Saturday: Inkwood Books for a book signing by Anya Kassoff author of The Vibrant Table. Andrea stepped up to help out with preparations. Anya is from Russia originally, presently lives in St Pete, Fl. and has just published her first book. She has kept a blog about cooking and then was asked to work on a book and thus The Vibrant Table.
Anya uses all fresh herb and seeds, she even grinds her own buckwheat, which we found out changes the color of the bread. Andrea and I decide to fix a dish from the book before we went to the book signing. So I picked out the, Caramelized Fennel and Fig Pizza, which has a Buckwheat crust. Andrea used store bought Buckwheat and the crust of our pizza was chocolate in color. Anya told us that the Buckwheat you buy in the store is roasted ahead of time. So when you grind your own Buckwheat it's lighter in color and fluffy. When it's baked it comes out lighter in color instead of chocolate in color. We all learn something new everyday.
Anya prepared 4 dishes from her book. The first dish was a soup, Avocado Cilantro Soup, it was many of the guests favorite dish of the night. Dish 2 was, Peach and Avocado Summer Rolls, now that was my favorite dish, it was cool refreshing and delicious. It had this amazing sauce made with almond butter. This is a great dish for a warm summer Florida day. Dish 3 was, Pumpkin Seed Falafel with Grilled Peach Salsa, this too was a great summer dish, it is served in a lettuce or cabbage leaf and the peach salsa we a real treat. Dish 4 was dessert, Berry and chocolate Crisp, another delightful hot summer dish.
We had a complete meal, and if you weren't there you missed out.
Anya uses all fresh herb and seeds, she even grinds her own buckwheat, which we found out changes the color of the bread. Andrea and I decide to fix a dish from the book before we went to the book signing. So I picked out the, Caramelized Fennel and Fig Pizza, which has a Buckwheat crust. Andrea used store bought Buckwheat and the crust of our pizza was chocolate in color. Anya told us that the Buckwheat you buy in the store is roasted ahead of time. So when you grind your own Buckwheat it's lighter in color and fluffy. When it's baked it comes out lighter in color instead of chocolate in color. We all learn something new everyday.
Anya prepared 4 dishes from her book. The first dish was a soup, Avocado Cilantro Soup, it was many of the guests favorite dish of the night. Dish 2 was, Peach and Avocado Summer Rolls, now that was my favorite dish, it was cool refreshing and delicious. It had this amazing sauce made with almond butter. This is a great dish for a warm summer Florida day. Dish 3 was, Pumpkin Seed Falafel with Grilled Peach Salsa, this too was a great summer dish, it is served in a lettuce or cabbage leaf and the peach salsa we a real treat. Dish 4 was dessert, Berry and chocolate Crisp, another delightful hot summer dish.
We had a complete meal, and if you weren't there you missed out.
Sunday night we prepared another meal from, The Vibrant Table, Zucchini Spaghetti with Nectarines and Pumpkin Seed Pesto, the Zucchini is prepared raw, Andrea and I decided we would probably cook the zucchini for a minuted or two next time. We even bought a sprializer, for making pasta out of zucchini and sweet potatoes. We enjoyed the meal, the pumpkin seed pesto was a new taste for us and it was a keeper. The nectarines we bought at Greenwise Market and they were perfect, so sweet and ripe. We have been shopping at Greenwise more often of late. They have great fish, and the veggies are fresh and it's close to where we live. I will have to bone up on my photography, if I'm going to take pictures of food. Anya's daughter did the photography for the book and it is beautiful.
Here's to eating better...
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