Green Options

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden

What’s your favorite mythological creature? Unicorns? The Loch Ness Monster?  The Yetti?  Lake Champlain’s Champ?  El Chupacabra?  Up until yesterday, I might have said the Fiddlehead, had I been asked.   Like all the previously named questionable characters, there are many pictures to prove their existence (heck, there’s even a picture on one of my sets of business cards), and yet, somehow, I’d never seen one for myself.  The curly heads rising up on slender necks from the forest floor resemble an other-worldly creature for sure.  And in the culinary world, fiddlehead ferns are almost unmatched in their elusive promises of gourmet delight, much like morels or truffles. 

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden.

I tip my hat to the plate in the picture below - without it I likely wouldn’t have made cake with sweet little Purple Haze and Kinko carrots, making the best carrot cake ever thanks to the intense natural flavors of the farm fresh carrots grated right before I tossed them in the batter. I give the plate credit because looking at it sitting empty on my counter made me think of cake. With young carrots being one of the early birds to show up in the farmers market in spring, carrot cake makes a perfect seasonal dessert that a clever eater can justify as getting his or her daily dose of vitamin C.

Carrot cake’s nothing new or exciting for me, but I’ve usually “cheated” in the past by using the bagged shredded carrots from the supermarket since I’m a little lazy and usually pressed for time. I’ll not make that mistake again. If you haven’t tried getting local carrots to put in your cake, you’d be well advised to do so. The other key, of course, is the freshness of your spices. People, if you’re aren’t grating your own nutmeg by now, get yourself a microplane and see what you’re missing!

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden. 

I know that my timing might seem a little off for writing a post about soup in April when most folks are soup-happy in November.  But the way I see it, there are still plenty of reasons to talk about soup right now.  For starters, spring colds are common, at least at my house.   There are still some root vegetables languishing away, desperate to be used up before the onslaught of spring veggies.  However, that onslaught hasn’t come just yet so there’s all the more reason to use up the winter stores.   And finally, as the garden gets churning away again in the new season, it’s good to have soup at the back of your mind; I find it’s a good way to use up the bounty to freeze for winter. 

So, all that being said, let’s talk about the basic principles behind soup making.  I’ll be so bold as to call this a “blueprint” and promise you that you’ll be able to make just about any soup your little heart desires without so much as a recipe clipping or blog post print-out (excpet this one, of course; you’ll need this one).

Lovin’ Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden.

I love cooking with my mom.  She’s got all this amazing know-how that you just don’t find in cookbooks.  And she has a couple of recipes that I don’t dare mess with on my own.  I’m talking about those childhood favorites that never taste the same when you attempt to recreate them yourself as an adult.  For starters, I rarely make mac & cheese on my own. 

Farm Fresh is a series of recipes
designed to showcase produce gathered
from local farms or grown in my own garden.

It’s only April but I’m already thinking about breaking out my grill. My grill is, well, not something to really write home about, or, for that matter, to write a blog post about. I got it for about five bucks from some big box store a few years ago. But, when there are fresh young vegetables to be cooked up, it’s my weapon of choice. Nothing beats grilled asparagus, zucchini, eggplant, and peppers. Nothing, that is, except for Grilled Baby Bok Choy.

According to the Population Reference Bureau, nearly 80 percent of you probably live in an urban area. Some of you may be lucky enough to have a weekly farmers market in a nearby city park or square, but I wonder if you’ve ever thought there might be an actual farm near you. Over the past decade, a growing number of urban agriculture projects have taken root in major North American cities, making it possible for urbanites to get in on the sustainable food movement in at a whole new level. Typically not more than an acre or two, these city farms are redefining traditional cultivation practices and communities alike.