Tag: food

100% Local: Plums in Wine & Honey

18 September 2012 by local kitchen

As the nippy Fall air makes its way into New York, I heave a sigh of relief as I sense the urgency of the preserving season winding down. While I truly enjoy putting by the best of each season’s produce, even the most dedicated preserver can get a bit burnt out by the onslaught of summer produce, and I am feeling just a wee bit crispy at the edges. My back is sore, my fingernails are permanently stained red, and […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, fall, plums, preserves, preserving, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, plums, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Maple Bourbon Peach Butter

14 September 2012 by local kitchen

I’m very late to peaches this year: I picked up my first batch at last weekend’s farmer’s market and let them ripen for a few days on the counter while I thought about what I wanted to do with them. Since they were tiny, organic and late-season fruit, I couldn’t face peeling them: my 3 and 1/2 lbs must have been about 25 peaches. I decided on a peach butter, since I hadn’t made one in a couple of years, […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, peaches, preserving, spreads, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, peaches, preserving, recipes, summer

Basic Red Salsa

6 September 2012 by local kitchen

I realized the other day, when in possession of a bushel of organically grown tomatoes from Fishkill Farms I started thinking about my must-haves for tomato preserving this year, that I had never published my basic red salsa recipe. There are lots of salsa recipes represented here at Local Kitchen, both fresh & canned: witness the ludicrously spicy 9-chile salsa, the smoky-sweet grilled corn salsa, a roasted tomato & chipotle salsa, and the my-Spanish-gender-agreement-sucks salsa rojo. There is the classic […]

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

Chipotle Cornmeal Eggplant Fries

30 August 2012 by local kitchen

Eggplantocalypse 2012 continues: according to my farmer, Betsey, eggplants are “just at their peak” this week. Which might explain the 6 pounds that showed up in my CSA bag yesterday, to join the 1 and 1/2 lb monster already lurking in the fridge. I’ve learned, in the preceding 4- and 5- and 6-lb eggplant weeks, that I need to tackle them head-on, before they even reach the refrigerator, in order to have a hope of getting through them all before […]

Categories: eggplant, side dish, snack, summer • Tags: cooking, eggplant, food, fries, local, recipes, summer, vegetarian

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