Lemon liqueur

I have a pile of lemons at our new home…I had planned to make limoncello as I did with grapefruit at our old house. But I wasn’t feeling it. I hinted around online and made a conglomerate recipe…

I actually used 6 lemons….all of them as this will be strained later.

I chopped them small/medium ish

I added 1 cup of sugar to the lemons

Then I poured in 1/2 the vodka and shook to dissolve. Then the rest of the vodka. This jar held 1/2 the bottle with the lemon bulk in it.

Soundly shaken again abs detached in a dark cabinet.

I feel like this will be far more lemony than limoncello! I’ll get back to you in 4-6 weeks

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Korean BBQ Oyster Mushrooms

Following on the success of the bbq pink mushrooms sandwiches, I thought my bag of mixed oyster mushrooms would be fantastic for Korean bbq mushrooms. i was kinda’ right. The pinks crisp up nicely but the other varieties aren’t a so crisp loving but they mostly get there

Following the other recipe. They were minimally spiced for this part, then when done I tossed them with some Flatiron Asian blend peppers, tamari, fish sauce, acid league’s liquid kimchi, liquid smoke.

Served it up with rice, butter lettuce leaves, kimchi, rice vinegar pickled daikon. I loved the mushroom marinade sauce so much I tossed it onto the broccoli rabe as well.

We made perfect wraps with the lettuce, mushroom and kimchi and I made reasonable pantry/fridge panchan

BBQ Pink Oyster Mushroom Sandwiches

Last weekend the Palm Springs Farmers Market granted me Pink Oyster Mushrooms from Canyon Creek Mushrooms. I was lucky as we slept in and they had two bags of mushrooms left—one was the pink. After hunting recipes I settled on the caramelized bbq sandwiches

I loved these! Carmelize them in a hot pan with some spicy seasonings…and toss in bbq sauce and then sauté them quickly again.

Here’s how they start:

Here is the last sauté before they hit the toast:

I used my favorite bbq sauce from We Love Jam

And I plated these beauties with a coleslaw

I’m gonna do this again. It’s a lot of low and slow time getting a nice caramelization but well worth it!

Recent food finds

I am constantly taking pictures of food that i see and i have fallen so far behind in sharing lately.   Im going to try and do a catch up of the last couple weeks of things that I thought were fun enough to share.  Passionflowers are blooming, figs and squash are in season.   We are like a week or two away from the Southern California summer cornucopia of ridiculous bounty.

My neighbor at the community garden has a full on passionflower wall growing.  I have never had the fruit.   I was planning to trellis one in my backyard this year but a young plant wont survive our july vaca so after we return.

The van nuys german deli is sooo close to my house:


Usually i will get two smoked brats, 2 swiss and 2 neurenberger for the 2 of us and simmer in saurkraut and wine…

Head cheese anyone?


Does everyone know that i love marzipan!   British cadbury chocolate and marzipan enrobed in dark chocolate are two wonderful things. 

Gooseberries!

If you zoom in, you will notice flavors of soy sauce in this chinese whisky

Fresh almonds

Dragonfruit

Banana blossoms


No name whiskey shots for your carry on bag

I thoroughly enjoy stroopwafel and if you have had an am flight on United, you have been gifted with a stroopwafel…not sure of the cocktail i would make with this

Last weekend was a roadtrip to the BH branch of Laduree to get the much coveted Barbie box

And of course view the special promo display dolls

Macaron!!!!!  

Its fig season!   I have some in the fridge waiting to be covered with cheese and balsamic

Its still peach season

Jim is scoping out his fav variety of strawberry



Tomatoes are breaking in.  Next week will be full blown tomato explosion

Look close…bok choi and cress flowers

The aquash in unstoppable now.


So that updates like 2 weeks of non restaurant/non home cooking pics….home tou saw something fun or unique.

Blt salad inspired by bon appetit email

Okay….this got posted incomplete!!!

Here is my mise en place for this email inspired idea…romaine, parmesan, homemade dressing, smoked blue cheese, tomato, avocado, bacon, garlic, radish, shishito (that i grew!), cucumber….i took like 4 pictures because this has the red pepper that i removed but didnt have the egg i added, etc


Grilled romaine…yep, i flipped and grilled again


Grilling avocado. They made nice grill marks


This is my first try at a grilled chopped blt salad.

It was good:-)


Tonights cocktail was bubbly rose with some Pama splashed in it.

Omg….bordeaux cherry balsamic

Holy crap?   My plan was to blog my whole dinner which was yummy but last we we hit the palm springs street fair and i bought the shit!

I previously bought cranberry walnut balsamic from the Farmers Daughter from hemet at the palm springs street fair….that rocked

But the cherry is ridiculous….and wordpress just put the pics in reverse order…..and im to tired to change it

Third street promenade farmers market

We are blessed to have a year round growing season, and we are on the verge of the moment where the most of those riches shine!  Saturday at the santa monica third street promenade farmers market, the following are a prelude to the full summer bounty:

Figs!  I forgot to take a pic before i cut up the ripe ones…it was a nice basket of 1/2 ripe and half ripe in a day or two

My fav farmers market cheese for years…i got the mozzarella and asiago…dont for one minute think its traditional mozza or asiago…they surely have their own style .  Spring hill jersey cheese from nocal.

Lemon cucumbers

Baby red leaf heads

The very first of the tomatoes

Citrus!!!

Cucs abound

Herbs

Its still cherry and peach season

Jim Taylor waits for these puppies all year…high price, small fruit, big taste


One years i will buys these and spend the day shucking them.  Can you imagine fresh garbanzos!?!

So tonight the figs will be sharing a plate with goat cheese and a Bordeaux cherry balsamic ibought in  palm springs