Category Archives: 100% local

Dark Days: Pan-Fried Gnocchi with Roasted Pumpkin Seed Oil

13 December 2010 by local kitchen

I’m participating, along with a whole lot of other bloggers, in (not so) Urban Hennery’s Dark Days Challenge again this year: the challenge being to eat one meal a week that is made exclusively from SOLE (sustainable, organic, local & ethical) ingredients and to blog about it. Since local eating, and with that, sustainable, organic, humane and ethical eating, is the norm around here, the challenge for me is to make more 100% local meals, without any of my standard exceptions (olive oil, […]

Categories: 100% local, appetizer, Dark Days Local, main course, quick & easy, scallions, stir-fry, winter, winter squash, year round • Tags: cooking, food, gnocchi, local, pasta, pumpkin, quick & easy, recipes, vegetarian

White Bean & Roasted Turkey Soup

2 December 2010 by local kitchen

Heirloom beans, roasted Thanksgiving turkey, aromatics and sage = one delicious soup. Are you as tired of turkey as I am? While I do love the big bird, seven days straight and my body is screaming for a green salad, crisp, crunchy vegetables and anything-but-meat. So what do I do? Make soup, of course. Hear me out – it makes more sense than you think. I didn’t make it to the market last weekend, since we had so much food […]

Categories: 100% local, beans, carrot, fall, heirloom beans, potato, sage, soup, turkey, winter • Tags: cooking, fall, food, heirloom beans, leftovers, local, recipes, soup, turkey, winter, yellow eye beans

Locavirgin: Roasted Cauliflower with Bacon

27 November 2010 by local kitchen

So, you get it right, the way this blog works? Every other cooking blog on the planet regales you with Thanksgiving recipes in the weeks prior to the event. Bah, I say. Humbug! Now that everyone else is featuring turkey tacos, turkey tamales and turkey tettrazini, I’ll give you… Thanksgiving dishes! The ones that were on my table. Because, you know that I love to test recipes on the fly (and making any of my Thanksgiving recipes in advance would […]

Categories: 100% local, cauliflower, fall, holiday, Locavirgin, pork, roasting, side dish, winter • Tags: bacon, cauliflower, cooking, fall, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, side dishes

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

25 November 2010 by local kitchen

Categories: 100% local • Tags: thanksgiving

Last Minute Thanksgiving

20 November 2010 by local kitchen

I found out on Monday that I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year. Then I promptly flew to New Orleans for three days. No, I was not running away; I was at a conference, one that was very busy and fun, but this year, seemed particularly ill-timed. Usually, we go up to Maine for Thanksgiving, to visit Tai’s relatives and join in their big, loud, happy day, with 15 of us crammed around one long table, 5 dogs under the table […]

Categories: 100% local, farmer's markets • Tags: cooking, farmer's markets, food, local, recipes, seasonal, thanksgiving

100% Local: Pumpkin Gnocchi

12 November 2010 by local kitchen

These, my friends, are good. I might go so far as to say damn good. I’ve made gnocchi in the past and it’s always been tasty, but it has been rare to achieve a perfect texture. These are not a traditional dense potato gnocchi, which I do enjoy (although I consider them more a vehicle for a fantastic, chunky sauce than a delight all by themselves); these are the fluffy little pillows that are the pinnacle of gnocchi love: a curious combination of al dente and airy that […]

Categories: 100% local, appetizer, cheese, fall, main course, pasta, vegetarian, whole wheat flour, winter, winter squash • Tags: cooking, fall, food, local, pasta, pumpkin, recipes, vegetarian, whole grain, whole wheat

Jalapeno Cornbread

5 November 2010 by local kitchen

I was nearly out of whole wheat pastry flour and, with the holidays approaching, I knew I would need some more, sooner rather than later. I placed an order with Amy at Wild Hive Farm, my wonderful local flour producers, and asked Tai to pick it up on his way home from work. At the last minute, I tacked on a “grab some corn meal, too, OK?” request to my darling hubs, because the last time I made pizza, I realized I […]

Categories: 100% local, baking, breads, corn, grains & legumes, hot chile peppers, side dish, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: baking, bread, cast iron cooking, cooking, corn, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, tex mex, vegetarian, whole grain breads

