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

Marinated Dried Eggplant

27 August 2012 by local kitchen

“Eggplant bacon.” The very words are enough to make me wrinkle up my nose in distaste. One, because I don’t agree with the basic concept of trying to make one food imitate another (I like veggie burgers as much as the next girl, but let’s be honest: they taste nothing like a beef burger), and two, because, well: eggplant is gross and bacon is BACON. I wish I liked eggplant, I really do. Especially this year: it seems to be […]

Categories: drying, eggplant, preserving, snack, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes, vegetarian

Plum, Nectarine & Chile Jam

25 August 2012 by local kitchen

I’ve been a slacker on putting up fruit this summer. Sure, I picked some strawberries: but I only got 10 lbs and I froze most of those (though I did make two small batches of jam, including a strawberry, rhubarb & ginger knockout that I never got around to telling you about). There was a ton of rhubarb, and 40 lbs of cherries, so maybe I just petered out early? Because blueberries have passed me by, except for a early, short […]

Categories: canning, hot chile peppers, jams, peaches, plums, preserving • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserves, preserving, recipes

Garden Antipasto

19 August 2012 by local kitchen

Eggplant, eggplant, eggplant. Never have we received so much eggplant in the CSA: growing eggplants must be fond of torrential rain storms interspersed with bright, sunny days. The peppers have been no slouch either: pale green Cubanelles, tiny, dark purple bells, fat red and yellow sweet peppers, they’ve all been making their way into my meals of late, but there are so many that they need to find their way into my freezer and pantry as well. Enter canned antipasto: […]

Categories: appetizer, bell pepper, canning, condiments, eggplant, pickles, preserving, summer, thyme • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Bruschetta Risotto

11 August 2012 by local kitchen

It happens the same way every year: you wait (and wait, and wait) for bright red, sun-warmed, bursting-with-flavor summer tomatoes. Basil shows up first: the small-leafed, pale-green, delicate basil of June. You buy some, just to inhale the heady fragrance, and dream of tomatoes. Then, sometime in July, you see the first pints of cherry tomatoes at the farmer’s market: they cost a fortune, and they’re not all that sweet yet, but still: tomatoes. Your spine tingles, your mouth waters: […]

Categories: appetizer, basil, main course, rice, summer, tomatoes • Tags: cooking, food, Italian, local, recipes, vegetarian

Nectarine Preserves with Watermelon & Mint

6 August 2012 by local kitchen

I love nectarines. I like them much better than peaches, for eating out of hand: I prefer the smooth skin to a peach’s fuzz; I like them firm, almost under-ripe, so that they crunch like an apple rather than smoosh like a peach; I love the gradations in color, of both the skin and the pinky-maroon flecks around the pit. Most of all, I love the taste: bright & tart, where the peach can sometimes be unctuously sweet, and with […]

Categories: canning, melon, mint, peaches, preserves, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

100% Local: Fresh Corn & Herb Soup

31 July 2012 by local kitchen

If you take a look at the recipe index, you’ll spot in a second that I’m a soup girl: at last count there are 21 different soup recipes, with three versions of stock, and let’s not even talk about my somewhat random distinction between “soup” and “stew.” But it’s also clear that I like a hearty soup: number of stews aside, most of the soups are chock-a-block full of vegetables and beans, potatoes or pumpkin, something that thickens the broth […]

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

Drink Week: Chellinis

28 July 2012 by local kitchen

Ages ago, I said I would participate in Drink Week, Marisa’s gathering of adventurous DIYers who don’t balk at a tipple or two with their preservy creations. I had grand plans: a local white wine sangria, with seasonal, local fruit; an herby-infused vodka, to go into a sophisticated, cucumber-and-something cocktail; or maybe something with foraged wild wineberries and local Tuthilltown whiskey. Alas, life happened, as it so often does: work appeared, in hunched-over-the-computer-’til-10 pm amounts; friends visited, birthdays popped up, […]

Categories: cherries, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: cocktails, drinks, food, local, quick & easy, recipes

Mint Chocolate Cupcakes with Red Currant Preserves

24 July 2012 by local kitchen

Today is my friend Nadine’s birthday. In addition to a yearly tradition of my suffering through an early-morning yoga class with her (this year at the Bedford Post Inn Yoga Loft, which I will admit is a lovely space), I usually make her a birthday cake. It’s always chocolate, since she is a certified chocoholic, and often incorporates a seasonal berry, because what’s a July birthday without wineberries or blackberries or currants? This spring and summer have been so busy for me […]

