Category Archives: year round

Bite-Sized Spaghetti Nests with Chard & Bacon

24 June 2011 by local kitchen

I’ve been participating in an informal food photography contest for a couple of months now on professional food photographer Dario Milano’s blog Food Pixels. Our growing crew of bloggers, photographers and foodniks is pretty talented and it’s always interesting to see how different people interpret each ‘assignment.’ The latest contest challenge is “spaghetti:” a broad topic to be sure, but also an interesting photographic challenge, as most spaghetti dishes are messy, saucy, ultra-casual. Since for the last assignment (“brown food“) I […]

Categories: 100% local, appetizer, cheese, holiday, kale & leafy greens, oregano, pasta, pork, year round • Tags: appetizers, bacon, cooking, food, greens, local, pasta, recipes

Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas

15 June 2011 by local kitchen

Whole wheat goodness.

Categories: breads, vegetarian, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: bread, cooking, food, local, Mexican, quick & easy, recipes, vegetarian, whole grain breads

Strawberry Pinot Noir Preserves

16 May 2011 by local kitchen

The Great Freezer Clean-Out 2011 continues: this time with a Ferber-esque strawberry preserve, made with Pennsylvania pinot noir from Sand Castle Winery. I unearthed a giant bag full of strawberries from last June in my freezer assessment of last week. Half the bag went to one of my favorite strawberry recipes, strawberry rhubarb & caramelized onion jam; for the remaining 2 pounds, I wanted to do something new. I poked through Mes Confitures to see what she may have in […]

Categories: berries, canning, preserves, preserving, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: canning, cooking, dessert, food, jam, local, preserving, recipes, spring, strawberries

Use It or Lose It! Meyer Lemon Pork Rolls

10 May 2011 by local kitchen

Earlier this year, when I was busily turning winter’s citrus into marmalades and jams, I lamented to Shae that I was a bit disappointed with my first foray into Meyer lemons. “I mean, they are nice enough,” I said, “but I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. I keep thinking I would like them better if they were more, well, lemony.” Shae responded that Meyers are quite soft-skinned and not as hardy as other citrus fruits, so they lose […]

Categories: citrus, main course, pork, spring, Use it or Lose it!, winter, year round • Tags: cooking, dinner, food, local, main course, pork, recipes

White Bean Pesto Pizza with Linguica & Garlicky Kale

25 April 2011 by local kitchen

When I soaked the cannellini beans for pasta e fagioli last week, I used a whole pound, not thinking about quite how big runner cannellinis get (they are huge once soaked, up to 1 inch long!). I used only half a pound in the soup, so I had a lot of cooked cannellinis in the fridge, waiting for their day in the sun. I don’t know when I first thought of a pizza. I was musing on the idea of […]

Categories: beans, garlic, grains & legumes, heirloom beans, kale & leafy greens, main course, pizza, pork, sausage, spring, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: beans, cooking, food, local, pizza, recipes

Pasta e Fagioli

15 April 2011 by local kitchen

Back in my Boston days, I lived for several years in a tiny (300 square-foot) but adorable apartment in the North End, Boston’s version of Little Italy (but so much more charming, in my opinion, than NYC’s Little Italy). Boston’s North End was settled in the 1600’s and has all the requisite charm of history: twisty, cobblestoned streets, narrowly packed brownstones, tiny and ancient graveyards that pop out of nowhere, the Old North Church and Paul Revere’s house. Despite ongoing gentrification, and […]

Categories: beans, carrot, celery, grains & legumes, heirloom beans, main course, pasta, soup, tomatoes, vegetarian, year round • Tags: cannelini beans, cooking, food, Italian, local, pasta e fagioli, recipes, soup, vegetarian

Coconut Granola Bars

13 April 2011 by local kitchen

I’ve had this granola bar recipe sitting in my post queue for months now, waiting for me to get it right. Sadly, I’m still waiting. I’ve made it a few times, and tinkered quite a bit: thick bars, thin bars, more sugar, less sugar, different fats, different amounts of fruit & nuts. Don’t get me wrong, these are tasty: a lot less dry and sawdusty than your typical grocery store “health” bar, and a lot less sweet than the candy […]

Categories: breakfast, grains & legumes, nuts, oats, snack, year round • Tags: baking, cooking, food, granola, granola bars, local, quick & easy, recipes, vegetarian, whole grain

Avocado Beeswax Hand Salve

7 April 2011 by local kitchen

Back before Christmas, when I was making the hand cream and body scrub for gifts, I stumbled upon a recipe for a hand salve made with beeswax. Naturally, I was excited by this, because beeswax can be local: emulsifying wax? Not so much. So I made a tiny batch, using organic avocado oil, as a gift for my friend Nadine, who, like me, has a tendency towards “difficult” skin, especially on her hands. In the holiday craziness, I never had the chance to take […]

