The Bitten Word

The View From the Garden

It's hot. It's cold. It's hot. It's cold.

Such has been spring so far. But for the most part, the garden doesn't seem to mind. 

The lettuce is abundant. The carrots are tall. The peas are huddled together, latched onto each other like a little codependent family. 

The majority of the work in the garden over the last month has been in thinning carrots. We haphazardly distributed carrot seeds when we planted them, and it appears we overplanted, because we have carrot sprouts galore. Each day we thin a few more, trying to give them space to grow. Now that the carrot tops are more than four inches tall, pulling up the plants seems like a shame, but we know it's needed. 

Asparagus and Cheese Tart

Food Network Magazine (April 2012)

Sometimes when you're cooking dinner for guests, you just need to roll with the punches. Usually, that works out A-OK. Happy guests. Clean plates. Satisfied hosts.

Sometimes, not so much. 

Zach's parents recently stayed with us for a few days. Since they've visited our nation's capitol many times at this point, we no longer plan their visits around museums or memorials. Now, it's all about where we can go that's a bit offbeat. (Roosevelt Island and Lincoln Cottage made this visit's list.)

Most important, it's about where we eat. This time around, we had Thai, Vietnamese, Scandinavian and pie. (Cue music: "One of these things is not like the others....")

And, as always when we're with Zach's mom, we cook. Such were our plans for a recent Saturday night when, after a marathon of eating meals out at restaurants, we all needed a night in. So we planned to cook a spring meal, with this Asparagus and Cheese Tart featured as the entree. 

Jeni's Winners

We have had the most fun over the past few days reading all your awesome ice cream flavor ideas!

We've tried not to play favorites (and don't worry -- the cookbook winners have been chosen at random anyway). But some of these flavor combos sound amazing. Fig, Nectarine & Bleu Cheese Ice Cream with a Balsamic Ripple. Guinness Ice Cream with Chunks of Salted Pretzel. Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Honey, Strawberries, Candied Pecans & Basil. Sweet Japanese Sake Ice Cream with Black Cherries. Mmm!

(Also, we have to give reader Linda a shout-out for naming her banana-and-chocolate ice cream The Bluth Banana. That one made us chuckle, and it reminded us of a killer bumper sticker we saw last week. If you don't know what we're talking about, you need to marathon "Arrested Development" immediately.)

Can we please all quit our day jobs and open an ice cream shop together? 

Which brings us back to the cookbook giveaway. Which three Bitten Word readers won a copy of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home?

Beet Sorbet with Blackberry Ripple

adapted from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home

We are just loving all of your great entries in our ice cream flavor contest.  Peep sauce? Fig, nectarine, and bleu cheese ice cream with a balsamic ripple? Cajeta and banana? 

You guys are such a creative bunch! And our wheels are turning. 

We tried our own flavor combo this week, creating this Beet and Blackberry Sorbet using the method from Jeni (we like to think we're on a first name basis now). 

So let's round out our Ice Cream Week with a sorbet. 

Dream Up an Ice Cream Flavor and Win a Copy of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home

This week, we've been talking about our latest kitchen obsession, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. We've told you about the amazing Salty Caramel, and the yummy, fruity Pineapple and Sage flavor we tried. (And we've got a great final flavor coming up tomorrow!)

But what we really wanted to do is share Jeni's book with a few lucky readers of The Bitten Word. So we're doing a giveaway!  We reached out to Jeni's team earlier this week, and they graciously helped us out. So we're giving away a copy of Jeni's book to three of you!

Here's how you can win a copy.

Roasted Pineapple and Sage Ice Cream

adapted from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home

Once we'd cranked out a batch of Jeni's Salty Caramel Ice Cream, we were eager to try her method for another flavor. 

So we looked at what we had on hand in the kitchen. When Zach's parents had come to visit a week ago, we'd purchased a fresh pineapple at the supermarket. Why, exactly? We're not sure. It was one of those "company's coming!" impulse buys that marks the arrival of visitors. ("Oh, maybe they would like to eat fresh pineapple while they're in D.C."  "Definitely." "And maybe some string cheese?" "For sure.")

Needless to say, the parents came, the parents went, and the pineapple remained untouched. So there it was, ripening upside down on our counter. 

Then, last week, Clay met up with his friend Rachel for coffee, and she showed up with a huge bag of pineapple sage that she'd plucked from her yard. It was beautiful and fragrant, and we instantly knew just what to do with it. 

Pineapple sage? It was a sign!

We got to work on a Roasted Pineapple and Sage Ice Cream.

Jeni's Salty Caramel Ice Cream

From Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home

We have met our new hero, and her name is Jeni.

Way back in July, Rina -- a friend who we met through the blog and our go-to for Chicago restaurant recommendations -- sent us an email extolling the genius of Jeni Britton Bauer and recommending her (new at that time) cookbook, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. 

We were interested (as we are in all of Rina's recommendations) but we didn't rush out and get the book. 

Why? The shame of our ice cream maker. It sits on the top shelf of a storage closet, rarely touched and seldom used. Did we need an ice cream cookbook to keep it company? 

We thought not.

And we were so, so wrong. 

When Food Photos Go Bad...

We thought you'd get a kick out of this photo, which shows the small-scale disaster that occurred while we were trying to photograph a slice of the Blackberry-Cream Layer Cake we wrote about yesterday.

We were trying to capture the light coming in through the back door of our kitchen, so we balanced the cake on a cutting board on our stovetop. Something fell on the board, the cake went flying and ultimately it did a face plant on our kitchen floor.

Too bad! (And you have no proof that we scooped part of this off the floor and ate it, so quit insinuating that we did.)

Blackberry-Cream Layer Cake

Everyday Food (April 2012) 

Zach's mom and stepdad came to visit this past weekend. It was a gorgeous weekend -- D.C. at its spring finest. We had some delicious meals (including a sojourn out to Four Sisters, the best Vietnamese place around the District), saw a few sights and generally tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible, soaking up the gorgeous spring sunshine.

For dinner on Saturday night, we wanted something light and springy. We did an all-veggie meal of grilled spring onions with a mustard sauce; a yummy asparagus-and-cheese tart we'll write about soon; and a wilted salad of spinach, fresh peas and sauteed red onions (which had a dressing of hot bacon grease, so we suppose it wasn't quite a vegetarian meal after all. Sue us.).

For dessert, we wanted something really special, but still light and springy. Enter this Blackberry-Cream Layer Cake.

Escarole, Kale, White Bean and Tomato Lasagna

Martha Stewart Living (April 2012)

If you're a big fan of traditional lasagna, there's a recipe in this month's Martha Stewart Living that may seem like sacrilege. 

As part of a feature on how to incorporate more kale and other greens into your diet, this Escarole, Kale, White Bean and Tomato Lasagna is billed a healthy take on the Italian classic. 

We had to know: Can a lasagna that uses no noodles, no meat, no bechamel and no ricotta be a good stand-in for traditional lasagna?