Three-seed Porridge with Ginger and Blueberries

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I have a secret love of porridge, and, in the winter months, it is one of our favorite breakfasts.  We eat soaked oatmeal porridge, mostly, and congee from time to time, but occasionally I like to focus on other grains and pseudocereals like buckwheat, amaranth and quinoa whose grassy undertones blossom when paired with fresh [...]

traditional remedies from the garden: stinging nettle infusion with mint & clover

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Stinging nettle infusion spiked with mint and red clover found its way to my kitchen counter by chance this summer where its deep green, inky hue is now desperately loved. Yes, like most of you real food lovers, I’m a fan of the legendary herbalist Susun Weed.  And though her Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year  sits [...]

don’t waste garden thinnings: a recipe for braised whole baby beets

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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 when [...]

mystery veggies in your csa box? what to do with what’s in your box.

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I have a confession: I have no idea what’s in my CSA box this week, and, I’m confident I’m not alone.  Sure, I can recognize the sugar snap peas and carrots, the lacinato kale with its pebbled dark green leaves, the baby collards (which we’ll combine with cream and the last of our overwintered shallots [...]

Weeds on the Kitchen Table: Wilted Dandelion Greens with Toasted Mustard Seed

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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 [...]

Five Spring-weather Crops that Do Great in Containers

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It may be officially spring, but here in the heart of ski country, we woke to six inches of fluffy white powder and my heart has begun to ache for bees, for the sweat of the summer sun and, undoubtedly, for something green.  I itch for the view from our plot in the community garden, [...]

a recipe for good luck: creamed collard greens

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Looking for a collard greens recipe to bring a little luck to your new year?  In this traditional recipe for creamed collards, collard greens are gently simmered in fresh cream with caramelized onions and sprinkling of freshly grated nutmeg.  Creamed collards speak to the essence of comfort food in a way few other dishes do.  There’s easy [...]

a recipe: triple beet salad with basil and olive oil

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Beet salad with fresh basil and olive oil, sweet and fresh and earthy, becomes the center of our supper tables in late summer and early autumn when both beets and basil appear at market in abundance.  Farmers sell half-pound bags of fragrant Genovese and Violetta basil for as little as four dollars, and you can [...]

10 Culinary Herbs & Their Medicinal Uses

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Over the past few weekends, the snow has cleared from the high country (yes … it takes that long for winter to recede up here), and what time I’ve had that hasn’t been occupied by the online cooking class (there’s still time to register, you stragglers …), I’ve spent planting my new herb garden. My porch is littered with fragrant terra cotta and glazed ceramic pots, bursting with charming herbs: rosemary, rose geranium, sweet bay, peppermint, spearmint, curly parsley, flat leaf parsley, dill, sweet basil and violetta basil, thyme and chives and nasturtiums. I think wistfully about finding French tarragon, stevia for teas, marjoram and sweet cicely (for its charming name alone).

Cold Quinoa Salad with Chicken, Pine Nuts & Feta

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Quinoa is a remarkable grain – rich in magnesium, phosphorus and manganese as well as the amino acid lysine which offers antiviral properties.  Quinoa is not truly a cereal grain in the same manner as wheat or rye; rather, it’s a pseudocereal and, as such, is gluten-free and well-tolerated by those who choose to consume [...]