We made these Old-Fashioned Rhubarb Strawberry Jam Bars five times in the last two weeks. Each time we swore to ourselves it would be our last. But then another picnic would pop up on the calendar. Each time we turned to the jars of crimson hued roasted strawberry rhubarb jam perched in the fridge, tempting us. And so another batch of Old-Fashioned Rhubarb Strawberry Jam Bars would hit the oven, followed by much happy gobbling.

Paul and I started dating 12 years ago, and quickly found that we had some pretty distinct food preferences. At the time, I professed to hate red meat, Paul loved it. I obsessed over salty briney flavors, which caused Paul to shudder. Time has made converts of us both. In fact, one of the first things I craved on a trip back to to North America from Haiti was a perfectly grilled steak. Paul's tastes have changed as well. Half a dozen years ago, when I first started making tangy sauce gribiche, I was on my own eating it. No longer. We like to make a big pile of asparagus and slather on this winning mustardy, eggy, French sauce gribiche. For the French cooking enthusiasts out there, I will note that this is my own, non-traditional version of the classic sauce gribiche.

Thanks for following along with our new adventures! We recently moved from Pittsburgh to Haiti where we are starting a 5 year volunteer assignment with a non-profit relief and development organization. We will be in transition for the next few months as we complete our in-country orientation, language study, spend time living with host families in both the countryside and capital... and lest we forget, have our first baby somewhere in there as well! Please bear with us as we will not have ready access to internet or a kitchen throughout this time. We will continue to share new recipes that we've prepared in advance, and updates on our new life in Haiti as often as we are able.

Even before I became pregnant, I was no stranger to food cravings, but looking back, pregnancy has taken me down some odd paths. There was the stage at the beginning, when in between bouts of vomiting, I madly craved salty, tangy and pickled foods. For a while I ate lentil salad with tangy vinaigrette and feta for breakfast every morning. Luckily, the intensity of my craving passed before I fully pickled our baby. In the second trimester, my cravings swung towards tex-mex, and sour-cream became the condiment of choice on everything. Mid pregnancy was notable for my lack of interest in dessert, with an occasional craving for canned peaches. Thankfully for my health, this third trimester has brought a renewed love of fresh fruits and veggies. So while I recognize that this Spinach, Strawberry & Avocado Salad is in no way seasonal, I have happily scarfed it for lunch and sometimes dinner for the month leading up to our departure to Haiti. I like the contrast of crisp spinach, sweet strawberries, creamy avocado nestled beside tangy goat cheese, toasted pecans, and topped with a balsamic vinaigrette.

Paul is in the homestretch of his masters program, and is once again home in the evenings. He has been cooking, smoking and grilling up mountains of food in celebration. I sometimes have trouble focusing on the meal he’s made, because it’s such a novelty to have our evenings together again. To warm us up on this cold spring week, Paul made a extraordinary Cream of Asparagus Soup and fresh sourdough bread. The secret, I discovered, was in the short cook time on the asparagus, and the addition of peas for color and sweetness at the end of cooking. Paul finished the soup with savory flavor boosts of parmesan and vinegar to add depth to this quick spring soup.

The mercury is rising, and the days are lengthening.  It is the season of backyard barbecues and farmers markets. We find ourselves craving Strawberry Shortcakes this time of year, and wanted to remake this classic dessert to feature the seasonal bounty. To highlight the first stalks of rhubarb and early strawberries, we made a tangy strawberry rhubarb sauce, sweetened with handfuls of fresh strawberries. For shortcakes with bright flavor and fantastic crunch, we mixed together a dough dotted with citrus zest and crisp cornmeal. Top these lovely Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcakes with heaps of fresh whipped cream, and your family and friends will thank you.

I opened the fridge after a long weekend of travel, and found slim pickings aside from some local asparagus and mushrooms.  At this point, feeling too tired to grocery shop, I needed to get creative. Raiding our pantry for grains, I made this impromptu spring wild rice and quinoa salad with sautéed asparagus and mushrooms. I added thyme, citrus, and almonds to round out this light and vibrant dinner, and felt ready to take on the week.

May is cooperating rather well, and we are eating our way into spring with Asparagus. We threw a crisp bunch on a hot grill this week, along with cherry tomatoes and local halloumi cheese, and drizzled the chunky spears with a fresh and summer inspired tomato and basil vinaigrette. To a lovely weekend of eating!

Last week we got a gorgeous bunch of multicolored carrots in our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) weekly delivery box. We roasted our carrots to beautiful morsels of caramelized goodness, tossed them atop an herb and ricotta smothered puff pastry, and crunched away with taste buds dancing.

We started making Teriyaki Steak Soba Noodles with Mushrooms in the colder months, searing off steak and mushrooms in a cast iron skillet, and tossing them with soba noodles in a rich homemade teriyaki sauce. Now that spring is here, we are getting local spring mushrooms in our CSA box and have been cranking up the grill for this deeply flavored dish. A dark, homemade teriyaki sauce serves as both quick marinade and robust sauce for healthy buckwheat soba noodles. We eat a lot of soba noodles here at the Hungry Hounds...check out our Carrot Soba Noodles With Ginger And Kale and Zucchini Soba Noodles With Grilled Vegetables. 

