The Fourth and Fifth Days of Christmas (of Breads and Limes)

The Fourth Day of Christmas was mostly spent cooking dinner for a group of hungry hunters, out for a pheasant shoot. It is the second time I have cooked for that group. It’s always a good thing when a client wants you back! On the 

Roasting Cauliflower

In the colder months, we roast, braise, bake and generally use the oven without hesitation. Roasting vegetables is a great way to make their flavor really shine.  For cauliflower (as well as for other members of the cabbage family), roasting also mitigates the “boiled-cabbage” odor 

Rougail Zucchini

The English call them marrows, and – at least according to Agatha Christie (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, if I remember correctly) – take great pride in growing the zucchinis to very large vegetables. They call young zucchinis “courgettes” (the French word for zucchinis) and 

Making Radishes Lovable

There is somebody in the house who’s not so fond of radishes, especially radish leaf soup or stir-fried radish pods, but I’ve just hit the jackpot! I made something with radishes where the reaction was: “I can eat radish like that all day long!” I 

Lovely Lemony Sorrel

There are indubitable signs of springs out there (besides the 2 minutes of additional daily daytime we are getting now). For once, the snowdrops are nodding their tiny white bells in the still blustery gusts of wind and then, then!, yellow IS swelling the buds 

Fall Salad Days

I think I love my kitchen garden more in the fall then in the spring: cooler temperatures are accompanied by a lot less bugs and the beds are brimming with salad greens (sorrel, lettuce, frisée, endive, mache, arugula), cooking greens (tatsoi, pakchoi and other mustard, 

Peach Salsa

(no picture of the salsa…. I know, I know…) Tomatoes however are really wonderful this year. And so are peaches (albeit I don’t grow peaches, several orchards in Rappahannock County have been keeping me happy: I have bought 2 ½ bushels to date). So as 

Eating Red

Yesterday’s tomato harvest from the lower garden was rather healthy – with the biggest tomato weighing in at more than a pound (from one of the “German Tree” plants grown from seeds purchased from Bakers Creek Heirloom Seeds). So from now on – for the