a delicata morning

Our first delicatas never made it past the kitchen counter. My husband and I love winter squashes and look forward to them each year. In our travels in Europe we have found that colorful seasonal squashes like acorn, butternut and delicata are just beginning to find a place on the table. The stores are just filled with them around this time each year but people use them as seasonal decorations and can't imagine that they are edible. I like to think that my darling mother-in-law really fell in love with me, the new loudish, quirky, American bride, when I cooked her centerpiece. She didn't know that those squashes were edible and I didn't know that they were part of the decor. So I say fill a bowl with your share of colorful squash. They are a feast for the eyes and soul as well as the tummy. And they are just too practical, as natural in savory dishes as in sweet. There are so many lovely recipes for stuffed roasted squash and I really should try one someday but during the Autumn and Winter the container of roasted squash puree in my refrigerator is as ubiquitous as hummus or jam. I just slice, scrape out the seeds and roast in a baking dish with about a cup of water poured into the bottom until the squash is tender enough to be scraped from the skins. From there it may be stirred into a pot of tomato soup for extra richness. I frequently replace a cup or so of cheddar cheese with an equal amount of roast squash in macaroni and cheese. That macaroni, let me tell you, is greedily gobbled down by a three and a half year old who will   remove bits of squash with surgical precision from a plate of risotto.
I hope you can enjoy the simple spicy squash muffins I baked just this morning.  A cup of squash puree to one lightly beaten egg, three quarters of a cup of milk, a table spoon of oil, two heaped tablespoons of wheat bran, one third a cup of sugar, a shake of nutmeg, a sprinkle of clove and a dousing of ground cinnamon, one and a half cups of flour and a teaspoon of baking powder and a half teaspoon of baking soda. Into a buttered muffin pan, top lightly sprinkled with crunchy sparkles of raw sugar and off to a 400 degree oven for about ten minutes.    I pulled those fragrant, fluffy beauties from the oven this morning right as my husband was rushing frantic out the door and as a trio of riotous little ones played hide and seek. But when the plate of warm muffins, cups of milk and coffee and a dish of butter made it to the table for a small handful of precious moments there was nothing but the sounds of quiet, satisfied chewing. I may have never come across a magic pumpkin but this, certainly, is the magic of winter squash.

behold the parsnip

I do love a good parsnip, such a herald of fall, such a carroty crispness. Even the name parsnip is just so peppy. I find that a little extra pep is a good thing as summer sizzles to an end. So, welcome parsnips. I've been waiting. I got my greatest exposure to this humble root veggie while teaching in the Czech Republic, a country so renown for craft beer that I rarely hear it referenced in regard to cooking. Which is a shame really. I had more than my fair share of rich, lovingly prepared meals all over the country. And if there were ever a people who embraced the parsnip whole heartedly it would be the Czechs. There were just piles of them at every market I shopped. I ate them fried and funneled into paper cones like french fries, roasted alongside pork and mushrooms and creamed with potatoes and celery root. I bought a bottle of homemade wine at a little family run deli on the side of the highway one evening on the way to a dinner party expecting a rough sherry-ish concoction. When the host pulled the cork before dinner he inhaled deeply at the neck of the open bottle and his face softened into a dreamy wistfulness. It was a bottle of parsnip wine, something he had made with his grandmother and grandfather every fall of his childhood.  The wine was unlike anything I'd had. A bit sweet from the natural sugars in parsnips but deeply earthy and mineral. I wished I had bought more.
I'm no wine maker and It is unlikely that I will have another chance to sip a glass of parsnip wine but that is okay so long as the parsnips keep coming I will be ready with a recipe for savory parsnip strudle.
Just peel and slice about a pound of parsnips into rounds. In a heavy bottomed skillet slowly caramelize the parsnips and two large sliced onions in a bit of butter until soft and golden, adding salt and black pepper to taste. Transfer the vegetables to a baking dish and dot everything with about four ounces of fresh goat cheese. In a separate bowl combine a generous pinch of salt  half a stick of ice cold butter, a teaspoon of dried or fresh thyme and a cupful of whole grain flour. Use your hands to squeeze and blend the mixture until you have a bowlful of buttery herb-scented crumb topping. Sprinkle over the parsnips and onions and bake in a 350 degree oven four about thirty minutes until everything is golden and bubbly. This and a simple green salad is lovely to find on an early autumn supper table.

how fresh corn can save your life

If only  every summer were just a long strand of hot, sunshiny days filled with watermelon, tomatoes and butterflies. Certainly, some summers are. I've been lucky enough to stockpile a number of seemingly endless, easy summers. This has not been that summer. This has been the summer of the persistant chest cold, reoccurring strep throat, serious emotional growing pains from my three and a half year old (who has taken to standing outside the bathroom door while I shower banging endlessly and shouting like a tiny Stanley Kowalski "Mamaaaa Maaaaaaaamaaaaa!") Admittedly, this is a pregnancy summer and while it is wonderful quietly waiting, watching this new baby grow, a lot of time that could have been better spent hiking, swimming in the river and eating on the porch has been devoted to resting a puny Mama. Blue skied, beach tripping, golden Summer has unspooled without me. So it was a gift, a blessing in the purest form when silky, green husked ears of sweet golden and silver queen corn started arriving in our weekly CSA share. Even with my immune system on vacation I would not miss the opportunity to sit on the porch and shuck ear after perfectly squeaking fresh ear of corn with my little one while my husband mows the grass. I tried to soak up every minute of it. And when all that corn was shucked and brushed clean of its silk I carried it inside and roasted it. Spread the rows of blistered kernels with fresh goat cheese, squeezed over the juice of a lime and sprinkled it all with a dusting of spicy, smokey cayenne pepper. Summer had found me at last.  

the goodness of greens

It has been an eventful week in our kitchen processing all of that beautiful food that is flowing in from the garden and our CSA share. With temperatures as high as they have been it has gotten a bit hot over the stove and I caught myself letting go of a bit of a sigh of relief when those bags of lovely heart shaped leaves started turing up. For me sweet potato greens are on of the first signs of fall coming on. Will I miss summer? I always do but I welcome Autumn with a happy heart and a pot full of sweet potato greens.
Sweet potato greens are mild and tender. I think I've heard Trisha describe them as summer spinach which is a good way to think about them. They are packed with nutrition and especially good raw in smoothies or in salads with a sharp citrusy dressing. That actually sounds good right now. Tossed in at the very end of cooking a pot of rice or couscous makes a nice quick side dish. But as light and delicate as sweet potato greens are they stand up beautifully in a braise with say  caramelized onion and garlic, pork chops and sliced sweet apples. A flavorful one pot meal to welcome Autumn, just not right away.

