Category Archives: sauces

Pirate Peaches

17 August 2010 by local kitchen

An oldie but a goodie, I’ve made this peach rum sauce for three years running and it always disappears quickly. This is the first year, however, that I’ve used The Kraken rum, yet – how could I resist? Not only does it conjure up images of sandy beaches, swaying palms, and swoon-worthy pirates, it happens to be delicious. Added to peaches and three kinds of unrefined sugar? It’s delectable. Enjoy it on ice cream, over pound cake or cheesecake. Have […]

Categories: canning, dessert, peaches, preserving, sauces, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Seared Tomato Sauce

15 August 2010 by local kitchen

The third in my series of recipe reviews from The Lost Art of Real Cooking, by Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger (A Perigee Book, published by the Penguin Group), this recipe, another sauce from Ken Albala, was intriguing from the get-go. The recipe, Fresh Tomato Sauce, in Chapter 2, Fresh Vegetables and Legumes, starts off with: “This sauce probably defies everything you have ever read about a good tomato sauce.” With the gauntlet thus thrown, I could hardly avoid taking up the challenge, […]

Categories: main course, quick & easy, rosemary, sauces, summer, tomatoes, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, tomatoes

Peach Chocolate Dessert Sauce

10 August 2010 by local kitchen

Peach chocolate sauce, the first of many peach preserves to come, rolled out of the canner this morning at far-too-early o’clock. In case you missed the discussion on Twitter, Tai, Alison & I went peach picking at Fishkill Farms on Sunday. It was hot & sunny, then it rained, then it was hot & sunny again. We picked, and picked, and then picked some more: 40 lbs of peaches later (and 2 quarts of nectarines, and 3 quarts of Italian plums, […]

Categories: canning, chocolate, dessert, peaches, preserving, sauces, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

Jamaican Jerk Sauce

3 August 2010 by local kitchen

Last week, when I whined about discussed my scallion overload with y’all (you know I’ve been reading The Bloggess too much when I bust out the y’alls), my friend Weber King suggested that I make jerk sauce, as it uses up a lot of scallions. (Y’all should go visit his blog; maybe that would convince him to update it more than once every 3 months). Hands up if you knew that jerk sauce was made primarily of scallions: I had no […]

Categories: condiments, grill, hot chile peppers, preserving, sauces, scallions, summer, thyme, year round • Tags: condiments, cooking, food, grilling, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Swazi Sauce

10 July 2010 by local kitchen

Like my fellow foodie bloggers, I was delighted to return from South Africa to an email in my in-box inviting me to review The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Traditional Food One Recipe at a Time, by Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger (A Perigee Book, published by the Penguin Group). A full review will follow, but first, I felt that I couldn’t in good faith review a cookbook, even a memoir-type cookbook, without attempting at least some […]

Categories: chicken, grill, main course, sauces, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, grilling, local, recipes

Can Jam: Strawberry Rhubarb Amaretto Sauce

20 May 2010 by local kitchen

I had all sorts of plans for this month’s Can Jam: rhubarb fig jam, a macerated, jewel-like rhubarb a la Mme. Ferber, rhubarb with local white wine, rhubarb with last summer’s frozen blackberries… the possibilities were nearly endless. And then: I got a huge assignment from a client, my computer promptly exploded and I spent most of a week either 1) on the phone with Dell, 2) at Best Buy purchasing new laptop, 3) on the phone with Best Buy/Geek […]

Categories: berries, Can Jam, canning, condiments, preserving, rhubarb, sauces, spring, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes, rhubarb, sauce, strawberries

Sunday Spring Cleaning: Sweet & Soy Asian Grilled Chicken

11 April 2010 by local kitchen

Suppose you made some jam. And suppose that jam was way, way too sweet for you. But, it took three days to make, and used the Last Fall Pumpkin, and you’re a Yankee, so, you can’t just get rid of it. You can give some away; but since the jam is way (way) too sweet for you, and the people who like your jams mostly like the ones that you usually make (which are way, way less sweet), well… the […]

Categories: chicken, grill, sauces, summer • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes

Dark Days: Pancake FAIL

2 January 2010 by local kitchen

We’ve had many guests over the holidays and we’ve made quite a few pancake breakfasts. Tai has made a couple of batches, I’ve made a couple of batches, and while I would not say our pancakes are outstanding, they are generally pretty good (and anything that you can drown in Ronnybrook butter and New England Farms natural maple syrup can’t be all bad). In fact, Tai made a batch just yesterday, for our friends Erik & Melissa, who came up from Philly […]

