[1] The Full Circle sushi roll from Bamboo Sushi in Portland, Oregon, places a salad in the center of cut sushi rolls (photo courtesy Bamboo Sushi).

[2] Dress the salad with yuzu, if you can. Yuzu is a delicious citrus that combines the flavors and aromas of lemon, lime and grapefruit (photo courtesy J. Patokal | Wikipedia).

[3] You can find yuzu juice at Asian markets. It is worth every cent (photo Pinterest).

Sushi is one of our favorite foods. Occasionally we make it from scratch; but more often we enjoy it at restaurants, and even get take-out sushi from local markets. Often we get seaweed salad to round out the dish.

So we were especially charmed when we saw this Full Circle Roll from Bamboo Sushi in Portland, Oregon, featuring:

 
We’ve been making it for lunch and light dinners, and especially enjoy it with a cup of genmaicha tea, which is green tea mixed with tiny kernels of kernels of toasted and popped brown rice, giving the tea a nutty, toasty flavor.

We still buy the seaweed salad, and layer it on the plate under either watercress or arugula salad—creating a seaweed salad “surprise.”

The only problem: This dish is so refreshing, we want to eat two of them!
 
 
MAKE YOUR OWN

Our market not only has a good sushi selection, but also sells tuna and salmon in sashimi slices, so it’s easy for us to pull the dish together.

If you don’t have the same access to ingredients, you can buy sushi-quality tuna or salmon from a reliable fish market, and:

 
 
LOVE SUSHI?

Learn more about it—and see delicious sushi pictures—in our Sushi Glossary.
 
 
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*Sushi rice is made with a premium grade Japanese short grain white. The cooked rice is mixed, while still hot, with a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar and salt. The vat of rice is fanned to cool it off.

If you try to mix the rice vinegar mixture into regular cooked rice, it will approximate the flavor of sushi rice, but the rice won’t stick together as the short-grain rice does.

Here’s a treat for Cinco de Mayo that happens to be vegan: Tacos Al Pastor

Al pastor is a dish from central Mexico that is an adaptation of shawarma, the spit-grilled meat brought by Lebanese immigrants to Mexico. Shawarma is similar to Turkish döner kebab and the Greek gyros.

The dish— Mexican street food—is made from thinly sliced pork that has been seasoned with chiles and pineapple, and roasted on a vertical spit.

This vegan version from McCormick replaces the meat with nutty, roasted butternut squash and a slew of seasonings.

The tacos are layered in corn tortillas with pineapple, crunchy cabbage or radishes, a squeeze of fresh lime, and an optional onion garnish.

Prep time is 20 minutes, cook time is 35 minutes. Calories per serving: 130.
 
 
RECIPE: BUTTERNUT SQUASH TACOS AL PASTOR

Ingredients For 10 Tacos

[1] Butternut squash tacos with a layering of flavors (photo courtesy McCormick).

[2] Butternut squash (photo courtesy Good Eggs).

 
Preparation

1. PLACE one oven rack in lowest position and another rack in highest position. Preheat the oven to 450°F.

2. MIX the oil, spices, 1-3/4 teaspoons of the salt, and the pepper in a large bowl with wire whisk. Add the squash and toss to coat evenly. Arrange the squash in single layer on parchment-lined shallow baking pan. Set aside.

3. ARRANGE the pineapple slices in single layer on a separate parchment-lined shallow baking pan. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the lime juice.

4. PLACE the pan with squash on lowest oven rack. Place the pan with pineapple on highest oven rack. Roast 30 to 35 minutes or until squash is tender and lightly browned, stirring the squash and flipping the pineapple halfway through cooking. Meanwhile…

5. TOSS the cabbage with the remaining 2 tablespoons of lime juice and 1/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl. Set aside.

6. REMOVE the squash and pineapple from the oven and let them cool slightly. Chop the pineapple into bite-size chunks.

7. TO SERVE: Layer the squash and pineapple in warm corn tortillas. Top with the cabbage or radishes and the chopped white onion.
 
 
MORE WAYS TO USE RADISHES

Serve them at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Plus a recipe for Cucumber Radish Salad.
  

[1] Beefeater pink gin produces eye-catching pink cocktails. It gives your favorite cocktails something extra (photo by Greyson Tarantino; all photos courtesy Beefeater).

[2] Pink & Soda.

[2] Pink French 75.

[3] We can get around this cause!

Beefeater Pink Gin is a vibrant new strawberry gin from Beefeater London.

Created by master distiller Desmond Payne MBE, it’s based on the classic award-winning Beefeater Dry recipe and flavored with strawberry.

In a marketplace of flavored spirits, it’s the first gin in the U.S. to be naturally flavored with hints of strawberry.

The sweet strawberry aroma and flavor are joined by the classic Beefeater finish of soft juniper and citrus.

This is an enjoyable gin for neat sipping: It’s more fun gin than serious gin, with a lovely, rosy aesthetic.

Beefeater Pink was created with cocktails in mind, and it’s ready to party.

Pink is trending in wine and spirits categories, first with rosé wines, and now in the gin category.

 
It’s time to treat your taste buds to the pink trend, and the flavor of Beefeater Pink Gin.

Mother’s Day is coming up, and plan ahead for Valentine’s Day. There’s a special rose cocktail recipe below.

If you can’t find Beefeater Pink locally, you can buy it online at Reserve Bar, if your state allows mail order alcohol.
 
 
PINK COCKTAILS

You can use Beefeater pink in these Classic Gin Cocktails or for a warm-weather treat, Gin & Lemonade .

