Section » Recipes
Beet me up: Six summery ways to enjoy the sweetest root vegetable
I peek under our hoop house garden bed to check the progress of the hundred beets we planted early in the winter. The greens look healthy and strong. For two months I have resisted the urge to harvest baby beets early. On occasion, I did harvest a few beets under the auspices of "thinning the bed." (Sometimes thinning a garden bed is necessary to give
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Bounty hunters: A review of two new local-foods cookbooks
As the local food movement expands and the numbers of small farms, CSA programs, and farmers markets increase, so grows the crop of cookbooks aimed at helping people make the best use of that
Book review: Appreciating Elizabeth Andoh’s “Kansha”
Elizabeth Andoh is a prominent figure in my cooking consciousness. Her 2005 book, Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen, opened
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For when you Karo too much: In honor of MLK, Jr. Day, my great-grandmother’s pecan pie recipe
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a big fan of pie, supposedly. (Who isn't?) A few years ago, Austin, Tex. artist Luanne Stovall was baking a buttermilk one in honor of the civil-rights activist and decided to turn sharing it into a
I am woman, hear me store: Review of “The Complete Root Cellar Book”
Now that the farming season is winding down along with my energy levels, I find that I’m really grateful that the food preservation method I lean on most for the produce harvested
Cooking outside the zone: Agretti, paired with fregola
At last week's farmers market, one of my outside the zone choices (made in honor of National Farmers Market Week) was agretti (Salsola soda) from La
Yes, we can… and we relish it!
Last Sunday, I started the day by catching up on email and blogs and stumbled through a link to a recent Slate article panning the art of canning. Deriding it as a "cultish hobby" loaded with "self-congratulation," author Sara Dickerman dismissed home food
Souped-up meals to warm up snow days
Every time I've looked out the window this week, I've felt a childlike glee at the sight of all the snow piled up. A whopping 18" dropped in 24 hours last weekend, a few more inches covered that earlier this week, and more is in the forecast. I really sympathize with the folks further south (south!)
Happy Easter! Celebrate spring with an apple-and-onion tart
Easter is a big deal where I grew up in the Midwest, at least in the circles my family traveled in. Sunday church service, where we sang "The Old Rugged Cross," Easter dresses and hats, pastel ties, egg hunts, and plastic grass were all part of the revelry. Perhaps the most memorable part of all of it
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Review: Real Food For Healthy Kids cookbook
I talk a lot of smack about sustainable food. About the unexpected pleasures of farmer’s markets, about voting with one’s fork, about "local economies" this and "food miles" that. But here’s my dirty little secret: it wasn’t that long ago that I fed my daughter a steady diet of chicken nuggets,
Loafing in a cold climate
Winter weather has provided us with a never-ending topic of conversation lately: the storms pummeling the upper Midwest, the guesses as to how much those storms might repeat themselves here in northern Ohio, how
The eat is on: A virtual Victory Garden potluck
If you've strolled through your local farmers market lately, you've noticed that for most of us around the continent, we're seeing the peak of harvest season. Farmers pile their tables high with intensely red tomatoes,
Anything zuke can do…
Every summer I look forward to each crop coming into its own, and I dream about all the wonderful dishes I'll cook or the preserves I'll make for winter. I'm even learning to appreciate some produce that gets less
Weed’em and reap
Now that our Victory Gardens are starting to burst with the fruits (and vegetables) of our labors, those of us who have just recovered from the physical exhaustion of planting the crops find there's "no rest for the
Perfect pinch: Saving pennies by cleaning out the pantry
A little over a year ago, many of us took on the Penny-Wise Eat Local Challenge and found ways to minimize our food spending for one week.
