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Cucumber & Fennel Salad with Cuban Oregano

17 July 2015 by local kitchen

Do you remember that funky Cuban oregano plant I picked up a couple of months ago? The crazy I’m-an-herb-but-also-a-succulent plant? Well, it’s been growing like gangbusters in this New York summer of plenty of sun and lots of rain. I’ve been sort of loathe to touch it: with my black thumb, if a plant is doing well, I find it’s best to just sit back and stay out of its way. But I finally broke down, trimmed a couple of stems, […]

Categories: cucumber, fennel, herbs, oregano, salad, summer, vegetarian • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, salad

Tailgate Mac & Cheese

12 July 2015 by local kitchen

Although the excitement of the Women’s World Cup reached a fever pitch with the US win, I’ve kept the soccer travels to a minimum this summer. After spending a good chunk of last summer in Brazil, I’m happy to watch more of my soccer on TV this year and focus my energies on other things: friends, family, cleaning the dad-blasted garage. But when the Gold Cup schedule came out and I saw that the US men’s team were scheduled to play […]

Categories: 100% local, cheese, kale & leafy greens, main course, oregano, pasta, vegetarian, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, pasta, recipes, soccer, tailgating, vegetarian

Strawberry Habanero Margarita Mix

2 July 2015 by local kitchen

Are you looking for a spicy, seasonally-appropriate, festaholic cocktail to kick off your holiday weekend? One that quickly & easily dispatches five of the 28 pounds of celebratory strawberries you picked at the farm last week? One that is so aggressively spicy that your husband takes one sip, carefully slides the glass out of his reach and coughs, “It’s very… um… you.” Of course you are! This preserve started out as a jam, but as the mixture of strawberries, sugar, […]

Categories: berries, canning, drink, preserving, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Simple Strawberry Skillet Jam

29 June 2015 by local kitchen

It’s that time of year again: the time when I’m buying an armful of rhubarb, or a flat of berries, or pound after pound of peaches, and some innocent, unsuspecting stranger asks brightly, “What are you going to make?” The reactions I get when I tell people that I make jam run the full gamut from Stewie to serious side eye to the Patrick Stewart quadruple take. At the farmer’s market last summer, one woman even told me, “Girl, ain’t nobody […]

Categories: berries, preserving, summer • Tags: berries, food, local, recipes, summer

Mini Rhubarb Pie

13 June 2015 by local kitchen

Mini pie! Though they can be a bit tough to find, I love my mini, 7-inch pie plates. I have two, actually: one in the classic heron pattern used by Tai’s Uncle Charlie at Hog Bay Pottery, and one deep-dish 7-inch by Emile Henry that I snagged years ago at a little shop in Bedford Village. And they are not so mini, really: a quarter of the pie is still a hefty serving, and with ice cream the pie could […]

Categories: baking, dessert, pie, rhubarb, spring, whole wheat flour • Tags: baking, cooking, food, local, recipes, rhubarb

Spring Poached Chicken & Vegetables

10 June 2015 by local kitchen

The weather has been simply glorious in New York, hasn’t it? Especially if you are a plant: misty, rainy mornings, hot, sunny afternoons, cool, crisp evenings. It’s like garden Nirvana out there, and even this black thumb can’t keep the plants on the back deck from overflowing with joy. It’s a perfect time, then, to try out this oddbin little recipe from Jamie Oliver: a whole chicken, poached in water flavored with herbs, vegetables, and the chicken itself. Nothing more […]

Categories: 100% local, chicken, main course, spring • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, local, recipes

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

Local cooking and eating in New York's Hudson Valley.

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