Roasted Carrot and Avocado Salad with Cumin-Lime Vinaigrette

A few weeks ago, I bought a bunch of really cute, small, fresh carrots from the farmers' market. They were sold by the "basket" and still had a lot of dirt on them, so I couldn't resist. They were the most wonderful carrots I'd ever seen!

I love roasting carrots, so I decided to try this roasted carrot salad from one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen. It was actually a recipe I'd tried before, but I wanted to try it again because last time the cumin I'd put on the carrots before roasting ended up burning in the oven.

This time, I added the flavoring ingredients (including the cumin) after roasting, which I think produced a much better salad. I carefully cleaned the delicate carrots, coated them in some oil, and roasted at 425 degrees for 20 or 30 minutes (it really depends on the thickness of your carrots). After roasting, I combined the carrots with sliced avocado and poured over a vinaigrette made of the juice of a lime, about 1/4 teaspoon of cumin, salt & pepper, and more oil.

Delicious, bright, interesting, and great textures! It was also very summery and would make a great light, hot-weather meal served with some white fish.

Fresh Corn Fritters

My friend Arnie from work brought me some corn he bought at a roadside stand--it's a little hard for me to get to a roadside stand with no car to get out on the road with. So nice of him, thanks Arnie! Since then, I've had boiled corn (boiled with a bit of sugar and no salt, according to the instructions of Aimee, another work friend), but I wanted to try eating fresh corn in a delicious pancake, or fritter.

Searching for a recipe was a bit of a lengthy process, because many of the recipes called for canned, creamed corn, which is lovely, but not in August when you have fresh corn at your disposal. I finally found this Food Network Canada recipe, which calls for nothing but fresh corn, cornmeal, egg, flour, and salt & pepper. Actually it also called for green onions and cheese, but I left those ingredients out in order to let the corn be the star. I added 1/4 teaspoon or so of cayenne pepper for a little heat and interest.

These fritters were really easy to make--you basically just mix all the ingredients together. The recipe is also really to adjust, quantity wise--if you look, most everything is in threes, so you can easily make 1/3 or 2/3 of the recipe depending on how much corn you have. I made 2/3 of the recipe and it was the perfect amount for two or three hungry people.



Since fresh corn cut right off the cob is used, the corn doesn't get overcooked. In addition, corn is truly the main ingredient here--everything else is just for subtle flavor and binding purposes, making this fritter the perfect vehicle to showcase fresh corn. It'd be great for people who don't like to go to the effort to eat corn right off the cob, or for those who are simply tired of corn on the cob. We ate the fritters with some lemon- and parsley-stuffed rainbow trout and some boiled potatoes.

We Are Runners

Georg and I certainly support each other's goals, but rarely do we share the same goal. A few weekends ago, we shared the common goal of running in the Edmonton road race series. I ran the 10k and Georg the half marathon. It was so fun to talk about running together in the weeks prior to the race!

My only hope was to finish the 10k without stopping running, which I managed to do. Georg wanted to improve his time, and that he certainly did--he finished the half marathon in an hour and thirty six minutes. That's an awesome time! It was a big improvement over his last half marathon time.

Below are some pictures from our races!

Fava Beans with Lemon, Parsley, and Asiago Cheese

I found fresh fava beans at the farmer's market last Saturday! Having never cooked with fava beans, I bought some with which to experiment.

Fava beans have a reputation for being a little creepy and weird. First of all, they're a dish Hannibal Lecter enjoys with fresh human liver and a nice chianti. Second of all, they're strange to prepare--you have to pry them first from their pods and then from their whitish, waxy outer membrane. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Some recipes recommend taking the outer membrane off the beans before cooking of any kind. Apparently some of the cooking gasses released by the beans can distort their bright green color if trapped by the membrane. I boiled the beans for 5 minutes, plunged them into ice water, and then slipped them out of their membranes. The beans were still vibrant green, as you can see above. I'd recommend boiling before trying to remove the membranes; it makes it a lot easier to slip them off in the end.


