Cafe Liz

It’s not really an artichoke, but we call it that anyway — Jerusalem artichoke, or sunchoke, is a root vegetable that happens to have an artichoke-like taste. It doesn’t have any real connection to Jerusalem, either, for that matter; it’s actually native to the United States. Despite its deceptively being a foreigner, Jerusalem artichoke is quite common in markets here. As a tubor, it’s easier to prepare than artichoke, in my opinion — just skin it and cook, as opposed [...]

These swirly, patterned ribbons would look quite nice hung on my wall. Were they not made of pasta dough, that is. Back story: We are now the proud new owners of a pasta maker. I know everyone says you can make perfectly good pasta by hand, too, but frankly, there's no comparison. We've never been able to roll our pasta thin enough. Plus, the machine is extremely useful when it comes to kneading. Once you have a machine to do [...]

Now that it’s getting cooler, lasagna is a great dish to serve guests: It’s a meal, in that it needs no side dishes, and most people enjoy it. After all, it’s rich and cheesy, so how couldn’t you? I’ve been making lasagna with a blue-cheese bechemel sauce, not tomato sauce. I got the initial recipe from the Barilla Web site, and tweaked it over the years. This year, I decided to add figs, in the name of the holiday. Figs [...]

The weather is beautiful, and the asparagus stalks at the market are looking like the fresh, young shoots that they are. Simply beautiful. I could take a bunch of asparagus and put it in a vase in my living room, but then I'd have a vaseful of asparagus in my living room. But you get the idea. In any case, asparagus this nice demands to be accompanied by other fine ingredients. When I decided I wanted to eat it with [...]

This is a simple tomato-based pasta sauce with wine, spinach and pine nuts. We tend to have open bottles of wine around, since we never finish them. One word of caution regarding the tomatoes: Since the sauce is based on them, they need to be ripe and sweet; otherwise the sauce will be lacking. Fortunately, tomatoes are just starting to come into season.

On the advice of friends, we are now the proud owners of eight massive heads of garlic, stems still attached. Apparently this is garlic season, so now is the time to stock up for the year. There are several reasons to do so, our friends told us — the garlic that we usually buy, which comes neatly packed in little plastic nets, is grown in China and processed with chemicals. Now, I couldn’t confirm that, but it turns out that [...]

This oil-based pasta sauce is sweet and salty from the raisins and olive tapenade, and contains everything from onions and garlic to nuts and a big handful of parsley. I think I once had something similar at a fancy restaurant. Plus, it’s an easy dish to make for potluck dinners.

I envisioned this as a sort of hot salad. In fact, many of the ingredients are the same — tomatoes, arugula, onions, balsamic vinegar. They just happen to be in a warm cream sauce.

It’s yet another purple dish! As purple food week continues, today we had pasta for lunch, topped with a cream sauce of purple cauliflower and walnuts. Beyond being colorful on its own, the cauliflower lent the sauce a light purple tint.

Another simple, easy dinner. The title pretty much speaks for the dish.