Frying Flounder

Recent storms over the Chesapeake Bay have been stirring up the flounder, which normally hide out on the bay bottom. We’re fortunate to have a fisherman acquaintance who shared his catch with us, bringing us three pounds of fresh flounder filets! Since my dad is a big fan of fried seafood, we decided to go…

Pickling Beets

You might think from the number of posts I’ve written about beets that I must have planted rows and rows of them, but in truth I only planted about five feet! And yet I’m still eating them…for lunch every other day… The problem of excess beet greens does seem to have been solved, however. The…

Perfectly Chewy Granola Bars

Store-bought granola bars and granola cereals are so expensive and have such simple ingredients that it doesn’t make sense to me not to make our own. Of course, the right recipe is essential. We’ve tried some that have turned out bars so hard you might chip a tooth! But this one, modified slightly from one…

Kale Chips

We’re starting to get to the end of spring here in Virginia. Know how I can tell? Everyone’s tired of eating greens! Lettuce, spinach, tatsoi, beet greens, now kale. We’re ready for some tomatoes and peppers and corn around here! But in the meantime, so as not to waste spring’s generous green bounty, here’s a…

Ruby Coleslaw

Whew…what a hot Memorial Day weekend! And today we’re already at 91°F at 10 a.m.! With all this heat, we’ve been digging out some of the coolest, most refreshing recipes we can find–and ones that use our garden-fresh ingredients, of course. Here’s one of our winners, for using our first head of Red Acre cabbage….

Zucchini Bread

Before you give me too much credit, no, I haven’t used any amazing season-extension techniques to get fresh zucchini in mid-May here in Virginia. My zucchini plants are growing quickly, but they won’t be producing before the middle of June. On the other hand, June will be here before we know it, and that means…

Can’t Beet It!

I love the smooth texture and understated sweetness of a lukewarm beet. Since ours first got big enough to pull, I’ve been boiling them, chopping them, and eating them on salads, omelets, and even plain. They’re beginning to feel less like a luxury and more like a necessity. How did I go thirty years of…

Freezing Spinach

I didn’t have much success with spinach last year, in the spring or fall. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t very invested in it. I planted some seeds thinking, “It might be nice to have a little spinach,” and then basically didn’t pay any more attention to them. So I guess the weeds and the drought…

Of Tatsoi, Beets and Duck Eggs…

When it came time for lunch today, I knew I needed to use a bunch of produce from the garden. All the rain has made everything grow twice as fast, and it seems there’s already more available than we’ll ever be able to eat. Today my mission was to use a lot of tatsoi. I’ve…

What to Do with All These Strawberries…

I wish I could say this surplus of strawberries came from our garden, but even though the plants I put in the ground last fall have grown well and are producing runners like crazy, we’ve only gotten a few fruits from them so far–small but very sweet. So until next year, when the home harvest…