use real butter

Recipe: potato galette

I had always considered galettes to be of the sweet persuasion. Being a person who prefers to eat savory food over sweets any day, I was pretty excited when I found a recipe for potato galette in an issue of Fine Cooking five years ago. I pulled that out recently and gave it another try. Last time I made the galette, I had not yet begun my affair with the Yukon gold potato. It is my favorite. It tastes even better if you can get your grubby little hands on some organic Yukon golds. The flavor is nutty, rich, and slightly sweet to my taste buds. It’s a great all around potato and excellent for roasting. Obviously, I wanted to try it in this galette.

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: peppermint ice cream

I can’t tell you how excited I was to finally try a peppermint ice cream recipe! I’ve been wanting to make peppermint ice cream ever since I left Ithaca, New York 5 years ago. Ithaca was where on occasion, I would buy Purity brand peppermint ice cream which wasn’t that crappy green stuff. It was real peppermint and pinkish and absolutely heavenly. I suppose peppermint ice cream to me is what Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is to Jeremy. But I was never much of a dairy expert and ice cream wasn’t high on my priority list of skills to accomplish. I don’t know why now, but I’m glad!

This recipe comes from David Lebovitz’ The Perfect Scoop. I actually found it on Elise’s terrific site here. I’ve had issues crushing peppermint candies in the past. My favorite peppermint candy is King Leo brand peppermint sticks, but they are so airy they would just dissolve in ice cream. I used those generic red and whites from the store. When I made peppermint bark in the past, there was a lot of swearing and harming of worktable surfaces. I wised up this time and remembered my seldom-used mortar and pestle.

Recipe: beet salad

I love beets. I mean *love* beets. I rarely think to cook them since Jeremy is the limiting factor on the range of foods we eat (he’s getting better – you should have seen him at the tender age of 19 when we met). But while I was walking through Whole Foods the other day, I was dazzled by their produce section. That’s why they put it right in front of the doors – so parrots like me will make a beeline for the rows of beautiful produce stacked perfectly enough to make you forget you are paying Way Too Much. I always find it amusing (or downright aggravating, take your pick) that we pay extra money for foods without chemicals and other things that Monsanto likes to add to our foods. Where was I, oh yes, in the beets aisle. I grabbed a bunch of gold and regular beets.

I’m a beet novice and didn’t realize you could cook the greens too. By the time I read about this wonderful use for the tops, I had already sent them to the compost bin in my over-eagerness to cook and clean up at the same time. Damn me.