Categories: 100% local, berries, breakfast, Dark Days Local, sauces, whole wheat flour, winter, year round • Tags: breakfast, cooking, food, local, recipes

Cranberry Sauce with Rosemary & Juniper Berry

12 December 2009 by local kitchen

This is a beautiful sauce, a gorgeous cranberry color flecked with deep purple bits of juniper berry. The juniper gives a hint of piney bite to the sauce while the rosemary adds a mellow, savory note. And I got to use the oh-so-cute, short & squat Ball Elite jars that I found up in Maine (they are impossible to find near me). The recipe is an amalgamation of several cranberry sauce recipes I’ve tried in the last couple of years, but was mainly inspired by this […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, cranberries, fall, holiday, preserving, rosemary, sauces, wine, beer & liquor, winter • Tags: canning, condiments, cooking, cranberry, food, local, preserving, recipes

Tzatziki

21 September 2009 by local kitchen

I’ve had a massive craving for good Greek food lately. What happened was this: Tai & I stole a day out of our crazy schedules to go climbing last week. We spent a gorgeous Tuesday afternoon on the cliffs of the Gunks, up in New Paltz, NY. Before heading home, we decided to try a new Mediterranean restaraunt in town. Well, the most I can say is that is was disappointing. Not horrible food, per se, but totally tasteless; for […]

Categories: cucumber, dill, fall, sauces, side dish, summer • Tags: cooking, food, Greek, local, quick & easy, recipes, sauces, summer

Peach Cascabel BBQ Sauce

11 September 2009 by local kitchen

Cascabel peppers, also known as chile bola or rattle chiles, because of the way the seeds rattle around inside the small round dried pepper, grow wild on the Pacific coast of Central America and Mexico. In this country, you generally only find the dried peppers, or sometimes the ground powder. Last winter I bought a bag from Penzey’s, intent on making some recipe or other, which I apparently never made, so I had a mostly full bag of these little […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, hot chile peppers, peaches, preserving, sauces, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Tomato Sauce with Fresh Basil

9 September 2009 by local kitchen

Tomatoes have been scarce this year in the Northeast, so cheap, local tomatoes have been a bit of a pipe dream. But after a long holiday weekend of climbing with friends at the Gunks, Tai & I moseyed our way home on backroads to beat the traffic. In addition to a much more pleasant ride home, we got to stop at Dressel Farms in New Paltz and pick up some of their tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, Bartlett pears, Honeycrisp apples, and […]

Categories: 100% local, basil, canning, preserving, sauces, summer, tomatoes • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Flaming Wing Sauce

28 August 2009 by local kitchen

Yet another great way to preserve tomatoes, especially when you are not in the mood for the usual suspects. This recipe has the benefit of limited prep time; no peeling or food milling of the tomatoes required, not nearly as much chopping as a pasta sauce or salsa, and can be easily doubled or tripled if you have a lot of tomatoes on hand. There is a long list of ingredients, but most of them are spices and the measuring […]

Categories: canning, hot chile peppers, preserving, sauces, summer, tomatoes • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, tomatoes

Classic Bruschetta

19 August 2009 by local kitchen

Bruschetta is one of those dishes: it has as many variations as cooks who make it. I’ve seen recipes with bell peppers, capers, anchovies, olives, sage & thyme, cilantro and chives. In the end, I prefer a classic combination: fresh off the vine, sun-ripened tomatoes, garlic, shallot and basil. Since there are so few ingredients it’s imperative that each of them be at the peak of quality: I like this dish best with my own garden tomatoes, harvested in the afternoon when […]

Categories: 100% local, appetizer, basil, sauces, summer, tomatoes, vegetarian • Tags: appetizers, cooking, food, Italian, local, recipes, sides, tomatoes

Spicy Plum Sauce

4 August 2009 by local kitchen

I went over my friend Nadine’s last week; in addition to her birthday celebration, it was her turn to volunteer at her weekly CSA pick-up, and I had a play-date with her daughter Kami. When she returned from finishing up the CSA, she was nice enough to bring me lots of leftovers; chard, basil, scallions, anise, plums and peaches. I made a version of this plum sauce two years ago, using Damson plums from Jenkins-Luekens Orchards in New Paltz, NY. It […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, condiments, fruit, peaches, plums, preserving, sauces, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes