21 Seasonal Favorites

 

While I love, love, love trying new recipes, there are so many seasonal favorites that I love to revisit just as much. This time of year, I go for all the new and tender spring produce I can get at the local farmer’s market, or sometimes even in my own garden: lettuce and other tender greens, asparagus, radishes, peas (English or snap or snow), fresh herbs, and rhubarb. With a grocery list like this, I get a lot out of a few characteristic methods and dishes, such as all kinds of salads, often with homemade dressings; pasta with vegetables, herbs, or pesto sauces; and desserts with rhubarb, often including other fruits.

The easiest salads are simple lettuce salads with a few other favorite vegetables tossed upon them. I’m a salad dressing junkie, but I feel best about the ones I’ve made myself, such as Buttermilk Herb Salad Dressing, 

Sweet Asian Salad Dressing,

and Feta and Lemon Vinaigrette all of which are versatile as well as delicious.

I also like to keep some other vegetable salads in the refrigerator for quick sides at simple meals. I look forward to making this Sesame-Soy Asparagus with Garlic and Ginger every year, and this Sugar Snap Pea and Radish Salad with Feta and Dill is full of some of my favorite things. 

 If I’m lucky enough to get a whole bowl of freshly-shelled green peas, rather than eating each one straight from the pod, I like to make this simple salad of Fresh Peas and Mint.

Seasonal vegetables also contribute well to more substantial salads made with grains. I like using asparagus raw in this Spring Vegetable Tabbouleh. Asparagus also goes well with the peas in Brown and Wild Rice Salad with Asparagus and Peas.

 

Wheat berry salads are also nice to have around, like this Wheat Berry Salad with Sugar Snap Peas and Lemon Vinaigrette.

As the weather gets nice, quick and easy dishes based on pasta tossed with lovely vegetables are always welcome at mealtime. My absolute favorite right now is Asparagus and Pasta with Balsamic-Tarragon Sauce and Bacon. Love it! 

Even more convenient and also delicious is Pasta with Asparagus, Snap Peas and Lemon, which can be varied endlessly as I discussed in this post.

 

It’s also great to toss hot pasta with lush, green pesto-type sauces. Pea and Almond Pesto with Pasta and Peas is a unique variation on this theme. 

 

Other pestos that I love to make with currently seasonal ingredients range from particularly zesty, like Arugula Pesto with Kalamata Olives or Radish Leaf and Peanut Pesto 

to somewhat mild, but still deliciously flavorful, like Spinach-Chive Pesto.

Lots of early-season herbs are ready to go this time of year, too, as well as those unusual green stems from garlic plants, known as scapes. I like to treat those scapes like a cross between an herb and a clove of garlic when I cook with them, and they’re great in this Pasta Carbonara with Garlic Scapes and Garlic Chives. 

Any leftover garlic scapes or garlic chives can go along with whatever other herbs I might have into this White Bean Soup with Fresh Herbs, especially on a cool, rainy day, with some bread on the side.

But let’s not get so excited about herbs and vegetables that we miss dessert! There’s lots of rhubarb right now, and I’m still loving this cake that I posted recently. I have to give some love to my old favorites, however, and make some Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with Graham Cracker Topping. 

 

I also love to have a bowl of either Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce or Blueberry Rhubarb Sauce in the refrigerator. They’re both great when served with this cake or ice cream, and they’re great stirred into plain or vanilla yogurt for breakfast.

I’m still hoping to try some new recipes soon, like another rhubarb cake, asparagus pizza, and spring vegetable risotto, and maybe they will be new recruits for my list of seasonal favorites. I doubt I’ll ever abandon these 21 gems, however, which make me happy every year.

Coming soon: Orange and White Chocolate Cookies

Another post like this one: Featured Ingredient: Rhubarb

Old Fashioned Rhubarb Pudding Cake

I don’t think I knew anything about this “old fashioned” way of making a rhubarb cake until I found this recipe on the information superhighway. It’s kind of cool, though, and really delicious. It’s also pretty quick and easy to throw together with, as long as you have access to plenty of rhubarb like I do, common ingredients that are likely to be in the average baker’s pantry.

This cake starts with a layer of chopped rhubarb in the bottom of a baking dish. That gets covered with a very simple batter, which in turn gets covered with an abundant topping of sugar and cornstarch. It’s when you pour boiling water over that topping, and then bake your creation, that the magic happens. The top of the cake gets a thin but crunchy sugary coating, and the bottom gets a pleasantly gooey and pudding-like rhubarb layer.

That boiling water step in the recipe is a totally genius contribution to the culinary world. I can’t help but wonder exactly how such a process evolved in the common-sense kitchens of yore, perhaps from pudding to cake/cobbler and back again. It really does work as a means to make something delightful in texture and just a bit different than some other cake with fruit in it.

