Tag: local

Tomato Purée for Sauce or Canning

1 August 2010 by local kitchen

It’s that time of year again: today is August 1st (can you believe it?) and August in the Northeast means one thing in local food circles: tomatoes. Last year was such a dismal tomato crop, what with all the rain creating ideal conditions for late blight, and with so many local farms losing hundreds if not thousands of tomato plants. As such, last year saw very little in the way of tomato preserving, and I am hoping for a bumper crop […]

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

Salt Potatoes

30 July 2010 by local kitchen

I went to college in Syracuse, NY (yes, I am an Orangewoman) and spent a couple of lazy hard-working, class-attending summers there, making up classes that I blew off during the semester earning extra credit towards my degree. In addition to that wacky glowing yellow ball in the sky, lazy afternoons at Green Lakes and no lines at Chuck’s, summer brings a fabulous bounty to Central New York: the salt potato. Salt potatoes have a mystique all their own, especially […]

Categories: 100% local, appetizer, potato, side dish, summer • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, summer, vegetarian

Chipotle Bacon Caramels

29 July 2010 by local kitchen

With all these zucchini, eggplant, scallions and cukes to deal with, it seems more than a little ludricrous to be making candy right now. Not to mention that standing over a pot of boiling sugar in the height of summer is not what everyone would choose to do. Then again, I’m known for my less-than-conventional decisions, not to mention my ludicrousness (ludicrosity?). And sometimes a girl just needs bacon. And candy. Or bacon candy. I know what you’re thinking; bacon […]

Categories: candy, dessert, pork, year round • Tags: bacon, caramel, chipotle, cooking, dessert, food, homemade candy, local, pork, recipes

Baba Ganoush

27 July 2010 by local kitchen

Can it possibly be Tuesday again already?? Why yes, yes it can. So, in an effort to use up the three teeny, tiny, baby Japanese eggplants languishing in the fridge, in anticipation of getting three more teeny, tiny, baby Japanese eggplants in the CSA tomorrow, I give you: baba ganoush. There are lots of recipes for baba ganoush out there in Ye Olde Internets: most of them are pretty much the same, consisting mainly of roasted eggplant, tahini, and lemon juice. […]

Categories: appetizer, cilantro, eggplant, spreads, summer, vegetarian • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, vegetarian

Scallion Hummus

26 July 2010 by local kitchen

I don’t know about you, but ’round these parts we are literally drowning in scallions; we are getting 7 or 8 huge scallions each week in our CSA, and when I say huge, I mean huge. These puppies are close to 3 feet long and the bulbs are the diameter of a quarter. It must be The Summer of the Scallion and nobody told me. In addition to all the scallion love from my own CSA, our neighbors (and landlords) were […]

Categories: appetizer, beans, chickpeas, fall, parsley, quick & easy, scallions, side dish, spring, summer, vegetarian • Tags: cooking, food, local, quick & easy, recipes, vegetarian

Blueberry, Lemon & Chile Jam

25 July 2010 by local kitchen

Run, don’t walk to your nearest blueberry patch and make this jam while blues are still in season. This one is classic Nischan: pure blueberry flavor, accented with the tang of lemon, and just enough sweetness to off-set the surprise heat of jalapeno and habanero peppers. So good that this is my second batch in as many weeks and I’m contemplating a third. Worth firing up the canner on a 90-degree, 99% humidity July Sunday – it’s that good. Adapted […]

Categories: berries, breakfast, canning, cilantro, citrus, hot chile peppers, jams, preserving, summer, year round • Tags: berries, blueberry, canning, chile, cooking, food, lemon, local, preserving, recipes

Can Jam: Pattypan Pickles

23 July 2010 by local kitchen

CanJam July #2: a quick mini-batch of pickles, or an attempt to deal with the metric tons of summer squash currently taking over my refirgerator. Do you know Patty? She’s round & bumpy, bright yellow (or sometimes green), looks like a flying saucer? Yes, that one. She and her entire extended family have moved into my fridge, lock, stock and two smoking 8-balls. When a house guest over stays her welcome, I say, pickle ’em! Brine propotions taken from Marisa’s […]

Categories: Can Jam, canning, pickles, preserving, summer, zucchini • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

CSA-Busting Vegetable Soup

21 July 2010 by local kitchen

It’s Wednesday, which means CSA day for many of you. On Tuesday nights at this time of year, I often get “CSA panic syndrome,” wherein I look in the fridge, see it overflowing with vegetables from the last week or two, and start frantically pulling things out and whipping up a recipe in an effort to make some room for tomorrow’s box. The weather has been good to area farmers this year (so far – knocking on wood!) and despite the lack […]

