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Recipe: coconut lime cilantro dressing

I am headed west today, where temperatures will near 90°F. Just the thought of it makes my skin prickle and my brow sweat! On my last shoot, Jeremy and I covered a lot of miles. We love a good road trip because it’s hours upon hours talking about all manner of topics – especially food. And I got to thinking as we drove through Somewhere in the Middle of Utah of a great noodle salad we used to get at Trader Joes when we lived in Southern California. It was a lovely cilantro and coconut dressing over noodles and a few (a VERY few) vegetables. I’ve never found a recipe for it and I had always intended to try making it myself. So that’s what I did when we got home from our road trip last month.

start with what we know: lime and cilantro

add some coconut milk and rice wine vinegar

This was a little feedback loop: blend a bunch of ingredients together, taste, adjust. Repeat. After blending up the main ingredients, I realized that lime juice doesn’t give the same bright fragrance as lime zest. It’s all about what suits your tastes.

pour in some coconut milk with the lime juice and cilantro

lime zest gives it a nice boost

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Recipe: ginger scallion noodles

I love these shooting road trips for the incredible places and sights Jeremy and I get to see and share together, but I love them just as much for the wonderful feeling of coming back home. We drove 3200 miles through five states. No matter if we slept in motels or in the dirt, we were always up at ridiculous hours. Sometimes we woke at 3 am to get someplace before sunrise. Sometimes we could “sleep in” until 5:30 because our sunrise shoot was only an hour away. That 3 am wake up always makes me feel a little pukey. Always. Jeremy made sure there was enough gas in the car and I made sure there was enough coffee in Jeremy. Shooting conditions were far from ideal, but you make the most of it because that is what you do in photography, as in life.

shooting in the snow

…and in the salt

We had to make a last minute change of plans because Mother Nature was operating on her own schedule, so we chased a rumor. We chased it into the coast ranges of California with only a few hours to search. But what a feast for the eyes when we found what we were looking for.

a little orange flowering plant called the fiddleneck

along with other little flowers, they covered the hillslopes

i felt like i was walking on a king cake!

You can see more of these vast expanses of fiddlenecks, California poppies, mustard, goldfields, baby blue eyes, hillside daisies, vetch, phacelia, tidy tips, and owl’s clover on my photo blog.

It’s good to sleep in my own bed. It’s good to have a freshly washed puppy dog sprawling out on the sunny deck. Most of all? I am loving our access to fresh fruits and vegetables and ice cold water! It’s so very nice to cook again because on the road, there just isn’t the time when you are chasing the sun and anticipating where you need to be at what hour as you make your way from the Rockies to the Sierra. I haven’t been buying cookbooks at all in the past year because I don’t have the room or even the time to flip through them, but I knew there was one book I absolutely wanted to get my grubby little paws on… Momofuku by David Chang. For the last 600 miles home, I had those ginger scallion noodles on my brain.

some quick knife work

mix the sauce

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Recipe: white bean salad

I like the desert more when I’m not in it. Death Valley is a harsh place to love, at least for two people who prefer alpine environments. Whether I was walking through slot canyons, standing over badlands, or atop the eastern mountains that border the valley, my eyes always wandered west toward the Panamints where snow still lingers on the highest peaks just over 11,000 feet.

exploring canyons

it is an evaporitic basin

always a story in the rocks

west of the park

And just so you don’t feel totally neglected while we live it up in the dirt, here’s a quick and simple recipe for a white bean salad we served at a dinner a few weeks ago. I used canned beans once again because I haven’t gone and found myself a proper pressure cooker which is essential at my elevation (I spend a good deal of time researching the stuff I’m going to buy).

colorful and lovely ingredients

steeping the olive oil

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