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…
Summer Recipes
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 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….
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…
Baby Beets. Baby Carrots and Sugar Snap Peas Salad
Sweet and smooth baby beets–red, yellow, and orange–added to sugary sugar snap peas and sweet baby carrots tossed with a tangy orange zest dressing and you have a seasonal salad that says Spring! You’ll have to search to find someone who doesn’t like this salad. Baby beets, sugar snap peas, and baby carrots will hit…
Grilled Portobello Salad
Autumn into early winter is a great time to find fresh savory salad greens. Arugula is still in the market now and mustard, mizuna, and cress are easily found from late autumn to early spring. Cultivated mushrooms, such as the portobello, are easy to find year round, but their peak natural season is fall and…
Oven Grilled Portobello Mushrooms
The portobello mushroom is a large brown mushroom. It’s immature self–a small brown mushroom–is called a crimini mushroom and sometimes baby bella. In France, the portobello is called champignon de Paris. Champignon is the French word for fungus. In the wild the common brown mushroom can have a cap that grows 2 to 4 inches…
Green Beans with Garlic
Here is a simple recipe for les haricots verts à l’ail or green beans with garlic. Serve this simple side dish with pasta, chicken, steak, or salmon. This recipe comes from La Cuisine du Comté de Nice by Jacques Médecin. Médecin was the mayor of Nice and also a chef in that city for many…
Mint Tisane
Tisane is a tea like drink made by steeping a single herb or a mixture of several herbs in boiling water. Flowers and spices can be added. Tisane is the French term for a restorative herbal tea. Popular tisanes include chamomile, scented geranium, linden, jasmine, lemon verbena, hibiscus, and rose hip. The peppermint you use…