LET THE ONSLAUGHT BEGIN—of garden-fresh vegetables, I mean. The trick when it does: keeping up with every last one, getting it onto the table or into the freezer, canning jars or dehydrator in time. I’m offering three chances to win my favorite references on canning, preserving, freezing—all the ways to put up the harvest for delicious future reference: “Stocking Up III,” “Putting Foods By,” and the USDA guide to home canning. Meantime, though, a reference guide to my favorite online sources for food-preservation information anytime. [read more…]
recipes & cooking
"Margaret lets the garden tell her what to eat," a food-blogger friend said recently, and that is true, since I grow edibles to eat fresh in season and also can, freeze and store for offseason use. From heirloom baked beans to refrigerator pickles and peach clafoutis, some of my favorites--along with preserving and storage tips--can be found here.
canning-book giveaway, and top canning sources
July 26, 2011 at 12:54 pm
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farm-fresh peaches, frozen to perfection
July 6, 2011 at 12:00 pm
AFRIEND WITH AN OLD PEACH TREE made me a beneficiary of too many fruits to keep up with one bumper-crop year, and into the freezer some went. But in my overzealous drive to avoid added sugar in my diet, I made an error that affected the quality and storage life of the frozen fruit—a mistake I didn’t make again. For this week’s installment of the collaborative recipe-swap called Summer Fest 2011, tactics for freezing farm-fresh peaches this summer, so you can make some of the recipes from my food-blogging friends anytime you please. Or maybe you have a peach recipe to share with us? Recipes, and details, at the end of the jump page. [read more…]
garlic scapes: out of the garden, onto the menu
June 19, 2011 at 10:23 am
GARLIC SCAPES ARE ON THE MENU THIS MONTH, courtesy of a garden that’s also featuring peas, tender salads and a delicious, if dwindling, final week or so of asparagus. But what to do with this latest offering? A sautee, perhaps, and also some pesto for future reference sound just right to me. [read more…]
peas lost to pests: recipes for dinner + disaster
June 15, 2011 at 1:01 pm
APPARENTLY THE WOODCHUCK HAD READ EMILY DICKINSON (“How luscious lies the pea within the pod“) and, feeling moved, lumbered down from the hill to have his way with them. So had the chipmunks, though they didn’t wait as long—they’ll devour seed straight out of the soil in March, before it sprouts. They’ll even dig for it, as the befuddled gardener stands looking at a row with no signs of life, wondering why: outdated seed; foul weather; kidnapping; or is there still hope? With all this competition, when do I get some peas around here this year? How I tried to avoid a recipe for disaster, and better yet: recipes from my foodie friends for peas, the crop sweetly straddling the cusp of spring-into-summer. [read more…]
canning-jar giveaway, and produce-stashing tips
May 23, 2011 at 12:12 pm
AS I PLANT MY PARSLEY, PICK ASPARAGUS and get ready for tomato transplant time, it gets me thinking about tomorrow (as in “the offseason”) when my Northern garden doesn’t offer up so much food as it will the next few months. No worry, because I am a hoarder—of fresh garden and farmer’s-market produce (though not on sagging shelves like that 1940 Farm Security Administration slide, above!). Plan now to grow, or acquire, enough for extended enjoyment, using my top 17 tips, and maybe using one of two four sets (update: response has been so huge I had to get more!) of six snazzy Weck canning jars (below) that I bought to share with you, too. Feeling lucky? [read more…]
making sweet order of mouth-puckering rhubarb
May 4, 2011 at 1:01 pm
THERE ARE NO STRAWBERRIES WHEN THE FIRST SLENDER RHUBARB comes in here about now, so how the two got forever linked as pie filling, I don’t know. But with a little planning, the choicest, tender early stalks can be waiting in suspended animation for those juiciest fruits—and any later rhubarb-laced combinations you concoct, including cocktails. How to make sweet, long-lasting order of the pucker-up vegetable we think of as a fruit, with recipes from some foodie friends: [read more…]
growing, cooking & stashing asparagus: 12 don’ts
April 20, 2011 at 1:00 pm
IT’S A DEFINING MOMENT: the first asparagus spear of a new garden year. To make asparagus season all the more productive and delicious, from garden to table to freezer, I gathered my list of a dozen no-no’s to avoid with this long-lived but short-season crop. It’s my contribution to the kickoff of Spring Fling, a cross-blog recipe and tip swap with some foodie friends that will happen twice-monthly into June: [read more…]
giveaway: heidi swanson’s ‘super natural’ recipes
April 7, 2011 at 1:11 pm
IT HAS ALL THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS TO TEMPT ME: A well-stocked pantry of whole foods; a vegetarian approach; an author as seductive with her keyboard and camera as with her combinations of flavors, colors and textures. So when my copy of 101 Cookbooks [dot] com creator Heidi Swanson’s latest volume of recipes arrived this week, I dug in—and then quickly bought two more copies of “Super Natural Every Day” to share with you (details on how to win at the bottom of the jump page). [read more…]
recipe: baking up some heirloom beans
April 3, 2011 at 2:47 pm
IMADE VEGETARIAN BAKED BEANS WITH MARTHA STEWART recently on her television show, one of the more out-of-body experiences of my relatively quiet current life. Since then, a lot of you have written in to ask for the recipe, and the source of the heirloom beans I use. Your wish is my command…although it had to wait till I made another batch so I could take some photos before answering, sorry. [read more…]
