Salmon and Blackberries with Lemon Cream Sauce

Flakes of salmon and crunchy blackberries covered in a lemony cream sauce served on pasta.

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This lemony cream sauce is the perfect accompaniment to the juicy crunch of fresh blackberries and enhances the delicate flavor of the salmon. Serve over pasta with a side salad or green vegetable to make a colorful complete meal in about a half hour.


I'm breaking a bunch of rules with this recipe. First--fruit with fish? Okay. Been there, done that with my Salmon in the Company of Good Oranges recipe. Second--a cream sauce for fish? Well, why not? I mean, I like an Everything Bagel (focaccia recipe) with cream cheese and smoked salmon after all. Finally--I'm sharing a recipe using a produce item OUT OF SEASON?? Yes. Yes, I am. I'm in the middle of a spring snow storm and I need to think Happy Thoughts of warmer times. Working with these photos and remembering this memorable dish gives me hope that Spring--and eventually the summer berry season--will arrive.

Raspberry Jam Oatmeal Bars

These tasty bar cookies have a raspberry jam filling sandwiched between layers of buttery oatmeal and toasted coconut crust.

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When I make an assortment of cookies, such as for a holiday cookie tray, I like to have a variety of tastes. Consider these as the Rules of a Cookie Tray. There should always be something chocolate. There should always be something not chocolate. There should always be a bar cookie. There should always be Peanut Butter Blossoms. And most important--all of these cookies should be easy to make since you're making so many of them at once.

I got this recipe from my friend Lasar back when we lived in Hawaii. She called them Tasty Raspberry Treats and that's how I always think of them. Since I try and make my post titles a wee bit more descriptive, however, I've renamed them Raspberry Jam Oatmeal Bars because if you're looking for a way to use your homemade jam, this is a lovely one.

Raspberry Kale Lemonade Slushie

A refreshingly icy raspberry lemonade boosted with kale and pomegranate juice. This is a great way to get your greens in--after blending, the color of kale disappears into the drink. You might even say it's magic. Magically delicious, that is.

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My happiness upon seeing kale in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box is not feigned. I like kale--curly kale, lacinato kale, Red Russian kale . . . it doesn't seem to matter which variety. I like them all. This transformation from dreading kale to anticipating kale came in part because of my Vitamix.

Let's clear one thing up right now--I bought my Vitamix around 2001-02 and started this website a decade later, so there is no relationship to disclose when I mention the brand name of the machine. I'm just sharing what gives me excellent results every time. Just not with pizza dough--too difficult to get all of the dough out of the machine.

Using my Vitamix to turn kale into a beverage revolutionized the way I see kale. Because kale is a cool season crop, it arrives in the farm share box along with many other greens. I'm more interested in cooking the cabbage, the chard, my beloved beet greens, or spinach. I'd rather make a salad with the lettuces that are invariably included in the same box as kale. This leaves kale the odd green out, but this refreshing recipe turns kale into a summer sipper the whole family enjoys.

Black Raspberry, Brown Sugar and Oatmeal Muffins #MuffinMonday

Black raspberries and brown sugar sweeten this oatmeal muffin recipe. A summer treat when berries are in season, or use frozen berries to enjoy summer flavor year round.

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I grew up in a household that produced some of the food we ate, and that is a value I've carried with me into adulthood. Because we move around, in some homes the food production has been small--a few pots of basil and rosemary by the kitchen window, or mint in the ground next to the air conditioner (condensation means I hardly needed to water).

Currently my backyard garden, my Edible Foodscape, is the largest it's ever been--and that's probably small by most folks' standards, but I've got a postage stamp size yard and am making much with it. I've got 5 raised beds, each about 2 feet by 5 feet, made by my spouse from an upcycled cedar privacy fence. In these beds are garlic, tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, spinach, cucumbers, basil, peas, dill, and the volunteer squash for the season. I've got a perennial herb area interplanted with perennial flowers, a small strawberry area, peach trees and an ever-expanding raspberry patch.

Black Raspberry & Goat Cheese Crostini

This sweet and savory appetizer combines black raspberries with goat cheese and a vinaigrette, served on a red leaf lettuce-topped round of hearty bread, and sprinkled with pistachios for crunch.

