canning

Sometimes, you just don’t have time to wait around for your pickles to pickle before you can eat them. For those times, there’s quick pickles. Well, quick enough, anyway… These are my favorite quick pickles to make — deliciously tangy in just a few hours and scrumptiously served with the barbecue platter of your choice. [...]

March 12 2013      26 comments
En La Cocina

Here in Los Angeles, nasturtiums are wildly weedy, growing all over hillsides and gardens and reseeding with wanton abandon. This weediness makes them very underappreciated as a bona fide vegetable, and even moreso as a pickled delicacy. While much of the country doesn’t see the seed pods until late summer (when intense heat causes nasturtiums [...]

January 18 2013      20 comments
En La Cocina   Semillas

So after eating apples for a week and barely making a dent in my U-pick bushel, it was time to get serious about them. I needed to reduce my mountain of apples into something I could savor long into the season, but not doctor up with a mountain of sugar. Hello, apple butter. Apple butter [...]

October 5 2012      6 comments
En La Cocina   Frutas

No, we’re not actually pickling bread and butter of any kind. This classic pickling recipe is so named because back in the olden days when times were tough, the sweet and sour pickles were tucked between two slices of buttered bread to make a hearty sandwich. And you know what? It’s quite delicious! I like [...]

September 28 2012      Leave a comment
En La Cocina   Verduras

After an abundant summer, my bush beans have finally bitten the dirt. I harvested the last of the beans — all 15 pounds of my Dragon Tongue, Royal Burgundy, and Beurre de Rocquencourt varieties — and after many three bean summer salads, spicy stir-fried beans, grilled beans, braised beans, and buttery bean casseroles, there’s only [...]

August 25 2012      2 comments
En La Cocina   Leguminosas

Up until a couple of months ago, I didn’t even know what kohlrabi was. By chance I was at a friend of a friend’s house for a party, and deep in the backyard was a beautiful edible garden. I could not resist a tour from Patti, the owner, who also insisted I tote along a [...]

June 4 2012      4 comments
En La Cocina   Verduras

A three-ingredient jelly recipe that uses no sugar? It almost sounds too good to be true… Except it is true, and truly good whether it’s spread on English muffins or Southern cornbread. If you harvest your honey and lemons from a backyard or a farmers’ market, this is about as local as you can get. [...]

March 5 2012      9 comments
En La Cocina   Frutas