Every vegetable in this salad should be available fresh and local from mid to late summer. This salad would be tasty alongside fresh trout, striped bass or salmon or tuna or swordfish (choose the body of water closest to where you live). The tarragon in this light dressing is a perfect match for both the…
Delicious Bites
Cooking Turnips
Turnips can be boiled, steamed, and stir-fried. Cook turnips until they are just tender-crunchy–less than seven minutes or so for a young turnip. The flavor will be mildly sweet and crisp. Steamed and boiled. Toss steamed small turnips with butter and parsley and serve. Boiled turnips can be mashed with butter and cream or puréed…
Borlotti Beans: Kitchen Basics
Just tender cooked borlotti beans–often called cranberry beans–are a tasty late summer snack. Use your thumb to pop open the fresh-picked speckled pods, place a few handfuls of beans in a skillet and cover with just an inch of water; add a couple of cloves of garlic, pepper corns, and fresh sage, and simmer…
Cubanelle Peppers
The cubanelle sweet pepper is tasty lightly roasted and served on a summer sandwich or green salad. Core and seed three or four of the long tapered cubanelles and place them on the grill or about five inches below the oven broiler element and cook until the skins blister and char on each side,…
Sautéed Chard
Chard leaves have a hearty, yet mild spinach flavor. Chard stalks have a delicate, celery-like taste and crunch. To get a bit of both flavors and texture sauté chard for 2 to 3 minutes after slicing leaves and stalks together crosswise. Here’s how we sautéed our just picked from the garden chard to match with…
Blueberry-Zweiback Crumble
Here is a recipe for a blueberry crumble that will be prepared and out of the oven in 40 minutes, that’s not counting the time passed in the garden picking the blueberries. This recipe is so simple. The hardest part was picking up a box of zweiback crackers–which means heading to the baby section at…
Aprium-Peach Cobbler
The fruit cobbler has an interesting history. It was invented in America sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century. Where is not exactly clear; some say the midwest; others say the west. The names of American cobblers are a study in themselves: the Betty, the Grunt, the Slump, the Buckle, and the Sonker. And…
Artichokes and Mint Side Salad
Thin sliced baby artichoke hearts tossed with thin sliced mint leaves, a bit of chopped garlic, fresh lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese makes a tasty side salad. Baby artichokes are plentiful in spring. Artichokes are actually flower buds. You want to pick them while they are still tightly…
English Peas, Spring Onions and Roasted Almonds
Just cooked English peas, sautéd spring onions and roasted, salted almonds are a delicious combination of tender sweet, sweet pungent, and crunchy just salty. You can set this side dish next to grilled fish or chicken or mashed potatoes and a roast. It’s not too filling yet will holds its own. English peas and spring…
Cooking Garden Peas
How do you cook peas? Peas are cooked in the least possible amount of water and in just the time for them to become just tender. The French cook peas in the water it takes to moisten lettuce leaves. Line a saucepan with damp greens and a few pea pods, pour in the shelled peas…
