Winter is peak citrus fruit season and I could not be more excited. I absolutely love to cook and bake with lemons, limes, oranges and their exotic cousins, pomelos and kumquats. Right now, of course, I am in Florida, which is citrus country. One of my best finds at the Saturday farmers market in downtown Naples was Rangpur limes. This unusual ...
Winter at the Naples Farmers Market
My family is in Naples, Florida for our annual vacation. Over the decade that we have been coming to this part of the country, we have identified a number of enjoyable activities and sights beyond just the beach and the pool. One of my favorite activities, to no one's surprise, is the Saturday morning trip to the Third Street South Farmers Market ...
Homemade Cranberry Sauce for National Cranberry Day
Did you know that November 23 is National Cranberry Day? I suppose it makes sense, being so close to Thanksgiving, which is cranberries time to shine. But I love to cook and bake with cranberries all winter long. In fact, I stock up on cranberries during the last few weeks of the Oak Park Farmers Market because these babies freeze like a dream. I ...
Your Best Apple Pie
Are you finzlizing your Thanksgiving menu? Will you make the same foods as last year or will you try to mix it up? My mother and I love to host Thanksgiving together and we have pretty much honed our menu over past the few decades so that it is just how we want it. I did revolutionize the way we cooked the turkey about 7 years ago. (See this ...
Fall Cooking: Potato Leek Soup
The thing that you have to understand is that my husband loves soup. Rarely a day goes by during which that man does not eat a bowl of soup. And he is not at all dismayed when he has soup at lunch and comes home to find that there is soup for dinner. A two-soup day? Heaven as far as he is concerned. What's funny is that my beloved late father ...
Fall at the Farmers Market
Although the leaves are changing and the temperature is dropping, it is still farmers market season. The Oak Park Farmers Market where I shop every Saturday has two weeks left before closing for the year. In more temperate climates, the farmers markets may continue through November. Of course, those of you who live in very temperate climates will ...
Where to Eat at Pike Place Market
As I mentioned in my last post, I attended the International Food Bloggers Conference last weekend in Seattle. One of the best things about the conference was, of course, its location. Food lovers flock to Seattle for its abundant local ingredients, its world-renowned chefs and for the sprawling, chaotic Pike Place Market. The Pike Place Market ...
Carrot Tzimmes for Rosh Hashanah
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year holiday begins at sundown on September 24. One of my favorite holidays to cook for, Rosh Hashanah is a joyous occasion and the holiday meals are festive. As I explained in my earlier posts, traditional Rosh Hashanah foods are often sweet - to express our wish for a sweet new year - or round to symbolize the circle ...
What to Do with Fresh Figs
Dip them in chocolate ganache, of course! Why? What do you do with fresh figs? It is definitely fig season and if you only know figs from the dried kind -- or even worse, Newtons -- you are in for a treat. Fresh figs are sweet, juicy and altogether luscious. Lending themselves to both sweet and savory preparations, fresh figs are the fruit you ...
Cheddar Jalapeño Corn Pudding
My family cannot get enough sweet corn during the summer months. Once the sweet corn appears at the farmers market in late July, you can put me down for a dozen ears a week. Why buy fewer than twelve ears when corn is so inexpensive? I cook all dozen ears at the same time. Once the water is boiling, or the grill is hot, it is no extra work to cook ...
Farmers Market Find: Red Currants
Perhaps you have noticed red currants, glossy and ruby-red, at the farmers market lately. If so, consider yourself lucky. It can be hard to find these members of the Ribes family. Even if you noticed them, I bet you did not buy them. They were expensive, right? And you weren't sure what to do with them. Red currants are shockingly expensive, but I ...
Scenes from the Farmers Market
At least once every year, I like to bring my camera with me on one of my early Saturday morning trips to the Oak Park Farmers Market to capture the abundance. Mid-July is a heady time at the farmers market. The tables are groaning with fruit from the Michigan orchards. Stone fruits of all kinds, from cherries to apricots to peaches and plum, ...
Farmers Market Find: Fava Beans
Some foods really make you work for it. Fava beans definitely fall into that category. Any food that you have to shell not once but twice very much runs the risk of being not worth the effort. Luckily, favas -- which the British call broad beans -- have a distinctive, nutty flavor and a buttery texture that endear them to sophisticated eaters ...
