After I had decided to make egg salad to serve with tomato soup for a simple dinner, I discovered that there was no mayo in the fridge. Rather than hopping in the car and driving to the market, I decided that I had what I needed to make both mayonnaise and egg salad.

I had a dozen eggs from Thymless Herbs, a nearby farm in Bridgewater, Vermont. I could use one to make mayo and four to make egg salad. The egg shells ranged in color from creamy white to warm brown and shades of pale blue and soft gray green, more beautiful than eggs dyed for an Easter basket. Aracauna hens laid the blue and green eggs. It had never occurred to me that chickens had ears until Suzy Krawczyk, the farmer, explained that the color of each hen’s eggs matched the color of that hen’s ears. I find it nearly impossible to put the empty shells on the compost pile.

Mayo is an emulsion of oil suspended in the liquid of an egg, stabilized by lecithin in both mustard and egg yolks, and flavored with vinegar, salt and cayenne pepper.

With all of the ingredients in place, all I needed was a fork and a dinner plate to make mayonnaise.

Here’s how I made it:

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Saturday was a beautiful, cold, gray, windy, winter day.

I’m not complaining, the air above the frozen pond was white. (Can it be so cold that fog freezes?) The trees on the hill were  black and created a startling contrast to the white field. The alpacas were cozy inside their upscale fleece. Rosie, working on her version of a canine snow angel, was frequently distracted by the scent of creatures tunneling beneath the icy crust of snow. On the other hand, I wanted pie. Not a frozen pie from the market, not a pumpkin pie made from a tin of pumpkin, not an apple pie, I wanted a pie  that would leave pink streaks on the plate. I was missing summer pies.

What to do — I opened the freezer and found a bag of cranberries and remembered that I had once made a cranberry pie but I couldn’t remember how. I had to be adventurous, think creatively and get started. I had an unbaked pie crust in the freezer and I began by rinsing the cranberries and thinking of pies past. I knew that the birds would be pleased with the pie if I wasn’t. Luckily –

It look good enough to slice.

One bite

After the next

Sorry birdies — maybe next time.

Here’s how I made it.

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Mathea Tanner is the cook, writer, artist and brains that make Peas Love Carrots one of the food blogs I love to visit. Her recipes for penguins, snowmen and lambs will make you want to rush to the kitchen even if you are a vegetarian.  I’m pleased to be able to introduce you and her blog, peaslovecarrots, to you.

I often have these moments of excitement when I think I’ve had an original recipe idea only to rush to my computer and have Google tell me that I am last in a line of hundreds to have it.  I’m left wondering if in the past I’ve seen these recipes somewhere or another and forgotten about them, only to resurface again as subliminal faux-epiphanies.  While it’s not a bad thing to do something that’s been done before, it does take away the feeling of being some sort of culinary explorer, charting unknown waters.  Every now and then one likes to feel like a discoverer, right?

The other day I day I decided to make rainbow cupcakes. [/dontprint] … read more

Cookies spark memories for me. After a harrowing journey from Delhi to Kashmir, Charles and I looked out at the lotus blossoms on Dal Lake from the small deck of a houseboat.

We were grateful to have arrived safely and couldn’t imagine anything that would make the moment more perfect. And then the boatman arrived with a tray of tea and almond macaroons. It was beyond perfection.  At breakfast the next morning, I asked the boatman, who was also the cookie baker, how he made the macaroons and he invited me into his tiny kitchen. Here’s how we made them. … read more

With gray days and freezing nights I was longing for a taste of summer.

At the market, between dependable root vegetables and cauliflower and broccoli and fruit from who knows where, I saw a bin of uniform, firm plum tomatoes. They  reminded me of the of vine ripened, tomatoes warmed by the sun, eaten in the garden I’ve rubbed off most of the dirt on my jeans.

These tomatoes are the sun warmed, vine ripened tomatoes of summer past.

I decided to roast and season the plum tomatoes to see I could transform them into an ingredient that would bring a summery flavor to chase the winter chill.  With a wee bit of effort, a few additions and after three hours of roasting (I rested while they baked), I had a bowl of sunny flavor. I used some of the tomatoes to brightened a pot of pasta mixed with mushrooms and squash, I diced four halves and added them to a pot of chicken and rice soup to help me fight off the flu and I have enough left to put on a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches.

I’m feeling better, still looking forward to tomatoes warmed by the sun, but happy to have a recipe to share that I hope will brighten your winter kitchen. Here’s how I added summery flavor to Roma tomatoes:

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