Hazelnut. Nutella. Blondies.

As my good friend Jen would say, "Shut the front door!!"

As another good friend Mary would say, "Are you fucking kidding me??!?!"

I found these on Stacey Snacks, where I haven't been for a while so I had a nice long catch-up this morning with a cup of coffee, and I bookmarked about 12 recipes. These blondies, though, demanded instant attention, and an immediate trip to Hannaford because I was out of Nutella (strikes chest, shame be upon me).

Shameful Nutella Blondies

  • 8 tablespoons (one stick) unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped
  • 3 rounded tablespoons Nutella

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil or parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides. Spray with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix melted butter with brown sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla extract.

Add salt and flour. Mix until just combined. Add hazelnuts and mix until evenly distributed in batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Plop three rounded tablespoons of Nutella onto the batter. Swirl into the batter with a knife.

Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes, or until the middle is set. Do not over bake. Lift using the foil or paper and transfer the blondies to a rack to cool completely.

I can't even describe what the house smelled like when these were baking but I imagine the foyer of Heaven would be similar. And as for taste, they demanded that a cup of coffee be made immediately.

Super gooey goodness and dare I say a little too gooey and perhaps my rounded tablespoons of Nutella were too rounded, or perhaps my swirling technique was lacking.  But they were shut-the-front-door good!!

Trader Joe's Watermelon Salad

So when you first walk into Trader Joe's, there are, right inside the automatic doors, two big bins of whatever produce is usually on sale. Yesterday it was navel oranges and watermelons. On the chalkboard attached to the watermelon bin, it said, "Watermelon! Delicious in a salad! Try it with peach salsa, basil and gorgonzola cheese!"

And I thought, "Um. OK. I'll do that." I always appreciate direction.

So I bought a watermelon, gorgonzola cheese, and a thing of Joe's peach salsa (which I love anyway). Basil I already had in the garden. And today for lunch, I gave it a try.

And wow!  Hey!  This was a pretty awesome salad.  I love the watermelon and basil together, and the peach salsa gives it a nice kick. To be truthful, I am not a huge gorgonzola fan. I see the point of having the savory counterpart to the sweetness of the fruit, but if I try this again I will use feta cheese instead, and see if that's more in line with my taste. Still, for a summer salad, this one rocked, and went perfectly with the little bit of grilled chicken I had leftover from last night.

Thank you Joe!!

Potato Salad

“There is no such thing as really bad potato salad. So long as the potatoes are not undercooked, it all tastes pretty good to me. Some potato salads are sublime, some are miraculous and some are merely ordinary, but I have yet to taste any that was awful. When I was young, potato salad was considered summer food. My mother made her mother’s version, which included chopped celery and catsup in the dressing. It was known as pink potato salad and was served at picnics and barbecues as an accompaniment to fried or grilled chicken. No one would have ever thought of serving it in a formal setting.

Once I was out on my own and could cook to please myself, I figured that since I loved potato salad so much, other people did, too. I began to serve it to my friends at dinner parties.

”Oh, potato salad,” they would say. “I haven’t had any homemade in years!”

I gave it to them with thin sliced, peppery flank steak, and with cold roast chicken in the summer and hot roast chicken in the winter. It was always a hit.”
— "Potato Salad," from Home Cooking, by Laurie Colwin

The only person who loves potato salad more than me is Pandagirl. I shamelessly bribed her to come food shopping with me tonight by promising potato salad with dinner.

My version of potato salad involves frozen peas going into the boiling water with the potatoes for the last 2 minutes. Then it's tossed with chopped scallions, chopped celery, mayonnaise, and mucho chopped dill. I especially love using blue potatoes because it just comes out so pretty, but Trader Joe's had no blues tonight so I went with their aptly named "teeny tiny" potatoes.

This was served on the deck with grilled chicken (marinaded in olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and chopped oregano), and steamed asparagus (naked). And a bouquet of roses and peonies (cough).

