Lemon Dill Dressing

You are going to thank me for this recipe, but the thanks really goes to my aunt who found this recipe in a magazine ages ago and turned it into a family favorite. My aunt serves this dressing in a salad composed of lettuce, tri-color pasta, cubes of monterey jack cheese, marinated artichoke hearts and red onions. I have simplified the salad dramatically and serve it on homegrown lettuce. I am a simple salad kind of girl.



My kids prefer the dressing on rainbow pasta. I add chopped broccoli to the boiling pasta during the last three minutes of cook time, then rinse the pasta and broccoli in cold water and let it cool down before tossing it with the dressing.



Lemon Dill Dressing

1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
zest and juice of one lemon
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dill
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Mix all ingredients. For best results, make ahead of time and refrigerate for a few hours to allow flavors to meld.



One of my favorite things about making this dressing is using my two favorite kitchen tools. Pampered Chef makes the best garlic press, hands down; and no kitchen is complete without a Microplane, or four (two fine grater, one coarse grater, one ribbon grater). I can zest the lemon and grate the cheese with one single tool.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. Perhaps it will become one of your family's favorites too!

Remains of the Day

Our compost bowl and our trash can are opposing barometers for the way we are living. When the compost bowl fills up each day, I know we are shopping and eating the way we should (unless of course the bowl is half full with coffee grounds). Conversely, if the trash can is full, I know we are creating too much waste and not living sustainably. I pride myself on the weeks when the garbage can is nearly empty. Such was not the case this week after cleaning out several closets and throwing away broken toys and other non-recyclables. I can just imagine our garbage sitting at the dump, not rotting away but just taking up space and doing no good.

The fact that our compost bowl filled up several times over this week makes me feel a little better. Not only does our compost bin create usable soil, it also generates food.



We relocated these sprouting potatoes to the garden and we're looking forward to eating our "garbage" sometime this summer. Our compostable garbage has also been an inspiration as of late. I find myself taking pictures of food remnants while making dinner. For some reason the ingredients that don't make it to our plates are much more interesting to me than the finished product fit for consumption.







For this reason, I've created a Flickr group entitled "Remains of the Day" in hopes that you too will be inspired to take pictures of your kitchen waste and share them with the rest of us so we can be inspired by your "garbage". Think of it as documenting the journey rather than the destination. The shells that held the eggs of the pancakes you made for breakfast, the stems that supported the broccoli you steamed for lunch, the skin that protected the potato you mashed for dinner; they are all part of the journey of food to it's destination: you. I can't wait to see the remains of your day.

Start This Bread Tonight

Unless you read the comments on my posts, you probably missed the recipe my brother-in-law Mark shared a few weeks ago for Lemon Rosemary Bread. This was my first attempt at no-knead bread, and I am a convert to the process.







The process is slow, but the work is minimal and easy. It's akin to baking beans from scratch; if you rinse and soak the beans the night before, all you have to do the next day is boil and simmer. Time does the work for you.

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
1 3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary
2 tsp. chopped lemon zest
Cornmeal as needed

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast, salt, rosemary and zest. Add 1 5/8 cups water and stir until blended; the dough will be shaggy and very sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at warm room temperature (about 70°F) until the surface is dotted with bubbles, 12 to 18 hours.

Place the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Sprinkle the dough with a little flour and fold the dough over onto itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.

Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or your fingers, gently and quickly shape the dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel, preferably a flour sack towel (not terry cloth), with cornmeal. Put the dough, seam side down, on the towel and dust with more flour or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise until the dough is more than double in size and does not readily spring back when poked with a finger, about 2 hours.

At least 30 minutes before the dough is ready, put a 2 3/4-quart cast-iron pot in the oven and preheat the oven to 450°F. Carefully remove the pot from the oven. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over, seam side up, into the pot; it may look like a mess, but that is OK. Shake the pan once or twice if the dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes.

Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes. Uncover and continue baking until the loaf is browned, 15 to 30 minutes more. Transfer the pot to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Using oven mitts, turn the pot on its side and gently turn the bread; it will release easily.

Makes one 1 1/2-lb. loaf.

Adapted from Sullivan Street Bakery (New York City) and Mark Bittman, "The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work," The New York Times, Nov. 8, 2006.

Omit the lemon and rosemar