peachy keen

Peaches arrived early this year, as did nearly everything else. We got our first batch in our CSA from our local orchard. They were incredibly tender & ripe & great for eating out of hand the first week, then juicy & melting & ready for something else the next.

I found a delicious & simple recipe for peach chutney, substituting umeboshi vinegar for the apple cider variety & leaving out the salt. The resulting sauce is sweet, sour & spicy, & fragrant with fresh ginger & cardamom. Even better, it refrigerates in a sealed jar for up to 6 months, so we'll be able to savour the taste of summer when the snow flies.

recipe here

free range happy hour

Good food, good drink, great folks (including the furry variety). And of course, chickens. Perfect summer evening.

I love Vermont.

happy weekend

16 sweet years for J & I as a couple. Let the fireworks begin! Happy weekend, all, & happy & safe celebrations!

through the looking glass

Everywhere I look, things are coming up bright & green. I love rainy spring days, & the beautiful smudgy light that falls upon the riot of color outside. Good day to sip tea & gaze through windows.

spring showers

This past weekend we hosted a picnic/barbecue for a couple of dear friends who are expecting a little guy in early June. The weather threatened rain all day, but magically held out until just after the affair wrapped up in the late afternoon/early evening. Thank you, mother nature!

It was wonderful relaxing & chatting with the lovely folks who came to celebrate the joy, & to see our yard so alive with growing things & happy people.

wintry greens

 

Jürgen Becker

Marianne Majerus

Marianne Majerus

from here

Piet Oudolf designs ethereal gardens that you can enjoy in the wintertime, with plantings that have hearty stalks & flowers that retain their form throughout the cold, dormant months. As long as you don't get buried under several feet of snow, what a wonderful approach to landscape design.

Be sure to check out the slideshow & article here

cooking weather

Last week we were such wretched creatures while waiting out the heatwave that we did not cook much, if at all. The turn in weather has made us re-enter the kitchen with renewed vigor. Last night's dinner of a leek tart, & mixed greens with roasted beets, chevre & a maple balsamic vinaigrette helped us take care of some of the vegetables that had been patiently waiting in the refrigerator & garden. The edges of the tart got wonderfully carmelized & set off the creamy filling nicely.




Leek & Thyme Tart
adapted from The Greatest Vegetarian Cookbook by Nicola Graimes


for the filling
2 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp olive oil
4 leeks, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp fresh or 1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp ground mace or nutmeg
sea salt & freshly ground pepper


for the crust
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp cold butter
6 Tbsp milk


prepare the filling
Heat the butter & oil in a medium-size frying pan over medium-low heat. Add the leeks & cook for 10-12 minutes until soft & golden. Season with thyme, salt & pepper. Remove from heat & let cool.
Beat the egg & yogurt together, stir in the  salt & cayenne. Set aside in cool place.


prepare the crust
Sift the flour, baking powder & salt into a bowl. Using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add the milk & stir in lightly with a wooden spoon to make a dough.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface & knead lightly.
Pat out the dough into a 9-inch round. Transfer to a 9-in springform pan.


assemble the tart
Cover the dough with an even layer of the prepared leeks. Pour in the yogurt mixture & spread evenly over the leeks. Sprinkle the top with freshly ground mace.


Bake for 30minutes at 425º F until golden brown. 
Leave the tart to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Slip a knife between the tart & the pan to loosen, then unmould on to a plate.






Balsamic & Maple Vinaigrette
  
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 large garlic clove, crushed
freshly ground black pepper


Whisk the ingredients together well in a bowl.  Transfer to a bottle or jar, & let marinate on the counter for about 1 hour. Shake well before using.
Delicious drizzled over roasted beets & goat cheese.

a most satisfying weekend

We had originally planned to go out of town, but staying at home over the long weekend proved to be a brilliant move, indeed. We did miles of hiking, watched a few Agnés Varda documentaries in the pleasantly brisk evenings (what a welcome change from the soupy nights of just last week!) with a glass of wine in hand, saw some friends play music, dove in to some creative pursuits, & cooked & ate to our hearts' content. By the end of the weekend we felt very rested, & as though we had some accomplishments under our belts.

One of our favorite summers'-end meals is a simple potato & green bean dish from the coast of Bretagne. Both hearty & light tasting, the mellow & buttery potato along with fresh crisp beans allowed us to really appreciate the pungency of our home-grown parsley, which, like the basil, grew madly in the hot & humid weather.

Fritattas are a staple in our house, & traditional Sunday morning fare if we don't go to one of our favorite brunch spots in a nearby town. A tomato, parsley, red onion, garlic & boursin rendition hit the spot, & was made entirely with produce from our garden or local farms.

And seeing as summer is quickly slipping past, cooking out felt like a must, it being a holiday weekend & the weather being so incredibly fair. We made another favorite, grilled vegetable kabobs (fondly referred to as "sticks" in our household, this iteration with soy "beef") with a garlic, ginger & toasted sesame marinade.

Cheers - enjoy the last bits of summer!