I think this cake could be made with other fruits, and if you are thinking in the cobbler range of concoctions, you might be on the right track: berries, peaches, plums or cherries for example. In fact, this does resemble a cobbler when it’s being made, but I find the cake layer to be softer and probably sweeter than the biscuit-like toppings of cobblers.

I love the sugar-crunch top of this cake, and the sweet-tart pudding layer of the rhubarb, so I’m going to continue baking it this way for a while. It’s a small and fairly light cake that disappears quickly among rhubarb dessert enthusiasts. I’ve already made it twice (largely because we ate the first one before I could snap some photos), and it was perfectly delicious both times. The topping does soften within a day or so of baking, but it stays delicious. Exciting, even! At least I’m excited about another satisfying way to enjoy rhubarb!

Rhubarb Pudding Cake

Adapted from Common Sense Homesteading

2 cups chopped rhubarb

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon fine salt

1 ¾ cup granulated sugar, divided

½ cup milk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon almond extract

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2/3 cup boiling water

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Spray an 8-inch square baking pan with cooking spray or grease it with butter or oil. Spread the rhubarb evenly over the bottom of the pan.

2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, or in the microwave if you prefer. Set aside.

3. In a medium-size bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and ¾ cup sugar. Whisk together. Set aside.

4. In another medium-size bowl, combine the melted butter, milk, vanilla and almond extracts. Whisk together until smooth. The butter may re-solidify, but that’s okay.

5. Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and stir until all of the dry ingredients are moistened. Spread this batter over the rhubarb in the baking pan. The batter will be thick and will just cover the rhubarb.

6. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 cup sugar and cornstarch. Sprinkle evenly over the batter in the pan. Pour the boiling water evenly over the sugar mixture.

7. Bake at 375 F for 45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the rhubarb layer is bubbly. Cool completely.

Makes 6-8 dessert servings.

Other recipes like this one: Blueberry Coffee Cake with Brown Sugar Crumble Topping, Blueberry Muffin Cake with Crumb Topping, Cherry Almond Loaf Cake, Plum Upside Down Yogurt Cake, Rhubarb Yogurt Cake, White Cake with Berries and Lemon Glaze

One year ago: Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp with Graham Cracker Topping

Shrimp Pasta Salad

This recipe doesn’t have a long and exciting history for me. Well, not a long one anyway. I simply saw it while spinning through Pinterest and decided I wanted to eat it. At its base it is a simple macaroni salad with mayonnaise dressing, but it’s got shrimp and peas and a few other vegetables, too, all of which help to bump it up to something new and exciting for my kitchen.

It doesn’t matter what size shrimp you use to make this. If they’re bigger than you want, just chop them. I started with some medium-sized ones that I had on hand and chopped them into about ½-inch pieces, which fit in well with the elbow macaroni. You could also put more shrimp into the salad (the original recipe did), or more of anything else you like, really.

 

If you’re lucky enough to have some fresh peas, they would be as terrific in here as they are everywhere else. I used frozen sweet peas and they were good, too. Also, any kind of bell pepper will do. I used red because it was what I happened to have on hand, and I liked the color it added to the salad. I love dill, so, for me, it really makes this especially delicious, and especially spring-flavored. It’s great with shrimp and with peas and with macaroni.

 

This recipe makes a pretty hefty amount of salad for a two-person household like mine, but it held up really well in the refrigerator for a few days, which meant I had lunches ready for a good chunk of the work week. And I didn’t get tired of it either! It’s far too delicious for that. I think I may be on my way toward having a long and exciting history with this fresh and tasty salad.

Shrimp and Pea Macaroni Salad

Adapted from TheSeasonedMom.com

½ pound shrimp, peeled, deveined, and tails removed

8 ounces elbow macaroni

¼ cup chopped green onion

1 medium-size red bell pepper, diced

1 cup diced celery

1 cup frozen green peas, thawed

1 cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

1. To prepare the shrimp, cook in boiling water about 5 minutes (depending on the size of the shrimp) until fully cooked. They will be pink in color and firm. Drain and chill. Chop shrimp into about ½-inch pieces. Set aside

2. Cook macaroni in boiling salted water until al dente or to the texture you prefer, about 8-10 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water.

3. Place the shrimp and cooked macaroni in a large bowl. Add the green onion, bell pepper, celery, and peas, tossing to combine.

4. To make the dressing, combine the mayonnaise, lemon juice, sugar, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Whisk together to combine. Stir in the dill.

5. Pour the dressing on the shrimp mixture and stir gently to coat well. Chill 30 minutes or more before serving.

Makes about 8 servings.

One year ago: Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins