Tag: sauce

Grilled Bok Choy with Spicy Peanut Sauce

Grilled Bok Choy with Spicy Peanut Sauce

I've come to the conclusion that I'm the type of person that needs to be completely overwhelmed with responsibilities before I can be remotely effective. I thrive on chaos, I think, and that scares me. I haven't felt creative enough to cook something AND drag out my camera to photograph it in a very long time. Loads of life happenings seem to be forcing me into a period of "get dinner on the table and clean up so you can do more... (insert task here, such as laundry, cleaning, bookkeeping, etc). It's becoming a real drag. However, now that we're being...Read More
Field to Feast: The Busy Girl’s Guide to Canning Tomato Sauce

Field to Feast: The Busy Girl’s Guide to Canning Tomato Sauce

Thomas went with us to market this weekend, as he does nearly every Saturday beginning in May and ending at Halloween. I was standing at my scale helping customers when a little hand, attached to a still-little-but-getting-bigger-quickly arm, reaches around me and starts fingering quarters in my coin tray. "Mom, can I have a dollar?" "Why do you need a dollar?  <returning focus to customer> That's $8.25, please." "I want a pickle on a stick." <picking up small hand and squeezing gently until fingers release coins> "Well, if you want a dollar, go ask Grandma what you can do to...Read More
Field to Feast: Strawberries and Rhubarb

Field to Feast: Strawberries and Rhubarb

We plant about 500-750 new strawberry plants each year in addition to transplanting daughter plants and maintaining the previous year's mothers.  These new 'bare root' plants come from a supplier in what looks like a box of tangled, dirty never-gonna-grow roots.  With careful planting - the roots below the surface of a plastic-mulch-covered raised bed of soil, the crown just above - the plants will take hold, and begin to produce flowers in 4-6 weeks. That doesn't mean we'll get berries at that point.  In fact, and this probably goes against instinct, but we actually pluck off the first set...Read More
Frostbite Asparagus with Homemade Mayonnaise

Frostbite Asparagus with Homemade Mayonnaise

Asparagus with creamy homemade mayonnaise, you just can't beat it. So you saw how asparagus grows in one of my previous posts.  What you DIDN'T see was the look on The Boy's face when he tasted a piece of said veggie. I'm just not quick enough to capture some of those classic kid moments on film. Oh, wait.  We don't use film anymore.  God, I'm old. "Thomas, do you want more asparagus?" "No, no, no (he waves his hand).  I'm good.... Not a fan." I'm giving kudos to Aunt Helen for this idea, my take on her summer classic, Frostbite...Read More
National Tater Tot Day and Gorgonzola Cheese Sauce

National Tater Tot Day and Gorgonzola Cheese Sauce

Happiness is Gorgonzola cheese sauce atop crispy tater-tots! Every day when The Boy comes home from school  I go through the contents of his backpack and homework folder.  He has some kind of reading, math and spelling homework Monday through Thursday nights.  Last night, in cleaning out his folder for the upcoming week, I found a reading comprehension handout about a type of dog that does not bark. The question that required a written answer (as opposed to multiple choice) was "Would you like to have a dog that did not bark?  Why or why not?" If there was ever...Read More