Category Archives: techniques

Cherry Key Lime Marmalade

7 August 2013 by local kitchen

Does anyone still have cherries? No? Me neither. Maybe Newfoundland? Or wait: my homies in Saskatchewan, this one’s for you! I’m late with cherries this year: as usual. Seems to be a recurring theme. (Another recurring theme? I think I’m going to miss blueberries this year. AGAIN. Sigh.) In happy news, Fishkill Farms finally had a productive cherry season: we’ve only been waiting four years. In unhappy news, they were charging $7/lb: for pick-your-own. And while I had lots of […]

Categories: canning, cherries, citrus, preserves, preserving, summer, year round • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, summer

Curried Potato Salad with Basil & Mint

27 July 2013 by local kitchen

I have three massive bunches of basil sitting in glasses of water on my counter. Well: two massive bunches now, as I used most of one bunch in these potatoes. Which were also sitting on my counter, picked up at last weekend’s farmer’s market, quickly growing sprouts despite the black tea towel protecting them from light. Ah, summer. The basil overflows, the mint grows like a weed; even the potatoes are stretching towards the sunshine. And the eating is as […]

Categories: basil, mint, potato, roasting, salad, side dish, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, summer, vegan, vegetarian

Black Currant Jam

11 July 2013 by local kitchen

Last summer at about this time, I drove up to Rhinbeck to hang out with Julia and help her out with a jam demo she was hosting at the weekend farmer’s market. She made a simple black currant jam that day. Simple, in that it consisted of only two ingredients and took about 10 minutes to make; but the flavor? The flavor was anything but. I dream about that jam: rich, complex, layered; sweet, savory, tart, spicy; almost umami in […]

Categories: canning, currants, jams, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, jam, local, preserving, recipes, summer

Santa Rosa Plum & Almond Tart

28 June 2013 by local kitchen

Have you had Santa Rosa plums? They’re a deep purple-black when ripe, with a blood-red interior and tangy, tart flesh. The aroma when they are perfectly ripe is indescribable: rich, floral, spicy, earthy. Amazing. Plums are not quite on the scene yet in New York; I was lucky enough to receive a small box of them in the mail from the lovely Karen of Lemon Ladies Orchard in California (along with a jar of her Santa Rosa plum jam, which […]

Categories: baking, breakfast, dessert, plums, summer • Tags: baking, cooking, dessert, food, local, plums, quick & easy, recipes, summer

Honey-Sweetened Rhubarb Rosemary Jam

15 June 2013 by local kitchen

At the farmer’s market this morning, I convinced a woman to buy the last of the rhubarb and freeze it for a pie. She was hovering near the rhubarb box and asked the vendor how long rhubarb would be in season. The vendor (clearly not a farmer, and new to the stand) said she wasn’t sure, but she thought the season was short (it’s not). I told the woman that rhubarb likes cool weather, so when it gets really hot, […]

Categories: canning, jams, preserving, rhubarb, rosemary, spring • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, rhubarb, sugar-free

Blubarb Jam

29 May 2013 by local kitchen

Blubarb. Bluuuuuuuuuuubarb. Sounds like a particularly dense cartoon pirate, doesn’t it? I picture Barney, in a white, puffy Seinfeld shirt and an eye patch. With a rakish sword at his side, of course (if he can find a sword belt to fit around that rather prodigious middle. He’s probably been eating too much blubarb jam.). So: blubarb. Blueberry + rhubarb = blubarb. Wild Maine blueberries, in this case, harvested last August, frozen, and sold to a grateful locavore, who missed […]

Categories: berries, canning, jams, preserving, rhubarb, spring, summer, year round • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, rhubarb

Whiskey-Chile Fresh Ham Kebabs

19 May 2013 by local kitchen

So, here’s how this works: it’ll be sunny & 70 degrees for a week, I’ll make these fantastic, killer, hella-good whisky & smoked chile-marinated pork kebabs, then on the first grey, drizzly, chilly, raw day, the first day in weeks that you don’t want to grill, I’ll tell you about them. On a Sunday afternoon. When the recipe requires an overnight marinade. Oh, and I’ll include a bunch of ingredients you probably can’t find. Sound good? All indications to the […]

Categories: grill, main course, pork, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: cooking, food, grilling, local, main course, pork, recipes

Rhubarb Crumble with Ginger & Meyer Lemon

13 May 2013 by local kitchen

There’s a great conversation going on over at the Facebook page today, centered on this vastly irritating op-ed in the New York Times stating that it is “nearly impossible for a single parent or even two parents working full time to cook every meal from scratch.” Let’s set aside the fact that people without kids, married or single, can find themselves too busy to cook just as often as their child-rearing friends, and focus on the real problem with the piece: […]