There are a number of Beefeater Pink cocktails and boozy milkshakes to check out on the brand’s website.

Recipes include Frozen Pink Daiquiri, Pink & Soda, Pink Mimosa, Pink Punch, Pink Spritz and Strawberry Lemonade.
 
 
HOW ABOUT A PINK PARTY?

With all of the drink options, you’re ready for a Drink Pink party. Here are two takes on a Pink Party menu:

 
 
RECIPE: THE DESERT ROSE PINK GIN COCKTAIL

Ingredients Per Drink

 
Preparation

1. MAKE the rose syrup. Combine in a small pot, 2 parts granulated sugar to one part water and 1 part dried rose bud tea. Stir the mixture and place it on the stove over medium heat.

Stir regularly until the sugar has dissolved. Do not boil! Cool the mixture and strain.

2. MEASURE all ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake until cold. Strain into a coupe or martini glass and garnish with edible flowers.

Gin is one of the more complex spirits, in terms of the layering of botanicals (herbs, fruits and spices). Each brand of gin has its own proprietary recipe.

Gin begins with a neutral grain spirit imbued with select blend of botanicals; the conventional ones are listed here.

What’s In Your Gin?

 
And for Beefeater Pink:

There are different types of onion jam, also called marmalade. Simple caramelized onions can fill the bill. Or add balsamic, honey, red wine to the onions. You can bacon to make bacon jam. The recipe below adds tomato.

Sauté sliced onions to the consistency of jam (actually, it’s more like preserves or marmalade), and voilà: a condiment to serve with many everyday dishes, or a chunky sauce. Serve it with:

 
 
This recipe is courtesy of DeLallo Foods.
 
 
RECIPE: EASY TOMATO-ONION JAM

Ingredients For 4-6 Servings

 
Preparation

1. HEAT the oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the onion and sauté until golden-brown, about 6-8 minutes.

2. ADD the tomatoes to the skillet and sauté for 6-8 minutes. Add the tomato purée and cook for 5 minutes. Then turn the heat to low and simmer until the mixture thickens to a jam-like consistency, about 20-minutes.

3. SERVE as desired. If you put it in the fridge, warm it briefly in the microwave before using.

[1] Tomato-onion jam makes a chunky topping for pasta (here, fusilli).

[2] Here, it tops a tricolor bruschetta, with ricotta and guacamole (both photos courtesy DeLallo).

[1] This zucchini bread is made with guajillo chiles and walnuts (photo and recipe courtesy Melissa’s The Great Pepper Cookbook).

[2] Guajillo chiles are the dried form of the mirasol chile (photo courtesy iGourmet).

[3] Like chile peppers? The Great Pepper Cookbook adds them to favorite recipes that are typically prepared without added heat (photo courtesy Oxmoor House).

April 25th is National Zucchini Bread Day, and Cinco de Mayo is not far ahead.

Here’s a recipe to celebrate both: zucchini bread with chile peppers. It’s delicious for breakfast, coffee breaks, snacks; you can even serve it with ice cream or whipped cream for dessert.

The recipe is courtesy Melissa’s The Great Pepper Cookbook, a primer of all varieties of chile peppers, plus 150 delicious everyday recipes that showcase the range of flavors that different peppers contribute.

Don’t like chiles?

 
Here are the history of zucchini bread, and the history of zucchini.
 
 
IS IT A BREAD OR A CAKE?

Zucchini bread and siblings like banana bread and pumpkin bread belong to a category called quick breads (also spelled quickbreads)*. While they seem to be made with with similar ingredients and with the same method as cake, the differences are these:

 
 
RECIPE: GUAJILLO CHILE ZUCCHINI BREAD

The chile peppers in the recipe are ground into a powder and mixed into the batter. You won’t see them in the zucchini bread, but you will taste them.

The recipe makes two loaves, and the bread freezes beautifully.
 
Ingredients

*Quick breads include American-style biscuits, banana bread and similar fruit breads, muffins, scones, soda bread. These breads share common features: They are relatively low in fat and low in sugar compared to cake. They were invented largely because of the arrival of baking powder. Similar items made before this time used only natural leavening. Here are other types of quick bread from around the world.
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Preparation

1. PREHEAT the oven to 325°F. Lightly spray two 8 x 4-inch loaf pans with cooking spray. Line the bottoms of the pans with parchment, and lightly spray the parchment with cooking spray.

2. SIFT together into a bowl the flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the baking soda and stir the ground chiles.

3. BEAT the eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Process on medium speed until the mixture is smooth and off-white in color, about 3 minutes. Turn the mixer to slow and slowly add the flour mixture, bending until smooth and well-combined.

4. SWITCH the whisk for the paddle attachment. Add the zucchini, lemon zest and walnuts to the egg-flour mixture; mix thoroughly.

5. POUR equal amounts of the batter into the prepared pans. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 60 to 75 minutes.

6. COOL the pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove the loaves, remove the parchment paper, and cool completely on the wire rack. Slice and serve.
 
 
WHAT ARE GUAJILLO CHILES

The guajillo (gwa-HEE-yo) chile is a thin-skinned chile from Mexico. It has medium heat (5 on a scale of 10).

It is the dried form of the mirasol chile. It has a deep red color that intensifies when the dried chiles are soaked.

The flavor: complex notes, including green tea, berry and a faint finish of pine nut.

It is the second-most commonly used dried chili in Mexican cuisine, after poblanos, and is often used in seafood dishes.

Guajillo mean big pod in Spanish.

> The different types of chiles.
 
 

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