strawberries in paris

So this meal came from the first JFX farmer’s market of the season! I saw the radishes at the end of the loop and instantly remembered back to Barefoot in Paris, where Ina pairs radishes with a baguette, lots of salt, and butter! This was a delicious appetizer for our meal.  My dad always planted them in our garden when Laurita and I were little, but Laurita was the only daring one and used to chow down on them with Daddy.  So that night, I tried them for the first time and think they are definitely a bright and nutritious vegetable, but I wouldn’t say I would crave it like I do with broccoli and asparagus…

I also picked up some fresh basil and that inspired me to recreate my entree from Bicycle.   That night I had mahi-mahi with a pesto and assorted vegetables with fingerling potatoes, which were positively divine! I figured rockfish was the most interesting white fish I could find at Wegman’s and got that with some multi-colored fingerling potatoes. Well my version of the entree was not nearly as tasty as Bicycle (probably because I used less butter!) but it was a noble attempt. Check it out below!

Yummy appetizer! I am very happy to incorporate random vegetables from the farmer’s market into our meals. This past week I was boring and got lots of strawberries, rhubarb and asparagus. The strawberry and rhubarb went into a daring baker’s challenge (check it out next week!) and asparagus, well, it’s sure is delicious fresh!  So sadly, this past Sunday was the last farmer’s market I will be able to attend for a couple of weeks because this weekend I will be in NYC (woo hoo!!!) and then that following Thursday I am going under the knife and will be on crutches for about 6 weeks (gosh darn knee…)!

So wow, I digressed… this was the main part of our meal, a pesto sauced (see recipe below) sautéed rockfish with some sautéed fingerling potatoes. We should have boiled the potatoes and then sautéed them to get them nice and crispy browned.. but nevertheless it was tasty and relatively healthy!

Ingredients:
3 cups fresh basil leaves
2/3 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 cloves garlic
2/3 cup evoo

Directions:
With food processor running, drop in garlic and finely chop. Stop motor and add nuts, cheese, salt, pepper, and basil, then process until finely chopped. With motor running, add oil, blending until incorporated.