brace yourself for cutting celery

I had my first encounter with cutting celery only about two years ago during my tenure as a cook in Innisfree's community kitchen. Trisha brought us, picture this, wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load of this delicate leafy celery. The harvest was astounding and as a gathering of extended community members approached, we cooks wracked our brain about how to best showcase our abundance of cutting celery. A cream of celery soup was decided upon which sounded, admittedly, kind of bland. Good thing we were wrong. The soup was a huge hit and is always in the back of my mind when the cutting celery begins turning up in my weekly share. All you need to know is that this in not your grocery store celery. The flavor is pungent, fresh and bracing and it stands up beautifully to a long, slow simmer in a bath of rich flavors. Make some for a rainy day and save some for your freezer. One night in December you will come home damp, chilled to the bone and pleased to find a comforting meal ready to warm on the stove without any added effort.
Wash and roughly chop a large head of celery, including the leaves, a large sweet onion, three cloves of garlic and the tender parts of two leeks. Brown the veggies in three tablespoons of butter over a low flame in a heavy bottomed pot. Add a large pinch of salt to help the aromatics render and deglaze the bottom of the pot with about two cups of dry white wine.
When the celery and onion mixture is tender and slightly browned add two quarts of flavorful stock to the pot along with six gold potatoes, peeled and quartered. Bring the pot to a gentle boil and cooking the potatoes through and reducing the stock by about a quarter.
Remove the soup pot from the heat. Using either an immersion blender or a potato masher blend the potatoes into the soup until thickened. Add to this crushed red and black pepper to taste, a handful of fresh chopped parsley and a  heaped teaspoon of finely tarragon, a generous slosh of heavy whipping cream (do yourself a favor and do not skip the cream it is absolutely worth it) and a couple handfuls of grated parmesan. This recipe is as good as it sounds and begs only for a loaf of rustic, grainy bread and a tableful of hungry people to enjoy it together. My freezer will be full of it before the first snowflakes fall.

Photos this week

white wonder tomatoes

Ahhh, yes. Another tomato post. But, I imagine that entire odes have been written upon first taste of a white wonder tomato. Friends,  I hope you have been lucky enough to receive a few of these excellent tomatoes in your share since the tomatoes started coming on strong. The color is unique and beautiful, of course, but the flavor is truly rich and outstanding. Plenty of sugar, plenty of acid, they do not last long in my kitchen  Pale yellow and cream colored tomatoes are often piled up en masse at the grocery store around this time each year and I have, admittedly, paid good money for them. Alas, a grocery store tomato is a grocery store tomato no matter how pretty. I promise myself that the next white wonder to grace my kitchen will not be eaten out of hand like an apple, but prepared simply and with deep reverence.  Sliced, peppered, salted and stacked high on rough, white bread spread with ripe avocado. We'll probably add a few crisp leaves of lettuce and a couple strips of  bacon hot from the pan. A perfect summer meal.

cherokee purples... summer's jewels

I have never given a different answer to the question, what's your favorite food? Since I began chewing the answer has always been tomatoes. I am a resolute and unapologetic tomato snob. I will pass up a free massage, an hour alone with a good book and a crisp hundred dollar bill for a perfectly un-messed-around-with tomato sandwich. There is nothing better. Toasted white bread. Mayo. Freshly plucked, sliced tomatoes. Salt and pepper. If I had to pick only one food to eat forever and ever, the tomato sandwich would be that food without question. But had better be stuffed with fat, juicy slices of cherokee purples. They are rich, meaty, sweet and little bit briny to the taste. A real tomato eater's tomato. There have been days, recently in fact, when a tomato sandwich made with ripe cherokee purples has been on my plate at every meal. My three year old can easily pick out the few lopsided, crinkled, deeply burnished fruits from our weekly share and set them aside calling them, Mama's tomatoes.  If you ask me, he's gifted.

tomatillos

Something mysterious and divine happens when you toss a few tomatillos with salt and oil and charr them in a blisteringly hot oven. Those hard, tart little green globes emerge from the heat unctuous, silky smooth inside, sweet and begging to be smashed up with a bit of onion, chile, lime, garlic and avocado. There is a little Mexican restaurant in Houston that serves that with huge, sweet gulf shrimp as a cocktail appetizer. From here to Houston is about 1,300 miles but I could see making the drive for that. We could  also just stay here and make it in our own kitchens and serve it over fajitas. At my house we like to stake out a cool spot on the front porch and just scoop it up with chips and wash it all down with a nice cold beer full of lime wedges. That mysterious flavor we're picking up in those tomatillos may be the taste of summertime. 

eggplant has a special place in my heart

I am seriously lucky in many ways not the least of which is my being the mother of a child who begs for eggplant. Lucky for him I seem to be on a one woman mission to cook every imaginable eggplant recipe before I die. I'm about halfway there, I think. Eggplant has an unfairly earned reputation for being difficult to prepare but I find that the huge payoff in yumminess far and away outweighs what little if any extra prep eggplant requires of me. And it does not have to require ANY extra steps at all. Two of my favorite ways to cook eggplant could not be simpler. The first being whole baked eggplant. Just wrap the eggplants in foil, yeah, just like a potato and bake at 400 for about thirty minutes or until tender. Open up the foil and split length wise making a little pocket to fill with a dribble of olive oil, salt and pepper, chopped raw tomato and cucumber and crumbled feta. I could eat that right now. My most favorite, favorite, favorite eggplant recipe is even easier. I slice the tops off the eggplants and then slice them again length wise and make deep slashes in the cut sides. I stuff the slits with whole peeled garlic cloves, rub on a good bit of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste and arrange an a baking sheet and bake at 400 until tender and beginning to caramelize. Then buzz everything in the food processor with a good squeeze of lemon, a glug of olive oil and a handful of parsley. This can be served and eaten as you would hummus or the more complicated baba ghanouj (also completely delicious). Or use it as a pizza sauce as you would tomato sauce or pesto. I suspect that my roasted potato pizza with goat cheese and eggplant sauce played a significant role in my husband's decision to propose. He says no but.... he did ask me in the kitchen with two of those eggplant pizzas cooling on the stove. I may very well I owe much of my happiness to eggplant one way or another.