Categories: 100% local, cabbage, carrot, cilantro, garlic, green beans, main course, parsley, scallions, soup, summer, tomatoes, vegetarian, zucchini • Tags: cooking, CSA, food, local, recipes, soup, vegetarian

Strawberry Syrup

20 July 2010 by local kitchen

I left for South Africa in early June, when strawberries were peaking here but I had six million other things that I needed to do before the trip. Tai spent an afternoon strawberry picking at Jones Family Farms up in Shelton and about all I had time to do was hull them and toss them in the chest freezer. Since I’ve been back I’ve managed to grab a little time, in between heat waves, to thaw a big bag of strawberries, collect the juice, […]

Categories: berries, canning, condiments, dessert, preserving, spring • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Zucchini Fritters

18 July 2010 by local kitchen

We take a break from the non-stop stream of jams & preserves to serve up another abundant feature of summer’s bounty: zucchini! As Ruhlman says, “when in doubt, fry.” These were tasty, easy and relatively quick. The recipe is eminently adaptable to what you have on hand and what suits your palate. Whip some up today and tackle at least one of those monster zucchinis, mocking you from the bottom shelf of the fridge. Adapted from Zucchini Fritters with Feta & […]

Categories: appetizer, cheese, mint, parsley, scallions, summer, vegetarian, zucchini • Tags: cooking, food, local, recipes, vegetarian

Can Jam: Cantaloupe & Blackberry Preserves with Chardonnay

17 July 2010 by local kitchen

CanJammin’ July: it’s the height of summer and Northeast locavore livin’ is easy, right? Well, yes, it is: the berries are rolling off the bushes and vines, stone fruits are bursting out of the trees, and we’re all just waiting for the King of Summertime, the Almighty Tomato. But Gloria comes along and says “Given that we jammed ‘erries last month, this month I’m thinking… cucurbits.” (Gesundheit). Cucurbits are plants in the family cucurbitaceae, or squashes, cucumbers and melons. Gloria ruled out […]

Categories: berries, Can Jam, canning, citrus, melon, preserves, preserving, summer, wine, beer & liquor • Tags: berries, canning, cooking, dessert, food, local, preserving, recipes

100% Local: Apricot & Plum Preserves

15 July 2010 by local kitchen

Refined sugar? Bah. Commerical pectin? No way. California lemons? Not here, bub. This preserve is all local, all the time, down to the homemade white wine vinegar and the Rhode Island sea salt. Apricots and plums were purchased from Madura Farms at the Muscoot Farm market, the clover honey is from Rulison Honey Farms in Amsterdam, NY and the apple pectin stock was put up last winter. I must confess that I am not the biggest apricot fan; although I […]

Categories: 100% local, canning, plums, preserves, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, recipes

Ginger Soy Pickled Radishes

12 July 2010 by local kitchen

I put these little beauties up right before I left for South Africa, since I knew that two big bunches of radishes would do nothing but wither and die in the crisper if they had to rely on my Darling Hubs to eat them. They have been pickling away, down in the relative coolness of the garage, for over a month now, so I figured it was about time for a taste test. First and foremost: I won’t pickle the long, […]

Categories: appetizer, canning, condiments, pickles, preserving, radish, spring • Tags: canning, cooking, food, local, preserving, quick & easy, recipes

Swazi Sauce

10 July 2010 by local kitchen

Like my fellow foodie bloggers, I was delighted to return from South Africa to an email in my in-box inviting me to review The Lost Art of Real Cooking: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Traditional Food One Recipe at a Time, by Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger (A Perigee Book, published by the Penguin Group). A full review will follow, but first, I felt that I couldn’t in good faith review a cookbook, even a memoir-type cookbook, without attempting at least some […]

Categories: chicken, grill, main course, sauces, wine, beer & liquor, year round • Tags: chicken, cooking, food, grilling, local, recipes

Sour Cherry & Almond Preserves

8 July 2010 by local kitchen

I got up at 6:30 am on Tuesday morning, when it was a mere 84 degrees outside, in order to make cherry preserves before the thermometer hit triple digits again. Why, you ask, am I making jam during a heat wave? Is it self-reliance or self-flaggelation? Is it a New England Yankee refusal-to-let-adversity-bring-me-down attitude or a belligerent New Yorker screw-you-weather-you’re-not-the-boss-of-me? Is it so that I can don my holier-than-thou, local-organic-sustainable hairshirt and proudly proclaim “I made jam during the Great Heatwave of […]

Categories: breakfast, canning, cherries, dessert, nuts, preserves, preserving, summer • Tags: canning, cherries, cooking, food, local, recipes