Categories: baking, breakfast, dessert, oats, rhubarb, spring, whole wheat flour • Tags: cooking, dessert, food, local, quick & easy, recipes

Double Chocolate Ombré Cake {Kami’s Cake 2013}

25 April 2013 by local kitchen

For longer than I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve been making birthday cakes for my friend Kami. There have been successes (a fantastic strawberry-pink yellow cake with a piped frosting garden by Tai the Pastry Chef, a lovely golden orange mousseline cake with royal icing butterflies) and disasters (an attempt at this cake that looked, well, absolutely nothing like that, and the Great Kami Cake Disaster of Aught-Nine); regardless, there has always been fun and laughter, good food and love. And while […]

Categories: baking, cake, holiday, spring, Use it or Lose it!, year round • Tags: baking, cake, cooking, dessert, holiday, recipes

Meyer Lemon Cavatelli

22 April 2013 by local kitchen

I realize that I just talked about citrus-zest pasta a month ago, but I got such a lovely surprise in the mail last week: a big box of end-of-season organic Meyers from Karen at Lemon Ladies Orchard. Karen & I are by way of being friends: although we’ve never met in person, we interact frequently over social media, chat now and then on email, and when I confessed to her last year that I wasn’t quite sure what all the […]

Categories: citrus, drying, pasta, spring, vegetarian, winter • Tags: citrus, cooking, food, local, recipes, vegetarian

Put ’em Up! Fruit: Winner!

15 April 2013 by local kitchen

Congratulations to CINNAMON, commenter #22 and winner of a free copy of Put ’em Up! Fruit, courtesy of Storey Publishing. Like many of you, Cinnamon likes to use up the last bits of jam in the jar by stirring it into plain yogurt: The easiest “use it up” trick I have is adding my jams to plain yogurt for the kiddos. In fact, we only ever buy plain, because I know there is always something to put in it at […]

Categories: preserving • Tags: cooking, giveaway, preserving

Put ’em Up! Fruit: Classic Blueberry Jam, Pan-Roasted Chicken with Blueberry Reduction, and A Giveaway

11 April 2013 by local kitchen

By now, you’ve heard about Put ’em Up! Fruit, the new book from Sherri Brooks Vinton, right? I mean, Marisa was dishing about it, as was Sean, and Autumn made the glorious sounding lemon, red onion & oregano jam. And with giveaways all over the blogosphere for the next two weeks, surely it won’t be long before you have a copy in your hot little hands. Right? When Storey Publishing emailed to ask if I’d like to participate in a […]

Categories: berries, chicken, jams, main course, preserving, quick & easy, roasting, Use it or Lose it!, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: canning, chicken, cooking, dinner, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Rangpur Lime Tequila Bars

25 March 2013 by local kitchen

Using a cookbook is like dating: you get attracted by an aesthetically pleasing cover, spend 5 or 10 minutes checking it out, and then, almost on a whim, you bring it home. During that first recipe, you’re tentative, accommodating: trying to stay within safe boundaries, do it his (or her) way. A couple of recipes in, you’re ready to assert yourself: “No, that’s way too much sugar,” or “Boil for how long?” After about a half a dozen times together, most […]

Categories: baking, citrus, dessert, eggs, whole wheat flour, wine, beer & liquor, winter • Tags: baking, cooking, dessert, food, local, recipes, winter

Use It or Lose It! Drunken Cherry Chicken

20 March 2013 by local kitchen

In addition to my main stores in the garage pantry, I keep a small stash of jarred goods in a corner of one of my way-too-deep and inconveniently-high kitchen cabinets (the extra-convenient one above the fridge). I was pawing through the jars the other day (balanced precariously on the invaluable kitchen step stool), hoping I could avoid a snowy trip downstairs to pick up a jar of salsa, when I unearthed a dusty jar of drunken cherries: from 2009. Oops. […]

Categories: braising, cherries, chicken, main course, Use it or Lose it!, wine, beer & liquor, winter • Tags: cherries, chicken, cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes

Salted Cranberry Grapefruit Jam

13 February 2013 by local kitchen

Cranberries. Rio red grapefruit. Salt. Booze. If I could somehow cram bacon and popcorn in there, I may just spend the rest of my life hiding in a closet with this jam. And a spoon. I almost forgot this year about my standing order of organic cranberries from Cranberry Hill Farm in Plymouth, MA; which seems crazy, considering how much I love them. But between work, the holidays, being in Maine with Grandma, and a few other curveballs that life […]

Categories: canning, citrus, cranberries, jams, preserves, preserving, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: berries, canning, citrus, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes