pork rinds

There's nothing quite like homemade pork rinds.

When I’m making a ham based soup or stock, one of my favorite ingredients are a few

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Duck!

Eating duck is becoming more popular even though many are intimidated by cooking this less common poultry. Jump on the bandwagon and try my simple approach to duck confit!

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the whole deer

Did you ever cook an entire deer at once? I’ve cooked entire goats in the past, but have wanted to try this with a deer ever since I moved to western Pennsylvania. Marinated and cooked in seasoned wine, it turned out pretty well.

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going commando (“recipe free”) in the kitchen

Cooking a creamy cold-weather soup from a leafy green base is a good time to “go commando” in the kitchen. (Cook without a recipe, I mean. What did you think I meant?!)

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foraging in the city: wild pears!

Every fall I manage to find something to harvest from the urban environment: chestnuts? Quince fruit? Figs? This year I found some wild pears, and Tom from Wild Purveyors helped me try to identify them (and eat them up, of course!).

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tomato time

In keeping with my philosophy of preserving the harvest, I roasted many tomatoes. Roasting tomatoes is a very simple process, and also allows me to use fresh herbs from the garden: marjoram, oregano and thyme.

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turnip revelation

Tokyo turnips served with fish for our family dinner

Yes, yes–more about my garden.

I am really enjoying my garden this year. So far

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turnip blast from the past

This giant turnip from last year was almost as big as my head

The weekends have had nice weather lately, and I spent some

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A season for cider

Farnum Hill Semi-dry cider was my choice for this year’s Thanksgiving dinner, and it was a great pairing to our harvest feast.

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coffee blossoms

first bloom of the coffee plants

There are a couple of blossoms I could write about all the time, our twins, but I don’t

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