When I was a child and a snow day was called, there wasn’t much better in the school year. A free day of no study! My brothers and I would head out to the sandbank across the road, sleds and flying saucers in tow, and we’d play outside until we nearly froze to death. It…
Category: Soups & Stews
Let’s see, what should a food blogger do on her 10-year anniversary with WordPress? Bake chocolate chip cookies, of course, but she’d better make them from the Toll House.
It’s hard to believe I’ve been writing these posts for a decade of my life! How did that happen? It started out simple, a way to share my recipes with family and friends and maybe engage in dialogue with other like-minded folks. Recipes that began life in the hearts and hands of my mother and…
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Just like mother use to make – kind of, almost!
Deep in winter in the north, we need soup. Lots of soup. And if we can recreate a memory in the process, even better! It’s been bitter cold here the last few weeks, but today, the temperature is predicted to hit 32 F., and that means maybe a little of the ice on the patio…
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Monsters under your bed? No, just some friendly winter squash.
When the seasons turn in New England, it happens all at once, and we’ve definitely got winter knocking on our door right now! While I’m still looking at green grass, most of the leaves have fallen, and today they are calling for sleet. Shivers. I just lit the fireplace, and the dogs might not get…
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I’m taking a quick side trip to Morocco for a flavorful stew. Want to join me? We won’t be gone long!
Lovely welcome rain this week, and we’re hoping we get enough to end the drought here in Vermont, but that is probably not likely since we’ve a whole lot of catching up to do. We’ll take whatever we can get at this point, drop by precious drop. The weather has been mild, so foliage season…
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Mamma said “Eat your greens,” be strong. Mamma was right!
From Sunday to Sunday, last week to this, we’ve gone from 80 degrees and tank tops to killing frost and finding out the heater in the car doesn’t work. Such is New England weather at its most unpredictable. The leaves are shedding fast, and while it has not been the most brilliant colors this year…
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Lobster for the frugal New Englander!
Corn and lobsters are perennial sidekicks. Indulge, if you like, but don’t break the bank! In New England, fresh Maine lobsters star in the summertime, especially when combined with our local harvest of golden corn, our very own amber waves of grain. While both shine beautifully on their own, they go together well! One rarely…
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Anyone care for a little summer sunshine in a bowl?
It was hot and I had a hankering for a chilled gazpacho, one of my favorite summer lunches. I usually make a half gallon of it at a time, and we enjoy it throughout the heat wave. However, the beautiful field tomatoes are not ripe here yet in any abundance, so I decided to give…
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How about a ‘make under’ asparagus soup?
Next year, my asparagus soup will be purple! Guess what type of onion I’ll use. We wait for those tempting little spears all year. Fresh from the garden, tender, full of flavor and nutrition, asparagus tells us that the seasons really have turned and it’s time to dig out the sandals and sunblock. They were…
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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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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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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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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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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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Summer Rerun: Spicy Gazpacho
This post first appeared a few years ago. It is hot here in Vermont, really hot, and the heat wave has settled on much of the country. Let’s hear it for no-heat cooking for a while. In just a few minutes, you can have a stash of chilled summer soup waiting for you on these…
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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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Spring Mixed Mushroom and Spinach Chowder
Spring is definitely here, but local spring crops are still a ways away, and snow squalls and flurries stubbornly dotted our week. There was some sunshine here and there, but snow stuck to the grass and trees and made driving a bit unnerving. This weekend, we’re due for more uninvited snow and an icy mix,…
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New England Lobster Étouffée
Mardi gras is tomorrow, and I’m always looking for something from the south to help celebrate the day. We take seriously all the celebrations we can in mid-February, and tossing beads and dancing to a Zydeco band is right up there with Valentine’s dinners, and the first maple sugar on snow celebrations. Oh, that flavor!…
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Grilled Cabbage Winter Stew with Smoked Paprika Olive Oil
Apparently, this has been a good year for cabbage, and I’m not complaining. If you live in the north, you have plenty of local cabbage available, always a staple crop. A lot going for it Big heads, green or purple, stay beautifully crisp all winter, and bulk up our farm shares along with the many…
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Snow Day! Winter Bean Soup with Crispy Shallot Topping
The kids had a snow day here today! Some of us are wondering why! It was a quiet weekend here, but with weather all over the place. Saturday night, the North Winds howled like banshees, knocking over heavy outdoor furniture, and bending the trees. Sunday, the winds died down, the temperatures rose to the low…
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Mushroom and Miso Noodle Soup
Note: Some of you may not be able to comment because the Like and Comment boxes are missing, but not all of you. Happiness Engineers have yet to fix the problem. We changed the clocks this past weekend and that means sunset at 4:34 p.m. This is never happy news in my book. There had…
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So, What to do with all that fennel…
Stuffed Squash. 1/2 gallon Fennel Stock. Tomato Fennel Soup. Fennel Pesto. Toasted Fennel Au Gratin. I came home from this week’s CSA with two massive fennel bulbs complete with long stalks and the biggest toppings of frilly fronds I’ve ever seen. This was going to take a little work, and I suspected there would be…
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Creamy Corn, Cauliflower & Crab Chowder
A simple classic dish with just a little taste of the sea to liven it up Corn season cannot go by without some more chowder, and it is going fast. As corn season progresses, this native treasure gets sweeter, and the price gets lower, so this is the time of year we pull out those…
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6 Chilled Summer Soups
We have a dilemma – with all the wonderful vegetables available right now, it’s just too hot to cook! Chilled summer soups solve the problem, and can take only moments to prepare.
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The taste of the Sea, with a little curry to flavor it up!
This curry can be made with whatever seafood you find locally! Here, we’ve used wild caught sustainable New England fish and shellfish from the cold northern waters of the Gulf of Maine. When I make a seafood curry, you know company is coming. Let’s get together! We’ll cook. Recently, we were delighted to have a…