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I need other women in my life. Women nurture me (and I hope I nurture them in return) via online interactions and in person. While I love my spouse and my kids, the support I get from my friends bolsters me in other, very necessary, ways.


So to my female readers of all ages: keep supportive friends in your life. Call to deliver birthday greetings to your college buddy when she turns 85. Have lunch with your sidekick who's moving back home after a job/relationship didn't work out. Chat online with your alter ego who needs a listening ear and some motivation. Take a walk with your pal who's having trouble figuring out the chemistry homework.

This appetizer is one that I brought to a gathering of women who nourish me: my book group. We meet once a month and discuss a wide variety of books as well as an even wider variety of other topics. Unlike other groups I've been in, there's not typically a food component to our meetings. If no one feels like hosting, we meet at a local coffee shop. No pressure to produce an elaborate spread--we just want to get together.

A typical Spring farm share box--plenty of greens and cool weather crops.

I liked the taste of the Black Raspberry, Goat Cheese and Pistachio Salad I made with the Spring Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share lettuces, and decided I wanted to use that combination in a handheld appetizer. My daughter harvested plenty of black raspberries from our patch so I didn't need to skimp. The pistachios provided a nice crunchy contrast to the creamy goat cheese, and the pink color was perfect for a ladies' gathering.

For more recipes using raspberries, please see my Raspberry Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

I'm sharing more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes like I do, follow me on Instagram. Need a good read? I'm sharing articles of interest on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Black Raspberry & Goat Cheese Crostini (makes a platter of appetizers)

Ingredients

• ½ cup goat cheese (I sliced off a log, but you could pack in some crumbles)
• ½ cup black raspberries (use red if that's what you've got)
• 1 Tablespoon salad dressing (any sweet vinaigrette type will do)
• freshly ground pepper
• a bit of butter, maybe 2 Tablespoons total
• hearty bread sliced thinly into individual rounds (a baguette works well)
• red leaf lettuce
• chopped salted pistachios

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, combine goat cheese and raspberries until raspberries are mashed.
2. Mix in salad dressing and a couple of grinds of fresh pepper. Set aside.
3. Toast the bread if you like. I did not, but if you are--preheat an oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and lay the bread in a rimmed baking sheet to toast for 5 minutes on one side.
4. To serve, spread a bit of butter onto rounds of bread. Top with a piece of lettuce, a teaspoon or two of raspberry mixture, a hit of freshly ground pepper, and a sprinkle of pistachios.

Berry Mango Swirl Muffins

A multicolored muffin swirled with blueberry, mango, raspberry, and strawberry purees. This whole grain treat makes a large batch, great for bake sales and sharing.

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I was sitting in a Tim Hortons enjoying a blue and yellow swirled lemon blueberry muffin when I got the idea for these muffins. My folks have been visiting this month, which means I've been out and about much more than usual (and have tried a number of interesting breakfast and lunch places--stay tuned for more inspired recipes). Looking at the muffin, I tried to figure out how to simultaneously 'lightly mix together' the batter, as one does for the Muffin Method, while still getting the blueberry puree fully incorporated into the mix.


Clearly I didn't make lemon blueberry muffins for today's Leap of Faith Muffin Monday with the #MuffinMonday bakers. I didn't even master a swirl technique that I could share on the blog. I did, however, make a whole mess of muffins. Enough to give a plate to the office staff of both the junior high and the high schools, some to take to the shop, and the most photogenic ones saved for the dogs.


That's right, apparently Vincent got up to shenanigans while I was at the shop and ate the pretty muffins, not a crumb or paper left. I love that old wiener dog, and while I have no concrete proof (my daughter saw him on the dining room table though), instead of making a bazillion more muffins I've just taken photos of what's left. They were fruity and fun to make, though, so I hope you'll consider trying these when you want to make a bunch of muffins that stand out a bit.

Black Raspberry, Goat Cheese & Pistachio Salad

Intentional salads . . . because not all fathers celebrate Father's Day with slabs of grilled meat.

We are in our 10th season of eating from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. You'd think I've got this down. You'd be wrong. The 2 most recent CSA programs we've participated in, here in Ohio and back in Virginia, provide us with bags of salad mix. I like that. Because I have salad mix stand by, ready for a quick rinse and tear, I'm more likely to say "dinner is X, Y, Z and a salad". Except the best intentions go awry and we don't end up actually making that salad. We just eat X, Y, and Z instead and the bag of salad sits untouched.

