There’s something about apricots that entice me to buy lots of them. My grandpa used to have an apricot tree in his orchard and every year we’d have boxes and boxes of the sweet treats. We’d easily eat six or eight a day, one or two for breakfast, one stolen from the fridge for a snack, a few with lunch . . . each one pulled apart at the seams and each sweet half enjoyed in a bite or two. For some reason, I can’t buy just two or just four apricots. I must have a dozen or more, because that’s how I’ve always seen them, piled up in the vegetable bin or in a half flat box on the back porch. Apricots in abundance. And then, this time, I [... To read more, click here ...]
Jun 262008
Jun 252008
We have a favorite, local, hole-in-the-wall, family-run, cash-only Mexican restaurant that we can literally walk to from our house. Open for longer than I’ve been alive, it features excellent salsa, pitchers of smooth margaritas and happy, tasty food. And they love my son and happily provide a warm tortilla for him to snack on/tear into a million little pieces, whenever we go. And my favorite thing of all, maybe even outpacing the terrific chips and salsa, is the bowl of Escabeche they provide on every table. Mexican pickled vegetables, escabeche generally features carrots, radishes and onions pickled in a spicy brine. I love it. I will eat the whole bowl, often before my entree has arrived. This Cortido may soon take the place of that when dining at home . [... To read more, click here ...]
Jun 242008
One of my husband’s favorite vegetables has got to be the pepper. He loves bell peppers, green chile peppers, stuffed anaheims, jalapenos, spicy red pepper flakes, hot pepper sauce . . . you name it, he loves it. So the other day when I was at the store, I picked up a nice big bag of mini sweet peppers. I wasn’t sure quite how I’d use them yet, I knew that he’d be happy with any meal I made. Now, that day I bought a lot more fruits and vegetables than normal (they just all looked so good!) and had a severe lack of fridge space. Knowing that I was going to use the peppers soon, I kept them out on my counter along with other vegetables I don’t normally [... To read more, click here ...]
Jun 232008
Welcome to the first day of my first series, “Preserving our Bounty, our Heritage, and our Health!” What better way to start this series than beginning with a recipe for the vegetable that most people correlate immediately with preserved foods, pickles! Pickled Cucumbers from Nourishing Traditions For each 1 quart of pickles you will need: 4-5 pickling cucumbers or 15-20 gherkins 1 Tablespoon mustard seeds 2 Tablespoons fresh dill, snipped 1 Tablespoon salt 4 Tablespoons whey 1 cup filtered water 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and trimmed, optional* 1 teaspoon crushed red chile flakes, optional* Wash cucumbers well and place in a quart-sized, wide-mouth mason jar. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over cucumbers, adding more water if necessary to cover the cucumbers. The top of the liquid should be at [... To read more, click here ...]
Welcome to the first day of my first series, “Preserving our Bounty, our Heritage, and our Health!” Thank you for joining along with me! I wanted to take a moment to briefly introduce the concept of this series and why I feel it is so beneficial. As most of you know, I’ve been highly influenced by the work of Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions. A lifestyle/holistic health/cookbook, Nourishing Traditions recalls “the culinary customs of our ancestors . . . [promoting] robust good health for young and old.” Truly a tome and full of information, one of the areas that has most interested me in reading Nourishing Traditions is the making (and eating!) of lacto-fermented fruits and vegetables. All of my extended family lives in Northern California and growing up I [... To read more, click here ...]
Jun 052008
I know, hardy har har. That joke isn’t even punny . . . ba dum bum dum. Seriously, sometimes I think I’m turning into my dad. I’m rolling my own eyes at myself. Moving on . . . While reading “Nourishing Traditions” recently two of the components for healthy eating the author focuses on is both the soaking of grains and legumes to make them more digestible, and the consumption, with meals, of fermented (think pickled) vegetables and fruits. Now, I’m a sucker for anything pickled or preserved, and I feel like it is a culinary heritage, truly an artisinal craft, that we’re quickly losing, so I perked up my ears (can one really do this while reading? Anyway . . . ) and read on. . . Most of [... To read more, click here ...]
Welcome to the Heartland! Reformed Urbanites, we are enjoying new life on a small family farm/homestead in the Midwest. Join us as we garden, cook, read and enjoy our boys; becoming better stewards of the Earth while raising our family.
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