sage

Chive Blossom Butter

It's time like these when we take notice of the garden. Potato plants are popping and peas are climbing. Chives are almost done too, so you better hurry up and grab some blossoms while you can.

Every spring I soften a pound of butter and head into the garden for the tenderest of flowers - chives and sage, usually. On their own they teach us how brief the finest days are. Combined with butter, they teach us how wonderful the rest of our food can be.

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Homemade Herbed Butter

I think it was the abundance of herbs in the garden this weekend that gave me the idea to make compound butter. This is such a simple thing to do - and something you can enjoy for months if you store the butter in the freezer. And the best thing is - you can use this for anything. Want a little interesting something on that piece of grilled fish? A spread for that toasted bagel? Compound butter, or herb butter, is perfect for that.

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Spinach Gnocchi in Sage Brown Butter Sauce

A few months back, both Gourmet (RIP) and Saveur featured simple homemade gnocchi recipes - and I got the bug to try this for dinner one night. We're big fans of making our own pasta, probably because kneading the dough is so therapeutic. But gnocchi is a little different - it's not like I can run it through a pasta machine or anything. Pillowy soft requires a different touch.

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Pancetta, Bacon, and 2 Sausages

Our first weekend with Timmy was a whirlwind of productivity. We got ambitious and worked on 2 different kinds of sausage, and Todd also cured pancetta and bacon! I've covered the bacon recipe before, and Pancetta is pretty close but I'm going to list it too. All of the recipes in this post come from Ruhlman/Polcyn's Charcuterie.

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