recipes and a project to share

i'd like to say that i've been cooking more than normal lately, but that wouldn't be entirely true. i have, however, been stockpiling recipes.

one theme in those recipes is olive oil. since starting work at red ridge, i often find myself with a couple of bottles of olive oil sitting in the kitchen begging to be made into something delicious. i love olive oil in all its traditional places--salads, pasta, drizzled on veggies or soups--but i am very, very intrigued by olive oil in less obvious applications. lately, i've been experimenting with olive oil in sweet and baked things... and it is awesome.
so far my favorite tasty treat is definitely olive oil granola. it's literally that simple: swap out boring old canola for some green, grassy olive oil, and your granola instantly gets a flavor boost. the recipe i've been using also adds about twice the salt as normal granola, which makes it into a sweet and savory treat that is really hard to stop eating.

another success was a blood orange olive oil cake (both the granola and cake were from melissa clark's in the kitchen with a good appetite). this was a dense, moist pound-cake like loaf. strewn with orange supremes (mine were just regular oranges, not the bloody kind), fresh orange juice, AND(!) orange zest. yummers. it didn't last long.

yesterday i tested out another olive oil dessert--olive oil banana bread. now, i'm not a big fan of bananas... but banana bread, that's pretty tasty. (not as good as zucchini bread, but we're months away from summery squash like that--i can't wait to make that with olive oil!). if you have any bananas in your house that are passing their fresh-eating expiration date, i highly recommend popping them into the freezer, going out and buying some good olive oil and a few lemons, and making this tasty bread. you can find the recipe here.
also, i didn't have any lemons on hand, so i made it with orange zest, and it turned out just fine. think about halving the chocolate so you can enjoy more savory-sweet bready crumbs.


the other theme in my recipe hounding lately has been salad. SALAD! it's spring and i want salad! i can't wait until the snap peas are here! in the meantime (and until i have some uber-fresh lettuce of my own), i'm hoping to experiment with homemade salad dressings. about a month ago i made a delicious winter salad that involved italian sausage, garlic, and radicchio. delish. now, i'm thinking about trying creamy dijon dressing over some hot-from-the-oven roasted potatoes. and i already have a few fresh, herby vinaigrette recipes saved for when the baby lettuces come my way.

you can read about my recent salad dressing realization, and find recipes for a few, at my other project: the yamhill county slow food blog. getting involved with slow food has been really fun so far, and i'm looking forward to summery weather when we'll have more flexibility in the kinds of events we can put on. in the meantime, i'm really enjoying writing posts and sharing recipes through the site. give it a look and let me know what you think! and if you like it... pass it on to other folks! i'm trying to get it some more traffic, and every click counts. if you're feeling brave, you could even leave a comment. :)

b