Are you a potato salad fan, and if so, what is your special version?

More Plant Combinations that Bloom at the Same Time

For a while it was all purple and white, now the pinks are making their stand in the garden.  Here are some more combinations of plants that look good together and bloom at the same time:

 

 

 

 

 

Siberian Iris, Baptisia and Peonies

"Bowl of Beauty" peony with purple Siberian iris is a combo I came up with a couple years ago. I had such young peony plants that it's taken until this spring to see if it would work. It works! The plants are still young—only two blooms each this year, but I love how the sword-like leaves of the iris cut through the peony leaves.  

Adding baptisia brings in another spiky, purple element. Plants take a while to establish and don't like to be moved once they are settled. These are four years old now. They don't re-bloom but the foliage stays nice for the entire season and surprisingly, the plant doesn't need stakes or a hoop. Perfect posture from April to October.

Baptisia and Poppies

This is another pairing I came up with because I love purple and red together. Depending on temperatures and weather conditions, the bloom time of these two is approximate but this year it was spot-on together.

Poppies are my signature flower (my dad calls me "Poppy"). Besides the red ones here, I have pink ones in the lower garden, and white ones that I transplanted last year, now growing next to some purple sage. Poppies don't like to be transplanted. You can divide them easily enough in spring or fall, but you forfeit a bloom season because they sulk through the next year. 

I love pink poppies with any silver-grey foliage like lambs ears or rose campion.

Lady's Mantle and Everything

Did I mention lady's mantle is the greatest filler flower in the world?  And that it and geraniums make an especially awesome p—... All right, just making sure.

Jicama Slaw

Just in case you were getting sick to death of celery-fennel slaw... I mean, I'm certainly not, I eat it at least once a week and am feeding my addiction by growing my own fennel bulbs (I've tried growing celery a couple times and royally suck at it). But a change is always good, and I have a new slaw for you to try and it's ever so very yum.

Jicama is the tuberous root of a native Mexican vine. It looks very much like a turnip and has the consistency of a water chestnut. Jicama and mango are a match made in heaven. This slaw would by dynamite with swordfish, which I didn't have, but it was just as dynamite on grilled salmon. It could also stand very respectably on its own. Had there been any left, I would've eaten it for breakfast.

Jicama-Mango Slaw

  • 1 jicama (fist-sized), peeled, sliced across, and then cut into matchsticks
  • 1 mango, peeled, sliced, and matchsticked. Peeling a mango is a tiresome job and I get around it by buying the pre-prepped stuff so all I have to do is slice or dice it how I want.
  • 1/2 red onion, sliced as thinly as possible
  • 10-12 cherry tomatoes, quartered
  • 2 tbsp chopped, fresh cilantro
  • Vinaigrette of choice

Combine all ingredients and toss well.

Serve.

Die.

Plants That Look Good Together and Bloom at the Same Time

Is that too wordy a title?  

It's the question I, as a gardener, get most from people who want to garden. After ten years of active gardening, seven of them on our current property, I finally feel like I know what the hell I'm doing and like I can actually answer that question intelligently. So here are some of my favorite combos of plants, planted for both the reasons noted above: they look good together, and they bloom at (approximately) the same time.

Iris, Nepeta and Alliums

These three are made for each other. I have Allium "Globemaster" (which you can find at any garden center, or google to find online for fall planting) paired up with Iris "Immortality" (also easily found). I like "Immortality" because they are very fragrant but also because they are a re-blooming variety, so you get the bonus of another flush of flowers in the fall.  

Nepeta, or catmint, is a terrific investment, poor man's lavender. It's el cheapo, grows beautifully at the base of iris or practically any other tall flower, and its purple blooms last a long time. When the blooms are spent and the plant is getting leggy, gather it all up in one hand and shear it off with the other. I mean shear it. Hard. To the ground. It loves it. It will regroup and bloom again for you, then you shear it again, and repeat all through the season. It will also drop seedlings that you can transplant elsewhere, so you really get a lot of bang for your buck.

