May in Vermont has been as fickle this year as it always is, despite our annual dreams of the perfect month. There’s much to look forward to – warm temperatures, but not too hot and no mugginess, trees leafing out and grass greening, spring bulbs and blossoming fruit trees, the return of the song birds…
Category: Nutritional powerhouse
The calendar says it’s time for spring cleaning, so let’s be done with all those gnarly stored vegetables. I’ve a few tricks in mind.
Spring cleaning. It was a ritual in our house growing up. Mother would choose a perfect weekend in late April or early May, and turn the house inside out, from top to bottom. No surface was spared scrubbing and polishing. Linens on the line The washing machine did not stop all day long. Curtains were…
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Welcome spring! Let’s clean up the garden and make something hearty for supper.
Happy official Spring, The Vernal Equinox arrived at 5:01 a.m.! Shh, the snow has gone. I am saying this quietly, lest I tempt the fates and end up with a surprise blizzard. It’s happened in the past if I celebrate the turning of the wheel too early. But the snowbanks finished melting over the weekend,…
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A new Irish Stew? Call them to the table.
When we make it to March, it seems like all possible ‘holidays’ are cause for celebration, and we New Englanders embrace them with glee, anything to ease cabin fever as we slide into mud season. Of course, this week was National Pi Day, March 14 (3.14) which most of us are aware of, but alas,…
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Let’s make a big pot of tasty chili, but first, we’ll break a few rules!
Beans or no beans? Meat or no meat? This four bean mushroom chili is all good, and feeds a crowd! It’s’ spring break time for many schools, and my eldest granddaughter arrived this weekend with several of her friends to celebrate their time off. It’s always such a pleasure to have them around, and my…
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Scrap Happy Planet: Can I tell you about Peppermint Pesto?
Once a month, we’re looking at ways to help reduce food waste and keep our planet happier and healthier by using all those scraps that often end up in landfills and contribute to our ever-growing environmental problems. The worldwide statistics are sobering, over a third of everything we produce is tossed out, over a billion tons of…
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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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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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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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So, should we invite Brussels sprouts to Thanksgiving?
They are big and plump this year, little cabbage-like buds that you either love or hate. Actually, you can feel both ways about Brussels sprouts since so often they are cooked to death to grey mush and smell up the house. That’s the way I had them growing up at my aunt’s house, an unforgettable…
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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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Scrap Happy Planet: Leftover Rice could feed the planet!
Once a month, we’re going to look at ways to 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. We’ve rolled up our sleeves before to save these resources, and now’s the time to do so again. Sunday or…
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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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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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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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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…
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Grilled and Chilled Asparagus & Leek Soup
The house will stay cool! We’re firmly in the middle of wonderful Asparagus Season here in Vermont! How delightful those tender and flavorful shoots. We wait all year, and this is one crop that never disappoints. It’s always the best, and we make the most of it and use those tender spears in everything possible….
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Hakurei Turnips with Baby Potatoes in Mustard Sauce
It’s always exciting when the first crops of spring-grown vegetables make their way to the farm stands, and this week’s delight was the tender, sweet Hakurei turnips. These mild turnips are nothing like the turnips I grew up with, which were larger, with extremely strong flavor, and could be unpleasantly bitter, especially the tops. Plus,…
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Let’s savor a spring salad
This time of year, my salad will be different than yours, but it will all taste of the new season. This week, we had a perfect, even brilliant, May day. Brilliant in terms of the beautiful 74-degree temperatures, no humidity, and bright light, but also the blue skies, the still air, the newly green grass…
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‘Ammesca Francesca’ with Wild Ramps and Mushrooms
Something different, with a lot of the familiar in a quick weeknight dish. I am always on the lookout for pastas that are a little different, something special to wake up those quick weeknight suppers. When it comes to dried pasta, there are hundreds from which to choose, so many delights are there to be…
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A May Day Feast of Local Delights!
Let’s start with some lovely wild ramps, and dress the platter with everything early spring. Spring is fickle in New England. Last week, we had some rain, fog, some sleet, a bit of snow, temperatures that hit 70, and evenings with the fireplace burning. But the rains have greened things up, the leaves are just…
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Kale Rabe (Nipini) with Fregola and Fennel
Kale rabe? Nipini? What in the world is that? It is always fun discovering seasonal vegetables at our local farms that are not available easily elsewhere. For the past two weeks, our CSA has included an option for kale rabe or napini. Much sweeter than regular kale, this is a spring treat that will please…
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Cookbook Confidential: “Simple” by Yotam Ottolenghi
“Simple,” by Yotam Ottolenghi, 2018, Ten Speed Press, California and New York. My friend Bernadette from New Classic Recipe (https://newclassicrecipe.com) came up with the wonderful idea to have an on-line cookbook club with some of her blog buddies. What a fun, and great way to choose a recipe or two from the books, cook them,…
