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Food

Cooler Weather Means Bread!

Cooler Weather Means Bread!

As summer comes to an end, my kitchen moves into cooler weather mode. This means baking: in the fall and winter I make most of my family’s bread here at home. Cooler weather means bread!

Making bread need not be a difficult task.

Food, Local Harvest

Old-fashioned cucumber & tomato salad

Old-fashioned cucumber & tomato salad

Think about how people lived through hot summers before air conditioning was common: cold suppers, supper on the porch, cooling salads, and lots of lemonade and iced tea. This still sounds good, right? Try this old-fashioned cucumber & tomato salad – a summer classic.

Food

Rare Roast Beef from the Instant Pot

Rare Roast Beef from the Instant Pot

Once in a while, I get a complete surprise in the kitchen. As I’ve accumulated experience, this happens less often, but it does happen, and so it was this week. Against all my expectations, I learned how to produce rare roast beef from the Instant Pot!

Food, Pantry Cooking, Tools & Equipment

Slow Cooker Rolls for Summer

Slow Cooker Rolls for Summer

Edited from a 2014 post and still relevant! Slow cooker rolls are just what you need for summer.

My idea of a perfect summer meal is a great salad and home-baked bread. But who wants to turn on the oven on the hottest days of the year?

Food, Pantry Cooking

English Muffins

English Muffins

Why did “pantry cooking” ever become associated with deprivation? There are lots of wonderful foods you can make from simple pantry ingredients: these English muffins are a fine example.

If you have flour, yeast, salt, and water –

Food, Pantry Cooking

Sausage Hash

Sausage Hash

Hash is an old-fashioned dish. You can make hash from leftover roast of any kind, and cooks like my grandmother never needed a recipe: just cook onions, potatoes, leftover meat in a pan, moisten with gravy, milk, or cream, season,

Food

Pickle Soup – a winner!

Pickle Soup – a winner!

While it hasn’t been an especially cold winter, so far, it’s often been dank and grey. In my kitchen, the best remedy for the winter blahs is a pot of soup. Recently I experimented with a Polish dill pickle soup –

Food, Local Harvest

Peach Upside-Down Cake

Peach Upside-Down Cake

This blog focuses on what’s local and in season. I do make some exceptions, though: my wheat and flour do not come from local growers. I like bananas, avocados, and ginger, none of which grow anywhere nearby. And I love peaches from the Peach Truck –

Food, Pantry Cooking

Oat and Wheat Bread

Oat and Wheat Bread

It’s been cold, cold, COLD! During the frigid polar vortex days I wanted to bake all the things, all day long, so I could hang out in a warm kitchen. I made soup; I made stew; I made oat and wheat bread.

Food, Pantry Cooking

Escarole Soup with Beans & Sausage

Escarole Soup with Beans & Sausage

So far this month, we’ve had cold & grey weather – gloomy, but no rain or snow. According to the weather forecasters, that’s about to change. We’ll have a chance to put on our snow boots, test out the new electric snow thrower,

Food, Tools & Equipment

Sous Vide Cooking in My Kitchen

Sous Vide Cooking in My Kitchen

January is a time when I return to the simple in my kitchen. After 6 weeks of feasts, cookies, pies, more feasts, and all the glitter of the holidays, it’s time to simplify. This month I want to eat down the freezer,

Food, Local Harvest

Quick Maple Tarts

Quick Maple Tarts

Cold weather and the holiday season mean that my oven’s often in use, baking all kinds of treats. Fancy cookies are all very well, and fun to give as gifts, but sometimes I just want something quick and easy, but still utterly delicious.

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