my beloved okra

Sneaky, sneaky okra. You have so many people stumped. I have heard more that a handful of unkind words used to describe okra, slimy, gooey, runny. Usually, I believe, from people who have suffered the misfortune of eating badly cooked okra. I grew up eating okra as most people from the Deep South do and there is not a person in my family who will turn down a plate of okra. Lucky me. Let's begin with a better understanding of okra. It is the tender green or burgundy seed pod of an edible hibiscus relative and quite a beautiful flowering plat as well. When it was first cultivated by whites in the Americas it was grown purely as an ornemental (the same is true at one point in history or another for potatoes, blueberries, tomatoes, celery and pumpkins. What were these people eating?) Okra is widely eaten through out India, South East Asia, and Africa. It is a plant that loves heat and can thrive in imperfect soil. As a child okra was in everyone's garden, growing up through the hard, rocky, red clay soil and the long, dry Texas summer. It can be dipped  in an egg wash and  dredged in seasoned flour and cornmeal and fried up for one, but I love it stewed in a fragrant bath of onion, garlic and tomatoes and a good slug of vinegar. Saute a chopped onion and two minced cloves of garlic until just tender and add to the pan sliced okra, about three cups of crushed tomatoes, fresh or canned, salt and pepper to taste, about a cup of water and a good slug of vinegar. Let that simmer on a low flame for about twenty minutes or until everything is tender and the flavors have all come together.  As they say in my home state, this is some very good eating.

Sungold cherry tomatoes

I defy anyone to produce a single un-messed-with bite of anything on earth half as delicious as a single sungold tomato. It just cannot be done. This is a bit of a silly post and not one about cooking at all as I have never in all my life actually cooked a sungold. The only way I've ever eaten them is directly off the plant or shortly there after and I am just fine with that even though I'm sure that any way you fix them will be a revelation. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, the famous Berkeley, California eatery has recipes for a sungold cherry tomato martini, a sungold tart and a savory sungold French toast. Yow! I may be missing out. But, I'll never know. And I doubt anyone struggles in the kitchen with what to do with all their sungolds. They are a gift from the Earth and the Sun and the beautiful, dirty faced gardeners tending to them. They best way to honor the work that produces such a gorgeous crop of sungold tomatoes them is to eat every last delicious one just the way you like best.   

purple viking potato

My first taste of the garden's potato crop could not have come in a more beautiful package. Purple and pink streaked skin opening up onto pearly white flesh. Do I eat them or were them as jewelry? Eat them, of course. They were the first things to go. And I can take no credit for any kind of recipe or cooking either. I boiled them in the skins until the were just tender to the knife drained them and bashed them around in a deep sauce pan with salt, pepper, a few sliced green onions and an alarming amount of brown butter. I beat them up till a few skins broke open and let them go all crisp and golden in that fragrant, oniony brown butter and that was all. My husband is from Germany and will not tolerate an inferior potato. He was deeply pleased with this batch. So was I. When the commercial potato is one of the most genetically modified foods on the market, I feel so grateful to be able to set a plate of good, pure and delicious food down in front of my family. It is a gift to be simple.  

Fennel

This week there was a single petite fennel on the very top of my veggie share and I was glad to see it. I do love a complex vegetable. The bulb is crisp and crunchy giving a whiff of clean, cool celery and the fronds are perfumey and sweet-savory, tasting of anise and green vegetal spice. I love it, obviously but I only came to know of it in college. There is typically not much call for fennel in traditional Texas home cooking but, never mind. My first recollection of fennel is one of scent. I minored in Italian in school and my most memorable instructor, Professore Gaudelini, of the big hazel eyes and curly dark hair  wore a fennel scented cologne. Naturally, female attendance was high. Later in college while traveling in France one summer I found that fragrance again in vegetable form growing in gardens and wild along the side of the road and on the table during many meals. I ate fennel once in a memorable soup of creamed white beans, wine and garlic. It was delicious. On another trip to France around Christmastime my husband and I stopped inside the door of a tiny shop that sold only the juices of fresh fruits and vegetables which the shopkeeper bottled on site for each customer. I watched as he fed small, tart green apples, fennel  and grapefruits into his machine and the frothy golden juice bubbled out. I think I told my husband that it was time for us to move to France after that. If anyone has a juicer at home I would love to know what that juice tastes like, it smelled amazing. What did I do with my little share fennel? I cut the fronds off and hung them to dry planning to use them later when canning up pizza and spaghetti sauce. Because that mysterious delicate aroma wafting up from the best red sauce you've ever eaten was probably fennel, it just makes all those familiar flavors newer and more intense. With the bulb I whipped up a quick green gazpacho. A chopped cucumber or two, a clove of garlic, the chopped fennel, salt, pepper, icy cold butter milk or yogurt and an avocado buzzed in the blender until smooth.  Delicious. Also an elegant component of a light summer meal and a great way to show off some local ingredients. I have served this in a frozen wide mouth pint jar topped with sliced cherry tomatoes. I freeze the spoons too and just forget about the ice. It is seriously flavorful and refreshing. And.... if you're felling extra inspired, infuse a batch of simple syrup with a small handful of fresh fennel fronds. Let it steep for about thirty minutes in the sugar syrup and then strain it into a pitcher of lemon juice and ice water. Stir and you've made fennel scented lemonade. Can't get more summery than that.  

