Heirloom tomatoes. Fresh corn on the cob. A nutty whole-grain biscuit with scallions and black pepper. These create for a sensational seasonal summer supper! We wait all year for our local tomatoes to ripen. The season of too much is happening a little slow for many this year because of our extremely rainy July, but…
Abandoned Zucchini Bread with Marmalade Thyme Butter
Lock your cars and sun porches, it’s zucchini season here in Vermont! It’s long been a joke that the only time anyone around here locks the car is during zucchini season. They grow really fast, especially if there’s been a lot of rain, and it always seems like these fruits go from tender little treasures…
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Peach and Cheddar Tartine on Sourdough Rye Bread
Pick a fruit, pick a cheese (yes, vegan cheese, too) any combination will be good, and you will have a perfect topping for a tartine. My friend Carolyn and I treat each other throughout the year. I get eggs from her lovely flock of hens, and delivery day usually means the handing off of a…
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Chilled Fresh Corn Soup
The sweet corn has hit the farm stands, and summer is showing off some of its best! We wait with great anticipation the beginning of corn season. The first week or two, the corn is not often at its sweetest, but this year, my first ears were sweet and tender. Some for tonight, some for…
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Stuffed Napa Cabbage Leaves with Peanut Sauce
We love the ease of feeding ourselves a rainbow of nutrition in high summer in Vermont! You never know what you will find at the farm stands and farmers markets in July in Vermont, but it’s a sure bet there will be lots from which to choose and enjoy. This week, I found everything I…
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Cucumber Salad with Lime Cashew Yoghurt
A cool summer salad, and a vegan option too! In the summer, cucumbers are abundant and serve as a base for a wide variety of tasty and cooling dishes. Chilled soups, refreshing drinks, sandwiches, and many salads, not to mention pickles! We love the traditional tzatziki dip which combines grated cucumbers, yoghurt, garlic, lemon juice…
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Maple and Spice Granola
When my children were small, I got in the habit of making granola for them, a big container always graced a prime spot in the larder. With oats and raisins from the bulk section of the health food store, this was a simple and inexpensive cereal to make while on a really tight budget. We…
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Quite a Hodge Podge
Notice: Still having major problems with WordPress again today, some folks can post comments, likes, etc., and others cannot. Another northern dish with a funny name, this quick stew of midsummer veggies has long been a favorite when we need to sample the new produce, but don’t want to stand over the stove too long!…
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Rose and Strawberry Summer Drinks – Sangria or Lemonade
When your roses smell good enough to eat, drink them! It’s been an amazing rose season this year. The air, especially at dawn and dusk, is filled with beautiful perfume, and how we wish it would last. My favorite roses are the old garden roses, once-blooming heirloom treasures that carry so many flowers they bend…
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Garlic Scape Mashed Potatoes with Poached Eggs
These quirky little serpent-like garlic scapes at the end of spring just ask to be used in any number of dishes, raw or cooked. It was a beautiful Vermont Summer solstice weekend morning and my husband, sister, and I decided to hit the farmers market in Norwich, a lovely little village just a half hour…
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Sugar Snap Peas with Orzo and Lemon Dill Vinaigrette
This is not your mother’s macaroni salad! Sugar snap peas are in! I was delighted to find them on the shelf of my local farm stand this week. These spring treasurers are as delicious as they are fleeting, so we eat them as frequently as I can at this time of year. They are at…
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Spicy Gazpacho
In just a few minutes, you can have a stash of chilled summer soup waiting for you on these hot summer days! it got hot and humid, in the 90s just when we all wanted to work in the garden! This is when I look for a cold lunch or dinner, salads or chilled soups…
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Herbed Fingerling Potatoes with Mustard and Lemon
I have met very few potatoes I didn’t like. There was a casserole my mother made when we were camping that used canned potatoes. I’ll spare you the details. There was also the gummy blender mashed potatoes I made in high school; I’d been practicing the new Oster with just about everything. Any way you…
