July 2011

10-Minute Sour Cherry Bam!

31 July 2011 by local kitchen

You would think I would learn. (You would be wrong.) After my last run-in with shriveled fingertip sour cherries, I decided to make another attempt at cherry jam, this time just a straight-up sour cherry (a little bit of lemon, a little bit of sugar) and a minimal maceration, overnight, banking on the fact that it was the week-long maceration that caused the color-leach in my last sour cherry preserving attempt. Well, don’t take that piece of preserving wisdom to […]

Categories: 100% local, cherries, jams, preserves, preserving, quick & easy, summer • Tags: cherries, condiments, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Use It or Lose It! Jam + Cream Cheese Frosting

27 July 2011 by local kitchen

Nearly every year, I make at least two birthday cakes: one is for my friend Kami, a practically-grown-up girl of seven this April, and one is for Kami’s mother Nadine, who as of last weekend was old enough to have a seven year-old daughter but young enough to squeal with glee at the thought of birthday cake. I’ve had my trials (who can forget the Great Kami’s Birthday Cake Debacle of ’09) and my successes (the orange mousseline buttercream cake turned out particularly lovely) […]

Categories: baking, cake, cheese, dessert, jams, Use it or Lose it!, year round • Tags: baking, cake, cooking, dessert, food, frosting, local, quick & easy, recipes

Strawberry, Lemon & Rosemary Scones

25 July 2011 by local kitchen

On this blessedly cool and rainy Monday it’s a relief to get back in my kitchen after the doldrums of Hotpocalypse Week. And what better way to celebrate a return to baking weather than a scone? A little sweet, a little savory, and made with the very tail end of the season’s strawberries, there’s just nothing not to like about these little babies. But the best part? They’re not popsicles. Happy rainy Monday! Adapted from my Cranberry-Orange Scones, originally adapted from […]

Categories: berries, breakfast, rosemary, snack, spring, summer, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: baking, berries, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, strawberries

Blueberry Vodka

22 July 2011 by local kitchen

Another beat-the-heat recipe, this one in the fruit + booze category (always a winner): blueberry vodka. Ice, ice (baby) cold blueberry vodka. This one couldn’t be easier and is a perfect way to preserve those blueberries you picked last weekend but haven’t been able to bear turning on the stove to jam. Easy-peasy: dump them in some vodka and call it a day. Some of the quickest, and tastiest, preserving you’ll ever do. My “recipe” was inspired by Sean of Punk […]

Categories: berries, drink, preserving, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: berries, booze, food, infusions, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Crock-Pot Roasted Chicken

20 July 2011 by local kitchen

It’s hot. Really hot. Maybe you’ve noticed? The 90+ degree days, the sticky, oppressive humidity, the languid, heavy-as-a-blanket air? While our friends in the Pacific Northwest shiver in the fog and rain, wondering if summer will ever come, here in the Northeast we are suffocating under a heatwave that is only the beginning: weather forecasts call for increasing heat & humidity until Sunday. I’m a Northern girl, of Northern peoples: my Scottish, Irish and Finnish grandparents did not provide me […]

Categories: chicken, citrus, crock-pot, main course, rosemary, summer, thyme, year round • Tags: chicken, cooking, crock-pot, food, local, recipes

Sour Cherry, Balsamic and Vanilla: Syrup & Leather

18 July 2011 by local kitchen

The all-too-short cherry season was even shorter in the Hudson Valley this year: many farms lost most, if not all, of their entire crop due to a rainy Spring preventing pollination (bees do not buzz about doing their pollinating duties in the rain), and causing fruit to drop and split. I managed to squeeze some cherry picking into a busy 4th of July weekend but I traveled far afield to do so, to Belltown Hill Orchards in Glastonbury, CT (thanks to @fixmeasnack on […]

Categories: cherries, drying, preserving, snack, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes, summer

100% Local: Lettuce Soup

13 July 2011 by local kitchen

Lettuce soup? Really? I know. It sounds like something out of Willy Wonka or Oliver Twist. But when faced with six heads of lettuce in the fridge, a seeming million green salads, and lettuce wraps for dinner every night for a week, a girl’s got to push her lettuce boundaries (or buy a rabbit). It’s also one of the few ways I can think of to preserve lettuce, while we are in the height of the early summer bounty, because […]

Categories: 100% local, chives, lettuce, soup, spring, summer, thyme • Tags: cooking, food, lettuce, local, quick & easy, recipes, soup

Strawberry Jam with Mint, Basil & Habanero

10 July 2011 by local kitchen

It’s cruel to do this to you, I know, since strawberries are long gone in most parts of America. But I still have some fresh, local strawberries in the fridge (albeit they are starting to look a little peaky), and they are just coming into full season for our friends in the North. If you are one of the lucky ones that still has fresh strawberries in your neighborhood, or one of the industrious ones who put-up a few pounds in […]

Categories: basil, berries, canning, hot chile peppers, jams, mint, preserving • Tags: berries, canning, chiles, food, local, preserving, recipes, strawberries

Crispy Pork with Rhubarb Sauce

7 July 2011 by local kitchen

As if rhubarbaritas weren’t reason enough, I’m here to give you another excuse for squirreling away as much seasonal rhubarb as you can get your paws on: Crispy Pork with Rhubarb Sauce. The recipe was somewhat loosely adapted from this one by Jamie Oliver, who, now that I have made two of his recipes, I am declaring a genius: this dish is that good. A not-very-exciting cut of pork (he used pork belly, while I had a pound of Flying […]

Categories: herbs, lettuce, main course, pork, rhubarb, scallions, spring, summer, year round • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, jamie oliver, local, pork, recipes, rhubarb

Strawberry: Whole Berry Preserves

4 July 2011 by local kitchen

I know that most of you are beyond strawberry season and are thinking about blueberries, raspberries and even peaches; however, life got in the way of my strawberry ambitions this year and I just managed to squeak some picking into the tail end of the New York season. Because we were at the very end of the season, we ended up picking a lot of teeny, tiny strawberries: larger ones were already picked, or had rotted on the ground, but […]

Categories: berries, canning, preserves, preserving, spring, summer • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, food, local, pasta, preserving, recipes, strawberries