Spring Picnics

Tulips and blooming trees at Sherwood Garden in Baltimore

Baltimore has an annoyingly short time frame where the weather is perfect for picnics (for example, today is supposed to be 88 degrees, humid, and rainy- and it's still May). These pictures were taken in April, at Sherwood Gardens, when the weather was breezy and comfortable. Spring-like days are in short supply here, so I try to live it up on weekends with picnics, a game of Frisbee, and relaxation in the park.

Sherwood Gardens is a 6 acre park in the fancy pants neighborhood of Guilford, in north Baltimore. It's open to the public, year round, but the best time to visit the park is late April to early May when the tulips are in full bloom (according their website, they have approximately 80,000 tulips).


Nick ready to eat

So on this particular weekend picnic day I made tabbouleh and what I call 'falafel muffuletta' sandwiches for us to munch on. A traditional Italian muffuletta is stuffed with various meats (mortadella, ham, salami) and cheeses with olive spread. My vegetarian falafel muffuletta consists of homemade falafel patties, cheese, avocado, sliced pepperoncini and Roma tomatoes, with a hearty drizzle of balsamic vinegar, and homemade olive spread (made of Kalamata olives, green olives, capers and a few other select ingredients and herbs) on ciabatta bread.

Let the eating commence!

The sandwiches are great for packed lunches because it does not have to be heated. Plus, like the traditional muffuletta, it tastes better the longer it sits!

Up close and personal with the falafel muffuletta

Banana Sundae

You don't have to use those overripe bananas solely for banana bread or muffins. Once they become overripe, slice them and freeze them. Later you can use them to make smoothies or, my personal favorite, to make a mega quick sundae. (Note: This works wonderfully if you are in dire need of munching on a frozen dessert but are too lazy to go to the store, i.e. me on most days. Plus, bananas are good for you!)

Ninja, assassinate those ingredients!

Banana Sundae
2 bananas, frozen and sliced
2-3 tablespoons of milk (or you can use soy milk, cream, or half-and-half)
1 teaspoon of honey
1 heaping tablespoon of peanut butter

Place the ingredients in a blender and blend the dickens out of them.

Blend the ingredients until smooth.

Scoop the banana mixture into a bowl and top with your desired topping. Easy peasy!

Banana sundae topped with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and roasted peanuts.

Please note that it will have to be eaten immediately because it melts fast.

Toast Art- Play with your food!

Recreations of famous paintings on toast by artist Ida Skivenes.

How cool are these?

Easter Dinner

For Easter dinner, I made a ton of food (because that's what I do) and had my friends Sandy and Joe over to help Nick and I eat it all.

The menu:

Zucchini, yellow squash and gouda quiche
 

Sun-dried tomato, parmesan and herb muffins

Roasted asparagus with almonds

and

 



Scalloped potatoes

Thanks Sandy and Joe for bringing the ice cream cake, tons of Easter chocolates, and for hiding (very obviously, might I add) Cadbury eggs in my living room!

Baltimore Restaurant Week: The Dogwood

Southwestern Black Bean Soup

In late January (yes, still lagging in my posts), Nick and I headed to the Dogwood in Hampden (a neighborhood in Baltimore City). I don’t know how restaurant weeks are in other cities, but in Baltimore, it’s actually a tad difficult to find restaurants on the list that have more than one vegetarian option (or any vegetarian options at all). Many of the listed restaurants are often steakhouses or seafood joints. On the plus side, that narrows my choices for restaurants to choose from (food decisions = difficult) but on the down side, that limits the variety of places to try, which is upsetting, shall we say, to a foodaholic like myself.

Winter Salad

The Dogwood, however, had a nice selection of vegetarian (and vegan) options on their menu so we decided to hit them up for dinner. The restaurant was jam packed for restaurant week. We had to sit at the bar to wait for our table to be ready, drinking their large, delicious cocktails and beer. There was a half hour wait between our appetizers and main dish (because of how absurdly busy they were) so the wait staff brought us free cocktails as an apology.

 

What we ate:

Winter Salad
Big City Farm’s baby greens, roasted squash, spiced local apples, and chèvre cheese with a cranberry vinaigrette

Southwestern Black Bean Soup
aromatic vegetable stock, roasted autumn veggies, with sour cream
Local Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato Curry
on organic Thai black rice, mild curried coconut-vegetable sauce with Vann’s spices, fresh ginger, currants and toasted almonds, with sautéed greens
Grilled Vegetable Moussaka
eggplant, zucchini, piquillo peppers and plum tomatoes roasted with fresh herbs, layered with phyllo and chickpeas and served on a quinoa pilaf
Chocolate Pot de Crème
Italian Lemon Cake

Moussaka

Let me tell you- the food was very good and flavorful with just the right amount of spices. I hadn’t had black rice in years and forgot completely how wonderful it is. But nothing was as fantastic as the desserts. The chocolate pot de crème was thick, rich, smooth, and very chocolaty. The Italian lemon cake was dense, but also magically fluffy at the same time, like a marshmallow. And it was lemony! I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve ordered some lemon flavored something or other and it had very little lemon flavor to it. Not this cake. It was like eating a lemon cloud with a smooth, mousse-style lemon filling.

Squash and Sweet Potato Curry

Unfortunately, the Dogwood closed its doors for good last month, which, naturally, makes me sad (because I wanted to go there again). R.I.P. Dogwood, I’m happy to have experienced your delicious offerings. You had mighty tasty food and some of the best desserts I have ever had the pleasure of inhaling.

NOTE: Sorry for the horrendous picture quality. I forgot my camera at home and these were taken with my cell in a room with extremely low, ambient lighting.

 

 

Desserts

 

(Super Belated) Lunar New Year Post!

My table full of food!

It's been almost two months since the Lunar New Year (Feb. 10th) and I am just getting around to posting pictures of the food that was made! Better late than never, right? So in February I had my annual Lunar New Year's Eve dinner party and invited several friends over to celebrate, be merry, and, of course, get down on some home cooked food!

Vegetarian dan dan noodles

As I mentioned in last year's post, the Lunar New Year is also known as Chinese New Year or the Spring Festival and is celebrated by many cultures and countries.

Vegetarian Tom Kha

I made the following this year for dinner: vegetarian dan dan noodles, a five-spice tofu dish, and a vegetarian tom kha soup.

Little bit of everything

My friends Sandy and Joe brought a  bangin' stir fry. And for dessert, I made a green tea cheesecake with raspberry sauce (which turned out wonderfully).

Mmm green tea cheesecake!

My personal favorite dish of the evening was the vegetarian dan dan noodles. I found the most amazing recipe online which, I had to improvise on, but the results turned out wonderfully. The recipe required dried shitake mushrooms, rehydrated and chopped (I love mushrooms but hate the texture of rehydrated mushrooms- so I used fresh shitakes instead). The other change I made was that I could not, for the life of me, locate smoked tofu. So I cubed firm tofu, tossed it with liquid smoke, let it sit for an hour or so, then drained it. Voila! Smoked tofu! The dish was pretty spicy, due to the chili oil and Szechuan pepper, but not as greasy at it can be when you eat it at a restaurant (because it quite literally is usually drenched in chili oil at restaurants).

Geeky Latte Art

I swear I'll make a new post soon. It's a tad difficult when I don't have the interwebs at home, let me tell you. (I'm really just a cave person). Meanwhile, for the geeky gamer in you, check out these awesome designs made into lattes!

Geeky Latte Art