Category Archives: leek

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

Candied Ramp & Fennel Jam

13 May 2014 by local kitchen

Speaking of sugar: how about some candied ramp & fennel jam? Just a quick one today, as I am drowning in data and have been for days, but I took a half-hour lunch break to whip up this small-batch jam from a lovely bunch of ramps Tai brought home from Holbrook Farm the other day. With leaves finally filling out the trees, ramp season will soon be behind us as the sun gets blocked from the forest floor. I’m squeezing […]

Categories: fennel, jams, leek, quick & easy, spring • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Potato Ramp Soup

2 May 2014 by local kitchen

More ramps, you say? Don’t mind if I do! This one is a riff on the classic potato leek soup, but while that number is often loaded down with bacon & heavy cream, this version is light and Springy with lemon and just-barely poached ramp leaves. The wild, earthy ramp flavor is subtle (since I only had one bunch of ramps on hand) though distinctive, and I like the simplicity of flavors: potatoes, ramps, lemon, a touch of butter & […]

Categories: 100% local, leek, potato, soup, spring, vegetarian • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, soup, vegetarian

Ramp & White Bean Fritters with Sriracha-Marmalade Sauce

25 April 2014 by local kitchen

“Oh, ramps,” I hear you sigh, sniffing delicately. “That’s so last year.” To be sure, ramp mania seems to have dimmed somewhat, after a strong showing in the opening years of the decade, to be replaced by new must-have food items such as artisanal toast and eggs that are scrambled in the shell. Which is a good thing, really, as ramps have been dangerously over-harvested in recent years: perhaps everyone has finally gotten the message about sustainable ramp foraging? Or, perhaps, it […]

Categories: appetizer, beans, leek, snack, spring, vegetarian, wild foods • Tags: beans, cooking, food, local, recipes, spring, vegetarian

White Bean, Leek & Preserved Lemon Soup

3 January 2014 by local kitchen

Winter storm Hercules was a bust, in my opinion. While my friends in Boston got hammered with a foot and a half of the powdery stuff, we’ve got a mere 7 inches here in New York: hardly Herculean amounts. All sorts of bluster and school closings and road closings and State of Emergency declarings for what was, once upon a time, simply…. winter. It is, however, very cold & blustery, with air temps in the single digits and wind chill standing […]

Categories: beans, citrus, grains & legumes, heirloom beans, leek, main course, soup, winter • Tags: beans, cooking, food, local, main course, soup, winter

Ramp & Sausage Lasagna

1 May 2013 by local kitchen

Spring has officially sprung in New York: buds are out on the trees, forsythia is in bloom, peepers are filling our twilights with their song, and I found rhubarb and ramps at the farmer’s market over the weekend. Even better than peepers & ramps, Spring has brought Miss Kate back to the ‘hood, with canning classes last weekend in Coventry, demos in Manhattan this weekend, and a few days of relaxing Chez Local Kitchen in between. I had the good […]

Categories: cheese, leek, main course, pork, sausage, spring • Tags: cooking, food, local, main course, pasta, pork, recipes

Cocked-up-a-Leekie Soup

24 January 2013 by local kitchen

Cock-a-leekie, cock-a-leekie, cock-a-leekie: it’s too much fun to say! Have you ever had cock-a-leekie soup? It’s a traditional Scottish soup, made of chicken stock, leeks and little else (except prunes. Ew.). Despite many business trips to Edinburgh in my past, and the fact that I am of Scottish descent (my maternal grandfather emigrated from Glasgow), I’ve never had it. If I had ever seen it on a restaurant menu, I probably would have ordered it (despite the prunes; ew), just […]

Categories: chicken, leek, parsley, soup, winter • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, local, main course, quick & easy, recipes, soup

Tepary Bean, Pork & Winter Vegetable Soup

5 January 2013 by local kitchen

Have you ever had tepary beans? Apparently, once upon a time, they were an important food source for Native Americans in the American Southwest, and the history of their use dates back over 6,000 years in Mexico. Yet, until recently, I had never heard of the tepary bean (whose name seems to derive from t’pawi, Papago Indian for “it’s a bean”) and without Rancho Gordo, I probably would not have been able to find them. Tepary beans are drought-resistant, native […]

Categories: carrot, celery, heirloom beans, leek, main course, pork, scallions, soup, winter • Tags: cooking, food, heirloom beans, local, pork, recipes, soup, winter

