Our strawberry infatuation continues! Jill’s strawberry post today reminds us that so much of what tastes great can come from our own backyard and it’s time to get planting. And I love that strawberries don’t need much to be transformed into a sophisticated dish. -Maggie

This year I am obsessed with turning our backyard into an urban food forest. How wonderful to be able to walk into the garden at any time and sample what’s growing?

Foraging and nibbling what nature has to offer is surely becoming a family pastime with our strawberries emerging as a star crop. The succulent red berries come back year after year and flourish with very little maintenance.

Our biggest strawberry dilemma? With five sets of hands wrangling over the first summer berry, there are never enough… so I’ve planted MORE! More strawberries, as well as multiple blueberry, raspberry, blackberry and red currant bushes.

A vertical experiment, as well as a conventional patch (netted off from wandering pet chickens and rabbits), is the newest addition to the strawberries already growing in the greenhouse.

These survived winter in the greenhouse, frozen in the clay pebbles of the aquaponics grow bed.

These vertical towers from Lee Valley can each hold 14 plants. In addition to the strawberries, I’ve also got two types of kale and assorted herbs growing. We’d love to hear what else besides strawberries are growing in your own food forest?

One of my favorite ways to enjoy strawberries is to toss them with balsamic vinegar. It’s tangy, but with a hint of sweetness. You can use the really good aged stuff, straight out of the bottle, or boil down a less expensive version into a balsamic glaze with a little honey or brown sugar.

Adding balsamic to strawberries (or grilled peaches!) elevates the fruit to a very grown-up dessert. Here’s how:

Wash, trim and slice your strawberries.

Add a few drizzles of balsamic vinegar or glaze to suit your taste.

Toss and let it sit for about five minutes, then spoon over vanilla ice cream.

If you have fresh basil on hand, chopped it up and add that too!

Balsamic Strawberries

Ingredients:

• Fresh Strawberries
• 2 tablespoons good quality balsamic or balsamic glaze
• Sprigs of fresh basil, finely chopped in strawberries, or as a garnish (optional)
• Vanilla ice cream

Directions:

1. Wash, trim and slice strawberries.
2. Drizzle 2 tablespoons (or more to your liking), balsamic vinegar or glaze.
3. Let it sit for 5 minutes or so, then spoon over vanilla ice cream.

All photos styled and taken by Jill Chen.

Eat Boutique discovers the best small batch foods by boutique food makers. We share recipes, maker stories and city guides to eating boutique. We host tasting events and markets for food makers, cookbook authors and food fans. We craft seasonal, regional gift and tasting boxes and sell individual items that you can order today.

Strawberries. Picking them from the local patch. Eating them right from the basket. Wiping the juice trickling down the corner of my mouth after biting into a plump, ripe strawberry. There’s not much better than strawberry season. Although I adore the very traditional strawberry favorite — shortcake — I’m happy to add some new dishes to my repertoire from some of our favorite food bloggers:

- There is always a reason for cake.  Always.  Especially Brown Butter Strawberry Cake. {from Roost}

- We love strawberries.  We love ricotta.  We love a simple recipe and beautiful presentation. Imagine waltzing in to an early summer potluck with this Strawberry Ricotta Tart as your date. {from bell’alimento, adapted from La Cucina Italiana}

- Strawberry Vanilla and Strawberry Balsamic Jam seem like an ideal way to make strawberry season last all year long. {from love & olive oil}

- Roasted Strawberry and Coconut Milk Popsicles gives us the chills, in a good way. {from The Year in Food, inspired by Sprouted Kitchen}

- Sure the Kentucky Derby is over and most of us didn’t trek to Churchill Downs to see I’ll Have Another gallop to victory, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a Strawberry-Infused Mint Julep on our own back porch.  {from COOKIE + kate, adapted from David Lebovitz and Tracy of Shutterbean}

All photos taken by and appear with permission from Caitlin, Paula Jones, Kimberley Hasselbrink, and Kate.

Eat Boutique discovers the best small batch foods by boutique food makers. We share recipes, maker stories and city guides to eating boutique. We host tasting events and markets for food makers, cookbook authors and food fans. We craft seasonal, regional gift and tasting boxes and sell individual items that you can order today.

