Kitchenwolf

Green bowls

Spring is in fast forward now and I’ve been eagerly checking out the farmer’s market, snipping the chives and tarragon that have suddenly shot up in the garden, and turning seeds into sprouts in mason jars. We’ve been having a lot of salads as well as a lot of these dishes that are something in between a soup and a salad. 

I don’t know what to call this meal but it’s very green and I eat it in a bowl, so green bowls it is. This is incredibly quick and easy to make and pretty healthy too. At the beginning of the week I cook a pot of beans or lentils, and at the same time I make a pot of vegetable stock (but canned beans and any stock, homemade or not, would be just fine for this). Then each night I heat up a little broth, add a ladle of beans to it, and pile on a lot of green veggies (whatever I have around, one night it was roasted asparagus, the next broccoli), small leaves like baby kale or arugula and lots of fresh herbs. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and maybe a grating of lemon zest and/or Parmesan and a little sprinkle of red chili flakes too.  Add a poached egg if you are really hungry. 

Desserts

Another nice thing about these light spring meals is that they leave more room for dessert. Here’s what I’ve been making lately in that department:

Nigella Lawson’s London cheesecake

Made this for a dinner with a couple of cheesecake-loving friends and it did not disappoint. Really just the best cheesecake I have ever made, and maybe the best one I have ever tasted. We had a simple strawberry coulis to serve alongside but it’s also great on its own. 

Smitten Kitchen’s strawberry-rhubarb crumble

This is always the first recipe I dig out when strawberry and rhubarb season rolls around. At this time of year I still had to use frozen strawberries, but it works great with them. I usually cut back on the amount of sugar in the filling and sometimes add a little cornmeal to the crumble component. Great for breakfast the next morning with Greek yogurt.

Katherine Hepburn’s brownie recipe

 I saw David Lebovitz’s post about this and they were in my oven later that day. How could I resist? I love a gooey brownie with very little flour but I don’t really know if these were chocolatey enough. Maybe I should have added the optional cocoa nibs? I’m still trying to recreate the (to my mind) perfect brownie that I somewhat randomly ate at a street market in London four years ago. I think I’m going to keep looking.