i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
My Korean Bush Cherry gave me about a cup of fruit this year, and I had wondered what to do with them. They’re quite tart, but surprisingly has a bit of sweetness behind them, so I thought I’d prepare a compote with the rhubarb from …
I don’t normally make omurice (Japanese Omelette Rice) but had extra rice leftover. I’m not a fan of traditional ketchup based omurice fried rice, so this isn’t a recipe for that (my fried rice is a simple mixture of frozen veggies, butter, rice, garlic, onion, …
Every year, several flushes of Chicken of the Woods pop up on my lawn, and this year is no different. So I endeavored to make Japanese fried chicken (Karaage) with the one I found earlier today. I always tend to collect it young, before it turns fibrous (and more reminiscent of chicken breast). This means I have to squeeze out the excess water in it before frying to make sure it doesn’t turn the breading soggy. It’s a juicy, vegetarian alternative to traditional Karaage. To make this extra special, I also add a pinch of five spice powder.
You can easily use this same recipe with juicy pieces of chicken thigh instead. I serve it with shredded cabbage, and a egg-and-potato salad. I’m sure some curry would go great with it as well.
It is shameful for me to admit that I had ever used Irish Butter before, and thus did not discover it’s greatness until the last month or so. It is deliciously creamy, fatty, full of buttery flavor, and I don’t know if I could ever …
I grow nagaimo (Dioscorea polystachya), also known as the cinnamon vine, Chinese yam, or Japanese yam here in my backyard—it’s a beautiful and funny perennial vine, growing little bulbils that you can stick into the ground or steam over rice. It is a pain to …
Disclaimer: I’m out of cooking sherry and white wine so Armagnac tagged in.
As the growing and foraging season gets underway, I’m looking to clear stuff out from my fridge and pantry. A young chicken of the woods has been sitting in the freezer all winter long, the last flush this past fall from a tree on the edge of my yard. I’m lucky in that I can keep an eye on any COTW that develop because I prefer them as young as possible—they are meaty and less like long strands of fiber on chicken breast and very much like a tender roast beef. I am a big fan of quality over quantity. I also still had half a package of portobello mushrooms, some dried trumpets, although it’s a pity that I did not have any more chants, winecaps, or boletes as they had made their way into our meals sometime last year.
If you froze your COTW, a quick defrost and then squeezing out as much of the liquid as possible will help it pull in flavor and not water down your sauce. You don’t technically have to use wild mushrooms, store bought buttons and oyster work too.
My rows of thyme are doing quite well for themselves and lend itself as a fine herb to this dish.
This is a fun recipe that can be modified to your taste. Seafood dynamite is usually some sort of baked seafood dish with mayo, the creaminess of the mayonnaise making it a decadent treat. You can often find it in the appetizer section of a …
First, let me just say yes, chickweed (Stellaria media) tastes good—like if butter lettuce and alfalfa sprouts had a baby… but it’s a pain to harvest and harvest enough of it to justify making a salad. However, if you have nothing to do and are …
When we were little, my grandparents taught my sister and I how to make these origami boxes from the stacks of magazines they would get in the mail. We would sit at their country style dining table (which is now the kotatsu table in my tatami room), carefully folding each one. I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 when I started and the directions to fold this box are deeply ingrained into my muscle memory—I can probably do them in my sleep. The boxes, when unopened, folded up neatly in a stack.
Aside from being just a fun thing for kids to do, it had another use—as something to throw fish/beef/pork/chicken bones in while we ate dinner. It was also used to toss pistachio and peanut shells in, watermelon seed and pumpkin seed shells, egg shells, orange peels, etc. while we sat around the table playing games or talking or playing Mah Jong. Once we were done, each person would just throw the entire box in the garbage.
Eating the menhaden with all of its tiny bones reminded me that I was out of these, so I pulled up a stack of magazines and got to work. My cute little daughters of course got very interested and learned to make them as well and I marveled at how each generation passes these small traditions down to the next.
What I like about this is that I can use the previous year’s seed catalogues to make this, and it can easily go in the compost when it’s been used (make sure your paper type is compostable.) It’s a fun DIY project that is also zero waste. The boxes are simple, and I can make one every thirty seconds or so. Below are the photo instructions.
Here’s something that’s a little bit more on the “normal” spectrum in terms of food since I know some of my creations might be difficult for the average homesteader to find use for. I dehydrate hot peppers and powder them to save space, and this …