It doesn’t take much to spruce up a refrigerator staple into a chic accompaniment.  Take butter, for example. We all know it, use it and love it, but probably don’t tend to think of it as the star of a meal. Shelby reminds us below that dressing up butter is delicious and fun and the reason you should raise your hand to bring the bread for your next potluck. -Maggie

Have you ever been invited to a potluck dinner and somehow been assigned the task of bringing the bread? For many, this would be a huge relief—avoiding the trouble of planning a dessert or a leafy salad that will satisfy a crowd—but for people like me (and probably you, if you’re reading this site), this assignment might actually bring on a bit of hand wringing.

Of course, you could buy (or even make) really excellent bread and great quality butter. But where’s the creativity in that? How will you flex those culinary muscles of yours? Oh, but wait… there are just so many things you can do with that butter!

This was how I was first introduced to compound butter—a friend of mine offered to bring the bread and butter to accompany a dinner we were attending. The herb butter she brought knocked my socks off and truly brought the meal to the next level. Soon, we were adding that butter to pretty much everything at the table. Healthy? Not especially. Delicious? YES.

As it turns out, compound butter is extremely simple to make, and the combinations are endless: herbs, spices, citrus, fruit and the list goes on. Compound butter is obviously a great addition to crusty bread, but it can also be a fantastic topping for fresh radishes, which is how we enjoyed them on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

We won’t stop there, though. The lemon-mint and red scallion-honey butters that I made this weekend will liven up almost any dish. I plan to use up our extras by tossing it into pasta, potatoes, or spring peas all week long.

Lemon-Mint Butter

Ingredients:

• ½ a stick unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest (from half a lemon)
• Pinch of sea salt

Directions:

1. Allow the butter to come to room temperature (it takes about an hour out of the refrigerator for it to soften).
2. Add the butter, chopped mint and zest to a bowl. Use a small scraper or back of a spoon to mix together well. Scrape into a small bowl.
3. Press the mixture into the bowl and level it off with scraper or with a butter knife. Chill.
4. Before serving, sprinkle a bit of sea salt on top.

Ingredients:

• ½ a stick unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon minced red scallion (shallot would be a great swap here)*
• 1 teaspoon honey
• Pinch of sea salt

Follow the directions above, but if the taste is too intense, add about a tablespoon of white vinegar to the minced scallion or shallot and put aside for about 20 minutes to temper the bitterness. Rinse and drain the scallion and allow time for it to dry off a bit— it will be hard to combine with the butter if too wet.

Take it to the next level:

While I used little salt and pepper bowls for my compound butter, the recipe can easily be doubled for a ramekin-sized serving. I like the look of the little bowls, but there are ways to be quite creative with the presentation. Using parchment paper, you can roll the butter into a log, chill it, and then cut it into little rounds. This technique works especially well for making herbed butter toppers for steak or other meat. If you have small molds, like leaves or flowers, you could also experiment with compound butter shapes. Just plan ahead: it will take about two hours to chill the butter long enough to make clean slices.

Now that I’ve started, I’m not sure I can stop experimenting. I’d love to try a strawberry-mint sweet butter for biscuits, but I’m also intrigued by the idea of topping a steak with a savory butter mixed with blue cheese and parsley.

Tell us, have you tried making compound butter before? What should we try next? What are your favorite combinations?

All photos styled and taken by Shelby Larsson.

Eat Boutique is an online magazine + market for food enthusiasts to celebrate the best pure, local + comforting handmade foods. We call it: food that hugs you back. Looking for the perfect gift? Eat Boutique sells gift boxes filled with handmade sweet and savory treats. Send a gift box of handmade food today.

Cookbooks are inspirational reading.  They’re filled with nourishing ideas, incredible food photography and often, like Sophie Dahl’s Very Fond of Food, some entertaining anecdotes, personal notes and silly stories.  They make us laugh and make us hungry.  What new cookbooks are inspiring you? – Maggie

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I flipped through Sophie Dahl’s new cookbook, Very Fond of Food, admired the pictures tremendously, and even made a delightful recipe without having a clue as to who she was.

After thoroughly stuffing my face, with what just might become my new go-to lunch, I looked her up online and discovered that Sophie is a former fashion model, contributor to British Vogue, cooking show presenter and is married to Jamie Cullum — a musician whose swoon-worthy songs appear on many of my dinner party mixes.

The icing on the cake, so to speak, is that Dahl is also the granddaughter of revered children’s book author Roald Dahl, who based the main character in The BFG on Sophie. I’d say her life is really and truly a bit of a fairy tale, which is fitting because her lovely new cookbook transports you to a whimsical and seasonal place.

