Mushrooms are a low fat source of vitamins and minerals and they also deliver plenty of umani, also called the fifth taste after sweet, sour, salty and bitter.

Adding mushrooms to most savory dishes make them taste better. I made Mushroom Pilaf for a ‘welcome home’ potluck dinner on Saturday night. This vegetarian dish was made with barley rather than rice and topped with sour cream. It was delicious. Here’s how I did it: … read more

With Julia’s method, I was able to sauté mushrooms to add to omelets, soups, pastas, pizzas and more.

I made a mushroom soufflé for lunch to thank a friend who took care of my mail while I was away. We chatted about my adventures in Italy and her experiences with late winter in Vermont while the soufflé baked. A soufflé sounds complicated but it is just a seasoned white sauce lightened with egg whites that is baked. Here’s how I made it: … read more

The first mushroom I knew about was the red one with white spots that killed the king of the elephants in The Story of Babar.

Then, there were those stories that included frogs, toads, toadstools, kissing and princes, yuck! When my father’s friends gave us wild mushrooms, their promises that none were poisonous did not encourage me to try the black, slimy concoction they became. Mushrooms, no thank you!

The turning point in my relationship with mushrooms came when I saw Julia Child cook them. Her method was simple and the lightly browned mushrooms could be served at any meal. After all the ricotta pastries I had enjoyed in Sicily, I wanted to make a low fat, high flavor, savory breakfast in my Vermont kitchen. Sautéed mushrooms served with whole-wheat toast and a pot of tea would be perfect. Here’s how I did it: … read more

Today I picked up my first CSA delivery. I got Chinese cabbage, Siberian kale, chives, garlic chives, a spicy greens salad mix of about twenty greens, small bunches of Tango lettuce , spring herbs, granola and eggs.

My bag also had a note from the Clay HIll folks with an update on the irrigation system, information about the green house and hoop houses and a recipe for Garlic Scallion and Almond Pesto.

I’m planning on making fresh pasta and the pesto for dinner tomorrow night.  I let you know how it goes.  I made maple syrup seasoned salad dressing to top the spicy mixed greens for  a salad for dinner. Here’s how I did it: … read more

I came home to spring in my garden.

The daffodils are blooming, the weeping willows are full of tender, yellow green leaves, the grass is green and the weeds are taking over. Each spring I think about all the vegetables I might grow. By the middle of June I wonder what I was thinking.  Of course I will plant carrots and perhaps potatoes.

The parsley and rhubarb have reappeared in my garden but the undeniable truth is FARMERS DO IT BETTER. They work harder, they weed every day, not just when they feel like meditating, they work hard.

This spring I have joined the Clay Hill Collective CSA in Harland, Vermont.  The Clay Hill Collective is a collective of six growers and producers of quality food less than four miles from my kitchen.  In early spring, I’ve been told that I can expect lettuce, spicy greens, spinach, kale, herbs and lots more. I will be doing a CSA post each week to share what came in my bag and a recipe or two of what I made.

Eating Local is possible without having a green thumb.  I hope you will be inspired to find and support a farmer or group of farmers who live near you. Food is tastier to me when I know who grew it.

Contact me if you live nearby and would like to be a part of the Clay Hill CSA. If you are part of a CSA, a veg box scheme, or a farmers’ market regular, I’d love to hear what’s in your bag and what you are making with it.

My CSA starts on Sunday!

Do you still have snow? Is the sap running? Have you seen mergansers on the river?

These familiar questions are heard at the post office, the Creamery, the market, and at community dinners in the early spring.

It was a bright morning last April, when I saw pink sprouts pushing up through the cold earth. Within a week, there were pink stems topped with dark green leaves. Rhubarb! It would be the first harvest from my garden. Along with the phoebes that nest in the rafters of the barn, it’s rhubarb that announces the arrival of spring in Vermont.

A lilac bush, a clump of rhubarb and a stonewall may be all that remains of a homestead abandoned a hundred years earlier. The dark green leaves, full of oxalic acid, are poisonous but the bright pink or drab green stems are loaded with flavor. It doesn’t need much attention, an occasion scoop of well-rotted manure and cutting back the flowering stalks when they appear will keep the harvest coming until early summer.

Technically rhubarb is a vegetable, but I think of it as a fruit that can be roasted and topped with a dollop of yogurt, baked in a pie or simmered with dried fruit to make chutney.

A week after the sprouts had appeared, it was impossible for me to wait any longer. There wasn’t enough rhubarb to make a pie, but there were enough stems for a ‘dessert for one’. That bowl of sweet-tart, roasted rhubarb satisfied my rhubarb cravings. Here’s how I did it:

Roasted Rhubarb

I put four stalks of rhubarb, cut in one-inch pieces in a bowl along with two tablespoons of sugar. While it rested in the sugar for half an hour, I weeded the rhubarb patch. When I’d finished weeding, I poured the rhubarb and the juice that had formed into a buttered ceramic baking dish. After roasting at 175-degrees C /350-F degrees for half an hour it was tender and surrounded with sweet pink syrup. I poured in a generous splash of heavy cream, added a sprinkle of freshly grated nutmeg and returned it to the oven for ten more minutes. It was edible proof that spring had come.

I like to eat it still hot from the oven, with an antique silver spoon that was my grandmother’s, but no one has complained when I have served it chilled as dessert or topped with granola for breakfast. Rhubarb from the garden with cream from a Vermont dairy and local maple syrup is eating local at its best.

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A piece of pie is often breakfast in New England. A slice of custardy rhubarb pie served with a steamy cup of coffee does the trick. It was my friend Kathy who generously served me my first piece of this pie. Here’s how I made it when I was able to harvest enough rhubarb: … read more