Winecap Mushroom Risotto
The winecaps in my garden is one of those things that I have to be good with timing on, as there’s such a short window of collection for them to be good. It’s always fun to find them though, and then eat them! You can …
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Smoke Salmon and Shiso Toast Points
This is just an ode to shiso–a lot of people don’t know what to do with it, but here’s a simple way I love to have it for a quick lunch or snack.
Chickweed Quiche with Venison Stew
This is such a late summer/fall vibe combination dish–bringing me to visions of rolling hills and flower filled meadows. A friend of ours hunts and often brings us venison from his outings which is always welcome.
Chickweed is a common and cute garden “weed” that pops up juicy and crispy in the spring and the fall. Unimposing and simple, it does well as a spinach substitute, or for salads and sandwich greens–with the texture and flavor of mini butter lettuce. I collect it when I see it, if I need a quick veggie side.
Throw whatever herbs you may be growing in your garden, or have on hand.
Chickweed Quiche
- 1/2 cup chickweed, chopped
- 4 eggs, if backyard bantam sized, 2-3 if grocery store sized
- 3/4 cup flour+4tbsp salted butter, cold and grated to make quiche crust (or buy some pastry dough)
- 2 tablespoons minced onion or chives
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup shredded cheese (dealer’s choice)
- Preheat oven to 375f.
- Combine the flour and grated cold salted butter until combined and press it into a quiche pan (or whatever low height baking pan you have).
- Combine eggs, cream, herbs, cheese, salt and pepper, and chickweed and pour into quiche crust.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until just set.
Venison Stew
- Cubed Venison
- Diced onion
- Cubed potato
- Cubed carrots
- Diced celery
- Thyme
- Salt and pepper
- Butter
- Flour
- Tomato paste
- Wine (red or white)
- Water
- Worcestershire sauce
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Eyeball the amounts–a wild stew holds no boundaries.
- Saute vegetables and thyme in a generous amounts of butter until fragrant.
- Toss venison cubes in flour and brown with the vegetables.
- Add tomato paste, cook a but to bring out the flavor, and add wine, Worcestershire sauce, water to cover, and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil and then stew low and slow, until venison is fall apart tender.
- Serve with a little sour cream if you’d like.
Mei Gan Cai (Fermented Dried Mustard Greens)
Sometimes I fall down the rabbit hole of making things traditionally in order to experience and understand the work and history that goes into food (and subsequently culture.) Mei gan cai kou rou (梅乾菜燜肉) is a dish my mom and grandma used to make–soft fatty …
A Year In Review: 2025
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” ~ The Little Prince It’s been a year–and boy, it’s been a year. I spent most …
Rose Currant Shaved Ice
Summer is when I break out my shaved ice machine, which is kind of cheating because my kids love this thing even though technically it’s literally cold water, so I could’ve made a smoothie too, but snow cone style it is.
I use the syrup I make by blitzing my black currants and rose petals with equal weight sugar, and then straining out the solids after it sits in my fridge for a week. The resulting syrup is always a hit with everyone I give it to–for use in mixed drinks, desserts, or over shaved ice. No real recipe except make sure you have a bucket large enough, and a hand blender to make things easier. I find I like the flavor of black currants fresh better than I like them cooked down for jam.
I grow roses for their petals and hips, so you’ll rarely see them in bloom in my garden before they’re feretted away into my kitchen. I am always smelling varieties at the local nurseries since some are fragrant while others smell like nothing (or just bad.) They’re a lovely ornamental edible and I am a huge fan of rose flavored anything.
Spicy Salmon Chirashi
My kids love sushi. Actually, let me amend that. My kids are crazy about raw seafood and raw red meat–like ceviche, sushi, sashimi, carpaccio, tartar. Sometimes when I am too lazy to cook, I’ll set a pot of rice, grab some frozen salmon or frozen …
Braised Garlic Mustard Side Dish
Everyone hates garlic mustard, generally. I know I wasn’t a big fan even after turning it into pesto because there really is only so much you can eat of it before you can’t. It’s considered a noxious and invasive weed, crowding out everything in it’s …
Minced Indian Aster (Ma Lan Tou) Cold Dish
It’s kind of hard to explain the flavor of indian aster, Kalimeris indica, also known as Ma Lan Tou (馬蘭頭), herby and little cooling on the tongue, a hint of bitterness that you’re almost not quite certain is there, but refreshing and somewhat addictive. Most of the time it’s served as a cold Shanghainese side dish (or an egg drop soup, or dumplings) that exists for only a short period in spring while the leaves are tender, blanched quickly and finely minced and dressed with tofu, sesame oil, sugar, and soy sauce. Eyeball it so that it just lightly coats everything, you can’t really go wrong there. Start light with the soy sauce and add more if you’d like it saltier, same with the sugar if you want it sweeter. I sometimes don’t have tofu, but on it’s own is quite delicious too. If you do use tofu, you can do dried five spice, firm, silken, tofu skin, whatever strikes your fancy in the moment.
You can serve with rice, or with some scallion pancakes to wrap with.
The reason I’m showcasing it is because it is a rather attractive perennial creeping groundcover in my garden, staying low and growing no higher than an inch or two but slowly and steadily spreading. It flowers into light purple with a yellow center in the fall, and was one of my grandmother’s favorite dishes–fresh was unheard of here in the states when she was alive, so now that I get to enjoy it right from my backyard is an homage to her memory. It’s pretty hardy, from zones 5 – 9 with some varieties capable of surviving zone 4. Sun or shade, and relatively drought tolerant although it spreads quicker with regular watering.
It also easily propagates in just water, growing roots in days, so my oldest spent one year propagating a bunch for fun, as she enjoyed seeing them grow and then plopping them into a new location.
Plum Syrup
My parents had given me a huge bag of plums about two years ago that I had layered in syrup until all the liquids leeched out into a runny syrup, which I used for cooking anything that needed a bump of sweetness. From teriyaki sauces …