Garlic, Ginger & Toasted Sesame Marinade

Each time I make this marinade, it is slightly different as I don't measure anything, so the proportions vary. So far I have not been disappointed with the outcome, so don't be afraid to experiment & find your own perfect balance of flavors.

olive or canola oil

rice wine vinegar

toasted sesame oil

soy sauce

crushed fresh garlic

grated fresh ginger

chili paste, or a finely diced hot pepper of your choice

pinch of sugar

sesame seeds, if you fancy

Green Beans from the Brittany Coast

from From a Breton Garden by Josephine Araldo

1 1/2 pounds string beans, cut in 1/2-inch lengths

1/2 pound very small new potatoes, peeled (I never peel mine, & am pleased with the results)

1 small bunch scallions or 2 shallots, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 Tbsp. butter

1/4 cup chopped parsley

salt (I use French sea salt for a crunchy counterpoint) & freshly ground pepper

Blanch the vegetables in boiling salted water, first the green beans until just tender, 4 to 6 minutes, then the potatoes until they can be pierced easily with a fork. Drain the vegetables when they are cooked and reserve.

While the vegetables blanch, sauté the shallots & garlic in the butter until limp. Add the blanched vegetables to the shallot/garlic mixture. Stir to coat with butter, adding to taste. Toss in the parsley and season with salt & pepper. Serve very hot.

straight off the farm

This weekend our sweet & generous friends, who were going out of town for a couple of days, offered us their weekly CSA share. Driving through the beautiful countryside to the farm stand to find baskets of freshly harvested fruits & vegetables from which we were to make up a market bag was a most satisfying & rewarding experience. At Dwight Miller & Son Orchard, the Miller family has farmed the same land since before Vermont was a state, & investing in a CSA helps ensure they will be able to continue farming their land for generations to come. Our friends' generosity reminded us that even though we support local farms by shopping at our local farmer's market every weekend, a CSA is an even more personal & involved pledge of support, since you share both the benefits & risks of their yearly crop production by signing on at the beginning of the season.

CSAs are available to urban & rural folks alike – while living in San Francisco, we had a CSA share from a nearby farm that would truck in boxes of their delicious organic vegetables to a central location in the city, which we would then pick up weekly. It was always exciting to discover which vegetables were harvested that week, & certainly widened our recipe repertoire & made us approach our menus in a much more creative way since we had to work with what we got, & it wasn't always something we would have picked up in a grocery store.

For the last couple of years we have received a CSA share from Scott Farm, a beautiful orchard listed on the National Record of Historic Places that produces over 70 different varieties of ecologically grown apples, including many heirloom & unusual varieties. This Thursday we will start receiving pecks of fresh & delectable apples, & the anticipation of which varieties we will get to try is dominating my thoughts right now. Next year we will definitely consider a vegetable CSA from a local farm, which we can augment with vegetables from our local farmer's market as needed: a win-win-win situation!

best lunch

This morning my husband cut some kale, spinach & chard from our garden, then tossed it quickly with olive oil, salt, pepper & chili flakes in a pan in which he'd pan-roasted some of the garlic we'd harvested a couple of weeks ago, just until it was warm, and....

it was the best lunch ever.

brunch & buggyrides

Sunday marked the third annual Greenhill bacon brunch & croquet opening, as well as a birthday celebration for our dear friend & neighbor. There was a bounty of delicious food & champagne to savor amongst friends in some of the nicest weather we've experienced all summer.

the birthday boy & his celebratory "candle"

Perhaps it's a bit curious for a vegetarian of 20 years to be writing about bacon & the absolute joy it brought to the gathering, but I suppose this is when the biologist comes out in me. With the understanding that a vast number of humans do indeed eat meat & that our culture has woefully gone the way of large-scale factory farming, I admire those farmers & consumers who, when able to choose, support farms where the animals are treated humanely, as little as possible is wasted, & it is eaten in moderation & with thoughtfulness. Plus it had better be good.

That said, the bacon was purchased from the Dunning's Mile Hill Farm stand at our local farmer's market, a small, family farm just north of us whose pasture-raised livestock & approach to organic, sustainable agriculture assured us it was the best possible choice for the carnivorous aspect of our celebration. Not to mention the fact that those who partook deemed it most delicious, & appeared to delight in the ritual of cooking it outdoors on the camp stove in a big old cast iron pan.

burgeoning

Last night we were awoken by a theatrical thunder & lightening storm that sent down sheets of drenching rain & lowered the temperature to afford us a most comfortable rest.

The garden looked very happy this morning...

the bounty begins

I imagine my posts for a bit may be heavy on all things involving the garden & the meals it inspires; it is summer, after all, & it would be an understatement to say that I'm a little excited about growing our own food.

Today we harvested our first zucchini, a harbinger for many, many more to come, so it's time to pull out the cookbooks & start imagining a variety of possible recipes for future meals.

Tonight also marked the first fresh pesto of the season, as we harvested the rest of the garlic, 15 in all (two were twins)

& the first round of basil, which grew voraciously in the recent hot & humid weather. I made a rustic basil pesto with walnuts, which we ate on chilled pasta with a salad of fresh mixed lettuce greens, also from the garden, for the perfect summer meal.

And, of course, edibles are not the only wonderful things growing right now...

A feast for the eyes & belly alike.