Categories: chocolate, currants, dessert, mint, preserves, summer, year round • Tags: chocolate, cooking, dessert, food, gluten free, local, quick & easy, recipes

Cashew Peanut Butter

20 July 2012 by local kitchen

We’re a peanut butter household. While Tai is very much a granola or yogurt guy at breakfast time, I am all about peanut butter toast; sometimes with a little jam, often just straight up. Of late, Tai has forsaken his usual turkey wrap for lunch in favor of peanut butter & jelly (in a wrap no less), and he usually brings two (because wrangling 13 year-olds at the cliffs is hungry work), so we go through a lot of peanut […]

Categories: breakfast, condiments, nuts, quick & easy, year round • Tags: cooking, food, homemade pantry, quick & easy, recipes

Shiro Plum & White Corn Salsa

16 July 2012 by local kitchen

It’s getting hot again, my friends: 95 degrees is tomorrow’s forecast in my tree-lined corner of New York. To me, this is becoming an annoyingly recurring theme: I mean, there are only so many lime popsicles a girl can eat before she starts craving real food. Luckily, a few days ago when it wasn’t quite so hot (a mere 87 degrees!), I simmered up a big batch of chile verde, with Flying Pigs pork shoulder and chile verde base put […]

Categories: cilantro, corn, plums, quick & easy, salsa • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, salsa, vegetarian

Greek Grilled Chicken

12 July 2012 by local kitchen

We don’t eat a lot of meat in the summer. There’s so much else to eat: tomatoes and cucumbers, corn and green beans, peaches and berries, and endless amounts of zucchini. And while the advent of brightly colored summer produce is always a joy, the greens might slow down, but they don’t stop: chard, kale, scallions, radish tops, and a monster bunch of basil were all part of this week’s CSA. There is hardly enough time in the day, or room […]

Categories: chicken, grill, main course, oregano, summer, year round • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, local, recipes

Kale & Potato Curry

9 July 2012 by local kitchen

Tai had two of his four wisdom teeth extracted a few days ago. Given that most people have their wisdom teeth removed in their teens or early 20’s, it was not an easy procedure: Tai’s adult teeth and jaw did not give up easily. But give up they did, and though it’s been a painful few days for my poor husband, he’s enjoyed the side benefits of root beer floats, chocolate-cherry butter shakes and yogurt-blueberry-maple breakfast drinks. Of course, after […]

Categories: basil, kale & leafy greens, main course, oregano, potato, stew, summer, vegetarian, year round • Tags: cooking, food, local, main course, recipes, vegetarian

Garlic Scape & White Bean Soup

5 July 2012 by local kitchen

It’s hot. So it would seem that a hearty, garlicky, potato + white bean soup is just the ticket, no? I didn’t think so either, and in fact, I made this soup simply to use up the two big bunches of garlic scapes that were in the fridge, anticipating yet another bunch in this week’s CSA. I thought I would simply make the soup and freeze it, assuming that a thick-n-hearty soup was not the thing to offset my popsicle-and-popsicle […]

Categories: 100% local, basil, garlic, herbs, main course, potato, quick & easy, soup, summer, vegetarian • Tags: cooking, food, local, main course, quick & easy, recipes, soup, vegetarian

Heatwave Preserving: Crock-Pot Cherry Butter

30 June 2012 by local kitchen

The heat is upon us again, my friends: it’s 90 degrees in my neck of the woods this afternoon and it was 94 yesterday. Not nearly as drastic as most of the rest of the country (nor as frightening as the conditions in Colorado right now) but still: hot. Last week, in the midst of a few back-to-back 96-degree days, I brought home a boatload of sweet cherries, following a lovely, lazy afternoon visit with Julia, her son splashing in the […]

Categories: canning, cherries, preserving, spreads, summer • Tags: canning, cherries, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Smoky Chipotle Cherries

26 June 2012 by local kitchen

Cherry season is upon us, coming and going fast & furious like nearly every other fruit in the short Northeast summer. And while cherries did not fare well in the Hudson Valley this year (again!), due to a warmer-than-seasonal March, followed by freezing temps and lots of rain in April, there are some out there to be found. Belltown Orchards in Glastonbury, CT is open for you-pick of both sweet & sour cherries (assuming they still have some left); I’ve […]

Categories: canning, cherries, hot chile peppers, preserves, preserving, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, cherries, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes