Category Archives: vegetable

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

Roasted Jalapeños With Goat Cheese & Smoky Chile Cherries

31 December 2013 by local kitchen

My New Year’s gift to you: an actual “quick & easy” recipe that is spicy, sweet, creamy, smoky & delicious. Suitable for a rollickin’ holiday party or a quiet nibble at home and easily adaptable to cheeses you have in the fridge and preserves in the pantry. Roasting the jalapeños mellows their spicy bite (or you can include a mix of milder small chiles, as I have below), while a short roast and quick broil browns the cheese while maintaining […]

Categories: appetizer, cherries, fall, holiday, hot chile peppers, winter • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, vegetarian

Minestrone

27 September 2013 by local kitchen

Well, the minestrones have it: so here you go! Minestrone: there are so many versions, so many seasonal options, that it should really just be called “soup.” Or, more accurately I suppose, “zuppe.” Because that’s the story: “minestrone” is basically a collective noun used to describe any number of thick soups based upon seasonal vegetables and some form of starch, be it beans, pasta, rice, or potato. Usually tomatoes and greens are involved, but there don’t seem to be any […]

Categories: 100% local, arugula, soup, tomatoes, year round • Tags: beans, cooking, food, greens, local, main course, recipes, soup

Sriracha-Pickled Eggplant & Summer Squash

15 September 2013 by local kitchen

It’s been an easy eggplant year: we’ve only gotten a few pounds in the CSA this season, scattered over the last several weeks. After last year’s Eggplantocalypse, I’m grateful, especially with all of the traveling I’ve done this summer (although I have some friends who will lament the loss of quarts & quarts of eggplant bacon). Since Tai won’t eat it, and eggplant is not my favorite either, it’s a struggle to use it up when we get loads, but this […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, eggplant, pickles, preserving, summer, zucchini • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Restaurant-Style Tomato Salsa

8 September 2013 by local kitchen

Every year it seems, I try out a new canned salsa recipe: one glance at the tomato page will tell you that plenty of them have made it to this space. Some, like salsa verde and grilled corn salsa, earn “instant classic” status and are a must-make on the yearly canning agenda. Others, like basic red salsa and roasted tomato & chipotle salsa, get tweaked slightly every year, depending on availability of ingredients, my schedule and mood. But despite having so […]

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

New Ingredient Page: Tomatoes!

27 August 2013 by local kitchen

A new page, dedicated to fresh tomatoes. Just in time for the last few days of summer! Link here and in the left-hand sidebar. Happy summer!

Categories: tomatoes • Tags: cooking, food, local, recipes, tomatoes

100% Local: Summer Tomato & Corn Soup

25 August 2013 by local kitchen

From a wonderful trip to San Francisco & wine country for the happiest of reasons, my friend Melissa’s 50th birthday, to an unexpected and bittersweet trip to Boston for the saddest of reasons, August has sped by in a whirlwind of trains, planes and automobiles, good times with old friends and new, many laughs and not a few tears. I’m well behind on the season’s preserving, but in between trips I did manage to whip up this fabulous light, summery […]

Categories: 100% local, celery, corn, oregano, soup, summer, tomatoes, vegetarian, zucchini • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, summer, vegetarian

Indian-Spiced Pickled Green Beans

18 August 2013 by local kitchen

A couple of months ago, I bought an enormous bag of dried curry leaf from Mountain Rose Herbs. It was one of those things: I’m either just not thinking, or I forget how very light dried herbs are, and I buy a 4 oz bag only to end up with a bag of dried herbs bigger than my head. After the bag-of-oregano-the-size-of-my-torso incident, you would think I would learn. You would be wrong. The truly pathetic thing is, I know […]

Categories: canning, green beans, pickles, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, pickles, preserving, recipes, summer

Honey-Soy Braised Beef

12 August 2013 by local kitchen

Guilty confession time: I’m having a bit of a love affair with Gordon Ramsay. And I’ve dragged in my husband. And my good friend Fran. I can see the Daily Mirror headlines now: “GORDON RAMSAY SHOCKER! Shouty chef in 4-way sex scandal! Slams lover’s food blog as “amateurish” and “not restaurant quality!”” It all started with the completely wacky ABC Baking Company episode of Kitchen Nightmares, which I first heard about over at Eater back in May. The show was […]

Categories: beef, lettuce, main course, year round • Tags: Asian, beef, braised, cooking, food, lettuce, local, recipes

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

Ginger-Chile Stir-Fried Lettuce

6 July 2013 by local kitchen

Another answer to that age-old question: What the hell am I going to do with all of this lettuce? Though the last few days have been tropical in New York; sunny, very hot and very humid; early summer has shown us nearly perfect growing conditions for lettuce: sunny, reasonably cool and plenty of rain. Hence, lettuce heads have grown to epic proportions and those of us with gardens or CSAs are eating salad with every meal. However, as there is only so […]

Categories: fall, hot chile peppers, lettuce, side dish, spring, summer • Tags: cooking, local, quick & easy, recipes, side dish

Early Summer Napa Slaw

2 July 2013 by local kitchen

Bright sunny days, cool misty nights and plenty of rain = heaven for cabbage and other leafy greens. So I wasn’t surprised when I saw the GIANT head of Napa cabbage in last week’s CSA bag. I was, however, a bit dismayed that my favorite cabbage slaw includes cherry tomatoes, which won’t make their cheery red selves known around these parts for at least a few more weeks. Enter early summer slaw: crunchy pink radishes, spicy spring onions, sweet orange […]

Categories: cabbage, carrot, quick & easy, radish, salad, scallions, side dish, summer, tarragon, vegetarian • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, salad, vegetarian

Spicy Indian Potato Balls with Fresh Coriander Chutney

23 June 2013 by local kitchen

We all experience recipe fails now and then: whether it’s a new technique that needs some practice to master, a new ingredient with a flavor profile you’re not used to, (a stubborn insistence on ignoring all the rules and forging blindly ahead <cough>) or simply an off day in the kitchen, it happens. While it is certainly irritating to invest time and money into a recipe and have it turn out “meh“, or worse, inedible, I try not to get […]

Categories: appetizer, cilantro, kale & leafy greens, potato, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, recipes, vegetarian

Tepary Bean, Sausage & Chard Soup

19 June 2013 by local kitchen

The verdict is in and the peoples: they like the chard. The professional chefs, recipe developers and cookbook authors? Not so much (except for Martha Rose, who, as ever, is awesome. The other Martha gets a nod too, mostly for the cool, seasonal, by-ingredient recipe index she’s got going on.). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I just don’t understand why everyone in the culinary world has a love affair with kale, but ignores her milder, softer, […]

Categories: garlic, heirloom beans, kale & leafy greens, sausage, spring, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Leafy Greens

12 June 2013 by local kitchen

It’s that time of year again: time for CSA boxes, gardens, market bags, and refrigerators to be stuffed to overflowing with curly, silky, spicy, bitter, tasty, nutritious and prolific leafy greens. Around here, we eat a ton of greens all year long: check out the recipes on the new leafy greens page for inspiration in tackling your own Green Mountain. Enjoy!

Categories: 100% local, kale & leafy greens, spinach • Tags: cooking, food, leafy greens, local, recipes