In Season & Fresh from the Garden, the Fields, the Orchards & the Woods
Still working through my citrus boxes. On the Eight Day, the Meyer lemons poached the previous night got squeezed, sliced, briefly simmered with sugar, and rested overnight again. It’s important that the rind softens as much as possible or the marmalade will have an unpleasant …
On the Sixth Day of Christmas, with still over 7 pounds of Meyer lemons left from my citrus order orgy, I made Réunion Island Lemon and Onion Salad. In winter, I often hunger for bright spicy flavors to liven up the stews and braised dishes …
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 menu:
Alsatian Tarte Flambée and hot gulf shrimps with a spicy sun-dry tomato sauce. I love making that Alsatian Tarte Flambée – it’s easy and it’s always a winner! How can it not be? Slow cooked onions; bacon; crème fraiche. For informal groups like this one, I make a big rectangular tart on a large rimmed cookie sheet or a large free-form pizza. For smaller plated dinner, I make small individual perfectly round tartelettes served with a mache or frisée salad.
Continue reading The Fourth and Fifth Days of Christmas (of Breads and Limes)
We make Meyer Lemon curd. Lots of it. It takes less than 30 minutes to make a quart of it, and since it freezes beautifully, you may as well make a few quarts… provided you have eggs and lemons. And we do.
This recipe was originally published in the Seasonal Table Column that I write for Flavor Magazine (Oct-Nov 2011 issue).
As the weather cools off, spinach is happily growing for us again, a versatile green delicious raw or cooked. I love the earthy combination of spinach and mushrooms, in salads, stews or soups. And since cultivated mushrooms are available year long in the Mid-Atlantic, some foraged, some grown outdoors like shiitake on logs and others in mushroom houses, local mushrooms are fairly easy to find. You can use any mushroom for this soup, including white mushrooms or a combination of mushrooms. And for a splurge, go for shiitakes or oyster mushrooms or any other that strike your fancy.
Mushroom and Spinach Soup Continue reading Mushroom and Spinach Soup
This is the introduction to the current Seasonal Table, a column – with recipes – that I write for Flavor Magazine. The recipes are appropriate for any autumnal meal, and certainly, together, would make a local Thanksgiving feast in many parts of the US. Harvest …
October 29 and it is snowing – wet heavy snow. Plenty of leaves yet on many trees — although the birches are denuded by now. Still, some under story trees or ornamental ones like crape myrtle sport lots of green. It’s an unusual sight, snow …
Chestnuts are special. They are here when the year is falling – promise of sustenance for the months to come. They are beautiful – and so is the tree they grow on. They were a staples for centuries – millenia? – allowing people to survive winter.
I was almost 15 when I first encountered a chestnut tree, fallen fruit littering the ground all around it. Which is about the same time I saw my first snow, frozen, in a few compacted drifts, high up on Mont Lozère, in the southern Massif Central of France. Continue reading Chestnut Memories
Trifoliate orange (hardy citrus) grows like an evergreen weed around here. The harvest is ending… What should I make with them this year? (last year I made liqueur)