Campanelle pasta with smoked tuna, whole peas, and cream

Salade Niçoise

Mushroom barley soup

Begin with a mire poix of carrots, celery, leeks or spring onions, dried bay leaf, and a little ground black pepper, and saute it at the bottom of your soup pot in olive oil and salt until the vegetables soften. Add a bit of minced garlic and a cup of dry pearled barley, and stir to coat the barley in the hot oil. Add halved crimini mushrooms, one large jar of home-canned tomatoes, with their juices, and, if you like, some cooked kidney beans or white beans. Add lots of water — the barley will expand as it cooks — and salt liberally. Bring to a boil and simmer at least an hour. Before serving (or after, if you forget) add a dash of red wine vinegar.

New tomato planter

The second weekend in April, I built a new planter for tomatoes and basil. It's very easy to build simple wood boxes. I use redwood 1x12 for the sides, attached with nails and wood glue. Whether you are putting a planter box on concrete or soil, there is no reason to put a bottom on it — leaving the bottom off helps with drainage anyway. Before filling with soil, just line the bottom of the planter with a layer of cardboard: this will keep the soil from washing out before it has compacted and caked, and eventually will just decompose into the soil.

Tomatoes and basil grow well together, so plant them next to each other. We put in a golden cherry tomato and an early girl: both are "indeterminate growth", so with luck we can convince them to climb the climb the trellis, made from redwood 1x1 and 1x2.

Seared tuna with cabbage-and-potato gratin

For the tuna: rub the sides of the tuna with oil and maybe dried ginger and garlic. Heat a pan as hot as it will safely go, and cook the tuna just a minute to a side.

For the gratin: slice each of 1 small head cabbage, 1 large white onion, and a few red potatoes in the Cuisinart, removing each to its own bowl before slicing the next. Butter the inside of a dutch oven, and rub it with a clove or two garlic. Layer the vegetables, a sprinkling of salt, and any excess garlic in the pan. Pour in one cup of cream, and strew the top with Gruyere or other grated cheese. Bake in a preheated oven about an hour.

Double chocolate chunk cookies

B does most of the baking around here. When I asked him about these cookies, he said: "Take a normal chocolate chip cookie recipe, using larger chocolate chunks instead of the small chips, and add about a quarter cup of cocoa powder."

Working outside

Composed salad with deviled eggs

Irises

We normally buy roses for the table, but the rose stand has been absent from market for the last month or so (because they don't have enough of their primary crops — kiwis and fancy greens — to sell). So we have been buying our cut flowers instead from Full Belly Farm. Featured here are irises, in front of the rose my sister painted for us last year.

Butternut squash pizza with sage

We don't normally follow recipes for our pizza, but this one, from Chez Panisse Vegetables, looked like something we had to try, and it was delicious.

• 1 butternut squash (about 1 pound)
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 2 cloves garlic
• Pizza dough for 1 pizza
• ¼ cup grated mozzarella cheese
• ¼ cup grate Gruyère ccheese
• 12 sprigs parsley
• 20 sage leaves
• ½ lemon

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Slice off the top of the squash about ½ inch under the stem and slice just enough off the bottom to remove the remnants of the withered flower stem; be careful not to cut into the seed cavity. Split the squash in half crosswise just above the bulb. Stand each half end up and carefully cur away all the skin. Cut each portion in half lengthwise and scoop the seed and fiber from the lower half with a spoon. Cut the quarters cross-wise into ¼-inch slices. The upper portions will yield half-moon slices, and the lower sections elongated C shapes.

Brush the slices with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and arrange them in one layer on a baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 30 to 60 minutes, checking from time to time. The roasting time will vary according to the sugar and moisture content and the density of the squash. It is done when lightly browned and tender to the touch.

Meanwhile, peel and chop fine the garlic and add about ¼ cup olive oil. When the squash slices are done, remove from the oven. Put a pizza stone in the oven and boost the heat to 450° to 500°F.

Roll out a circle of pizza dough, brush with the olive oil and garlic, and sprinkle evenly with the mozzarella and Gruyère. Arrange the slices of cooked squash over the cheese. Bake the pizza for about 10 minutes, until the crust is browned and the cheeses have melted.

While the pizza is baking, chop the parsley leaves. Fry the sage leaves briefly in hot olive oil, then drain them on an absorbent towel. When the pizza is done, garnish with the sage leaves, the chopped parsley, and a squeeze of lemon.