Summer squashes sweet and savory

Ahhh... lovely tender summer squashes. The perfect answer to, What else should I put in this pasta, this casserole, this omelette? Summer squash, of course. It is mild, versatile and copiously abundant in the summertime. But abundance can present a new challenge... Zucchini and summer squash have been known to inspire a kind of guerrilla vegetable hit and run bombing. During the height of summer neighbors are delighted by the first basket or two of squash left anonymously on the porch. But by the time that fifth basket turns up a kindly gardner may find the front gate locked. So what to do with all that squash? Simply, eat it up. And fairly quickly owing to its delicate nature. It doesn't freeze well at all and while I hear that it dehydrates beautifully in a low oven, I can't be bothered and I can't fathom where I would store all that put by squash. By the end of tomato season my shelves are full. So we'll eat it up simply, grilled or sautéed and quickly with a lovely ginger dipping sauce. Make it up by whisking together  a small, finely grated onion, one clove of minced garlic,  a tablespoon of grated ginger, the juice of one lemon, half a cup of tamari, one teaspoon of sugar, one teaspoon of white or rice wine vinegar and a tablespoon of ketchup (the ketchup only sounds gross). I can live on this stuff. A single batch will probably last a couple of meals and this sauce goes beautifully on just about every vegetable I can think of. Knock yourself out.
 But when you have made dinner and washed the dishes and find that you have barely made a dent in your weekly squash share do the following: Grate up about two squashes and squeeze out some of the water. Add that grated squash and the juice and zest of one large lemon to a thick batter made up of one cup of brown sugar beaten into a stick of butter until fluffy, two eggs, a cup of polenta, two cups of self rising flour, a tablespoon of vanilla and a half teaspoon of salt. Drop  rounded tablespoons of the mixture onto a buttered sheet pan and bake at 350 for eight to ten minutes. Now you have a large, beautiful batch of lemon-polenta squash cookies (they are a charmingly old-fashioned Italian summer snack with a beautiful name I cannot remember). I am sure that no neighbor would lock the garden gate on someone bearing a plate of these beauties.

Magic beans

There is a reason why beans feature so prominently in fairytales. They are profound and elemental... plant a bean in the ground, give it sun and rain and what do you get.... more beans. They are also a fairly early crop to be so very rich in flavor and nutrition. They could be eaten fresh off the plant or dried for winter storage. In many languages beans are referred to as poor man's beef. The mythology is lovely and deserved and as I prepare a meal of beans I like to remember the thousands of years of cultures who ate simply and lived close to the earth not by choice but as a means of survival and ritual. I  find very little need to embellish something as pure as a batch of green beans. We like a quick simple saute of green beans in butter with a clove of crushed garlic. A sprinkle of coarse salt, a few flecks of crushed red pepper and a squeeze of lime juice at the very end. The eating and talk of magic beans around the dinner table is lovely but the half hour spent on the porch with my little one sharing a glass of ice tea and quietly snapping beans together is truly magical.

Cabbages and the magic of sauerkraut

Well hello there summer. We can forgive the soaring temperatures, biting, stinging bugs and the ivy poisoning (well, almost) since you've come bearing the gift of good eating. The long days of summer are such a time of abundance and good flavor but I some days I find myself agonized at the thought of standing over a hot stove. But all this food!!!! It needs to be eaten, processed, put by.... My better judgement can be relentless. Sometimes we need to forgive ourselves and in the meantime stock up on a good stable of hot weather recipes that do not require cooking. Lacto-fermented Sauerkraut is one of my best. Start by draining about 3/4 a cup of whey from a batch of yogurt and set that aside. Shred a large head of cabbage, any variety is just fine, a large head will yield 8 to 10 cups of cabbage. Place the cabbage in a bowl large enough to accomodate a dinner plate. Add to the cabbage on finely sliced onion and two shredded carrots. Toss everything together until well combined in the bowl and sprinkle over two heaped tablespoons of salt and a grind or two of pepper. Now, go find a three year old, give him a potato masher and tell him to pound away. He will do this FOREVER so you can go put your feet up but you might want to lay a towel down first. After a good pounding the salted veggies will have given up quite a bit of liquid.This is when I add other flavoring agents, a little red pepper, a bit of sugar. You can really get creative sampling as you go to get an idea of what your finished kraut will taste like.Once you're set on the ingredients pour over the drained whey a tablespoon of raw vinegar and enough water to cover the baby kraut completely. Drop in a dinner plate to keep the veggies submerged and cover with a clean kitchen towel. Place your bowl in a cool spot in the kitchen out of direct sunlight or if counter space is limited in your kitchen you can put the bowl of ferment somewhere else out of the way like say a high shelf in a coat closet. As long as you PROMISE not to forget about it and leave the country for a few weeks. But even if you do.... this is the kind of mistake I tend to make once. Check up on the bowl every other day to make sure that everything is still covered with the fermenting liquid and add a bit more water if needed. Magically in about three to four days you have your own batch of traditional lacto-fermented sauerkraut. Keep in in the fridge for about two weeks, not that it will go uneaten for that long. Sauerkraut also freezes beautifully and thaws with all of its active cultures alive and kicking.  This is definitely one of those foods that once you make and eat your own you will never buy it again.

photos this week

Broccoli rabe

Broccoli rabe is probably a new vegetable to just a handful of us but that stuff they're passing off as broccoli rabe in the grocery store is a pale, sad version of what turned up in our shares this week. Spicy, slightly bitter broccoli rabe is beloved across the Mediterranean and in China and is thought to be more closely related to an herbaceous wild turnip that found in Northern Italy than to broccoli. And the Italians have certainly taken a shine to it and leaned how to cook it up over the past thousand or so years. They really know what they're doing so I don't really stray too far from their formula: smashed garlic + broccoli rabe + red pepper flakes + olive oil + smoking hot pan + salt = deliciousness. I ask you, why bother? But I did feel proud this weekend when I took it all to a new level and stocked my freezer to boot. I threw a single sausage link in with the smashed garlic and broke it up against the sides of the pan and let that cook down until brown and crisp, then I threw in the broccoli rabe and let that all saute together for about ten minutes. When It was coolish I coarsely chopped everything up and folded it all into a batch of black pepper parmesan scones which are almost too simple to deserve a recipe but that never seems to stop me... three cups of self rising flour, cut in a whole stick of cold unsalted butter (just don't look while you're doing it and tell yourself that you're only going to eat one), one egg, a cup of butter milk, a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper and a heaping cup of coarsely shredded parmesan. I quickly folded in my broccoli rabe mixture, no over mixing here, and dropped big spoonfuls of the dough on a buttered baking pan and let them bake at 375 for thirty minutes. We did eat a couple piping hot from the over but it was really satisfying to wrap them up and pack them away in the freezer. They are like a little insurance policy against some cold, deep December evening when all I can scare up for supper are bowls of tomato soup. Made from tomatoes I hope to be canning in a few weeks. Is it worth it to go to the trouble of prepping and sauteing a bunch of greens just to bake them into scones for the freezer? I believe so. And I think on that on the cold night that those scones make it to my supper table a little bunch of greens will have become a part of something sacred.