Use it or Lose it! Roasted Turkey with Plum Preserves

4 November 2010 by local kitchen

Like many of my fellow canning bloggers, I’ve had a lot of requests for recipes that fall into the “What to do with all of that jam?!” category. For me, this is a bit of a conundrum, because I’m not really sure how I use it up: I don’t eat a whole lot of jam on toast (mostly preferring peanut butter); the obvious classics, like a jam tart or thumbprint cookies, aren’t things that I make often; and despite giving some of it away, […]

Categories: 100% local, fall, main course, plums, roasting, sage, turkey, Use it or Lose it!, winter, year round • Tags: cooking, fall, food, main course, plums, preserves, quick & easy, recipes, roasting, turkey, winter

How to Make Pumpkin Purée

2 November 2010 by local kitchen

Now that Halloween is behind us, there will be a lot of pumpkins at the markets going for a song. The best pumpkins for eating are the small, 3 – 4 pound sugar or pie pumpkins. While the large, dark orange Jack o’ lanterns do not make for great eating (they are bred for size and skin color more than juicy, delicious flesh), you can often find larger-than-pie-pumpkin pumpkins and winter squash that are delicious and very economical. I cracked open […]

Categories: 100% local, fall, preserving, techniques, winter squash • Tags: cooking, fall, food, how to, local, preserving, pumpkin, recipes, techniques

Oven-Braised Barbecue Chicken

28 October 2010 by local kitchen

This was my lunch on Tuesday, such a glorious, warm, sunny day that I was compelled, despite a crazy-busy week and a looming analysis deadline, to enjoy it out on the back deck. Because basking in the sun, watching the leaves drift down, and reveling in sticky, messy, moist & delicious, finger-looking good barbecue chicken is soon going away, not to be seen again around these parts for many moons. If I were a Brit, I’d call this recipe “cheap […]

Categories: 100% local, braising, chicken, fall, meat & dairy, sauces, winter, year round • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes

Informal Poll: Name that Blog!

26 October 2010 by local kitchen

So, I need to upgrade the blog soon, because I am running out of disk storage space (can you believe it? It feels like yesterday she was just a wee babe… <sniff>) and I decided it made sense to register my own domain name at the same time; easier than all that .wordpress.com jazz. Naturally, because this is the way that my life goes, http://www.localkitchen.com is taken. Not that it’s a website or anything; someone just has the domain name, […]

Categories: 100% local, community

Rhubarb Strawberry Crumble

16 October 2010 by local kitchen

I know, I know: Local, Seasonal Girl makes out-of-season dessert! Film at 11. Actually, I’ve made this dessert several times since Heidi posted the original recipe back in May, but somehow, I never posted the recipe. Either we were starving and dived right in, or the light was gone, or we had friends over and I didn’t feel like embarrassing myself making them wait while I took 32 pictures of a fruit crumble for the blog. Whatever it was, I finally […]

Categories: 100% local

100% Local: Maine Graple Syrup

11 October 2010 by local kitchen

More goodness from my haul of Concord grapes from Tai’s grandmom Louisa’s Downeast Maine grapevines: grape + maple = graple syrup! This syrup is like Voltaire: if it didn’t exist, someone would have to invent it. Mostly so that someone could run around the house singing “graple, graple, graple, I made you out of clay…graple, graple, graple, with graple I will play!” Until that someone’s husband shakes his head, rolls his eyes, says “You’re insane,” and escapes to the garage. This recipe […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, condiments, fall, foraging, grapes, preserving, sauces, wild foods • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Purple Basil Vinegar

8 October 2010 by local kitchen

Purple basil is a lovely thing: a deep, dark, almost black purple, with that familiar basil flavor & aroma, but just slightly mellower; a little sweeter, a little less grassy, perhaps just a touch more refined. Dare I say regal? Must be the purple. Whenever I get some, I feel I must do something special with it, not just toss it into salads, bruschetta, pasta or pesto like most of the green basil that comes my way. Are you still […]

Categories: 100% local, basil, herbs, preserving, summer, vinegar • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Salsa Rojo

18 September 2010 by local kitchen

A basic red salsa with a nod to Mexico: grilled corn, guajillo chile, cumin and cilantro. Corn in salsa? Why, yes, thank you for noticing. I’m not sure why you never seem to find corn included in salsa recipes, since corn and tomatoes are such a natural pair. Maybe it’s because salsa always seems to be served with corn: corn tortillas, chips, nachos, etc. But I got it into my head to add some of Tai’s delicious grilled corn to […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, cilantro, corn, hot chile peppers, preserving, salsa, summer, tomatoes • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, tomatoes