Savoring the Fruits of the Season: Spiced Blueberry Applesauce

I love applesauce, but generally only when it is homemade. When I was a kid, my Mom and both grandmothers ruined my ability to eat store-bought applesauce by making it from scratch from really good apples. Compared to the somewhat chunky, thick, tart-sweet and cinnamon-laced concoctions they made the applesauce from the store tasted like […]

Preserving the Beauty of Tomatillos For Winter

Tomatillos are a gorgeous fruit, and they are an integral ingredient to one of my favorite cooking sauces from North America–salsa verde. The fruit, which is encased in a papery husk like a leafy Chinese lantern made of mulberry paper, is often thought of as simply green in color, but the truth is, the hues […]

Preserving the Local Harvest: A General Introduction to Pressure Canning

This year’s Eat Local Challenge revolves around preserving the harvest, and like eating locally, this is something I do just as a natural course of events. When I told Morganna what the theme of this year’s challenge was, she said, “But what is the big deal–everyone knows about canning and freezing, don’t they?” Well, in […]

How Green Was My Gazpacho

Heirloom tomatoes offer an amazing array of colors, shapes and flavors to tempt the palate and the imagination of the cook. It is great fun to use them in classic recipes to bring a new twist to old favorites. My best beloved heirloom tomatoes are the lovely little Green Zebras. They are about the size […]

Singapore Rice Noodles: Noodles+Curry+Wok=Delicious

These noodles did not originate in Singapore. Or, at least, that is what I am told. They are Cantonese in origin, possibly from Hong Kong, and they were first very popular in European Chinese restaurants. They made it to the US sometime in the 1980’s and spread through the Chinese-American restaurants to the point where […]