Halfway point reflections and More Recipes From a Kitchen Garden

It's been a while since my last post. I have in fact been cooking. Just not keeping up with the writing portion of things. I suppose I should take a moment to reflect now that it's halfway through the year. My lofty ambitions at the beginning of the year had me thinking this was going to be a nice little one year project. Ha! At the rate I'm going it'll probably take me three years. Ah well, I can't say it hasn't been enjoyable cooking my way through my collection, although it is starting to prove a bit more challenging now that I'm running into more and more specialty cookbooks, which means I might be cooking nothing but cheese or lemons or ice cream for a week. 

My book for today is More Recipes From a Kitchen Garden by Renee Shepherd & Fran Raboff. Lamely, I don't have the prequel to this, Recipes From a Kitchen Garden, but I became enamored with these two when I was working at a plant nursery a number of years back. It's one of those perfect companion books for an avid cook-gardener, and includes recipes for more uncommon ingredients like lemon thyme and scented geraniums. I'm a total sucker for a cookbook like that considering I grow the stuff but haven't the foggiest notion of what to do with it.  I made a couple of soups out of this as I'm also a sucker for soup, and I must say I LOVED the Cauliflower-Brie Soup. Here's a not-very-appetizing picture for you, because, well, my photography skills pale in comparison to my cooking, writing, and gardening skills.

You basically make a cauliflower puree and add hunks of brie that go all melty into the soup. 

I like the organization of this book, as it's clearly done from a gardener's point of view. The recipes are arranged by type of vegetable and include common things like asparagus and potatoes, in addition to more uncommon like kohlrabi and celeraic. I like how it provides a good range so you can stick with something familiar and comfort-foody, or you can branch out and try something new. They also include a great chapter at the end for herbs and edible flowers, with both recipes and also tips on how to make use of some of these extras.

All told, I'll most likely be holding on to this book too as it makes itself a bit of an asset in a cook-gardener's household. It's not easy to track down recipes making use of lavender and viola petals, so why get rid of a good thing when you have it right in front of you?