First of all, I don’t know what type of paper is used by Ten Speed Press, but it smells divine. I’ve been on an ebook tear lately so the scents and sight of honest-to-goodness books are becoming slightly foreign. Trust me. This is not a book you want to experience on your iPad. From the get go, Very Fond of Food literally smells adventurous and Sophie greets you on the first page in artfully tousled hair and cute ballet flats like she is welcoming you to her home.

Dahl’s theme is clear and precise and revolves around conscious consumerism and seasonality. One line from her introduction particularly resonated with me: “food meets the call of the weather.” How succinctly put and true! Can someone make that into a poster for me?

Sophie is charmingly up front with her audience, letting us know that she is first and foremost a storyteller, not a chef, and if you’re seeking “chefly wisdom” to look elsewhere.

Throughout the cookbook, brightly hued fabrics and laces adorn each of Jan Baldwin’s gorgeously shot meal renditions, and the eclectic patterns found on cups and plates made me instantly wish for a weekend trip to dusty antique stores so that I could emulate this effortlessly elegant aesthetic.

Keeping with the seasonal dining theme, the cookbook is broken into sections for Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer. Then each main section is again divided into breakfasts, lunches, and suppers. The recipes are very approachable and homey and include everything from baked pumpkin to beef stroganoff and even the very British fish fingers with tartar sauce and mushy peas.

The recipe notes throughout Very Fond of Food really make Sophie’s personality shine and she comes across as someone you’d very much like to have as your friend.

My personal favorite involved a modern day take on The Nutcracker. This tale prefaces a dessert she’s dubbed “Christmas Sugar Plumb Syllabubby Mess,” and tells the story of a very cheeky and boy crazy Clara who is confronted with dancing rats sporting skinny jeans and falls asleep under the Christmas tree listening to Whams greatest hits. I’m almost certain that George Michael’s pop group has never been mentioned within the covers of a cookbook before. Yet another reason I’m completely enamored with this author, and you will be, too.

Turning to her cookbook one recent afternoon, this unbelievably simple and seasonal springtime lunch idea was the technicolor bright spot in an otherwise melancholy Monday. The crisp, grilled asparagus were surprisingly filling when accompanied by bits of fresh organic egg and the lemon, which I feared would be overpowering, was just what the dish needed to feel special.

Plus, it made my usual boring sandwich or hastily toasted bagel seem completely gauche.

Dear Sophie, I solemnly promise to try harder from now on, starting with this recipe.

Asparagus with Hard-Boiled Eggs, Parmesan, and Lemon, from Sophie Dahl’s Very Fond of Food

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• About 12 asparagus spears
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• Juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1.  Heat a griddle or frying pan over very high heat, remove the tough ends from the asparagus and cook the spears for about 5 minutes on each side, until browned on the outside and soft within.

2.  While the asparagus is cooking, boil the eggs; about 4 to 5 minutes if you want them still slightly runny inside. Plunge them into cold water, and then peel and chop finely.

3.  Plate the asparagus, pouring over the olive oil and sprinkling with the Parmesan, lemon juice, and zest.

4.  Season and sprinkle the hard-boiled eggs on top.

All photos styled and taken by Erin Nichols.

Eat Boutique is an online magazine + market for food enthusiasts to celebrate the best pure, local + comforting handmade foods. We call it: food that hugs you back. Looking for the perfect gift? Eat Boutique sells gift boxes filled with handmade sweet and savory treats. Send a gift box of handmade food today.

It’s not too late to send a belated gift to Mom (hint: Our Mother’s Day gift box will still taste great even if it arrives next week).  But in case you want to whip something up in the kitchen for Sunday, these are a few items we’re loving right now and think Mom would, too.

- Swap Mom’s normal cup of Joe this Sunday with Breakfast Coffee Pudding, we think she’ll be pleased. {from theKitchn}

- Or give her a sweet treat to dunk.  Candied Pecan Biscotti should do the trick.  {from Joy the Baker}

- If the whole family is coming by to celebrate Mom, these Orange Rolls look like they can serve a hungry crowd. {from Lottie + Doof adapted from Saveur}

- Moms love waffles, right?  We’d love to have these Coconut Flour Waffles come on a tray in bed to us! {from Deliciously Organic}

- Make Mom’s day totally sweet with this Salted Chocolate Tart, we don’t think she’ll say no.  {from Healthy Green Kitchen adapted from Sarah Copeland’s The Newlywed Cookbook}

- Honestly, Mom might just need some booze and quiet.  If so, why not make it a Cava Sangria? {from Simmer Boston adapted from Bon Appetit}

All photos taken by Tim, Winnie, and Alex.