Categories: home goods, year round • Tags: avocado, beauty, beeswax, hand salve, homemade

Smoky, Spicy Sweet Corn Chowder

5 April 2011 by local kitchen

A few weeks ago, I shared this wonderful-sounding recipe for sweet corn chowder, created by Cheryl Paff at At the Farmer’s Market, on the Facebook page. I’ve made it a couple of times since then and not only to clear out the freezer in preparation for the impending harvest season. This chowder comes together easily, without an excessive amount of chopping or prep, making it a good choice for an easy weeknight dinner. With potatoes and corn, it is very […]

Categories: corn, hot chile peppers, main course, potato, soup, summer, vegetarian, winter, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, main course, recipes, soup, summer, vegetarian, winter

Flourless Chocolate Chipotle Cake

2 April 2011 by local kitchen

Have you noticed a lot of non-local ingredients cropping up on the blog of late? Citrus jam, orange chicken, honey roasted nuts? While I don’t make it a goal to eat 100% from my local foodshed (in part because I believe it is harshly restrictive for no good reason, but mostly, I suspect, because I don’t like rules) I do try to limit the non-local ingredients to occasional luxuries rather than every day ingredients. They’ve been showing up more often of […]

Categories: baking, cake, chocolate, dessert, hot chile peppers, year round • Tags: chiles, chocolate, cooking, dessert, food, gluten free, quick & easy, recipes

Maple Honey Roasted Nuts

31 March 2011 by local kitchen

I made a great salad last night: Spring farmer’s market greens, scallions and fresh parsley, crisp Mutsu apple, feta, and these nuts, all dressed with a simple vinaigrette. It was like the promise of Spring, which is a long time coming this year: we had a brief foray into temps in the 50’s yesterday (yippee!) but snow is back in the forecast for tomorrow. Oi. Of course, I did not manage to take a picture of said great salad, nor the […]

Categories: nuts, snack, year round • Tags: cooking, food, nuts, quick & easy, recipes, snacks

Chinese Orange Chicken

27 March 2011 by local kitchen

The interconnectedness of the Web never fails to delight me; in fact, “world wide web” was a prescient name back in the days when few people could foresee how it would change our world. The way that people end up here at Local Kitchen is always fascinating: the search terms, the links from other sites, the random surfing that led someone to a particular recipe (whether they were looking for it or not), but I’m also delighted by how I end […]

Categories: chicken, citrus, main course, rice, scallions, year round • Tags: chicken, chinese, cooking, food, local, main course, orange, recipes

Chutney Rice Cake FAIL

22 March 2011 by local kitchen

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks: I’ve been working 12 – 15 hour days, I made a last-minute, whirlwind trip to Toronto for business, I caught a cold after a 9-hour airport odyssey trying to get home from Toronto; let’s just say that I haven’t had a lot of time to cook, and even less time to blog about it. Tai has been a trooper though: in order to prevent us living solely on popcorn and orange juice, he […]

Categories: chutneys, disaster, grains & legumes, rice, Use it or Lose it!, vegetarian, year round • Tags: cooking, disaster, FAIL, food, local, recipes, rice cakes, vegetarian

Use It or Lose It! Strawberry Chipotle Turkey Breast

7 March 2011 by local kitchen

Happy Monday, everyone. I am working on the next installment in the Dietary Guidelines series (Fat 102: trans-fats, hydrogenation and cholesterol, oh my!), but in the meantime I thought I would share my latest poultry-cooked-in-jam adventure: strawberry chipotle braised turkey. Despite the fact that daylight savings time starts this weekend (!) and that Biblical amounts of rain fell yesterday, washing away all but the most stubborn patches of snow, winter still has us in her grip, and there is still comfort […]

Categories: berries, braising, turkey, Use it or Lose it!, winter, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, main course, recipes, strawberries, turkey, winter

Use It or Lose It! Apple Walnut Parmesan Crumble

1 March 2011 by local kitchen

Sometimes I am lazy. Often, especially in late winter it seems, I just can’t work up the motivation to put together a fancy dessert, or even to roll out a pie crust (I blame the lack of Vitamin D). But, even in winter, friends come to visit, or Tai works a week of 15-hour days back-to-back and I can’t just crack open a box of Entenmann’s and say “Here you go, kids!” It’s just not my style. But I can do the next […]

Categories: apples, baking, cheese, dessert, fall, oats, quick & easy, whole wheat flour, winter, year round • Tags: apples, baking, cooking, dessert, fall, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, vegetarian, winter