Golden beets are awesome; they are just as delicious if not better than red beets but without the whole mess. I boiled the beats for about 10 minutes, peeled them & then sliced them with my mandoline. The brussel sprouts were lightly seared in olive oil with some chopped cayenne peppers.The final dish was served with olive oil and sea salt.

Maia and I went to a labor day BBQ at her cousin Kim & family's house. We brought this salad--it's easy to make and unique. The recipe is from the New York Times in June 2009. We used our new Borner V-Slicer Plus Mandoline to cut the radishes--it seriously cut down probably 30 mintues of chopping. The ricotta salata is a hard variety of ricotta that's salted and dried; the texture is very similar to feta cheese.

I have a new favorite website, Rouxbe.com, an online video cooking school. Both tonight's appetizer (Mint Pea and Endive Salad) and main course (Lemon-Coriander Prawns) were from Rouxbe. The site has both video lessons (like sharpening your knives) as well as video recipes which are incredibly inspiring.The salad turned out very well. The sweet honey in the dressing complimented the bitterness of the belgin endives nicely.

The full video demonstration and recipe are available here.