With the combination of rain and hot weather we’ve been getting, it’s been a stellar year for cucumbers. So far, we’ve harvested 31 lbs. of cukes from our two hills of Little Leaf H-19 (seeds purchased from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in 2012), and the vines are still going strong. It’s pickle-making time! I dedicated…
Category: Cooking
Rhubarb Pie
There’s no fresh fruit to be had this early in the growing season, but fortunately there’s something else in the garden that can satisfy the craving for fruity flavors: rhubarb! The stems of this bushy, tropical-looking perennial have a citrusy tang that, when baked into a sweetened pie, make a dessert that will have everyone asking for more….
Making Yogurt in the Slow Cooker
With the amount of yogurt I eat, I should have been making my own long ago. But it wasn’t until a couple of months back, when my grocery store stopped carrying my favorite yogurt, that I tried my hand at it for the first time and discovered how absolutely simple it is. And you don’t need…
100% Whole Wheat Bread That’s Just as Soft as White!
I’ve made homemade bread for a long time but until recently have shied away from 100% whole-wheat recipes. All the loaves I tried turned out very dense and dry–enticing only to health-food nuts and people in need of doorstops. Then, just a few weeks ago, I discovered a recipe on An Oregon Cottage that had the word ‘soft’ right in the name:…
Caramel Popcorn
I love making homemade edible goodies for stocking stuffers. Last year, it was caramels and orange-flavored hard candies. This year, I’m returning to an old favorite: caramel popcorn. My recipe comes from Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s The Joy of Vegan Baking. It’s been almost five years since I started eating eggs and dairy again, but the recipes in…
Real Whipped Cream in 5 Minutes
There’s no reason to settle for a tub of Cool Whip or a sputtering can of Reddi-wip this holiday season. Not when homemade whipped cream takes only 5 minutes to prepare! While one person’s slicing the pie, another can be whipping up a batch of the freshest, most luxurious whipped cream you’ve ever tasted. And if you have…
From Pumpkin to Pie
‘Tis the season for baking pumpkin pies! Especially if, like me, you lazily store your pumpkins in the house. At room temperature, they start molding and rotting after a couple of months, so now’s a great time to cook up the August/September harvest and either bake it straight into pies or freeze the purée for later…
10-Minute Homemade Garlic Toast
The garlic harvest is less than a month away here in Virginia, and I thought I’d prepare by giving you a super-easy recipe for homemade garlic toast. There’s no reason to fill up your freezer with those store-bought frozen garlic bread loaves (full of unpronounceable ingredients) when this recipe takes less than 10 minutes start to finish….
Super-Rich Single-Serving Chocolate Cakes
What food is most closely associated with Valentine’s Day? Chocolate, of course. And, increasingly, science is giving us reason to think that this is no accidental pairing. Chocolate contains a chemical called phenethylamine (PEA, for short), the same compound that the body naturally produces in increased quantity when we fall in love! So what better…
Rolls at the Ready
Winter meals are especially inviting when they’re accompanied by rolls fresh from the oven. And making those rolls from scratch is not as hard as you might think! This recipe allows you to make the dough ahead of time and keep it in the fridge until a couple hours before it’s time to bake. Then just shape the rolls…
gettin' fresh! 