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Strawberry Orange Crêpes with Nutella Sauce
Strawberries, chocolate, hazelnut, and a hint of orange make this a memorable breakfast. My guests at the inn always loved crêpes, any kind of crêpe, sweet or savory. When it is strawberry season, and they are starting their annual bounty so nothing else will do, of course. It’s a show-off kind of breakfast that is remarkably…
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Rhubarb and Jalapeño Marmalade
Nothing says Spring like the arrival of rhubarb! My granddaughter brought be an abundant bouquet of freshly pulled rhubarb this week. It was magnificent! The beautiful, ruby stalks are frequently paired with strawberries, also in season at the same time, and usually in a sweet application –– strawberry rhubarb pie or crisp, muffins, coffee cake,…
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Sweet and Spicy Broccoli and Pea Salad
Not quite Mom’s Broccoli Salad, this one’s a little sweet, a little sour, a little spicy, and a lot flavorful! My mom used to make a broccoli salad in the summer that included a mayonnaise dressing, lots of bacon, apple, walnuts, and purple onions. Everyone loved it, but I thought it might be nice to…
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Ramp, Morel Mushroom, and Potato Chowder
This is the taste of the season, welcome on the chilly nights of spring. But if you have a heat wave, you can also eat this soup chilled. As a New Englander, I love a chowder. But at this time of year, I’m not thinking clams or corn, but the beautiful greens of spring. Greens,…
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Spring Pea and Asparagus Salad with Radish Top Dressing
If you love peas, you’ll love this salad! Spring means the return of fresh, local green things! Fiddleheads, ramps, spring lettuces, radishes, pea shoots, and the much-anticipated asparagus. How we love those first spears, pulled fresh from the earth! There will be grilled and steamed asparagus, asparagus soup, asparagus in stir fries and salads, served…
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Cod with Roasted Vegetables, Olives, and Marinara Sauce
This is a quick and simple recipe that is weeknight easy or Sunday dinner delicious, in fact, we had it this weekend! Everyone in the family loves this. When you start with potatoes and onions, add some zucchini, some lovely herbs, then offer up the marinara and fresh cod, how could you not have a…
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Tempting Trio of Spring Treasures
Could there be anything more perfect than finding wild fiddlehead ferns, ramps, and asparagus all in the same day? The blossoms on the trees are just popping out in lacy, pale green wonder. The grass in the fields is beyond green as well, and the odd freshly tilled field scents the air with earth and…
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Lemon “Half a Pound” Cake with White Chocolate Frosting
Our family loves anything lemon! The more lemon the better. So, a birthday cake for my granddaughter this week featured lemon in several ways! I have often turned my mother’s pound cake recipe into a lemon pound cake, so delicious, but it does make a lot. For smaller gatherings, a half a recipe makes a…
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Stuffed Swiss Chard
It’s the end of our Winter CSA, but we still have lots of veggies to use! It is the end of our winter CSA, so I stocked up on a few favorites to tide us over until the farm stands open and the season begins anew with radishes and lettuces from our fields, plus a…
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Shrimp and Arugula over Jasmine Rice
A spicy scampi-type dish that you can also make vegetarian. The base of this dish is a flavorful rice, topped with either shrimp or tofu which have marinated in a lemony, garlic, and paprika bath. It has a lot of the flavor of shrimp scampi, with the rice holding its own here. It is easiest…
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Haddock Quenelles in Saffron Fish Broth
Light, fluffy dumplings swimming in a flavorful pool of delight, inspired by a character from the past. Dec. 31, 1985, was memorable on several counts. First of all, I made a lavish New Year’s Eve feast inspired by the vintage cookbook “Francatelli’s Modern Cook” 1887, a revision of earlier editions. I had picked this up for…
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Spring Parsnip and Leeks Au Gratin
It is a happy day the first time we see local spring-dug parsnips for sale! Sometimes you find them at the co-ops, a neighbor might bring you a few, but more often you’ll see a pick-up truck at a parking area on the side of the road. Usually, the same person year after year, and he…
