When the first local asparagus of the season arrives in the market, I’m so eager for the fresh taste of spring that I prepare them as simply as possible.  A few minutes on the grill or steamer, a drizzle of good olive oil, and a little salt and pepper are all that’s required for a feast.

By now, though, I’m ready to experiment.  This year my focus is asparagus and eggs, a traditional French combination.

The classic poached egg over asparagus wouldn’t work, since I can’t bear even the sight of runny yolks.  (There go my foodie credentials!)  So I decided to substitute softly scrambled eggs as a suitably delicate complement to the grassy spears.

The inspiration for this dish is a flan in Jacques Pépin’s capstone cookbook, “Essential Pépin” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011).  If your idea of a flan is a sweet Spanish custard, you’re in for a surprise.  This version is more like an easy Gallic version of fritatta.

This one pan dish is perfect for a spring brunch but works just as well for dinner with a green salad and some crusty bread on the side.

The eggs are cooked on top of the stove just until they begin to set. Then the skillet is shoved into the oven for 10 minutes to finish cooking and brown.  Fresh parsley, basil and garlic pump up the spring flavors.

The chopped hazelnuts sprinkled over the top before baking are my way of trying to capture the nutty character the French achieve with browned butter.  The concept may sound a bit odd but the combination of soft eggs, barely tender asparagus and crunchy nuts is as delightful as it is unexpected.

Asparagus doesn’t get much better.

As much as I like to cook, I’d rather be in the garden on the first warm, sunny days of spring when there are vegetable beds to prepare, flowers to plant and weeds to pull.

These are the days when I’m happy to have a protein-packed salad in the fridge, ready to pull out for dinner.  This lentil salad in the French tradition is a new favorite. (more…)

The last weeks before the local asparagus and strawberries arrive may be the most discouraging of the year for those of us who try to cook local.

The sun is shining, the tulips are blooming, and the fruit trees are breaking out in clouds of pink and white blossoms.  But the produce aisles of most markets are still dominated by sturdy greens, roots and cruciferous vegetables.

At times like these, I really welcome new ideas for preparing old standbys.  This cauliflower curry is one of the best. (more…)

Spring is a fickle season.

One day dawns sunny and warm, spurring an appetite for tender greens in a salad.  The next is dreary and wet, just the sort of weather for a good soup.

Although the calendar says we still have another week of winter, the weather here in Portland has been toying with spring.  The daffodils are blooming and the gardeners have been out in force.

But the skies are gray today and I have soup on my mind — not a hearty, long-simmering recipe, though.  I want something light and flavorful like this easy pot sticker soup.

Inspired by fragrant Vietnamese pho, the recipe comes together quickly with commercial chicken broth and frozen pot stickers.  Fresh ginger, dried shiitake mushrooms, a cinnamon stick and a couple of star anise work their magic in just half an hour.

The broth ingredients are mostly pantry staples.  I like  to add fresh lemongrass which is now available at Whole Foods.  If you don’t have it or can’t find it, though, the soup will be good anyway.  Fish sauce is optional although it adds a depth of flavor.  Sweet sherry, white wine or sake with a pinch of sugar can substitute for the mirin.

For the potstickers, I like to use Ling Ling brand chicken and vegetable pot stickers that I buy at Costco.  But any good pot stickers that aren’t loaded with artificial ingredients would work.

Pre-washed baby spinach straight out of the bag adds color and fresh flavor with almost no effort.

Until warm weather is here to stay, this soup will keep your spirits up.  One whiff of its delicate aroma is enough to brighten my day.

Today is birthday number 10 for our sweet golden retriever, Sunshine’s Agatha Super Sleuth — better known as Aggie

Normally I don’t do nutty things like celebrate a dog’s birthday, but we’re so grateful to have her still with us after a couple of scary bouts with pancreatitis last year.  Besides, a couple of her youngest fans thought it would be a great idea.

So we threw a little party for her last weekend, complete with a piñata filled with treats and squeaky balls for the dogs.  And a fabulous carrot cake for the humans.

Chocolate cake, usually my first choice, was out of the question since we were pretty sure that the youngest guests would to try to sneak the honoree a taste.  That would have been a disaster. Dogs can’t tolerate the theobromine in chocolate.

This cake was so good, though, no one even missed the chocolate.  Banish all memories of soggy, leaden carrot cake overpowered by an excess of cinnamon and cooking oil.  This cake from Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking: From My Home to Yours” (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) carries a full load of carrots, coconut, pecans and raisins without feeling heavy or soggy.  The flavors are rich and nicely balanced, with just enough cinnamon to make it appealing.

Part of the secret, I think, is this variation uses less oil than most traditional carrot cakes.  The recipe I used for years calls for 1 1/2 cups oil.  So do most of the recipes I looked up in my many baking books before I found this one, which cuts the oil by a third.

Dorie Greenspan always comes through.  Her recipes, written in her trademark chatty and generous style, always work.

I made few alterations to the cake, which Dorie credits to an old friend, Bill Bartholomew. Sunflower oil substituted for canola, which I detest for its lingering aftertaste, and the cake was baked in two layers instead of three.  (I only have two 9-inch pans and wasn’t about to buy a third.)

The layers did sink a bit in the middle, but a generous layer of icing took care of that.  Toasted coconut filled in the slight depression prettily.

With a scoop of ice cream, you couldn’t ask for a better birthday cake.

Too bad Aggie couldn’t have a slice.  But we love her and want to keep her around as long as possible.

Happy birthday, dear Aggie!