That was before I started making Intentional Salads. I am sure that the idea is painfully obvious to most everyone else, but if one person reading this has thought "and a salad" and NOT followed through, then my work here is done.

My spouse and I started craving salads around March. With months to go before CSA season we'd hit the salad bar whenever the craving struck. Over time, I began to notice which salad bar items we preferred on our salads. Since he is vegetarian-while-deployed my spouse has had years . . . yes, years . . . of experience building deployment salads and knows what he likes. I'm game to try new things and new combinations.

When the farm share began last month, I gathered the salad bar-type toppings that we liked the most and stored them in the fridge. The idea was that we'd set up a mini salad bar with dinner. That idea bombed. Too much hassle. Too many utensils. However, having chef salad for dinner and setting up the mini salad bar as dinner works great. I slice up some ham and set out all the jars and containers and we go at it making up our own plates.

Scandinavian Fruit Soup

This chilled soup is an excellent counterpart to a cookie tray. It provides contrasting flavors and textures without refined sugars, while still being a sweet finish to the meal. It also makes an excellent bedtime snack after candlelight services and keeps for several days in the fridge. For my third recipe of #ChristmasWeek we're heading back to Scandinavia for Fruit Soup.

Growing up, Christmas Eve was the big meal of the holiday. My folks would round up strays (folks who didn't otherwise have plans for the evening) and serve a smorgasbord of fish, Swedish meatballs (link to my folks making a batch for the blog), boiled potatoes, more fish (did I mention the pickled herring?) and lefse--that recipe is coming on Friday to round out #ChristmasWeek. 

On Christmas Eve after piling on all of the fish smorgasbord delights, we'd push back from the table and go digest somewhere. Typically us kids would play Bobby Hull hockey in the basement while the adults visited upstairs. After a period of time, we'd reconvene at the table for dessert: cookies and fruit soup. And more lefse, because you can never have too much of a good thing like lefse.

Do you get a tangerine in the toe of your stocking? I grew up with tangerines in my stocking, reading about Almanzo Wilder getting an orange in his stocking in the Little House on the Prairie series, and now we've got the Band Fruit Fundraiser citrus piled up in the basement (link to my fruit round up featuring 156 recipes using fall and winter fruits). As much as I love dark chocolate peppermint bark-coated roast beast, fruit is also an integral part of my Christmas sweets spread.

If you like to eat locally, Scandinavian Fruit Soup is your excuse to pull out the packages of beets berries you put up while they were in season. [In my case, I came across way too many packages of roasted beets in my quest to find blueberries, so beet & orange smoothies are my current breakfast drink of choice necessity]. If you don't have local fruit put up, canned or frozen fruit works great.  I'm especially partial to canned cherries--terrific flavor--and I love how the grapes in fruit cocktail look in the dark juice.

My recipes for #ChristmasWeek have been a mixture of getting my ethnic on and classic sweets that I just love to eat any time of year, but make especially for the holidays. Monday I shared Finnish Pulla {Cardamom Coffee Braid}, yesterday I shared lessons learned from making Pecan Brownie Bites for a Cookie Drive, tomorrow I'll share Toffee Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Friday I'm bringing #ChristmasWeek home with Norwegian Lefse. For more of my traditional savory & farm share centric recipes, please see my Visual Recipe Index.

Swing by all the participants to see what they've been whipping up for the holidays:

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies by Cravings of a Lunatic

Peppermint Spritz Cookies by The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen

Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls by Dinners, Dishes, and Desserts

Scandinavian Fruit Soup by Farm Fresh Feasts

Egg Nog Pound Cake by My Catholic Kitchen

Coquito Cheesecake Flan by Mind Over Batter

Mulled Wine Fruit Gums by Food Lust People Love

Soft Vanilla Caramels by That Skinny Chick Can Bake

Cheater Margarita Smoothies

DIY restaurant style fruit margaritas at home--simply blend your fruit with a prepared margarita mix and ice. And for the kids--blend limeade with fruit and ice for a nonalcoholic smoothie

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Recipe testing for this post has been so. much. fun!  It's my first beverage post, and I started off with a bang, seeing as this is also an alcoholic beverage as well as two recipes in one post.  I'm not going to start any cocktail post trends--Friday pizza and Monday muffins are enough for me--though I do have a lovely winter chai apple blend to share when the weather warrants it, and perhaps a summer ice tea concoction . . . but first--the Cheater Margarita Smoothie. It's too easy and too tasty not to share, and if you've got any lingering fruit in your freezer this will make quick work of it, enabling me you to empty and defrost the freezer before the new Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share season begins.

