i hope you eat good food, grow beautiful things, and have more love than you know what to do with.
There’s a Greek restaurant near me that makes an absolutely delectable charcoal octopus, tender and grilled to perfection. They usually serve it with a side of vegetables and some lemon potatoes. I don’t always finish the lemon potatoes, so rather than letting it go to …
I got my last box of ugly produce this past week as my garden has sprung to life and I won’t be needing their services until winter. I received two eggplants in it and while I do like eggplants, for busy weeks it’s one of …
While it isn’t a true perennial, rather, biennial (meaning it dies after the second year when it flowers), parsley (Petroselinum crispum) is a staple in my food forest. I actually never really used it in my cooking until a few years ago, when I started experimenting with it first as visual garnish and later for its flavor, especially in Mediterranean cuisine and tangy dressings. Hardy from USDA zones 4 – 9, it does well in shade or sun.
While it’s a supposed biennial, it has the ability to last more than two years if it sends out volunteers. It can also self seed (but I have never had that happen.)
It thrives happily and grows fast, poor soil tolerant, without many pests to bother it. It does seem to like regular watering, but not too much. Sometimes we get swallowtail caterpillars, but they are much more fond of my bronze fennel than they are of my parsley. There’s really not much to say about it other than it thrives as borders and around low bushes for a lot of visual appeal. There are two general kinds, flat leaf (Italian) and curly leaf (French) parsley. I prefer the curly leaf just for how it looks, and it’s firmer in texture than the flat leaf Italian variety.
While it seems like such a low key and simple herb, I can’t imagine my kitchen without it.
I’ve been meaning to make a post about this particular dish but I find myself always finishing it before taking a picture. This is a nostalgic childhood dish–my mom would make a huge pot of it during chilly days, and we’d immediately recognize the fragrant, …
With the abundance of radishes in my Misfit Market box (read my review here), I started to think of creative ways to use them up. I just so happen to still have two mason jars full of dried black trumpets from last year’s mushroom foraging season which have lost none of its earthy, truffle flavor (glass jars for the win) and thought what better way to make a dent in both than to make relatively traditional toast point sandwiches with them?
Toasted bread smeared with butter and topped with spicy sweet radish slices, salt, and pepper are a pretty popular (and somewhat historically French) spring and summer snack (or light meal.) A compound butter made from powdering the mushrooms makes it divine. With just a sprinkling of parsley for garnish from the garden, this simple but tasty recipe is a great way to showcase both of the main ingredients.
You can also make the butter from scratch like I did here and follow the rest of the recipe as is. If you want to learn more about black trumpets, read the description here.
I am often at a loss as to what to do with radishes–after soups, salads, and pickles, any extra ones seem more like a peppery curse than they do a boon. But I got a bag of them in this week’s Misfit Market box and …
I feel like I’ve mentioned often how much I absolutely adore sea urchin. While I most often meet it in the sushi restaurant, occasionally I’ll purchase it from the Asian grocery store if it’s available. While I have prepared it in other ways, including pasta, it is beautiful as a sauce for over rice.
Nestled with some ikura (salmon roe), an egg yolk, and some scallions, it feels both homey and decadent at the same time. Creamy, savory, but still bursting with the natural sweetness of the uni, I haven’t experimented with bottling this sauce yet since it never lasts, but I might eventually make a bunch for my freezer if it defrosts well.
I didn’t think there could be a better way to eat raw crabs other than the spicy variety–but I was wrong. I’ve never actually had the soy sauce marinated version, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I think a part of me thought that …
