Reviving Traditional Foods
Homemade sauerkraut, in all its funky humility, is a favorite food in our home – particularly in wintertime when fresh, local produce is a rare treat and we rely on what we’ve put by over the summer and autumn months. For us, this means lots of fermented foods and sauerkraut in particular. We grow cabbage [...]
Tomatoes provençale, a simple dish that highlights the bounty of late summer gardens with its emphasis on fresh tomatoes, finds its way to our table almost daily in August when we buy heirloom tomatoes by the case at our local market. Tomatoes, you see, don’t do well up here at 9,000 feet. So we get [...]
I have a love of wild foods. I can’t help it – wild foods satisfy three base yearnings: my need for real food, my love of adventure and my ridiculously frugal streak. Where others see inherent danger and inevitable bug bites, I see a day under the sun, isolated by the wilds and blessed by [...]
Salsa verde, bright and hot and green, makes its way to our kitchen every August when tomatillos come into their season. No, they don’t grow in our little corner of the community garden – the altitude is too high and the climate too cold, but they arrive in paper bags with our CSA and in [...]
I always feel a little lost, a little wasteful when it’s time to thin my garden as though all those little plants, doing their best to grow in our very rocky mountain soil, are being plucked early with no chance of reaching their potential. It’s a curious thought, but I’m known for being particularly sentimental [...]
Four Thieves Vinegar can cure the plague, at least, that’s what French folklore teaches us. And while I can’t comment on the veracity of this statement (and, no, it hasn’t been approved by the Food & Drug Administration), I will say that in every little garden whether it’s an expansive lot on a farmstead, a [...]
I love the humble pleasure of primitive cooking: orange flames that dance in a stone-studded hearth, smoke that whirls itself toward the sky and perfumes every piece of clothing with its rustic odor. And while I’ll always appreciate the almost guilty convenience to be had from the appliances that litter my kitchen counters: an ice [...]
I love the Fourth of July: fireworks, parades, barbecues and apple pie contests. I love it all, and do my best to prepare special and celebratory picnics for the day. As Nourished Kitchen’s meal plan subscribers know, this week we’re hosting a barbecue with grass-fed beef burgers seasoned with onion and served with homemade ketchup, [...]
Dandelion greens, like all greens, love fat. Their robust bitterness and peppery undertones are muted, to some degree, by the liquid smoothness of unrefined olive oil or – even better – the smokiness of a good quality bacon fat, free of added nitrates and nitrites and produced from hogs raised outdoors and under a vibrant [...]
When the snows recede and the forests open we like to venture out: reveling in the woods, fishing in lakes and streams and cooking over the campfire in rustic simplicity. And while it’s too cold to camp comfortably in our area for another month, we spent the last three weeks traveling from Colorado to the [...]
free resources to get started
The Thing About Blueberries . . . is that they don't grind their Harleys over the hot desert tarmac, … [read more]
Confused about grains? You're not alone! It seems that everyone is telling you - to either get … [read more]
Did you know that a simple process can actually increase the nutrients your body absorbs from whole … [read more]
Jenny McGruther is a wife, mother and cooking instructor specializing in real and traditional foods. Her work has been featured on CNN, the Globe & Mail, the Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, Denver Post and WebMD. Click here to learn more.
What People are Saying