Author Archives: local kitchen

Ramp Powder

5 June 2015 by local kitchen

A couple of weeks ago, I took a sunny drive out to Holbrook Farm and picked up what had to be the last ramps of the season: they were huge, with big, fat bulbs, and the slightly yellow-green leaves that say the end of ramp season is nigh. It’s been a busy Spring, and my visits to the farm have been few and far between, so it’s just possible that I picked up everything else in the store as well. […]

Categories: 100% local, drying, leek, preserving, spring • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, ramps, recipes

Spring Wheat Berry Salad with Lemon Sumac Dressing

29 May 2015 by local kitchen

Variety is the spice of life. Or so they say. But if so, it’s funny how often we stick to the tried & true, the comfortable familiarity of our regular routine. There are over 4,000 varieties of potato, 40,000 of rice, 30,000 varieties of wheat alone. How many varieties have you had lately? I’ve never cooked wheat berries at home. I’ve had them, of course; at restaurants, at potlucks, at the Whole Foods salad bar. But not often, surely. And […]

Categories: citrus, grains & legumes, mint, peas, salad, side dish, spring, vegetarian • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, vegetarian

Blueberry Meyer Lemon Cake

8 May 2015 by local kitchen

See that cake up there? That was my breakfast. No one, including me, should try to tell you that cake is a nutritious option for breakfast – there is plenty of butter and sugar in there, after all, and those two aren’t exactly nutrient dense. Strangely enough, however, despite my rather non-nutritionally-stellar breakfast, I haven’t “crashed” this afternoon (fiber in whole grains delays absorption of simple carbohydrates and prevents spikes in insulin), I have managed to perform complex mathematical equations […]

Categories: baking, berries, breakfast, cake, citrus, dessert, snack, spring, summer, whole wheat flour • Tags: baking, cake, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes

Lemony White Bean & Fennel Soup

3 May 2015 by local kitchen

When life gives you lemons….. make soup! The lovely Karen, Orchard Mistress Supreme at Lemon Ladies Orchard in Northern California, sent me a little gift box of Meyer lemons in the mail last week (as well as some of her amazing Santa Rosa plum jam). And I’ll tell you, in a year that has so far included birth and death, travel and tribulation, shoveling and shoveling and shoveling some more, months spent away from home, broken bones and broken water […]

Categories: beans, heirloom beans, soup • Tags: beans, cooking, fennel, food, local, Meyer lemon, recipes, soup

Stainless Steel Food Storage: A MightyNest Giveaway!

27 April 2015 by local kitchen

This post is in partnership with MightyNest, the online retailer with a positive mission: providing the natural, organic, and non-toxic products that families seek for their homes while also giving back to schools. MightyNest is sponsoring the giveaway and provided a set of the materials to me for review. True confessions: When MightyNest first contacted me about teaming up for a giveaway of stainless steel food storage containers, my first response was, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Don’t get me wrong: […]

Categories: giveaway, storage • Tags: food storage, giveaway, stainless steel

How to Build a Basic Frittata

23 April 2015 by local kitchen

A good friend of mine had her second child back in March, a 9 lb 6 oz, 23-inch bundle of joy named Jordan. Since her first child is a daughter at the fun-but-exhausting age of 4 years old, I had promised ages ago that I would come down to her digs in Maryland and help her when the new baby was born. I was down in the DC area for three weeks, and while I managed to take in a […]

Categories: 100% local, cheese, eggs, herbs, year round • Tags: cooking, eggs, food, local, recipes

Kami’s Cake 2015: Jimmie Cake!

10 April 2015 by local kitchen

Jimmies, people. Not sprinkles, not shots: jimmies. Said in your best South Park Timmy voice: jim-MAH. I went simple with the Kami Birthday Cake this year: 2 layers, basic cream cheese frosting, and lots and lots of jimmies. I opted for a quick-baking, no muss, no fuss chocolate layer cake from Molly at my name is yeh, though I swapped out hazelnuts for pecans because I’m ornery. And I was out of hazelnuts. [Though I will make that chocolate hazelnut […]

Categories: baking, cake, chocolate, citrus, year round • Tags: baking, cake, cooking, food, local, recipes