I was wondering why it is that I just don't mix cocktails at home, and I've come to the conclusion that it's because I have spent a good portion of my adulthood in states that don't sell hard liquor everywhere.  In Virginia, for example, you need to go to ABC stores (run by the state Department of Alcohol Beverage Control) in order to purchase anything stronger than beer or wine.  [In Hawaii the ABC store is where you get sunscreen and a can of macadamia nuts before heading to the beach.]  Ditto living on a military base, but it's called a Class Six store.  [I have no idea what classes one through five are.]

Since I'm not used to having bottles of spirits around and mixing and measuring, I gravitate to the premixed bottle of margarita stuff.  I can't enter into a debate about the merits of this or that tequila because I just don't know enough about them.  I just know I like the frozen slushy fruit margaritas at restaurants.

During the winter I spent some time in Florida watching my son march with his high school marching band in Disney and sharing HashtagOrangeWeek here.  Our last night there, my daughter and I were too pooped to venture past the TGIFridays in the hotel lobby for our dinner.  Conveniently, it was Ladies Night, and when I ordered the strawberry margarita the server brought two!  Score! Finally I slept well in a hotel room!

with an Easy Cheesy Vegetable Enchilada bake

The recipe I'm sharing is terrific for a family Cinco de Mayo celebration.  Start by making a pitcher of limeade-based fruit smoothies for the kids, then make a pitcher of margarita-based fruit smoothies for the grown ups.  Everyone gets a fruity drink which makes them happy.


I've made this with blueberries, with blueberries and raspberries, with strawberries, with bananas, blueberries and raspberries, and with peaches.  [Told you recipe testing was fun.] So far my favorite is the mixed fruit with banana--the addition of banana adds a nice creaminess to the base much like it, or yogurt, can do for a standard smoothie.

One note--Kate over at Diethood asks the hard questions to find out what we all wanted to know: 

how do you get the margarita salt to stick on the rim of the glass? The answer will surprise you.

Pizza with Raspberries, Goat Cheese, and Balsamic Syrup (Pizza Night!)

A savory-sweet combination of raspberries, goat cheese, and balsamic syrup on a tender buttermilk pizza dough.  An excellent light pizza for a summer evening.

Pizza, for me, is a way to incorporate what we've got handy from the farm share into a hand held cheese-topped delivery vehicle.  Since I make pizzas most every Friday night, it's a routine around here.

Marching band season will throw a wrench into this scheme, but we like our pizza too much to let that stop us--I'll keep posting pizzas on Fridays even if we're not eating our newest pizza (and I'm not posting the fresh shots on my FB page on the same day.  The Spirit of the Friday Night Pizza will endure while I'm volunteering at the concession stand doling out . . . ahem . . . Marching Tacos.

[As an aside (can I do an aside within an aside?) I really would not consider myself a Foodie or a food snob (two different terms to me).  I've never tasted truffle oil, or Scharffenberger chocolate, or other high falutin' ingredients I can't think up right now, though if you want to feed me some I'll happily try anything.  

However, I will say that, as an example, a strawberry that is built to cross multiple state lines does not taste like any strawberry I like to eat.  To paraphrase A Chorus Line, Looks 10, Taste . . . well 3 is generous, but I'm feeling generous).  I am more a proponent of fresh local food which invariably tastes better, all falutin'ness aside, and life is too short to eat food that doesn't taste good.  How did I get from 'cheese in a bag' to local food?  Where was I? Pizza.]

I'm still not ready to create a dessert pizza, but I'm leaning towards it with today's pizza.  It's a combination of sweet raspberries and tangy goat cheese, on top of a soft and tangy buttermilk pizza dough, with a sauce of reduced balsamic vinegar syrup because this blog post got me craving it and showed me how to make it.
It's a change of pace for us, a nice light summery pizza, good with a glass of wine on a shady porch.  If you're interested in other fruit-on-pizza options, I've got some suggestions after the recipe.

