Fava Beans. One of my favorite Spring treats. The first time I brought some home from the market, I intended on making a fancy fava bean dip, but got distracted. The next day I decided to grill some chicken, and not wanting to create more dishes to wash, I thought I would try tossing a few of the giant bean pods on the grill. My theory was they would steam inside the pods just like very, very large edamame. To my delight, they did just [...]

The other night, I harvested some homegrown celery that was loaded with beautiful leaves. I could bear to let these go straight to the compost so I made a concerted effort to find multiple uses for them. 1 – Drying in my dehydrator for use as a dry spice later. Dry. Grind. Bottle. 2 – Vegetable Stock – added leaves and stalks to other homegrown vegetables to make a hearty stock. Yielded 6 cups! 3 – Wild Rice, Celery, Carrot, Turnip, Radish, Baby Green Bean [...]

(RECIPE BELOW) One tedious gardening task is thinning. Not only is it tedious, but also a little heart wrenching to pull healthy little plants out of the ground that you worked so hard to grow. When planting very tiny seeds, it is hard to space them out properly, so the method of planting way too many and then thinning them out is standard practice. When dealing with root vegetables like carrots, beets, turnips, you need to give them the underground space to develop. Refer to [...]

Muddle half a mini cucumber and shake with ice and 2 shots of your finest chilled vodka. Strain into cocktail glass. The new taste of summer!

I made a “Gleaner’s Pot” for lunch today. It was just a skillet dish with all the miscellaneous veggies I rescued from my much neglected garden, diced all up for a colorful hash. It was a quick stir fry in my cast iron skillet with some of the bacon fat I kept from last week’s local bacon treat! Here’s what I tossed in; Red Bell Pepper, Green Bell Pepper, Baby Fairy Tale Eggplants, White Onion, TIny Blue Potatoes, Red Carrots, Orange Carrots, Campari Tomato, Yellow [...]

Last year I bought 3 Dwarf Blueberry plants for patio containers. I knew I would not have berries the first year, but had high hopes for this summer. They just seemed to have been struggling. I would see blossoms, but then berries just would not fully form. I mentally gave up hope for this season, but have kept them healthy with hopes of a bumper crop next year. What a WONDERFUL surprise today when I went out to water and found ripe blueberries!!! The first [...]

I recently gave a gardening presentation, and was delighted to see how they presented a healthy alternative to refreshments. They had a traditional vegetable tray, but the presentation was so cute, it made it fun for even the kids to eat their veggies. They had lemonade and ice tea, but the third option made me smile the most. I was asked if I would like some Spa Water. It sounded luxurious. It was so simple, a large water cooler with slices of fresh cucumbers and [...]

I forgot to turn off the center burner, and turned my back for 10 minutes. I turned off the center burner, used my water spritzer bottle to put out the skin fire, and the chicken continued to cook. By the way, it WAS tasty! (Originally posted to YouTube August 15, 2009)

I finally made zucchini bread today! I love to cook, but am not much of a baker. I chose a good recipe from FoodTV.com (thank you Paula Deen), took my time, and now have 1 beautiful large loaf, 2 cute small loaves, and 2 not so pretty tiny loaves. The “tiny” loaves were baked in very old toy pans, so I think that was the problem. I can’t wait to take them to the office tomorrow. As delicious as they are, I cannot possibly eat [...]

I made zucchini bread this morning and had a little extra zucchini. Who doesn’t right? I had a nice organic sweet potato and fresh local farm eggs, so did my best to make something edible. Today’s experiment was zucchini & sweet potato pancakes. Glad to report they were delicious! INGREDIENTS 1 cup shredded fresh zucchini 1 cup shredded organic sweet potato 2 large cage free local eggs 1/2 cup organic quinoa flour Kosher Salt to taste Vegetable Oil for frying I combine shredded zucchini and [...]