E is for Eats

Have you ever seen parsley root? I hadn’t. Always curious about new foods, I asked the farmer at the stand the best way to cook and eat it. He said that his favorite way to eat it was as a soup. It was fall-like outside, so soup sounded good. As I was paying for the parsley root, I asked him if the greens were edible. He looked at me for what felt like 5 minutes and said very slowly, “yes ma’am……it’s parsley”. So, once I wiped the egg off my face, I went home and made some soup. It was a very simple soup but quite tasty. I didn’t write down the exactly what I made, but below is a rough guide of what I threw together. Sautee some garlic and onion in butter. Throw in the parsley root, chopped (I peeled it, but I’m not really certain that it’s necessary). Cover with veggie or chicken stock. Let it simmer until parsley root is tender. Puree with immersion blender. Add salt and pepper to taste and garnish with parley leaves. Yummmmmmm.

For the first 7 years of our marriage, I was constantly pestering Craig to go apple picking. He always said he wanted to go, but somehow we never made it. Finally, he gave in last year and we went to Dressel farms . It was a little late in the season, but we still came home with a half-bushel of delicious apples. This year we wanted to go earlier in the season and we wanted to go to one of the farms from our greenmarket.  We decided to go to Wilklow Orchards , in Highland, NY.  Wilklow is at our market year round – they are a sixth generation family farm that brings us city-dwellers delicious produce, meats, baked goods and jams. We were excited to see the farm and we weren’t disappointed. We spent a few hours in the orchard and picked a full bushel of apples. We picked Macoun, Cortland, Red Delicious, Macintosh and Jonamac. I’ve been eating about two apples a day, usually slathered with almond butter. This weekend, Craig has his work cut out for him peeling apples. L...

Peach, Honey and Mint Jam (using instagram to mask my inability to take a good picture) A few weeks ago, we bought a half bushel of peaches from Wilklow Orchards . Lots and lots of peaches. We put up gingered peaches, peaches in honey syrup and we froze a few bags of sliced peaches. For the first time, I also made a jam. I made the Ginger Peach Jam from Sherri Brook Vinton’s “Put ‘em Up!” (This is my FAVORITE canning cookbook right now. All of the peach recipes I used were from her book. Seriously, if you can or want to can or are thinking of canning, buy this book!).  For my first go at jam, it turned out pretty well. I only made a handful of half-pints of the jam, so the next weekend, I bought a few more pounds of peaches. We had some mint from the market and Craig was kind of over the ginger, it was time for a different recipe. I had a specific idea in mind, but I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. Using the guidelines for developing your own recipes in the Pom...

Homemade yogurt, with Gabrielle's granola. Last year we decided to buy a slow cooker. In looking up recipes for our new appliance, we found a basic recipe for making yogurt in the slow cooker.   It made sense to try to make yogurt because we were spending so much on it every week and we had about a million of those quart-sized, plastic yogurt containers. Truthfully, I don’t remember the exact recipe I used but it was probably this one: crockpot365.blogspot.com “Plug in your crockpot and turn to low. Add an entire half-gallon of milk. Cover and cook on low for 2 1/2 hours. Unplug your crockpot. Leave the cover on, and let it sit for 3 hours. When 3 hours have passed, scoop out 2 cups of the warmish milk and put it in a bowl. Whisk in 1/2 cup of store-bought live/active culture yogurt. Then dump the bowl contents back into the crockpot. Stir to combine. Put the lid back on your crockpot. Keep it unplugged, and wrap a heavy bath towel all the way around the crock for insulation...

Granola bars. As far as prepackaged, convenience foods go, I figured that would be the easiest to start with. While I wasn’t entirely wrong, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Last weekend I made my first batch, using Alton Brown's recipe  (with just a few tweaks to account for what I had on hand).  They weren’t terrible, but they were way too sweet and the bars fell apart when we tried to eat them. So, I gave it another go yesterday.  The result is pretty darn delicious (if I do say so myself), but again, they fall apart when we eat them. I will happily gobble this batch up, but I am determined to find the perfect bar. Anyone have any advice? In the meantime, here’s the recipe. Delicious, but crumbly , Granola Bars Adapted from  Alton Brown's Granola Bars After I put these in the oven, I realized I should have included cinnamon.  So, add some if you are so inclined.  This makes 12-16 bars, depending on how wide you cut them. Ingredients: 2 ...

We are two city dwellers learning to can, pickle, bake and cook in a manner that is nourishing both to the body and the conscience. Eating local has been important to us for a while, and having moved to NYC from California, we realized how lucky we had been to live in such a diverse agricultural center. Our first winter in NY was a real wake up call - there are only so many cabbage, potato and turnip dishes you can eat! The next summer, remembering all of the cans of home grown veggies my grandmother had in her cellar in upstate NY, I was determined to learn how to pickle and can. Once we got over the fear of botulism and accidentally killing our friends and family, it became a really enjoyable and satisfying process. And there is nothing better than opening a can of farmers market tomatoes in the middle of a snowstorm in February. The more we shopped the markets and canned, the more fanatical I became (and the more Craig benefitted from my fanaticism). I was picking up cookbooks l...