Cream of Leftovers Soup
This year, I didn't make a single original thing for Thanksgiving. In fact, I didn't only use other peoples' recipes, I followed exactly Martha Stewart's layout for an entire Thanksgiving supper. Ok,...
View ArticleHappy Accident Soup for a School Night
This week we were unable to do our regularly scheduled blog dinner, and as it had been a few weeks since we had done one, we decided to do a quick meal together on Monday. We had each already planned a...
View Articledifferent kinds of healthy
The label healthy is overused and ill-defined. It's so hard to define that its use in advertizing is not regulated, so anyone who wants to can slap "healthy" onto their packaging and get me to buy...
View ArticleIn Praise of Fatty Ground Beef
To our great delight, we have finally found a source for fantastic locally raised and butchered beef. Renée found a farmer in Vermont who would sell us a whole young steer, cut to order. Even split...
View ArticleWhat is Winter Soup?
Recently someone asked us about a winter soup recipe, something along the lines of beef barley. There's nothing like the smell of a warm hearty beef anything simmering on the stove to warm the house,...
View ArticleJust Like School Lunch?
My son loves school lunch, in all its highly processed, deep fried glory. Last month, he came home raving about cheese sauce, and after a few false starts I came up with a cheesy bechamel that passed...
View ArticleSauce
Some of you may remember that in the Fall we took on making meals of soup, salad, and tart as a fun way to push ourselves to try new things. Now we've got a new one: sauce. Often the main difference...
View ArticleHome Lunch
In my house, there are two types of lunch, school lunch and home lunch. My son does not eat home lunch unless he's at home. And that only after several failed attempts on my part to make school lunch...
View ArticleIt's Seasonal, I Swear!
While making dessert with leftover Phyllo dough from dinner (and peaches lovingly frozen from this summer), we ended up with peach juice. Not ones to waste food, we called in Cocktail Dave. He came up...
View ArticleSushi and Sashimi Sauces
Recently, I heard that traditionalist sushi connaisseurs use only the lightest dip in plain soy sauce, and regard as deep adulteration even mixing wasabi into the soy sauce. Needless to say, we are...
View ArticleCoconut Flan with Two Sauces
I've been planning for about four years now to really learn how to make Thai food. The farthest I've actually gotten in executing this plan is buying lots of cocount milk. It's not seasonal or local...
View ArticleFirst Harvest Mint Makes Strawberry-Mint Pandowdy
The fits of spring over the past few weeks have finally turned into a steady beautiful warmish sunny season, and the first harvest is in—I’ve got tufts of chives, a few parsley that overwintered, and...
View ArticleForaging
Today I had my first great adventure in foraging...for dandelion greens...in my driveway. It started as a grand plan. I read about some woman in New York City who's gotten permission from all sorts...
View ArticleFried Dandelion Flowers
Renee asked in a comment: "Have you ever tried fried dandelions? A childhood springtime staple! My sister and I would run out a rescue them when our Dad got the lawn mower going and would have piles of...
View ArticleRoasted Spring Chicken with Spring Herbs and Spring Onions
Many gardens now have enough fresh herbs for a full, if small, bouquet garni, that lovely little herb bouquet that French recipes tell you to toss into soups or to stuff into roasts. What’s more...
View ArticleReduce Reuse Reserve: Spring Chicken Salad
I love leftovers. And in I think the most significant break with lessons in cooking and eating from my mother, I love to reheat them in the microwave. Just package it up at the end of a meal,...
View ArticleRejoicing in the Farmers' Market
Yesterday was the first day of our local farmers' market. I'll confess, I had been looking forward to it since the last day of last year's farmers' market. It was so nice to see familiar faces manning...
View ArticleKale, again? Again!
Sometime last Fall, I got on the Kale boat. I was already a fan of sautéed kale, and had figured out a few tricks like ripping the leaves off the stems with hands to get rid of the tough stems quickly...
View ArticleAlien Invasion
Garlic Scapes always look a little like visitors from a strange place and time, but when they’re making the wild arching double-curls that say they’re ready to be picked against a backdrop of pea...
View ArticlePickled Stems
The reduce, reuse, recycle mantra combines in my life with A WWII mentality that has survived two generations (we thought about many names that played on Liberty Gardens for this blog) to make me...
View ArticleThe Sandy
The Sandy cocktail was inspired by our summer visit to the New Jersey shore. I was looking for the toughness of bourbon -- "Jersey Strong" -- plus the summery mix of Cointreau and lemon. Lime is a...
View ArticleFatted Duck Breast
New carrots are in! Carrots last well into the winter and get sweeter with age, but the new ones are here now, and with a little honey and other tricks can be quite fantastic. And these ones are...
View ArticleTranslocal Caramelized Fennel and Onions
Fennel roots were at the Union Square farmers' market when I left at the beginning of July, and are still at the French farmers' markets I've been visiting the past few weeks. Remai ns of...
View ArticleCrab Cakes Extraordinaire!
Following Keja's translocal theme, we report to you from the Jersey Shore. Our kids went crabbing on the docks overlooking Barnegat Bay with an old friend of mine (and mother of their friends), who is...
View ArticleEggplant Parmasagna, Gluten-Free Lasagna, or CSA Fridge Cleanout, the Taste...
Call it what you will. The Asian eggplant was taking over the veggie drawer and lower shelf of the refrigerator. We debated eggplant parm (too much work), steamed eggplant with spicy sauce (we've had...
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