Oatmeal Cookies with Molasses & Bacon Fat

8 March 2015 by local kitchen

Bacon fat. In cookies. Why I have never done this before? It seems so obvious, especially with a cast of characters that is comfortable with the savory side of life: eggs, butter, flour, oats. I’m surely not the first person to think of this, as a quick Google will show you, but it seems it took the never-ending winter of 2015 to push me into Bacon Fat Cookieland. For that, my friends, we must offer up thanks. Thanks for the […]

Categories: baking, chocolate, dessert, nuts, snack, whole wheat flour, winter, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, recipes

Homemade Curry Powder

25 February 2015 by local kitchen

It’s a well known fact that the hardest part of making curry powder at home is digging the various whole spices out of whatever wacky spice storage solution you’ve got working. Especially when said spice storage solution involves a shoulder-deep cabinet with only one shelf, a door that will stay open only if propped on a wooden spoon, and is packed to the gills with pantry staples. But, once you bite the bullet and drag the Maldon salt, matcha, peppermint […]

Categories: condiments, quick & easy, year round • Tags: cooking, food, Indian, local, quick & easy, recipes

Cauliflower, Lentil & Rice Salad

9 February 2015 by local kitchen

Greetings from snowy, snowy Massachusetts. While I hear that very little in the way of snow is hitting the ground at home in New York, here in Gloucester, MA, the latest winter storm to assault the Northeast is alive and kicking. Hard. I’ve been here in my hometown, visiting my mother for a few days while she recuperates from a broken ankle (#snowmaggedon2015 strikes again!), and apparently the universe wants me to stay a few more days. Because I’m a […]

Categories: cauliflower, cilantro, citrus, cranberries, fall, nuts, rice, salad, side dish, vegetarian, winter • Tags: cooking, food, gluten free, local, recipes, vegan, vegetarian

Whole Wheat Citrus Cookies

29 January 2015 by local kitchen

Winter, and especially “historically epic” snow storms that are a total bust, requires citrus. And cookies. Or maybe the best of both worlds: citrus cookies. Now a glazed lemon cookie is hardly revolutionary. There are already 62 million recipes (no, really!) out there in the wide, wide world. But a couple of things make these cookies a bit unique: first, I made them with whole wheat flour. And that doesn’t mean that I added a ¼ cup of whole wheat flour […]

Categories: citrus, dessert, snack, whole wheat flour, winter • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes

Meyer Lemon Quichelets

21 January 2015 by local kitchen

Big box of Meyer lemons in the mail = Meyer lemon in EVERYTHING. For a few precious weeks, at least. This year is no exception: aside from the usual Meyer lemon in tea, in fizzy water, and in various boozier concoctions, I’ve roasted cauliflower & fennel with a couple of sliced Meyers, marinated chicken breasts in Meyer juice then broiled them with still more sliced lemon, perked up a chicken, black bean & vegetable soup, and made a Meyer version […]

Categories: appetizer, cheese, citrus, eggs, fennel, pastry, vegetarian, winter • Tags: cooking, eggs, food, local, recipes, starters, vegetarian

Cranberry, Chèvre & Pistachio Terrine

16 January 2015 by local kitchen

Back in the Fall, the folks at Lava sent me a bunch of their cast iron cookware to try. And even though a bunch of free cast iron sounds great on the face of it, initially I was leery: I told them that I’d be happy to test out their stuff, but that if I didn’t like it, I would not offer a giveaway nor recommend it to my readers; i.e. they were not going to buy my good opinion […]

Categories: appetizer, cheese, cranberries, holiday, nuts, winter • Tags: cooking, food, holiday, local, recipes, starters

Black Bean Enchiladas

6 January 2015 by local kitchen

Yes, I’m well aware that you don’t need me to tell you how to make enchiladas. There are plenty of people who are far more versed in Mexican food than I. If you Google “enchiladas” you’ll get about eleventy billion hits before this one shows up. But that’s all good, because I’m not really here to tell you how to make enchiladas. I’m not here to sell you on a 30-minute “quick & easy” version, a 7-hour “authentic” version, the […]

Categories: beans, cheese, main course, tomatoes, vegetarian, winter • Tags: beans, cooking, food, local, recipes, vegetarian