Blood Oranges are in season, let’s have fun with them! This is definitely a mid-February recipe, using beautiful root vegetables from our local farms, as well as the delightful citrus from the south that brightens up wintertime in all parts of the country. We need all the color we can get right now. Wake up…
Category: Dairy-free
Corn meal mush you ask? It sounds funny, but you can spell it ‘polenta’ if you like.
When it all catches up with you, a plate of comfort is just what the doctor ordered! Perhaps Pearl Onions and Mushrooms over Corn Meal Mush? Sometimes we had it for breakfast when I was growing up. Corn meal mush. It is really delightful, especially if drizzled with a bit of real maple syrup or…
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It’s’ a real snow day, so let’s make a pot of cream of broccoli and mushroom soup!
We’ve had snow here and there this winter, but this week’s storm saw closings called the night before for many, an invitation to sleep in a bit and linger over some home-cooked comfort food. It’s one of those days where just about everything is closed, the schools, some shops, town clerk’s offices, community college, the…
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Now let’s Roast some Jumbo Shrimp and serve it up with Spicy Red Pepper Sauce
Juicy, tender, and full of flavor. And we have a vegetarian alternative as well. Don’t you love a recipe that can be assembled well before a dinner, then finished off in minutes. Shrimp often comes to mind as both a crowd pleaser and a cook pleaser as well because we’ll have plenty of time to…
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King Mushrooms, a wonderful excuse to make your own hoisin sauce!
King mushrooms are a beautiful thing to behold, those huge mushrooms one finds when wandering through an enchanted forest. Locally grown now! Luckily, you don’t have to go that far to find them as they have become widely available and can often be found at farm stands and co-ops. Also known as King Trumpet or…
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Jan’s Baked Dijon Salmon, a little nutty!
Salmon, and tofu, are often in weeknight rotation in many of our homes. Always good to change it up, no one wants to be in a weeknight rut! My sister Jan was the least fussy person I’ve ever met when it came to food. I never served her a meal she didn’t like, in fact,…
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Need some Winter comfort? Tomato and Fennel Soup will warm you from head to feet, and is even better the next day.
Let me pour you a bowl, you deserve it. Some bread too? Grilled or toasted of course. A week ago, it was 60 degrees outside and we had lunch on the porch. Woke up two days ago to 6 degrees and a blustery snow circling everything. Vermont weather, unpredictable and ever changing, but in general…
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New England’s gems of the ocean are in season!
When they are in season, New England Bay Scallops are quite a treat, but cook them simply for the best flavor. We have a vegan alternative as well. One of the seafood delights in New England is the arrival of the season of our sweet little bay scallops. Nantucket Bay is the best of the…
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Scrap Happy Planet: Taking and Making Stock in the New Year
Once a month, we’re going to look at ways to help reduce food waste and keep our planet happier by using all those scraps that often end up in landfills and contribute to our environmental problems. The worldwide statistics are sobering, over a third of everything we produce is tossed out, over a billion tons…
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Calamari Imposter Pasta? It’s a delightful bowl of winter comfort!
We awoke this Sunday morning to a frost so heavy it looked like snow on the fields! The full moon was also hanging large and low in the sky amidst a pink daybreak, beautiful to behold. As the sun rose, everything glistened like diamonds, quite a site, but one very hard to catch with the…
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Let’s make a pot of soup! It’s time.
Snow Day Vegetable Bean Soup We finally got some snow, real snow that stuck to the trees and windows. Not that much actual accumulation, but for two days, we’ve lived in a slowly swirling snow globe, and it felt rather magical after a long November of grey, stick season. We have one dog who loves…
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Lean into ‘Stick Season’ with vibrant Potato Coated Halibut Steaks
Make this just for the halibut!” My mother used to say this all the time to the point where we would roll our eyes. The annoying thing is that I find myself using the same tired old line. I guess it is part of our cooking repertoire, and she probably got it from her mother….
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We often celebrate the unusual in Vermont, including our state vegetable the heirloom Gilfeather Turnip
Trumpet Pasta with Turnips and Mushrooms The official state vegetable in Vermont is the Gilfeather Turnip. A funny name for a simple root that doesn’t call attention to itself, humble in appearance, drab in color, softball sized but sweet and mild in flavor. Its ancestry is muddled, part turnip? Part rutabaga? A hybrid? Mutant? It’s…
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After the frost, the menu changes for the season, let’s start with cabbage and squash.
