Posts from the “Food” Category

What’s cookin’ good lookin’

Posted on August 21, 2017

August is providing such an abundance of vegetables, more than I remember. Is it my bad memory? Goodness, my memory is tired these days — like the rest of me! No, it's more likely that we've been consistent in picking up our CSA shares from the farms we frequent. Farmers are generous people and they certainly have been taking care of us. And now that we have a new and chubby, giggly, very compelling reason to sit down to dinner together, I find myself cooking more than in previous seasons. There's tomato sauce bubbling. I haven't been using our old Damn Fine Sauce recipe. I just chop up several big tomatoes with onion, garlic, bell pepper, and basil, let it cook for a half…

Categories: Food, Sustainable Life

CSA pickup

Posted on July 13, 2017




The last few weeks have been quieter than usual, with migraines keeping me in bed a bit more than normal. Then the migraine-free days come, and when they coincide with comfortable weather it makes for one happy family.

Like today. It was a CSA share pickup day at one of Seth’s farms. We like to make an outing of it, so even though Seth could have gotten the share himself after work, Addie and I stopped in for lunch with him and some time on the farm. 

Blueberries are in season now, which we picked together in the cool mist. Green beans too, although the first tomatoes are still just around the corner. There are lots of greens thanks to all this rain of course. I like to play with these fresh vegetables. With so many coming in from our different farms, we have a lot of options, and Seth and I tell each other at night over a big salad or crisp zucchini or tangy fridge pickles, “good ingredients make for good food.” Simple meals, cooked and eaten with minimal fanfare and happy bellies. Yes please. 

Categories: Food, Sustainable Life

Damn Fine Spaghetti Sauce

Posted on September 19, 2014

When Seth and I were first dating, we ate spaghetti nearly every meal.  We were young, poor college students.  That was the main reason.  But we also had an 8 lb. jar of homemade spaghetti sauce sitting in Seth’s refrigerator.  That was the other reason.  It was Seth’s dad’s recipe and Seth was not very adventurous with foods at the time, so Seth’s dad made him a massive jar of sauce, promising to refill the jar any time Seth brought it back.  We ate a lot of spaghetti.  I’m sorry to say it took about a month to go through a jar.  How is it possible that the sauce never went bad?  I still think about that now, ten years later. Seth’s dad has…

Categories: Food

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Rustic summer jam tart

Posted on August 4, 2014

I’m not a dessert person.  With all things sweet or starchy off the menu, dessert becomes repetitive (another tomato, anyone?), so I don’t bother.  If Seth is craving something sweet, he’ll eat a bowl of ice cream, or snag a handful of blueberries, or a slice of gluten-free bread with jam on it. But every so often, we decide to go all out and make a treat for our friends and neighbors. The first time I made this easy tart, I cooked up a strawberry-mulberry jam and spread it straight from the pan onto the tart crust.  It was a farm lunch hit.  Our friends bombarded me with praise as they pulled on their hats and headed back out into the field.  “I was…

Categories: Food

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Sick sick sick

Posted on July 7, 2014

I was hoping to have a new post for you about how I strung my tomatoes up on a tomato trellis — a new idea for us here.  And I would have talked about trimming the stems back, and all the things you talk about when you talk tomatoes.  I know how to talk tomatoes, my friend. But instead, I’m here to tell you that I’ve been sick for the past two weekends — migraines and a bad cold, thrown in with a friend’s wedding that I had to attend and that left me tired.  This is what happens sometimes.  The work-life balance gets thrown out of whack, and I’m left with un-trellised tomatoes and a serious craving for garden work.   On the…

Categories: Food

Garlic Crusted Pork Loin

Posted on February 1, 2014

You ever have one of those weeks where you’re too busy to think? Because you’re having guests over tomorrow, and the bathroom sink is draining slow, and the washing machine is out of commission so the laundry is piling up, and you have to update the dog’s rabies vaccine before your next encounter with Animal Control? This is a good recipe for that week. It looks impressive, tastes great, and you can throw it in the oven and forget about it while you turbo-plunge the bathroom sink before the guests arrive. It’s good for non guest weeks as well. I’ve been making it twice a month all winter. I roast it some dim afternoon, and then I stand there and pick the garlic crust…

Categories: Food

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Day 3 of the Great Pickle Experiment

Posted on August 7, 2013

I heard that lacto-fermented cucumber pickles are a sight harder to make than lacto-fermented sauerkraut.  But I didn’t grow any cabbage this season. I grew cucumbers.  And one of the things they don’t tell newbie gardeners is that cucumbers appear in the blink of an eye.  One minute I had spiny lumps resembling overgrown caterpillars, and the next thing I knew, there were six cucumbers wider around than my wrist. I stole a grape leaf from a neighbors garden and put it in a jar with salt, water, mustard seed, garlic, dill, and the cucumbers.  And then I waited.  I have bad luck with lacto-fermentation in that I need mold-free food (surprise!), so I’m trying a method where I fill a little plastic bag…

Categories: Food