an avocado sandwich. And what better with avocado than bacon? 

     I mashed a few slices of avocado with Cholula hot sauce and lime (to slow oxidation as well as to add flavor)

     I had fried the bacon the night before, and then I just cut it up and placed it on the avocado! The combination of creamy and crunchy/salty was very tasty. As we approach the summer months, this sandwich could be improved with some ripe tomato slices and lettuce into a BLTA! 

     And I appologize for the not very good photos. 7 am is kind of early to be thinking about exposure.

Tomato Sauce and Carrot Cardamom Cake

Tonight, my parents went out, so my brother (who is home for spring break) and I decided to make some ravioli and carrot cake!

Above is the tomato sauce I made to go with the ravioli. It has onions, garlic (which I sliced rather than crushed), red thai curry paste, some of my mom's mystery spices, canned tomatoes, jarred tomato sauce, and peas. 

This is Spiced Carrot Cake, but really should be called Cardamom Carrot cake, because cardamom is its only spice. It was, however, delicious. 

And I successfully temporarily fixed my camera! Unfortunately, as I had to duct tape the piece that holds the batteries in, I'm not sure how I will change the batteries... But until then I can still take pictures!

New Plan! And Cailles en Sarcophages!

So, it has been a very long time since I have last blogged, and as I don't have enough time these days to write full recipes (second semester seniorness is a lie), I have decided to take a picture of some interesting food I see/eat and write about it every day or every other day! Sounds fun? Yes! Unfortunately my camera is having some issues at the moment, but I don't think it is anything some duct tape and new batteries can't fix! (hopefully) Until I get around to fixing it, I will be hitchhiking off of other people's cameras.

First Interesting Food: Cailles en Sarcophages from Le Festin de Babette


My dad had been talking for a long time about making this dish: quails stuffed with truffles and foie gras and then wrapped in puff pastry. And on Wednesday he finally did make it!

It should be noted that instead of truffles, we used regular mushrooms and truffle oil. Also, the puff pastry crust was baked empty and sliced open, and the baked and stuffed quails were set inside a few minutes before serving.

During dinner we discussed what tweaks could make this better, and concluded on an extra pan seared slice of foie gras on the side.

This was all in all a delicious dish, so thank you Dad and Brother!

photo cred: my dad