Farmers Market Find: Gooseberries
I freely admit that I am a sucker for the most unusual item at the market or on a menu. Sometimes my instinct to try that new-to-me food can backfire, such as the bitter and grassy corn shoots in my salad at the Zingerman's Roadhouse. (Some things are just not for eating, folks.) But nevertheless, I press on. So it was that I passed by all the ...
Summer Cooking: Spicy Caprese Pasta
I'm hot. You're hot. She's hot. We're hot! Sounds like a bad wedding band, right? As fond as I am of party hits from the 80's, today I am actually just talking about the weather. It went from cold and rainy to sweltering and humid overnight in Chicago. Yesterday was the first day of the year where I had absolutely no interest in eating hot food. ...
Sautéed Turnip Greens with Green Garlic
There is a saying in cooking, or maybe gardening, along the lines of: what grows together, goes together. As spring turns into summer, and farmers markets all over the country begin to overflow with fresh, local fruits and vegetables, it can be helpful to keep that axiom in mind. If you are not sure how to use your farmers market, or garden, ...
Rhubarb Jam Bars with Ginger Crumb
It absolutely kills me that my husband doesn't like rhubarb. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE? Rhubarb is tart -- not cloyingly sweet like strawberries can be. (Oh please, don't send me hate mail because I dared to say that strawberries are too sweet. I like strawberries just fine, but I think we've all had a few overly sweet strawberry desserts in our time. ...
Farmers Market Find: Green Garlic
If you have visited your local farmers market this spring, chances are you have seen a lot of spring onions. But are you sure it was green onions that you saw? Could it possibly have been green garlic? The two crops look very similar. And, of course, they are related as onions and garlic are both members of the allium family. (Other cousins include ...
Cookbook Review: Hoosier Mama Book of Pie
Some say that pie-making is a lost art. I have found, however, that there are countless men and women toiling away anonymously in their kitchen, keeping this quintessentially American art alive. I was at a party the other night and got to talking with one of my neighbors. The party was a dessert party so the subject naturally turned to our favorite ...
How to Get the Most out of Shopping at the Farmers Market
This Saturday, my beloved Oak Park Farmers Market reopens for the season. It can't even tell you how excited I am. Zuzu has swim practice across the street from the farmers market from 9-10:30 am and my plan is to spend that entire hour-and-a-half browsing at the market. Ninety minutes at the farmers market is not too much for me. As a home ...
Ramps Two Ways
It's spring and that means that foodies everywhere are losing their minds over ramps. For the uninitiated, ramps are a variety of wild leek with a mild garlic flavor. They have a small bulb at the bottom and a leafy green top. A staple of farmers' markets, ramps are apparently hard to cultivate and tend to be available only for a few weeks in the ...
Scenes from the Naples Farmers Market
My family just returned from spring break in Naples, Florida. We have been going to Naples since 2004 and we love the area. Southwestern Florida is less developed than some other parts of the state and is filled with natural beauty. There is a protected mangrove swamp near my mother's house that we cross every time we go to the beach. Sometimes we ...
Get Ready for National Agriculture Day
Today’s post is sponsored by Illinois Farm Families, for which I serve as a Brand Ambassador. You can read more about my role as a Brand Ambassador here. Those of us who live in cities and suburbs rarely get a chance to express our appreciation to the farmers and ranchers who raise and grow the food that we eat. Moreover, most of have very ...
Lemon-Scented Jam Thumbprint Cookies for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap
Since swapping food has become such a big part of my life, this year I decided to participate in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap is just what it sounds like: the food bloggers who participate receive the addresses of three other food bloggers. You send each of them one dozen of the same kind of cookie. You ...
Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Rice and Black Beans
I get very excited when I see poblano peppers for sale at the Oak Park Farmers Market. You may be familiar with poblano peppers from the Mexican restaurant favorite chiles rellenos, in which poblano peppers are stuffed with cheese, battered and then deep-fried. Usually topped with a spicy red sauce, chiles rellenos is a delicious, if guilt-inducing ...