Eat Boutique is an online magazine + market for food enthusiasts to celebrate the best pure, local + comforting handmade foods. We call it: food that hugs you back. Looking for the perfect gift? Eat Boutique sells gift boxes filled with handmade sweet and savory treats. Send a gift box of handmade food today.

Sunday mornings are my designated mornings of relaxation, as I’m sure they are for most people.  It’s my one morning a week where I’m not running around like crazy trying to get out of the house.

It’s the only morning where I get to enjoy a more lavish breakfast than a quick bowl of oats or granola bar on the run.  This typically involves me rummaging through my fridge and pantry and pulling out a whole bunch of things to make pancakes, eggs, anything I have on hand.  A delicious meal typically follows, but I always regret it after I finish eating and remember the pile of dishes in the sink.

This past Sunday I wanted to keep it simple and easy, and avoid all those dishes.

I decided to try out the Burwell General Store Cardamom Quick Bread.  I am typically not one to use quick mixes because I associate them with a long list of unfamiliar ingredients.

But Burwell’s mix was different:  a short list of ingredients I knew, and liked. I unwrapped the mix, cracked an egg, added a splash of oil and milk, gave it a stir, and the bread was ready to bake.  After 30 minutes in the oven the bread was done and ready to be enjoyed with my mug of hot tea:  the perfect Sunday morning breakfast.

An added bonus: the mix comes in it’s own baking pan, which meant no dishes to clean up afterward.  This allowed me to move on to the most important Sunday task: relaxing.

Be prepared for your own relaxing Sunday with some Burwell General Store Cardamom Quick Bread available in our store.

All photos styled and taken by Michelle Martin.

Eat Boutique is an online magazine + market for food enthusiasts to celebrate the best pure, local + comforting handmade foods. We call it: food that hugs you back. Looking for the perfect gift? Eat Boutique sells gift boxes filled with handmade sweet and savory treats. Send a gift box of handmade food today.

Spring is here and we’re lucky to have Judi Cutrone and Nicole Ziegler from Some Kitchen Stories dust off an old favorite, spruce it up and well, open it up:  the sandwich.  This is the first contribution from the SKS ladies, and they’ve already got our mouths watering.  What sandwich are you packing in your spring picnic basket?  -Maggie

It’s a fact of nature that in winter things close up. We hibernate. We huddle. We insulate (some with thick sweaters, some with chocolate cake, we don’t judge).

And then, it’s spring and everything opens up. Things widen and expand. It’s glorious. Even the birds know it.

Even the sandwiches know it.

Creamy, homemade hummus. Thick, hearty slices of bread. Tender strips of juicy red pepper. Big, beefy hunks of portabella mushroom. Served sunny-side up. It’s spring, we can be open about this.

Use bread as a canvas. Start with a creamy spread of your choosing. Add some crunch. Play with colors. Add a sprinkle of finishing salt. Pour some wine.  Enjoy!

Open-Faced Sandwiches

These are some suggestions, but get creative and customize yours with spreads, greens and veggies that simply look good to you!

Ingredients:

• Fresh sliced bread
• Hummus
• Portabella mushroom
• Red Pepper
• Greens

Directions:

1. Cut thick, hearty slices of your favorite bakery bread.  One slice per sandwich.
2. Slather on a hearty dollop of hummus, or your favorite spread.
3. Add some color with a few fresh basil leaves (or any green you like!)
4. We liked red peppers and portabella mushrooms for this sandwich, grill them a bit and slice into juicy, tender strips.
5. Top with some finishing salt and enjoy!

All photos styled and taken by Nicole Ziegler.

Eat Boutique is an online magazine + market for food enthusiasts to celebrate the best pure, local + comforting handmade foods. We call it: food that hugs you back. Looking for the perfect gift? Eat Boutique sells gift boxes filled with handmade sweet and savory treats. Send a gift box of handmade food today.

One day, sometime in the not too far off future, I will have a little spot where you can grab a bite or a sip of something sweet, sour, savory or potent. The not too far off future may be 10 years from now, but a lady can dream, so bear with me.