Leafy little lettuces

I adore leaf lettuce. Salad mix. Spring mix. Whatever you want to call it. After a grey winter what I crave is a huge plateful of those delicate little leaves. They are such a tonic to the body and the spirit. I hope our gardeners can feel it in their souls when a collective CSA member sigh of pleasure goes up and out into the universe upon opening up our beautiful stash of veggies each week. There, right on top are those bulging bags of salad greens peppered with golden yellow calendula blossoms. Ahhhh... My favorite salad at the moment is a basically a big plate of greens sprinkled with calendula petals, crisp wheels of cool cucumber, toasted walnuts, finely sliced spring onion, a handful of mulberries all drizzled over with THE springtime dressing. Let's dedicate this recipe to the loving, dirty hands that bring us this gorgeous food each week and call it Garden Goodness dressing. Into your food processor or blender put one large ripe avocado, four tablespoons of yogurt or buttermilk, a couple gratings of parmesan cheese, salt and pepper to taste, a couple sprigs of dill and parsley and buzz away. Happy Salad Days.

Arugula days

Arugula is one of my favorite example vegetables when making a case for local eating. Buy it in a store in say, August and what do you get? Beautifully packaged, perfectly crisp, entirely flavorless greens. Arugula is a coy little garden offering with those delicate little green leaves and a surprising, strongly peppery bite. The flavor is sparkling and zesty but there is also an earthy, mushroom-y note in the background. Not exactly the pallid little grocery store green we can buy packaged up in all that nice plastic after all? No. Arugula has a bit of a temper and prefers the cooler days of Fall and Spring to Summer. We should enjoy it when it is most abundant. And since arugula is not slouch in the flavor department I like to prepare it simply and serve it up with other full bodied ingredients. Say....parmesan, pine nuts and garlic. Arugula does make great pesto. But we can do better than that. If you haven't found a reason to to try baking pizzas outdoors over the coals in your grill allow the promise of a blistery, lightly charred crust and melted goat cheese all topped with a tangle of arugula be the ultimate excuse. Start of with your favorite pizza dough (if anyone is interested just email me, I have a fantastic dough recipe that always yields a crisp, chewy crust). My best advice on pizza dough is rest, rest, rest. After you have divided and shaped your dough into smaller portions, hands off for about fifteen to twenty minutes. If you just dive in with floured hands and immediately start pulling, rolling, stretching... you will end up frustrated at the difficulty of the task and have a tough little pizza on your hands. Just wait and you will find the dough relaxed and ready to practically shape itself. Once shaped and ready for toppings give that perfectly stretched or beautifully lopsided crust a generous turn in a dusting of coarse corn meal to keep to dough from sticking to the live coals. Top the pizza however you like but air on the side of full flavors and fewer ingredients and you won't be disappointed. With arugula, I especially like a handful of walnuts crushed with a clove of garlic, some sliced spring onions a drizzle of olive oil and some chevre. Transfer the pizza carefully from a plate or cutting board directly on top of the screamingly hot, burned down coals and cover the grill with the vents open. A step away for about four minutes. Just long enough to make this salad: Arugula, sprinkle of salt, grind of pepper, splash of balsamic, good slug of olive oil. Toss, toss, toss. Now go get your pizza, a long handled pair of tongs is very useful here. And top it with that gorgeous, simple arugula. And open up that bottle of prosecco languishing in the back of the fridge, arugula has come for dinner.

Turnips... don't turn up your nose

The humble turnip has gained some ground in the past few years thanks to the movement for local, seasonal eating. And thank heavens because people have been missing out on this flavorful little root crop with delicious greens (make a mental note, turnip greens sauteed with garlic and a squeeze of lemon were made to be on pizza. I'm just saying). Turnips love being slowly simmered in a low oven alongside a pot roast. Just think of a bed of turnips, carrots, onions and mushrooms bathed in those meaty, winey, garlicky juices. Getting hungry? How about peeling and boiling some turnips with a batch of potatoes and then mashing in some butter, cream, salt and pepper, a couple of egg yolks and some shaved parmesan. Typically, when I think about how to include turnips in a meal I lean on rich, creamy, buttery ingredients but with their rich, earthy flavor turnips can also hold their own against dark, roasted spices. My Moroccan spice roasted vegetables became pretty popular at Innisfree during my tenure. You can make them as mild or vibrant as you like depending on how much red pepper you use. Peel and cut your turnips and any other root vegetable you like into very large chunks. I have used carrots, golden potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, beets... anything you have is fine. Make a spice blend of two tbs. of cocoa powder (the darker the better), two tbs. cumin seeds, two table spoons of coriander seed, one tbs. cinnamon, one tbs. crushed red pepper flakes, a shake of cayenne pepper to taste. Toast the spices in a hot, dry skillet until the just begin to smoke and become fragrant. Pre-heat the oven to about 480 and arrange the vegetables in a single layer on a sheet pan. Drizzle with oil and toss with the toasted spices and a good shake of salt and pepper and a small handful of brown sugar. Bake for about thirty-five to forty minutes until the vegetables are deeply caramelized and just tender. This stuff is just killer. I can't count the times I've been asked for the recipe or to make up a batch for a holiday potluck. You will not be disappointed and I think the turnip is looking a little less humble.

Radishes

Aren't radishes what Benjamin bunny risked life and limb and blue jacket for in Mr. McGregor's garden? Poor thing. He might have been planning a picnic with a batch of shaved radish and cucumber sandwiches with compound butter. Radishes are great on a salad of course. On the street in Mexico vendores keep them in a bath of vinegar and ice to scatter over savory tacos. But the French and the English are the real radish experts. For the french radishes are like garden fresh penicillin. "C'est tres bon pour le foie", a little old french innkeeper kept telling me as she passed me slice after slice of dark buttered bread piled with spicy radish shavings. She was lovely and kind and her wrinkled little forehead was etched with worry for my liver and those of my twenty-ish traveling companions. She was probably right to worry, we had been a little over exuberant in our pursuit of knowledge about French wines. She was also right about the meal of bread and radishes. It was light, cool and clean on the palette. Just what the doctor ordered. I still make this when I get my hands on a bunch of pretty little pastel radishes but these days I'm more likely to enjoy it with a glass of white wine or a icy cold beer than use it as a hangover remedy. First I make a compound butter. Take a stick of room temperature butter and blend it with about a tablespoon each of washed, dried, minced radish tops and finely sliced green onion. Blend together with a bit of salt and set aside. Slice a fresh baguette lengthwise and toast in a hot oven while slicing a bunch of radishes and a cucumber. Not too thin, this isn't a little tea sandwich. This one is crunchy, chewy, pungent and peppery. When the baguette is toasted and cooled slightly, spread on the compound butter (any leftovers would be fantastic on a piece of fish with just a squeeze of lemon), and pile on the veg. Sliced into generous portions this is a delicious stand alone lunch. Sliced in smaller pieces it is a perfect warm weather cocktail nibble.