We woke up this April fools morning to a fine dusting of frost covering our spring crocuses. The joke, it appears, was on spring. It is a fickle time of year for food, we crave the soft colors and zippy flavors of spring, but still desire the hearty textures of winter. We bridge the seasons with our Lime Edamame Dip, a bold, herby dip with a buttery hazelnut taste and hearty texture. Edamame beans are green soybeans removed from their pods and eaten prior to ripening.  Edamame is typically found in Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian cooking. This dip is a fantastic crowd pleaser, and well worth sourcing edamame.

Sometimes, we get a little absorbed in enjoying food, and forget the broader context of our speech. We had our good friends Beth and Justin over for dinner this weekend. Our spoons stopped mid-slurp, and we all did a double take when Rebecca enthusiastically proclaimed: "I love this soup, the pea-ness really shines through!"

Allow me to say it another way, this is great, quick sweet pea soup. The gentle cooking lets the subtle and sweet pea flavor star. Sweet Pea Soup is a dish I request often (usually with Rebecca's awesome Buttermilk Biscuits). There’s nothing as satisfying as a vibrant green soup to fight the rainy grays of March.

Hello Spring, let’s milkshake! We’re feeling pretty chipper this week with balmy breezes and glimpses of sun, and we thought we'd celebrate the changing of the seasons with Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk Milkshakes. To make these ridiculously good milkshakes, we roasted strawberries to concentrate their rich sweetness, and boosted the flavor with tangy buttermilk. Feeling like spring cooking?  Try our Roasted Asparagus with Lemon, our decadent Hazelnut Tart with Fresh Strawberries, a light Herb Potato Salad or make-ahead Strawberry Rhubarb Baked Oatmeal.

Our Roasted Strawberry Buttermilk Milkshakes recipe is also featured this week by our friends at The Food Tasters!

Crunchy zatar seasoned pita chips, sweet caramelized onions, roasted tomatoes, and crisp, lemon laced vegetables; our Roasted Vegetable Fattoush Salad is a perfect light dinner that hints towards the warmer months ahead.

We started our weekend with a long walk with the dogs, they sensed spring and pranced down the trail while we clomped through the mud behind them in our rain boots. Came home, roasted up a big mess of asparagus with a little lemon for a simple spring lunch. Spring is fast becoming more truth than fiction. Eat green.

Our friends Beth and Justin, both creative cooks and passionate gardeners, made our day when they dropped off some beautiful carrots, freshly dug from their garden. While hardcore carnivores may lay claim to nose-to-tail cooking, we think that this veggie based dish gives the concept a run for its money, as it uses all parts of the carrot plant: root-to-leaf cooking in its colorful prime. Carrot Ribbon Salad with Carrot Top Pesto is adapted from vegetable whiz Diane Morgan’s Roots cookbook. In this dish, the carrots are first mellowed with a quick hot water bath to soften their texture and bite. Carrot top pesto, with its subtle parsley-like flavor, is a lovely match, accented with dollops of creamy goat cheese. Find a source for fresh vibrant carrots with tops and make this beautiful dish.

Food indulgence comes in many forms, but Hazelnut Tart With Fresh Strawberries is as fresh and light as it is delicious. The crust is made from a French-style hazelnut meringue, or dacquoise, normally  seen as a layer in fancy french pastries and cakes. Here the subtle chew, airy lightness, and nutty praline flavor of hazelnut meringue provides contrast and support to the sweet juicy berries. The resulting tart is exquisite. Don't be intimidated: this dessert is surprisingly foolproof. The only unique ingredient is hazelnut flour. Buy the freshest you can find (we use Bob's Red Mill) You can grind your own from fresh roasted hazelnuts...but be very careful not to make hazelnut butter in the process (this happens from over processing the nuts).

We often get a hankering for these Strawberry Citrus Shortcakes after a long day of house projects. These rustic shortcakes have a lightly sweetened biscuit-like crumb, enlivened by citrus, with a craggy sugar top and subtle crunch of cornmeal.  I made these Strawberry Citrus Shortcakes for weeknight guests with our first of the season local strawberries from our CSA.  A beautiful way to showcase these delicate berries. 

I am mad for potatoes and have found myself, on more than one occasion, defensively sputtering to Paul that 'of course I absolutely NEED to bring back that bag of potatoes in my suitcase!'  In contrast to my gung-ho consumption of potatoes, I would consider Paul to be more of a casual appreciator of the humble spud, but we both love this Herb Potato Salad.  It is a light and vivacious, mayonnaise-free potato salad, with a snappy garlic-mustard vinaigrette lavished with herbs. Think of this recipe as an an outline that will easily adjust to different amounts and types of herbs and alternative vinegars and oils. 

Rural Tanzanian cooking is not something that frequently appears on cooking blogs, food TV, or even in restaurants for that matter. It is simple, hearty fare designed to nourish. It uses only local affordable ingredients, follows informal recipes, and is eaten communally. I grew up on this stuff, and I love it for its rustic simplicity and hearty flavors. Stripped of spice and other culinary crutches like butter, the art of this cooking lies in pulling rich complex flavors from simple and often bland ingredients.  Seeing mounds of gorgeous greens in our CSA farmbox this week inspired me to make this dish from my childhood. Tanzanian Style Sautéed Kale is unembellished, relying on high-heat cooking and caramelization to bring out the rich complementary flavors of kale, tomato, and onion.  I use baking soda in this recipe to mimic the taste of the locally harvested alkaline salts I grew up with.  Baking soda can be a handy ingredient to use with greens as it helps to preserve their color and flavor while speeding up the cooking process. Traditionally, this type of greens dish would be served with a thick bready porridge called ugali...but it is equally delicious on pasta, grits, or as a stand alone side dish.