Vegetables

Warm Farro Salad

October 12, 2023

Today’s post, as the world burns, is about warm farro salad. Farro, otherwise known as emmer wheat, has yet to experience the ruinous fame that has struck tahini, quinoa, and miso. Instead of picturing ruinous fame, I give you this funnel on my kitchen windowsill. By “ruinous fame,” think foodie…

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Canned Tomatoes

August 22, 2023

  This is a long post.  I know some people dislike reading long posts, but this one discusses how to safely can tomatoes. If you will never can a tomato in your lifetime, feel free to look at the photographs. If you want to can tomatoes but find my blow-by-blow…

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Nearly Summer Salad

June 8, 2023

Why nearly summer? Well, I don’t know about where you are, but where I am, it’s still cool. We even had rain a few days ago. More importantly, as salads go, it’s still too early for luxuries like heirloom tomatoes or baby cucumbers. Instead, nearly summer salad relies on some…

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Minestrone

May 26, 2023

For the non-Italian, deciding to prepare Minestrone can feel a little intimidating. Minestrone itself–a substantial vegetable soup–isn’t difficult to make. The problem is deciding which minestrone to make. Elizabeth David, writing in Italian Cooking, gives five recipes for minestrone. In The Essentials of Italian Cooking, Marcella Hazan offers a recipe…

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People assume every meal around here is a multicourse wonder, each dish more stunningly photogenic than the next. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, over the past few days, as markets filled with spring produce, I couldn’t think of a damned thing to cook, much less blog….

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Repairing a Ruined Recipe

March 20, 2023

Today’s post is less about “recipes” than it is about thinking creatively. More succinctly, it is how I turned one awful dish into two good ones, and saved the world. Well, maybe not that last bit. I am not the type who recycles leftovers into new dishes. As far as…

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Broccoli Rabe with Parmesan Cheese began as a calzone filling. And indeed, it works very well in that role. The problem is me: I am hopelessly uncoordinated, and any food I attempt to wrap, stuff, or otherwise fill and fold ends up looking like a badly wrapped gift. No cook…

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Cauliflower Cheese

December 30, 2022

Cauliflower cheese is what the English call a faff. It is not difficult to prepare, but it takes a little time and dirties a few pots and pans. Just what you want to hear after the holidays, right? Leftover from last post. I could say pseudo-meaningful things about life choices…

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Buttermilk Potato Gratin

November 22, 2022

Buttermilk potato gratin came about by mistake. I’d purchased a bottle of buttermilk for another recipe, which never got made, and now it was down to the wire: use up the buttermilk or let it go off and toss it. So I poured it into a potato gratin. The result…

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Long-Cooked Broccoli

October 25, 2022

Long-cooked broccoli comes to us from Paul Bertolli’s Chez Panisse Cooking. I cooked it for years, forgot about it, then recalled it when I began making Paula Wolfert’s green beans with tomato, another recipe calling for long cooking. “Long-cooked” isn’t a euphemism for pap. Prepared with attention and care, long-cooked…

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