Swiss chard never let any body down

I ask you, what did I eat before swiss chard? I can't make anything bad with it, what's not to love? It is great as a filling for calzones or ravioli. Perfect in quiches and completely disappears into my three year old when I toss it with hot cooked pasta and butter. But the preparation I keep coming back to is a simple saute of caramelized onion and garlic. I feel strongly that exact quantities are unimportant here. Use amounts that you enjoy. Deglaze the pan with about a third of a bottle of white wine and allow that to cook off at a high simmer for about five minutes then throw in a big handful or two of dried cherries or cranberries or raisins and let them soften in the cooking liquid. Add about a tablespoon of butter to the pan and then pile in loads of roughly torn swiss chard and just allow it to wilt and absorb some of those flavors. Turn off the heat and toss in about a cupful of toasted pecans or walnuts and the juice and zest of one large lemon. Now, you could eat that alone standing over the stove, I know, but you could also roll it into some pounded chicken breasts and bake them or mix it into a pound of ground pork for a super fancy meatloaf or do what I do, invariably. Toss the swiss chard, cherry, onion, pecan mixture with a pound of piping hot orzo, throw in some more butter, more lemon juice, a handful of chopped parsley, coarsely ground black pepper, a shake of crushed red pepper flakes and a generous grating of parmesan. That can be dinner night after night without complaints.

Beets... garden gems

When my husband and I got married he insisted upon a roasted butternut squash risotto. I said I could not get married without a roasted beet salad on a bed of baby greens. That is just the kind of woman I am, recklessly eating hot pink beet salad in my wedding dress. My priorities are pretty obvious. Luckily my sweet husband loves me for it and he doesn't let anything come between him and a good meal either. We're a good fit. So after four years of wedded bliss we're still eating and loving roasted beets on salad. And my husband is what I call a "happy eater" which was great when I wanted him to try grilled beets and red cabbage with walnuts, feta and sweet and sour dressing. It only sounds complicated and I actually made this inside on miserably, cold drizzly night on a stove top grill pan. Slice the washed beets about a quarter inch thick, toss with a tiny little dribble of olive oil and set aside. Slice a head of red cabbage through the middle and oil the cut sides. Get the grill pan nice and hot and lay on the veggies. Should it arise, resist the urge to poke and prod them so that they can char and caramelize properly. Toast some walnuts in a dry skillet until fragrant, crumble a bit of feta and make up the dressing. Three tbs. walnut oil, two tbs. cider vinegar, big squeeze of honey, squeeze of Dijon mustard. Whisk. When the cabbage is nicely charred chop it roughly and toss with a bit of dressing. Lay over the beet slices, toasty nuts and cheese and finish with a bit more dressing. Delicious. It had been raining for days but after we ate this for supper the rain stopped. It was the salad. I'm sure of it. You'll see.

Romaine Lettuce and the perfect Caesar Salad

I don't think I need to sell anybody very hard on the deliciousness and insane simplicity of a really good Caesar salad. So... I'll skip all that and get straight to why you should be making your own at home. 1. You have an abundance of perfectly crisp, delicious romaine on hand. 2. After reading the title of this post you're really dying for a Caesar salad. 3. It takes virtually no time to make, unless you want to get all fancy like and make your own fresh croutons, which I highly recommend and that can be accomplished in mere moments. 4.It will be perfect with what ever you were planning on grilling for supper. 5. No good cook should pass up the opportunity to make their own Caesar. Here goes: Wash any grit from the lettuce, tear it to your preferred size (I like to leave the leaves whole) and then roll up the leaves gently between two dish towels. Refrigerate until ready to serve. With the back of a fork mash two cloves of garlic with pinch of salt and three whole anchovy filets. You like anchovies. I promise. Scrape all of that into a bowl and whisk in two tbs. of mayonnaise, one perfectly fresh, raw egg yolk, the juice of one lemon, a good grating of parmesan, one tbs. of milk and salt and pepper if desired. Done. Chill that until serving and whip up a batch of fresh croutons. Cut a loaf of crusty bread on the bias making long angled strips. Toss those with a bit of good olive oil and some minced garlic and arrange them on a baking sheet in a single layer and then run them under the broiler on high for about a minute or two.It wouldn't hurt to watch them pretty closely to prevent burning. Now... just dress those chill leaves of romaine with a few huge croutons, a nice drizzle of that dressing and some shards of pungent parmesan cheese. That is a serious salad. If you want you can scare up someone to split it with but, for me, eating a whole head of lettuce like that couldn't be easier.

Bok Choy

I love bok choy raw in spicy, lime drenched, gingery salads. Toss in some toasted sesame seeds, scallions and shredded carrots and everything is right with the world. But I might love it even more in warm dishes because when cooked it becomes so silky and buttery in texture while still having a bright, vegetal flavor. We can all live happily without any lame, bland cooking greens. And we will now that we have bok choy. You can also sneak over to this week's meet your veggies page on scallions for the quick fried rice recipe that typically uses up my share of bok choy on a busy night. That's what I'll call it from now on Busy Weeknight Bok Choy Fried Rice. Enjoy.

Tat Soi

If there was a beauty pageant in the garden I think Tat Soi might be the quirky, dark horse, come from behind winner. A runner up definitely. It is just so darn pretty with those beautiful darkly emerald wrinkly leaves grown so perfectly into a perky little rosette. You just want to pinch Tat Soi's cheeks. Or eat it. Let's do that. And let's used Innisfree Kitchen Cook Sharon's recipe for a wilted Asian greens salad. Quickly blanch the leaves in boiling water and then cool it down by plunging it into an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Gently press out any excess water with a dish towel and toss that with a bit of minced ginger, a clove of minced garlic, a teeny bit of sugar and healthy splashes of tamari, rice wine vinegar and a generous squeeze of Sirracha. Chill and done. Tell everyone you know about Tat Soi and thank you to Sharon for the wonderful recipe. She made this for lunch one day while we were cooking together and I seriously went home three hours later and made it again. I had to be reminded to share.