My little snack shack will not look exactly like Rose Bakery in Paris, France, but it will operate in the same vein and honor, the same spirit behind this idyllic bakery. Everything will be made by hand or locally, and the tough to find items will be sourced by my favorite food purveyors.

The menu will only feature items I adore like tiny pizzettes assembled with just enough house-made mozzarella and my own herbs. The wines will be favorites, with much reverence given to special vineyards with small production. The espresso will be amazing or else I’d face the wrath of my not-forgotten Italian ancestors. And the cakes and dessert-like treats will be sweet like a light fresh honey.

Rose Bakery, with two locations in the 3rd and the 9th arrondissements respectively, delights me in the way that I hope my someday restaurant may for others. It’s not at all traditionally French but it exhibits a respect for tradition and quality that most Parisians can appreciate. On my last trip to Paris, I must have visited three times over three weeks. I always do. It’s just that good.

Heidi Murphy was in Paris this time around and took photos that definitely resonate with charm, homegrown spirit and care. You can read more about Rose Bakery and other favorite dining spots in our Paris Mini-Guide: Eat Boutique in Paris.

All photos taken by Heidi Murphy/White Loft Style.

Eat Boutique is a site + market that celebrates the best pure, local and comforting handmade foods. We call it: food that hugs you back. Looking for the perfect gift for a food fan? Eat Boutique sells gift boxes filled with handmade sweet and savory treats. Send a gift box of handmade food today.

I am not a Mom. I certainly have one of the sweetest dogs in the world, which I suppose qualifies me as Mom-material on some level, but there are no little tykes running about my house as of yet meaning I generally steer clear of Mom-oriented cookbooks. I suppose there’s always a moment to revisit that, like when I finally become a Mom or perhaps when I find a cookbook that just makes sense, resonating way beyond the having-kids thing.

So, lucky me, the latter finally happened.

I met Katie Workman a few months back at the Cookbook Conference. After spending quality time with her new cookbook, The Mom 100 Cookbook: 100 Recipes Every Mom Needs in Her Back Pocket, I’ve found several reasons to appreciate (and perhaps love) Mom-oriented cookbooks.

I say love because I have quite easily discovered a bunch of recipes that I want to make now, not someday — Honey Ginger Soy Chicken, anyone? — recipes that have not been over simplified to just plain chicken and white rice. Many of Katie’s recipes are –refreshingly — for everyone.

More than the actual recipes, the book tells a story I find familiar. Each of the 20 chapters note dilemmas that any of us might face on a daily basis, along with her best bet recipes to solve the problem. Your kids ate burgers yesterday but swear off meat today? Katie has packed in several vegetarian dishes — for example a cake-like stacked Mexican Tortilla Casserole — that is sure to win over kids but will also, quite frankly, come in very handy with my flexitarian friends who make my kitchen life… an adventure, to say the least.

During coffee with Katie in Boston last month, I was delighted to hear her stories behind the book. For example, did you know that Katie and Saveur food editor/photographer Todd Coleman photographed all 366 pages in two full weekends in the Saveur Test Kitchens? I’m exhausted after an 8-hour shoot of 3-4 recipes, but 100 recipes in four days?! Sheesh.

All our recipe testing talk naturally made me hungry! Once home, I found a soon-to-expire container of extra firm tofu, some pita, an avocado and everything to make the creamy tahini dressing used in Katie’s Creamy Tahini, Tofu and Avocado Pitas. It was an easy dressing that won me over. In fact, I’ve modified it to use as a quick appetizer with either homemade pitas or the precooked variety fresh from a bag.

There’s a lot more to explore in The Mom 100 Cookbook, and certainly more to discover in the Mommy-cookbook world. I say, bring it on. I promise to pay attention, Moms.

Tahini Yogurt Dip

Recipe adapted from Katie Workman’s The Mom 100 Cookbook

You really can’t make this recipe incorrectly and the measurements should be a guide, not a rule. Add more lemon juice to brighten it further or more cumin to up the spice.

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup Greek yogurt
• 2 tablespoons tahini (sesame paste)
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoon waters
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Add more water if you prefer a looser consistency.
2. Spoon the mixture into your serving dish and serve with any good dipping item like pita chips or sliced vegetables.

All photos styled and photographed by Maggie Battista.

Eat Boutique is a site + market that celebrates the best pure, local and comforting handmade foods. We call it: food that hugs you back. Looking for the perfect Mother’s Day gift? Eat Boutique sells gift boxes filled with handmade sweet and savory treats. Send a gift box of handmade food today.