Pumpkin & White Bean Ravioli

20 October 2012 by local kitchen

Hello Fall! Can you believe that the last time I was here I was roaring about tomatoes, and now we are solidly in the heart of autumn: the leaves outside my window are a riot of yellow, red and pale green, and they drift down like snow, to crisp and brown and pile up in the corners of the deck, every time the wind blows; the annual Pumpkin Patch has taken over the church parking lot in Ridgefield; the sky […]

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

Leek & Tomato Tart

29 September 2012 by local kitchen

This tart, my friends: this tart is the shizzle. I’ve made four of these in as many weeks and they have all been fabulous: quick, easy, adaptable and the best way I know to celebrate the swan song of tomato season. And yet, I can’t take any credit for it: the deceptively simple yet gorgeously flaky tart dough comes to us from France, via David Lebovitz (naturellement), with allium and fresh herb inspiration from Todd & Diane at White on Rice […]

Categories: 100% local, appetizer, leek, pizza, quick & easy, snack, summer, tomatoes, vegetarian • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, summer, vegetarian

100% Local: Leek, Potato & Delicata Squash Soup

25 September 2012 by local kitchen

I’ve never met a winter squash I didn’t like: pumpkin, butternut, Hubbard, Long Island cheese, even the fabulous fairy-tale pumpkins are tasty as well as gorgeous to look at. Strangely enough, I hated squash when I was young: my only experience with it was the stringy, watered-down, boiled-and-mashed variety that graced our Thanksgiving table each year. Blech. Then at some point, I’m not sure how, I discovered roasted squash; and squash soup; squash bread and muffins, stew and gnocchi and granola, […]

Categories: 100% local, fall, leek, potato, soup, winter squash • Tags: cooking, fall, food, local, recipes, soup, vegetarian

Potato Leek Gratin

14 January 2012 by local kitchen

My girlfriend Christina grew up in Schoharie County, NY: home of Howe Caverns, tragic flood damage, and the Fabulous Beekman Boys. While she was home for the holidays, she picked me up the Beekman 1802 Heirloom Cookbook for Christmas. It’s chock full of seasonal recipes, using homegrown and local ingredients, handed down through the generations and adapted by the Beekman Boys, all on a farm only a couple of hours from here. Be still my local-girl heart. Coincidentally, I had recently read the […]

Categories: 100% local, cheese, fall, leek, milk, potato, side dish, vegetarian, winter • Tags: cooking, food, leeks, local, potatoes, recipes, vegetarian, winter

Ramp & Asparagus Frittata

2 May 2011 by local kitchen

Have you ever spent an entire day in a jumpy house with a 7 year-old? Let me just tell you, for the sake of science, that it is possible to pull every sinlge muscle in your body at the same time, especially when, inspired by giggling, 7 year-old cries of “Do it again!,” you demonstrate your NBA-style, windmilling slam dunk on the jumpy house baskbetball net about 847 times. My friend Kami celebrated her 7th birthday a couple of weeks ago […]

Categories: 100% local, asparagus, breakfast, cheese, chives, eggs, leek, main course, parsley, scallions, spring, vegetarian, wild foods • Tags: asparagus, breakfast, brunch, cooking, eggs, food, local, ramps, recipes, vegetarian

Chicken Braised in White Wine & Ramps

1 June 2010 by local kitchen

Three years later, this dish hasn’t changed: it’s still wonderful, and apparently still being made with chickens that needed using up yesterday. Luckily for us all, my photography has changed for the better. Yes, I know ramp season has officially passed us by, what with the overabundance of lush, leafy green that is dressing the Northeast woods right now. However, I still had an (albeit fairly limp) bunch of ramps in the fridge that were just begging to be used, […]

Categories: braising, chicken, leek, main course, spring, wild foods, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, local, main course, ramps, recipes, wild foods

Ramps!

8 April 2010 by local kitchen

You know it’s April in the Hudson Valley when you see ramps pop up, in the farmer’s market or in the woods. Ramps are wild leeks, an allium related to onions, shallots, garlic, and of course, leeks, and they create quite a sensation each spring when the broad, waxy green leaves start popping up in the woods. With good reason: although some think we should just shut up about ramps, there is a reason that foodniks go a little mad […]

Categories: 100% local, foraging, leek, preserving, spring, wild foods • Tags: cooking, food, foraging, local, preserving, ramps, recipes, spring, wild foods