Purple Hull Peas
My introduction to purple hull peas, braised with bacon and onions for a Southern-style side, and steeped into purple-tinged jelly.
Category Archives: Sides
Blackberry Bounty, or Condiments Ahoy!
Gathering a treasure trove of fragile wild blackberries was the perfect way to celebrate the winding-down of summer on Labor Day. I used my stash to make blackberry-mint vinegar, blackberry-chile syrup, and blackberry-apple compote, incredibly…
Cooking a Craving
Baja-style fish tacos with crispy rockfish and a side of fragrant black beans laced with onion, peppers, and blackberry compote (of all things!).
Outshone Again
A short discussion of farmer's market meat options and how it led to a meal of braised oxtail ragu, homemade gnocchi, and more importantly, some sublime roasted dragon beans.
No-Labor Day
All sorts of homemade fixings to pair up with hamburgers, from fries to coleslaw to onion rings, and even microwave potato chips!
Spinach Balls
A crowd-pleaser from my childhood: baked balls of stuffing mixed with onion, spinach and melty cheese.
In a Pickle
Chard stems and okra pickled in vinegar are my contributions for this week's Preserve the Bounty challenge.
Taking the Cure
Home-cured salmon isn't nearly as scary or complicated as I thought it would be! We loved this gravlax with scrambled eggs, in corn soup with okra croutons, and straight off the board.
Check That One Off the List
Barbecue beef sandwiches with my homemade sauce and sandwich rolls, and coleslaw with a dressing made from homemade mayonnaise and yogurt---self-sufficiency can be a beautiful thing.
Compounding Assets
In the second week of the Preserve the Bounty Challenge, we preserved fruits and vegetables in fat and oil. My approach was three flavorful compound butters: basil, peach-praline, and tomato-garlic.
Dilly Dally
My first batch of cucumber pickles, lacto-fermented with fresh garlic and dill.
Peach Butter Barbecue Chicken
Peach butter is transformed into a sweet and tangy barbecue sauce for slathering on roasted chicken. I rounded out this Southern-inspired meal with braised collard greens and super-cheesy potatoes.
Vegetable Alchemy
My very first attempt to lacto-ferment cabbage into sauerkraut, as part of the Preserve the Bounty challenge.
Dueling Skillets
Chicken breasts with a creamy almond sauce and an accompanying hash of potatoes, morel mushrooms, and fresh fava beans.
Paydirt
Tucking golden beets into a creamy porcini mushroom risotto with sage-buttered salmon was an excellent way to acclimate my palate to their earthy flavor.
Peas and Carrots
Your standard peas and carrots are transformed into basil-scented pillowy pea gnocchi garnished with crispy shoestring carrots.
Creamy Beany Goodness
Butter-baked wild salmon pairs up with buttery lima bean puree and glazed carrots.
Clucks and Tostones
A meal inspired by Puerto Rico: simply stewed chicken, yellow rice and beans, and the pièce de résistance, crisp salty tostones (fried plantains).
Midsummer Feast
A simple roast of beef with sides of summery vegetables and pesto-infused mashers, remixed into roast beef sandwiches on soft, homemade potato rolls.
Second Fiddle
A tasty, quick chicken fricassee takes a back seat to a raw kale salad with white bean Caesar dressing and croutons made from fried bread dough.