Once I'd done the basic preparation of the fava beans, I had to choose a recipe. There were a lot of them that looked good...fava bean puree with mint, spicy fava bean fritters, pasta with fava beans. But in the end I wanted something simple that wouldn't obstruct the true taste and texture of the fava beans, especially since this was the first time I would taste them and I wanted to be able to judge them properly. Besides, if I was going to invest the time and effort to wrangle the beans from their pods and carefully peel off their membranes, I was not going to puree them, fry them, and make them into glorified falafel.

So, I chose to make a simple salad of the beans, some lemon, parsley, and cheese. The original recipe called for manchego cheese, and I also understand pecorino to be a classic pairing with fava beans, but I couldn't find either of those cheeses at Safeway, so I settled on asiago. The recipe was simple: boil the beans for 4 or 5 minutes, plunge them in ice water, slip off the membranes, mix them with lemon zest, lemon juice, chopped parsley, oil, and salt and pepper and serve. I did not add the fresh garlic the recipe called for--I usually find fresh garlic to be a bit overpowering.



I was happy with the salad. It tasted really fresh, as just about anything with lemon and parsley does. The fava beans were neat--such a bright green color, and they weren't mushy in the middle like a lot of beans. They had a firm, smooth, rich texture that I don't think I've experienced in other legumes before.

And so, one more of my food curiosities explored.

Parental Visit to Edmonton

Last week, my parents drove into town for a little visit! They drove here all the way from Indiana. I'm sure it was strange for the Albertans here to see an Indiana license plate. Our visit was so nice. We went to all of the Edmonton attractions: the legislature building (see above), city hall, the river valley, Heritage Trail and the Chinese garden, Fort Edmonton, and more.


Doug contemplates the architecture of City Hall.


Mom and Georg


Doug, Georg, and I overlooking the River Valley.


Mom and Doug being a cute couple!

It was so nice to have them here. When you only see your parents a couple of times a year, you really treasure it. It was such a nice, stress-free visit. Thanks for coming to Edmonton, Mom and Doug!

Sour Cherry Pie

I have been looking for sour cherries all summer! The dark, sweet cherries seem to show up in profusion, but I hadn't seen a single sour cherry until I went to the downtown Edmonton farmers' market last weekend.

In my opinion, sweet cherries are great for eating out of hand, but too sweet for baking. You need something tart to contrast with the sweetness and richness of a baked good.

There are lots of different types of sour cherries, but there are two main types: the Morello cherry, which is more plentiful in Europe, and the Montmorency cherry, which is the most popular sour cherry in the United States and Canada. Montmorency cherries are lighter than Morello cherries: a bold, intense red. They made for a pretty pie!


I had never made a sour cherry pie before, so I looked on the internet for measurements of sugar and thickeners. Most recipes suggested 4-5 cups of fresh, pitted cherries, a cup of sugar, and three tablespoons of a thickening agent (like cornstarch or instant tapioca). I went with about 4 cups of fresh cherries, a cup of plain white sugar, the juice of half a lemon (because I think lemon goes with everything, also to guard against the pie being too sweet), a teaspoon each of vanilla and almond extracts (how could that hurt?) and three tablespoons of instant tapioca. I went with the tapioca because sometimes I can taste added cornstarch in pies and I didn't want anything clouding the clear taste of my tart, beautiful, elusive sour cherries.


The pie turned out well. The three tablespoons of instant tapioca were a bit much; they soaked up most of the cherry liquid and hid it, slightly congealed among the cherries. I would have preferred a more juicy pie, but the extra tapioca didn't detract in a major way (and at least the pie wasn't watery, that's the worst).

The sour cherry flavor was a special treat. I like sweet cherries, but I feel sometimes that they don't adequately capture the quintessential cherry flavor we're all looking for. I think the flavor actually resides in the sweetened sour cherry; it resides in this pie.

If you'd like to try it and you find some sour cherries (Morello, Montmorency, or other), I based my recipe mostly off this recipe from Epicurious. I would recommend reducing the amount of instant tapioca by 3/4 of a tablespoon or so and adding the almond extract if you have it.