| Local cooking and eating in New York's Hudson Valley.

Jacket Potato

27 February 2013 by local kitchen

My friend Christina was in the UK last week and she ended up in Windsor, by the castle. She snapped a pic of a pub we had visited last spring, whiling away a stormy afternoon (and a substantial hangover) with lunch and a pint, while the rest of our crew toured the castle. Just seeing a blurry, nighttime snapshot of the front of the pub brought me back to that afternoon: the warm & cozy (and dry!) wooden booths, the […]

Categories: 100% local, main course, potato, quick & easy, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, potatoes, quick & easy, recipes

Cook The Books! Chinese Porkstickers

22 February 2013 by local kitchen

I have issues, it would appear, with ground meat. Of the 500-odd recipes on this site, exactly one contains ground meat. It’s not something I’ve really noticed, but when I got around to thinking about this month’s Cook The Books (very late in the day, natch), it reared its ugly head. Because, you see, I wanted to participate: but I had not found time to scope out my tiny local library on the (extremely) off-chance that they would have Andrea […]

Categories: appetizer, pork, whole wheat flour, year round • Tags: chinese, dumplings, food, local, pork, recipes

The 10 Best Kitchen Tools You Don’t Have

19 February 2013 by local kitchen

A funny thing happens when you write a food blog: people get the impression that you know how to cook. Because, like so many of us these days, my friends & family are scattered far and wide, I do a fair bit of traveling to keep in touch with my nearest and dearest. And because I write about food a couple of times a week, most of these folks have figured it out: I cook. Quite a bit, actually. Invariably, […]

Categories: tools & gear • Tags: cooking, food, kitchen, tools

139

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

Toasted Israeli Couscous with Winter Squash & Preserved Lemon

10 February 2013 by local kitchen

Conversation I had with myself today: Me: “Can you still say “Israeli” couscous? I mean, is that kosher?” Myself: “Heh. Kosher. Get it?” Me: “You’re not helping. Is “Israeli” couscous still what we call it, or is that like saying “Oriental” when you’re not talking about a carpet? I: “Why don’t we call them Asian carpets anyway? How come oriental carpet is still OK, but oriental anything else is verboten?” Myself: “Well, Asian tends to piss off India, since they […]

Categories: citrus, fall, parsley, side dish, vegetarian, winter, winter squash • Tags: cooking, fall, food, local, recipes, sides, winter

Pumpkin Spanakopita

6 February 2013 by local kitchen

Pumpkin spanakopita, bitches! Today the US men’s national soccer team kicks off the real deal of World Cup qualifying: The Hex. Ten games over the next eight months that will determine whether or not we go to The Big Show: Brazil 2014. The stakes are high, our fate is uncertain: of course I am nervous. So I am psyching myself up by watching inspiring US Soccer commercials, tacking “bitches!” (complete with obligatory fist pump) onto everything I say, and… making […]

Categories: appetizer, cheese, eggs, fall, kale & leafy greens, vegetarian, winter, winter squash • Tags: cooking, fall, food, local, pumpkin, recipes, starters, vegetarian, winter

Meyer Lemon Shortcake

1 February 2013 by local kitchen

I’ve been getting the most of out my Meyer lemons, if I do say so myself: one perfumed the cavity of this dancing chicken, some went into this marmalade, and this one, and yet another (cranberry + Meyer lemon) that I haven’t even told you about yet. I made this glowing, sunshiny Meyer curd, just to offset the drizzly, cold & grey January weather the other day, and then I candied one, with a bit of rosemary tossed into the […]

Categories: citrus, dessert, eggs, winter • Tags: citrus, cooking, dessert, food, recipes, winter

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

Rio Red Grapefruit & Meyer Lemon Marmalade

21 January 2013 by local kitchen

It’s been all-marmalade all-the-time in my kitchen for the last week. Between my standing winter splurge of red grapefruit from Texas and 7 lbs of California sunshine from the Lemon Ladies Orchard, I’ve had no trouble keeping up my Vitamin C levels and had citrus to spare to make marmalade for the rest of the year. While I put aside a few pounds to make a favorite or two, I always like to try out something new. Last year I […]

Categories: citrus, preserves • Tags: canning, citrus, cooking, food, marmalade, preserving, recipes, winter

Cook The Books! Dancing Chicken

17 January 2013 by local kitchen

Have you heard about Cook The Books? Meg at Grow and Resist and Briggs at Oh, Briggsy dreamed up a little challenge for 2013: cooking out of those big, heavy, paper-stuffed things you have crammed onto a shelf somewhere near your kitchen. Yep, that’s right: forcing us to crack a spine, rather than tip-tap-tappity through the Interwebs to plan dinner. The nerve! I do love cookbooks, despite the fact that I rarely follow a recipe. It’s just that my recipes are […]

Categories: 100% local, carrot, chicken, fall, potato, roasting, winter, year round • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, local, main course, recipes

Bertucci’s Sausage Soup

14 January 2013 by local kitchen

Back in my laboratory days on Mem Drive, when my co-workers and I felt like traveling further afield than The Sail Loft for lunch, we often ended up at Bertucci’s, home of excellent brick-oven pizza, addictive dinner rolls (hot from the oven!) and the infamous Bertucci’s Sausage Soup. I’ve eaten a lot of this soup in my day: in fact, the real battle in sitting down to lunch at Bertucci’s was in deciding between the delicious brick-oven pizza and the […]

Categories: kale & leafy greens, rice, sausage, soup, tomatoes, winter, year round • Tags: cooking, food, kale, local, recipes, sausage, soup

Quinoa with Roasted Butternut Squash & Sausage

9 January 2013 by local kitchen

I’ve mentioned Liana Krissoff’s new cookbook Whole Grains for a New Generation a couple of times now, on Facebook and Twitter, mostly because it’s been a ridiculous bargain on Amazon ($3, really?!). I ordered a copy for myself before Christmas (when it was a still-ridiculous $5) thanks to a tip from Emily at Nomnivorous, and I’ve been paging through it, planning various meals, since we returned from Maine. It’s a lovely book: nice, heavy paper stock, lots of photographs, with […]

Categories: fall, grains & legumes, main course, quinoa, sausage, winter, winter squash • Tags: cooking, fall, food, local, quick & easy, quinoa, recipes, sausage, winter

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

Round-Up: Citrus

2 January 2013 by local kitchen

Apparently I can’t resist rounding up my own recipes this week. But I was trying to read through some of my favorite citrus recipes of previous years and I realized how difficult it was to find them all. So, I put together a citrus page, and included a handy link-box in the right-hand sidebar. Way more fun than taking down the Christmas tree! Enjoy.

Categories: citrus, winter • Tags: citrus, cooking, food, recipes, round-up, winter

My Favorite Posts of 2012

31 December 2012 by local kitchen

As if you’re not already fed up to >here< with year-end lists: my favorite posts of 2012! These were recipes that surprised or delighted; that turned out exactly as I had envisioned, or turned out completely differently but in a fabulous way; that I returned to again & again, or ones that I’m sure will be on a yearly seasonal rotation from now on. These are the posts that were fun to write, fun to shoot and fun to eat; […]

Categories: community • Tags: cooking, food, local, recipes, round-up, year end