Dill... the hardest working herb in cooking

Nice to see yo again Dill. Lovely, feathery, frondy, flavorful dill... I've missed you. I've used you dried all winter long and it just wasn't the same. But, when a lady really needs some dill she'll take what she can get. Ahhhh... does dill really make every thing better? Is it just me? It is one of those things for which there is no passable substitution so I look forward to the long, abundantly dilly weeks of summer all year. It is really a beautiful and useful plant in the garden, bees and butterflies love the pungent, pollen heavy flowers when it blooms. The flowering heads are really pretty in floral arrangements. And while dill refuses to be disturbed or transplanted, it reseeds vigorously and it those seeds are super tasty. I can't share my super favorite use for dill just yet... but perhaps later on a recipe page.... as the cucumbers and green beans tumble in. I do believe that my failure-proof lacto-fermented dill pickles are in our future. You WANT that recipe. But for now a quick to prepare rub for veggies, tofu, potatoes, meat, fish, anything you want to grill. When  fresh dill is exposed to high heat it chars beautifully and caramelizes opening up a big mouthful of complex flavor. What I like to do is choppity chop chop a bunch of dill on the coarse side, smash a clove or ten of garlic, and toss that with the juice and zest of one lemon (because you know dill and citrus are best friends), a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar, a good squeeze of dijon mustard, a shake of crushed red pepper flakes and a teeny little bit of olive oil, just a bit to help things stay juicy as they soak up all these good flavors. Rub or toss that on seriously just about anything that isn't nailed down. Wait a while, overnight if you can possibly stand it. And then you are in grilling nirvana. As an extra, super bonus this rub mixture can also be blended into ground beef or chicken in place of other traditional meatball ingredients or brushed over a sliced open baguette that is then grilled or broiled for bruschetta. I just dare you to try and not top that with some gorgeously, drippingly, juicy tomatoes in July.  Happy Dill Days to everyone eating at your table.

Scallions

If you ask me scallions' purpose in life is to be a baked potato's best, best friend. I insist upon scallions on nights when we have salad and a baked potato for supper. But they also lend such beautiful pungency to any simple meal with Asian flavors. One of my favorite weeknight leftover revival meals is quick fried brown rice with bok choy and scallions (which I do believe many of us have on hand at the moment). Here is goes: Left over, cold brown rice (You just cannot cannot cannot make fried rice with freshly cooked rice it will be slimy, gummy, starchy and just plain gross. The beauty of fried rice is that everything goes into one big wok-y type pot and comes out deliciously, steamy and fragrant in mere moments.), a bit of minced garlic and ginger, as much bok choy as you care to see on your plate torn into biggish pieces, a big bunch of scallions sliced on the diagonal, a tablespoon of brown sugar, sesame seeds, tamari, salt and oil with a high smoke point. Get everything prepped before starting and this goes fast. Heat the oil in the wok-y type pan until it is screaming hot and throw in the ginger garlic and scallions. Stir, stir, stir.  Let that go for about ten seconds. Stir, stir, stir. Throw in the sesame seeds give them about five seconds to toast. Stir, stir, stir. Add in the greens and allow to just wilt and become vibrantly green. Stir, stir, stir. Rice. Stir, stir, stir. Season to taste with salt and tamari. Stir, stir, stir. Serve, serve, serve.

Kohlrabi

I do love a challenging new ingredient, a novelty or an oddity every now and then but I know what everyone eats day in and day out are veggies that are flavorful and easy on the palette. I have found kohlrabi to be both. The texture is crisp and snappy and the flavor is slightly broccoli-ish. Turns out this little  green or purple garden weirdo is mild and very versatile. It likes to stand in for grated cabbage or broccoli in fresh slaw and is lovely shaved over a salad of tender greens and say, celery. I hear tell that some folks go to the trouble of peeling and cooking kohlrabi much as you might treat a potato or some other starchy root vegetable. But one day when I was out of crackers but had kohlrabi on hand I simply sliced it thinly into rounds an spread it with a fresh, soft goat cheese. It was springy and light and crunchy and refreshing, exactly what food should be as we wander into warmer summer weather

Cliantro...hello lover

Salsa, oh yes. Guacamole, oh yes, yes. Thai curry, oh, yes. Raita, salsa cruda, fajitas.... Cilantro is freshness and vibrancy and a little springtime fiesta in my mouth. Is there poetry about cilantro? If there isn't, there should be. I'll work on that. But in the meantime let's have a cocktail to celebrate this springy, zesty little herb. How about and good old margarita, with a glass rimmed in coarse salt, sugar and finely minced cilantro. Ole! Not a tequila drinker?  How about a Bloody Maria? Muddle some fresh sliced jalapeno, a bit of garlic, and some minced cilantro in the bottom of a pitcher and pour over a good glug, glug, glug of vodka. Fill with tomato juice and stir. Serve in tall glasses over cracked ice a nice squeeze of lime juice and another sprinkle of cilantro. Say hello to your new summertime brunch cocktail.

Sugar Snaps and Shell Peas

I never need to worry about what I'm going to do with my peas. My three year old is happy to relieve me of the task and even though the outer pod of a shell pea isn't meant to be eaten he is undaunted. However, I do know that the pods of shell peas are perfect for stashing in a bag of veggie scraps in your freezer until you collect enough odds and ends to put on a batch of stock. A vegetable stock made with peas would be wonderful base for a pea or celery soup on a deep, cold winter evening. Just toss all the veggie scraps and pods with a bit of olive oil and roast in a hot oven until they get a good bit of color and caramelization. Then cover them with water in a stock pot and simmer very gently for about three or four hours, then strain and refrigerate for use within a week or freeze.

Spinach

I hardly think anyone needs help thinking of a way to use spinach, but I won't let that stop me. It is so sweet and mild and versatile and completely packed with nutrition. Spinach is always in our fridge and a favorite salad green of mine. I also use it as a replacement for basil in pesto since I must hang my head in shame and admit that I do not like basil.  My husband loves it. My three year old son calls basil "eating leaves" but we can all agree on spinach. And we start the morning with it nearly every day in summer in a  gloriously green smoothie. Get out your blenders, it goes like this: Ice lots of it. Three bulging handfuls of spinach. A banana or two. Two heaping tablespoons of peanut butter, almond butter, soy nut butter, whatever blows your dress up really. Some kind of milk, almond is our favorite. Flip the switch, pour, chug, ahhhhhh. You just might be back for another at lunchtime. I cannot imagine any child turning this down. Should a little one be a bit averse to drinking something green you could tell them that it is super healthy power slime (which my boy loved) or just give it to them in an opaque cup until they're hooked.

