Category: Recipes

  • Summer Harvest Carrot Cake

    Summer Harvest Carrot Cake

    One of the most rewarding vegetables to grow yourself are carrots. Like tomatoes the flavor of a grocery store carrot cannot compete with homegrown carrots. Homegrown carrots are deliciously complex while grocery store varieties tend to be bland and flavorless. Orange maybe the most common color for carrots but my favorites are the yellow and…

  • What To Do With All of Those Cucumbers

    As I mentioned before, my cucumber plants are out of control. Lately, I have been enjoying a lot of summer salads. You can’t beat the combination of cucumber and tomatoes. This is my usual recipe. Cucumber and Tomato Salad 1 cup of cucumber peeled, seeded and diced 2 cups of tomatoes diced (or cherry tomatoes…

  • Summer Garden Tomato Edition

    I have a confession, last year’s tomato crop was horrible. It was terrible. The combination of putting underdeveloped seedlings out too early, not providing them the right nutrients, and erratic weather patterns resulted in a pathetic amount of tomatoes. This year I vowed it would be different. I have been doing the following and it…

  • Basil Addict

    If I had to pick a favorite herb, it would have to be Basil. In fact, I can honestly say that I’m slightly addicted to this amazing herb. I have multiple seedlings already growing and I’m about to start a few more. This year I’m not going to bother with the ornamental varieties like the…

  • Battling the Turnip

    I just grabbed my third box from my CSA and I realized that I never reported about my battle with the massive turnip. This was my first experience with eating and cooking a turnip. Since it was so big I actually was able to use it in two different recipes. The first time, I chopped…

  • Orange and Mixed Green Salad

    There is nothing better than going to your backyard and selecting something to eat. Leafy greens are best in late winter and early spring. I like to experiment with light vinaigrettes. My dad was recently giving away bags of fresh, sweet oranges from his tree. I improvised and made this light slightly sweet vinaigrette for…

  • Christmas for The Dogs

    The weatherman had been promising me a big storm for this past weekend. But then on Saturday the storm never rolled in and it was just too beautiful to hang out indoors. But on Sunday we finally got some much needed rain, I spent the whole day baking and experimenting with recipes. I even came…

  • Holiday Gift Idea: Making Your Own Peanut Brittle

    Initially, I thought this was going to be an easy project that I could just throw together in a few short minutes. In the end it took three separate tries and a completely new recipe before I got it right. Admittedly, I have never made candy before and that was part of the problem. I…

  • I have been enjoying the Meyer lemons off my tree for the past few weeks. Last night we tried Smitten Kitchen’s recipe for Lemon Risotto. The first time I made this it was a little too much lemon so I tweaked the recipe and put half the amount of lemon juice. I also added scallions…

  • Lemon Head

    Last year’s Christmas present of a Meyer Lemon tree is being greatly appreciated right now. As you can see for a little tree it’s got quite a haul of delicious lemons. If you haven’t had a a Meyer Lemon you must try one they are a great deal sweeter than Eureka (grocery store) lemons. I’m…