Together in spring they look terrific:

I also have a gorgeous blue iris called "Batik" which I don't see much in catalogues anymore but you can google around and find it on a few websites. I I had the idea that since I have colored alliums near white iris, I should plant white alliums near my colored iris. These "Mount Everest" ones would look amazing next to Batik.

Lady's Mantle and Geranium

I have Lady's Mantle everywhere, it is my favorite filler flower in the world. The little yellow-chartreuse blooms look good next to anything both in the border and in the vase. I especially like clumps of them planted with any kind of perennial geranium. You really get a great show of color and foliage. Lady's Mantle looks great at the base of irises, too.

Foliage and Shade Plants Combos

I love this shady section of my lower stone wall. There's not much flower action going on, other than a couple of rogue, purple columbines. Everything else is foliage plants: ferns, hosta, lady's mantle, bronze fennel and hellebores. It's a study in brown and green, but I love how it looks with all the different leaf shapes and textures. The hellebore, center bottom of the picture below, is not a true Lenten Rose, but what's called a "Stinking Hellebore". It's a less expensive variety with bunches of chartreuse, cup-shaped flowers. I've really grown to love them, especially since they are amazing re-seeders so from a few plants I've been able to have them everywhere in my gardens, plus share them with friends.

Speaking of columbines, talk about bang for your buck. These are prolific little suckers and if you just let them alone after they flower, they will drop seedlings anywhere and everywhere. Then you just let them grow there, or scoop them up and plant them somewhere else. I love huge drifts of them like this:

My liberal bleeding hearts are out of control. I grow the old-fashioned kind and the newer "Golden Heart" breed with the chartreuse leaves. I combine them with hostas and forget-me-nots.

Next installment of PTLGTBST will feature Siberian Iris, Poppies, Baptisia and Peonies. They're next in line to bloom.

Truffled Brussels Sprouts

Sprout haters, I am never giving up! I will have my way with you! You will come to love the sprouts!

Couple weeks ago we met friends at Croton Creek which is the greatest little steakhouse, right here in Croton Falls. They have this amazing salad of tomatoes, golden beets, arugula and gorgonzola cheese: I've tried to replicate it at home many times and it comes out OK, but never as good as the restaurant, naturally.  

CC also does the best skirt steak, which I always get with horseradish cream sauce and grilled asparagus.  

On this particular night, Jeeps ordered a side of the truffled brussels sprouts and holy cow, how have I missed these for all this time?! They were AMAZING.

I wanted to try recreating those, but that meant procuring either truffles, or truffle oil. DeCicco's came up trumps with the oil, but let me warn you, I don't know what truffles are fetching in your neck of the woods but this little 8.45 oz bottle was $16.00. It's right up there with vanilla beans and saffron threads. Guard it well. And if you are one of my local followers, I will lend you some. 

I found a recipe that seemed to match up with what I remembered of Croton Creek's version.  I couldn't roast the sprouts because the oven was occupied by a chicken at the time, so I decided to pan-sear them in my cast iron skillet.  While not as rapturously good as the ones at Croton Creek, they certainly didn't suck.

Truffled Brussels Sprouts à la Croton Creek

  • 1 lb brussels sprouts, ends trimmed and halved
  • 1 clove garlic, minced fine
  • 1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1-2 tbsps truffle oil
  • Olive oil, sea salt and ground pepper

Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Arrange sprouts cut-side down in the skillet and leave them there until caramelized golden-brown. Sprinkle with sea salt and ground pepper, toss well in the skillet, cover, and lower heat.

Cook on stovetop, shaking pan occasionally, until sprouts are tender. Sprinkle with the parmesan cheese, stir to coat, cover and let sit another 5 minutes.

Remove pan from heat, slide sprouts into serving bowl. Sprinkle with lemon juice and truffle oil, toss to combine. Serve immediately.  

Be converted.