We have been eating fresh fruit like crazy, I am sure you have too. There are an abundance of perfectly ripe stone fruit, peaches, plums and apricots that are grown locally. We love to slice them thin, mixed with a bit of homemade jam amd served atop (or underneath) a buttery cookie. These shortbreads are easy to whip together (after making it the second time I had the recipe memorized) and they pair well with any fruit, or with your after dinner coffee or tea. (more…)

The kale and chard in our small box garden mightn’t be growing enough to sustain our family, this year is our first year with any type of harvestable garden, so even though the yield is small it was still exciting being able to make something with them.

This dish is made with new red potatoes I bought at the farmer’s market and summer greens, kale and chard. It’s perfect as a side dish for dinner, or paired with a god loaf of bread and a few fresh peaches or cherries for a lunch. (more…)

I love cherries, the fact that you have to invest a little more work to enjoy them compared to other fruit doesn’t bother me. You find yourself easing into a rhythm of breaking off the stem, separating and spitting the pit, then enjoying the sweet fruit. It may eventually become a game, seeing how far you can spit the pit, comparing your talents to whomever you’re enjoying them with. Take advantage of the season and buy a sack at your local farmers market, they may sell a type that you’ve never tried before.

Keep reading for more info about perfect summer cherries. (more…)

There are a handful of meals we love to eat all summer, this sandwich is one of them. Sometimes we frill it up, adding avocado, cured meats, fresh greens, or other fancy additions, but most of the time we eat it as simple and pure as possible to highlight the beacon of summer; bright, plump, perfect tomatoes. When you make these with locally grown, organic heirloom tomatoes, you will want summer to last all year long. (more…)

Plump, juicy tomatoes are a sure sign of a good summer. The best kind are straight from your garden, or from a local farm. I love eating them with only a sprinkle of salt, like an apple. A little girl told me once that she liked tomatoes better than candy, and she would know a good tomato since her family harvests over 62 varieties daily.

Not a tomato fan? Maybe you just haven’t met the perfect one. It’s quite possible since the type that are likely sold at your local grocer are nothing like the heirloom type I ate for dinner the other night. Keep reading to learn a little more about these lovely edibles and visit localharvest.org to scout out a local farm selling organic heirloom tomatoes to die for. (more…)

I had a picnic the other day with a few new friends and since one of them is making the transition to a gluten free/vegan lifestyle I decided to make a little something special for her. I may make them again for a celiac neighbor who just had a baby (and of course there will be a couple left over), heaven knows you need a little pick me up the days following delivery. But then again another one of these would pick me up no matter what kind of day I was having. If you’re neither living the gluten free or vegan lifestyle, please don’t feel like you should pass these up.  They will make any, and i literally mean any person you give one to a happy ice cream cookie eating camper. guaranteed. (more…)

It happens. You buy those fresh, plump, aromatic vanilla bean pods to make your perfect creme brûlée recipe extra special, then you hoard those beans until they’re dry as a crisp and rendered useless. It might not happen a lot, but it happens. Either that or you can’t bear to throw away that bean pod you just fished out of your favorite vanilla bean ice cream. No worries because you can still use that vanilla bean. Just give it a rinse, let it dry, and combine it with sugar to flavor and give the sugar another lovely dimension. This is also a wonderful gift to give friends who love to make sweet treats. (more…)

We are all about frozen treats nowadays, luckily it hasn’t been as hot as it is back east, but if it ever gets to that point, we will be ready. I’ve been playing with different alternatives to the classic vanilla ice cream I usually love making since we don’t eat dairy anymore. Most everything I’ve made has been delicious, it’s hard to go wrong with freezing something sweet. I especially love the ginger and mint undertones that contrast each other in this sorbet. (more…)

I wanted to make my mother’s red velvet cake for Independence day, adding fresh blueberries on top made it quite the patriotic dessert.  I also wanted to find a natural substitution for the red dye traditionally used to give the cake it’s blush hue, and I found it. The almost walnut sized deep red beets that I bought at the farmer’s market made this cake beautifully rosy. And whad’ya know, beets are in season! Be sure to stop by your local farmer’s market and pick up some small, homegrown beets to bake this cake; or better yet pick them from your own garden! Be sure to use the entire plant by adding the green tops to a fresh salad.

Happy Independence Day! (more…)

This week I had some leftover pesto from a day I spent at Jacob’s Cove farm. It wasn’t from the actual farm day, but from the batch I made the day before, the ‘test batch’. We have been putting it to good use, eating it with fresh vegetables, on all our sandwiches, even straight from the bowl; but I think my favorite was this pizza. The dough was thick and earthy, the robust pesto a perfect match with the creamy and unmistakable goat’s mozzarella, and the greens were cool, crisp and seasoned perfectly to accent pure, clean flavor.

It was a good pizza. (more…)