One of the benefits of participating in the Westside Produce Exchange is that,
while you never know what you're going to get, you can usually count on something new and unusual. This month's Exchange featured Jerusalem Artichokes.
The participants stood in a cluster, staring down at these knobby roots (tubers actually) wondering 1) what are they? and 2) what do we do with them? The answers that followed were as colorful
as the questions.
4 ...
In an effort to use up more of the gifted limes from a friend (see Watermelon Lime Sorbet), I
pulled out Ann Gentry's Real Food Daily Cookbook for ideas. Flipping through the index, I found several lime-infused dishes that must be tried. The first: Black Bean Soup with Jalapeño Lime Creme.
Alicia Silverstone has kindly reproduced it on her site, The Kind Life, so ...
The giant Crimson Sweet watermelon is taking up a lot of room in the refrigerator, so something must be done. The pile of limes on the counter, gifted to me from a friend, is also singing out a call
to action. The solution? Watermelon Lime Sorbet.
It's no surprise that watermelon and lime is the perfect, orgasmic combination of flavors that bridges the seasonal change from summer to fall. Even though we are moving into flavors of earthy root
vegetables and hearty stews, the refreshing sweetness of citrus and melon is a ...
This is the time of year when the abundance of basil in the garden can often overshadow the need in the kitchen. What's a gardener to do? Make pesto, of course.
Whether you preserve pesto by canning or freezing, you can make the flavors of summer last a long time. To start off the pesto season, I took a field trip to Pesto Madness, the Learning Garden's
annual fundraiser.
David King, the illustrious leader of the Learning Garden, was giving a ...
The latest post from Mar Vista's Bounty Hunter is here to give you ideas about pesto. Make it yourself, or buy it pre-fab - you'll be smiling either way:
Pesto: A Basil-Based Delight
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Cooking jags strike without warning, and when combined with the innocent act of pruning the lemon verbena plant out front, it makes for a delicious combination. Lemon verbena is one of those romantic
herbs that I imagine Victorian women picked as they walked through the garden and rubbed onto their pulse points to carry the fragrance with them all day. It's lemony, but floral.
Lemon Verbena is usually dried and used in tea, but adventurous cooks use it in other dishes with fish, chicken and breads. We at Gardenerd ...
The latest post from Mar Vista's Bounty Hunter is ready for your eyes. Find out where dates come from, and how we get them locally in So. Cal:
Dates: Delicious Desert Delights
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The latest post on Mar Vista Patch is here just in time for your holiday meal plans. Check out some great recipe ideas with farm-fresh ingredients:
Fourth of July Feasts
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They may look like lemons, but they taste just like cucumbers. That's because they are cucumbers - lemon cucumbers. These little unusual beauties are one of my favorite heirlooms to grow, and in
recent years, we're starting to see them become more popular - to the point that the plants are being sold at nurseries. Oh lemon cuc, you've made it to the big time!
I have to admit, my first few years trying to grow lemon cucumbers, or any cucumber at all, were disastrous. The coastal weather would stunt the growth, then powdery ...
There is only so much room in the refrigerator, and Swiss Chard can take up a lot of that precious space. Those bright colorful stems usually have to "go away" in order to fit a batch of chard into
the vegetable drawer (which is fine with me, since I don't care for the stems anyway). I recently found a recipe that uses up all that chard in a tasty pie that lasts for a few meals.
Whether you hate or love Martha Stewart, you have to admit that her empire comes up with ...