Carrot cake is a quintessential dessert of spring. This recipe is moist slightly sweet, and perfectly spiced. It is paired with a rich and velvety cream cheese frosting.
Asparagus is so beautiful this time of year, so I wanted to create a recipe around it. I made some basil and pumpkin seed pesto, and drizzled it on toasted bread with asparagus, avocado, and shaved Parmesan.
Because his family is a true-to-the-bone pancake family, I really wanted him to share with me the secrets to making a good pancake, thin and delicate, perfectly browned on the outside, soft on the inside. He gave me a recipe, one that he has memorized. A set of very specific instructions, the right temp, the right amount of time for frying. I followed it to a tee, and sure enough, the pancakes came out the way I had always dreamed they would.
There are a lot of wonderful nutty and earthy flavors coming out in this meal. Definitely high in the umami department. My mom is coming to town this year to celebrate Thanksgiving, and we are all heading to friend's house for a potluck. I'm definitely making this dish - and maybe for Christmas as well.
Honestly, I'd love to say that I made this recipe through trial and error. That I had been slaving over the stove, testing and re-testing beets forever, but the truth is, I bought some beets, boiled, removed the peels, cut into wedges, added a few ingredients to a pot: vinegar, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, and salt. The whole thing just seemed to work out. The only comparison I have to anything better than good is my grandmothers pickled beets, and I wouldn't want to say that they are better, but they do come pretty close.
