It's It... Fresh Mint!

I've been experimenting with ice cream lately. My KitchenAid ice cream attachment and I have so far produced several flavors, some so-so (strawberry-rose), others revelatory (fresh lemon ice cream!) .

Like most things we create in our kitchen, I went to the garden in the backyard for inspiration. The first thing to catch my eye was our herb barrel overflowing with electric-green mint.

I steeped two cups of fresh mint leaves in cream for an hour and was delighted to find a beautiful emerald infusion. The rest was simple*.

After tasting this mint ice cream, I don't think I have ever had fresh mint ice cream. It's an amazing grassy mint flavor. It tastes like it's growing.



I chopped some good dark chocolate and added it to the ice cream, and then decided to go one further and make chocolate ice cream sandwiches.




We are off to Sea View for four days and the sandwiches will be a good way to transport the ice cream, and share something special with our guests.





*If you're looking for an excellent book on making ice cream, I recommend David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop.

What Looks Good

In Santa Rosa we are blessed to have two Farmers Markets a week, year round, rain or shine. During the summer we have three a week. We try to go for produce and/or meat at least once a week. There is something immensely satisfying about buying from the Farmers Market rather than the supermarket. I love to walk through, look at what everyone has, then walk through again shopping, talking to farmers, asking them about each of the dozens of different kinds of tomatoes they have or how to cook the cactus they have.
My favorite thing about the Farmers Market, and my favorite way to shop there, is to go with no list and no idea of what's for dinner and to get inspired by what looks good. Yesterday there was a pile of beautiful Italian sweet peppers that immediately caught our eye and it was settled, stuffed peppers for dinner.

I mixed some fresh ricotta with spinach, differend kinds of basil from the garden, onion, garlic, and a little bit of grated cheddar we had in the icebox.
We have been waiting all winter for good tomatoes so we always have to buy them when they trickle into the Farmers Market as our tomato plants only have flowers on them.
I cut these little guys in half and drizzled them with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a few sprigs of thyme.

I popped it all in the oven for 45 minutes or so, I made a simple polenta on the stove top, and voila!
The fresh beautiful food available at the farmers market allows one to cook a beautiful dinner without really doing anything.

Bon Appetit!

Salut!

Welcome!
As many of you may know we have a food truck dream. We have been researching, writing business plans, and day dreaming. We decided to start a food blog to get you interested in what we grow (fingers crossed) and cook and eat, as well as update you on our business venture. It won’t hurt to keep us positively motivated too.
We are calling ourselves Born and Raised because we were both born and raised in Sonoma County (we are blessed!), and because our goal is to cook and eat food born and raised in Sonoma County.

For those of you who don’t know our plan, briefly, it is to own and operate a mobile food truck in Santa Rosa. We would like develop business relationships with our local farmers in order to support one of the most important aspects of our community and all of our livelihoods (shop at farmers markets!), and to provide our hungry friends and family with the highest quality seasonal and local menu. We would like to work Santa Rosa's farmers market ourselves and otherwise cater primary to the lunch time crowd (in our dreams we would park near grassy parks so we could offer picnic blankets for long lounge-y lunches).

Currently we are looking for a commercial kitchen in Santa Rosa, and any business guidance, words from the wise, we are polishing our business plan, and filling out all kinds of forms.

Our plan for this blog is to share at least two meals a week (though we may not always include recipes). To share our passion for food, and our dedication to fresh and local sources. We will be sure to include our own food raising experience/ experiments, and you will probably get to know our dog and cats quite well too although their food is much less interesting.

We hope you enjoy reading and eating with us, be sure to check in regularly, and share us with your friends (especially friends that might want to fiscally support a local business start up!). All questions, comments, and concerns are welcomed and appreciated.

Bon Appetit!