Roasted Cabbage with Pears & Curried Roasted Butternut Squash Mash We had our first frost last night, or rather a freeze. The cherry tomatoes have finally stopped producing, and only the hardier herbs, fennel, and Swiss chard remain in the kitchen garden unscathed. It was time. The irony is that the weather is turning again,…
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Farmers Market Pasta with Mixed Autumn Vegetables
It’s here! Autumn arrived at precisely 8:43 a.m. yesterday in Vermont. It doesn’t feel like fall yet, but we’ve got some color beginning and the promise of more to come. The leaf peppers are starting to arrive to view our annual colorful foliage show, in a couple of weeks our roads will be full. The…
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Summer Sidekicks, while they last…
The Autumnal Equinox is almost upon us, but with the temperatures still steamy hot, we’ll hang on to summer a little longer. With the temperatures back in the mid-80s this week, summer has decided to hang on as long as possible this year. While the Autumnal Equinox is on Sunday, the 22nd of September, marking the…
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Swiss Chard Wrapped Cod with Late Summer Vegetables
The garden and farmstands often tell me what to make for dinner. Sometimes, it is about using whatever is coming in fast and furious, but right now, even though prolific, I’m giving the cherry tomatoes a break. Swiss chard is abundant right now in my garden, and in all the tables at the farmers market….
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How about an Heirloom Tomato Toast with Whipped Ricotta?
Sometimes it is fun to recreate a dish that you have at a nice restaurant. At times, we succeed, sometimes we fail, but it is always fun to try, and we bring along the memory of that night in the process. I’ll always remember a seafood paella I had at a sweet little restaurant in…
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Love a big bean with lots of flavor? Try Beer and Mustard Braised Romano Beans
It’s such a delight at this time of year to stroll through the local farm stands with all they have to offer. We still have the best of summer, the summer squashes, berries, corn, tomatoes, cukes, greens of every kind, and we have lots of the fall crops coming in as well. Yesterday, I watched…
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Grilled or Roasted Shrimp (or Mushrooms) and Lentils with Lemon
One thing most of my family and friends agree on (with the exception of a vegetarians or two,) is shrimp, just about any way. We like it roasted, grilled, sautéed, in soups and stews, spiced up, and even as a little cocktail appetizer dressed up in many ways. One of our daughter’s favorite dishes is…
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A week in the life of a dozen ear of corn!
Fresh corn on the cob is a ritual of summer and into fall in New England. From the first ear to the last, we are hooked whether eating it slathered in butter right off the cob, simmered in a chowder, creamed in a casserole, corn pudding, or soufflé, fried as a fritter, stuffed in a…
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Another bean burger? Let’s start with A for Adzuki!
Nope, it doesn’t taste like a hamburger, but it does taste delicious! Over the years, I’ve made dozens of different veggie burgers, and most were disappointing in texture, or fell apart in a crumbly mess on my plate. I’ve used black beans, white beans, beans of every size and shape. Rice, lentils, bread, carrots, even…
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Cod and Cherry Tomatoes over Creamy Spiced Cauliflower
It happens all at once. My tomato plants are extremely large this year, a combination of really hot temperatures, tons of rain, and of course, our long days. They have started ripening, have sprawled out of their raised beds, and I now have a windowsill full and the abundance of cherry tomatoes at my fingertips….
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Let’s fill some summer vegetables with Mushrooms and Radicchio!
There’s lots going on in the garden right now, and farmstands are filled with just about anything we could want from peas and squash to corn and tomatoes. Many an evening meal around here consists of nothing but vegetables in just about every preparation. Little vegetable boats Since my kids were little, we’ve loved to…
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Green Beans and Tomatoes, summer veggies surviving the floods
Fresh green and wax beans are coming in strong right now, and they are fat and delicious this year, at least those grown in the farms that were not affected by our recent flooding. For the second year in a row, mid-July brought torrential rains, tornado warnings (unusual in Vermont), and damaging winds that washed…