Berry Crust Pizza with Cranberry, Chicken, Red Onion and Mozzarella (Pizza Night!)

Yes, there are also strawberries in this photo.  They go into muffins, too.

Guess what we're eating from our backyard right now?  Berries!  How cool is that?  Last year our plants were young, and we ate a handful of raspberries from them but never managed to get a strawberry.  This year we're eating handfuls daily, and I've even put up some strawberries in the freezer.  If we don't grow enough raspberries to put up,  I'll find a pick your own or some good deals and put up a mess of berries like I usually do.  Berries are so easy to freeze (on a metal tray for several hours before transferring to a zip top bag), and they keep in an operational freezer until I'm ready to use them, like in these muffins. Please note my use of the phrase 'operational freezer'.

I did not start out with the intention of making a blueberry/raspberry crust so I could make a red, white, and blue pizza.  However, I am the sort of person who blooms where she is planted--and this pizza is the logical result of that trait.
I love my daughter, really I do--you're sensing a "but" here? Good.
It all started when she was hosting her social studies castle-building group.  It was fun to see the girls working together all over the main floor of our house.  The table in the living room was the main job site and the breakfast nook table was the glue gun station.  After each construction session my daughter would unplug the glue gun, and whoever needed the microwave next would plug it back in.  Things worked well for the first few sessions, but the third--really, how long does it take to build a castle out of cardboard?  Somehow, the microwave remained plugged in, and my little fruit and vegetable freezer aka microwave stand was unplugged instead.  No one noticed for a day.  Luckily the freezer was due for a defrost before summer "putting up" season got going, and much was still frozen or able to be salvaged.  I'm in good company--when Alyssa's freezer died, she made maple dijon chicken.
I also chose to get creative,  took the bags of thawed blueberries and raspberries, dumped them into my food processor, and made a puree.  We had a bunch of smoothies, and I used a cup of it in this crust--thinking I'd make a patriotic pizza.
I had leftover cooked chicken in the fridge, and excavated a bag of cranberries during the Big Defrost, so this pizza was predestined.  If your grill master is deployed, or you're just not that into the usual red, white, and blue stuff this year--try this.  In this pizza, chicken is optional.  With the creamy fresh mozzarella, tart cranberries, and red onion you can have a meatless, yet still patriotic, pizza.

Double Chocolate Raspberry Muffins--and they're Whole Grain! (Monday Muffins)

I like to eat seasonally, and locally, which usually means that I'm eating fruits and vegetables when they are at their peak flavor.  No tasteless January store tomatoes for me!  For berries, however, that means my "eat them fresh" season is very short--weeks, at best.  Most of the berries we eat have been frozen and put up in the fruit and veg freezer during the season.  We put frozen berries in fruit salads, on oatmeal, and waffles to name a few.  My spouse and daughter even like a bowl of frozen berries for a snack or dessert.  Me?  I like to bake with them.  I don't care if the berries lose their shape when they thaw in a muffin or cake batter.  They still taste fine to me!

I needed a muffin to take to a morning coffee gathering. I'd been gathering pizza ingredients out of the fruit and veg freezer when a bag of raspberries caught my eye.  Dark chocolate and raspberries go well together, so the recipe was starting to form in my mind.  My mom had emailed me to use cocoa powder in another dish, and I always listen to my mom ;) so I added a couple of tablespoons into the batter.
Then the fun began.  I used my standard soaked oatmeal muffin recipe as the base, but the first batch wasn't quite right.  I suspected the culprit was the additional bitterness of the cocoa powder, and made a second batch using a bit more brown sugar.  That tasted good.  But now I had 22 Chocolate Raspberry Soaked Oatmeal Whole Grain muffins staring at me.  Eep!  Conveniently, my daughter had recently enrolled in a home ec practical arts class, so I emailed her teacher and asked if the class could do a taste test for me.  The teacher was happy to oblige.  My daughter came home for lunch and I sent both batches of muffins off with her.  The class verdict?  Overwhelmingly in favor of the slightly sweeter muffin.

The actual data sheet, grease stains and all!

That meant that I still had no muffins for the morning coffee.  When I made my third batch of chocolate raspberry muffins for the day, I tossed in a handful of dark chocolate chips to the batter.  I liked these best, and that's why you're getting this version.