Kales and cooking greens

I will do my best to hold back here but I can't promise much restraint as my love affair with bitter cooking greens goes way back to my Texas childhood. In my birth state a love of greens like collards, mustards and turnips is deep and religious in its fervor. They were on the table more than one night a week, tender, flavorful and lovingly prepared. Usually with a lot of fat, porcine in origin. Texans are not fearful of the ham hock. Luckily and later in life I found my way to cooler climes in the foothills of Virginia where delicious greens like Winterbor and Curly Kale flourish. I wasn't familiar with them but I thought I couldn't go wrong with a cooking method I'd learned from the adorable mother of an old boyfriend. She was also from Texas and knew good greens without them having to slap her in the face. However, she was also a practitioner of holistic medicine and a yogi who had long ago sworn off animal products and unhealthy fats. She showed my the way and I have not looked back. This is my favorite method for cooking hearty greens of any kind. Wish I could take credit for it.  Wash and chop everything into a very large bite size and fill a large cooking vessel with just enough water to cover the greens about two thirds of the way. Salt and pepper the cooking water  generously, you want the cooking liquid to be flavorful as the salt helps to leach and mellow any bitterness. Add is a good shake of crushed red pepper, a glug of olive oil and five or six garlic cloves peeled and smashed with the side of a knife. Cook on a high simmer for about ten minutes and then turn the fire down to medium low and continue cooking for another ten to fifteen minutes until the greens are tender but not mushy. Pour in a good slug of cider vinegar and serve. Preferably with cornbread and a mess of blackeyed peas. But if you happen to hail from Texas then you were going to do that anyways.

Garlic Scapes

Ahhh... garlic scapes. These snakey green tendrils are a true seasonal delicacy and very flavorful. You can use them exactly as you would garlic in sauces or sautes while you wait patiently for your first taste of green garlic. I love to make a vinaigrette with finely minced garlic scapes using just a bit of oil (I like the richness of walnut oil) and white wine vinegar, a big dab of dijon mustard, salt, cracked pepper and sugar to taste. Whisk everything together and pour over warm boiled potatoes and serve over a bed of fresh greens. The potatoes just drink up the vinaigrette and I cannot think of a more elegant treatment of potato salad. As a bonus any leftover vinaigrette is a lovely marinade for fish, tofu or chicken.

Flats of new parsley

What can't you do with parsley? For me this humble little herb is so much more than a garnish. It is a Vegetable with a capital V. And while these little babies in the greenhouse are lovely there is nothing I like better than to harvest from a tall, verdant stand of flat leaf parsley by mid summer. Parsley is believed to be a cleansing herb, purifying to the blood and liver. I'll believe it. A bite of something loaded with the cool, mildly bitter leaves can cure me of almost anything. It finds a way onto our dinner plates nearly every night. One of my favorite simple suppers from pregnancy is still a plate of hot orzo tossed with a big handful of chopped parsley and a few cups of raw spinach. The heat from the pasta just barely cooked the greens and I tossed in a bit of butter and shaved parmesan. Not really a recipe but it was so fresh and satisfying I'm sure the non-pregnant can appreciate it as well.

Photos this week

photos this week

Around the Springtime Garden

Writing about the Springtime garden and kitchen shouldn’t be all that hard. There is an abundance of inspiring material close at hand …

Watching an old hand like Cabel and fresh new garden faces hustle like busy bees in and out of the green house hauling wooden flats of tender plants into the cool air

Gathering a fragrant armful of cilantro and spinach for a batch of raw garbanzo falafel…ohhh, you want this in your supper table

The simple pleasure of being in the company of Catherine’s ranunculus

Kiddo (and adult) fascination with the new worm bin

Faithful Jim, soaking up the warm sun, silhouetted in apple blossoms going about the task of delivering the compost.

The wonders never cease during a regular walk on a regular Innisfree morning. I hope that you may find some time in your week to make a quick stop by this new Vegucation blog and find or share some inspiration of your own. There will be recipes each week celebrating the flavors of the seasonal produce and herbs you find in your box on delivery day. Isn’t delivery day the best day of the week? We should all take a small moment to celebrate the food we are so lucky to eat and the wise, gentle hands that help to grow it. May this space be a place for it.

Cilantro Scented Raw Garbanzo Bean and Spinach Falafel

This recipe is no slouch and kind of blew my mind when I saw my friend Ruth making it in my kitchen. When she uncovered this big bowl of coarsely chopped and obviously uncooked chickpeas what I though was, there is no way she read that recipe correctly. Sometimes it is such a joy to be wrong. As luck would have it I have been on the hunt for a truly wonderful, healthy falafel recipe for a while, because in my hands falafel tends to go one way or another. Pasty and starchy tasting or greasy. Yuck. My family’s days of substandard falafel are over.  This recipe captures that good grainy, earthy quality that is so particular to chickpeas, finds a good home for a few extra handfuls of greens and does all that while being effortlessly vegan and gluten-free.  Serve these yummy little patties over rice or a crisp green salad or some orzo tossed with fresh dill, garlic, a good squeeze of lemon juice and a healthy slug of olive oil. Or just dip them in yogurt alongside carrot sticks and pita bread. Thank you to Ruth and her Israeli relatives for the inspiration.

Ingredients

3 cups of dried garbanzo beans picked over and soaked overnight in plenty of cold salted water.

4 cups of clean, loosely packed spinach

Fresh cilantro (I used a good handful of stems and leaves)

3 cloves of garlic

1 big, heaped tablespoon of tahini (or any other kind of nut butter you like)

the juice of 1 big lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Drain the garbanzo beans and set aside.

Buzz all of the spinach cilantro and garlic in a food processor or blender until everything is combined into a vibrantly emerald pulp, chunky is not a problem.

Add the garbanzos, tahini and lemon juice to the garlicky spinach and cilantro in two batches and pulse lightly until the beans are just fully combined with the veggies.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Form them into patties and fry them in a tablespoon or so of olive oil over generous heat for about three or four minutes per side or until crisply golden and deeply fragrant.

Done.

Now you can eat your raw, vegan, gluten-free chickpea patties for supper.  

A new year of green, growing things. A new place to share news from the garden, recipes, jokes, stories and learn what's what in that beautifully, brimming CSA box.