being not doing

So far, I have only a couple of cooking goals for the year. One, I want to learn to cook dried beans in my slow cooker. Two, I want to learn to make pizzas. Neither of these will seem like major challenges to most of you, I’m sure, but they are things [...]

Lemon garlic pickles, spicy bread and butter pickles, brandied peaches, sour cherry-walnut conserve, cherry sauce (with rum), and canned cherries, with pickled summer squash in front.
Now is as good a time as any to report on the canning I did this summer. I had big plans to make cherry jam, or even cherry preserves, [...]

Applesauce, tomato sauce, pear mincemeat, and pickled beets, with spiced pear jam in front.
A couple of weeks ago, we spent an afternoon at Larriland Farm, where we picked our own bags of Stayman apples (48 pounds), beets (20 pounds), and Roma tomatoes (30 pounds). I also bought three smallish pie pumpkins and a box [...]

A couple of things have contributed to my silence around here the past couple of weeks. One, it’s been godawful hot and sitting in front of our furnace of a computer is the last thing I want to be doing. Plus, the heat makes my brain melt so anything that requires stringing words [...]

Our CSA is swinging into full summer gear, and we are overflowing with potatoes, basil, tomatoes, a variety of cucumbers, and two kinds of squash. To be fair to our farmer who works hard not to overwhelm us with what he perceives to be the less desirable of the summer vegetables (squash), this week’s [...]