making life delicious blog
Zucchini season will soon come to an end, but there’s still time to enjoy this icon of the summer garden. We’ve made salads, pasta, bread, gratins, and all sorts of things with zucchini, even though it was a sad zucchini year for us after losing all our zucchini plants to garden pests. Risotto is comfort [...]
A few days before we left for vacation, I picked five pounds of San Marzano tomatoes and a dozen bell peppers from our garden and had to do something with them fast. I had planned all along to turn those beautiful tomatoes into sauce, but now that the task was at hand and I only [...]
“What are you doing, Mommy?” “I’m harvesting the basil.” “Oh.” That was it. My boys weren’t at all interested in the process and ran off to do something, anything more fun than harvesting basil. We’ve been growing basil for a long time, and we always freeze some into cubes and make large batches of pesto [...]
With zucchini in season and a garden full of herbs, I had plenty to work with for creating a quick and easy meal. For this dish, I sauteed shallots and garlic, tossed in some baby portabella mushrooms and julienne zucchini, added some lemon basil chiffonade, then finished it off with a dry white wine and [...]
Japanese beetles can be the bane of any garden, and basil is one of their favorite foods. This specimen was happily munching away on the precious leaves, but not for much longer after this photo was taken. We keep an organic garden, no pesticides allowed, so the best option for dealing with them is deterrent. [...]
Orzo is a rice-shaped pasta traditionally used in Italian soups, but it’s very versatile and can be used as a main ingredient for side dishes or in cold salads. We love it because it’s easy to fix for a fast weeknight meal and it dresses up nicely with simple ingredients. This time we had it [...]
I can’t help but love lasagna with all its gooey richness. The flavor of the sauce melds with the pasta and mingles with the cheeses and fillings, the cheese stretches from the pan to the plate as you serve it, and the sides start to collapse slightly from the weight of the hot fillings. It’s [...]
At the risk of jinxing things, I have to say that our garden is really doing well this year. We have tons of tomatoes that will be ready for picking next week. The herbs are going crazy. The Italian parsley and the dill are about three feet tall with lots of leaves, the oregano and [...]
In the summertime, our garden is filled with the scent of sweet basil. We usually try to devote an entire raised bed just to basil. We use it fresh in dishes such as this pesto throughout the summer and into the fall. When we near the end of season, we cut down all the remaining [...]
It's spring in the U.S. and the following foods may be in season in your area:
artichokes, fennel, fiddleheads, radishes, broccoli, rhubarb, kale, cresses, spinach, spring lettuces, chard, cabbages, chives, cilantro, collards, tatsoi, mustard greens, spring onions, asparagus, rosemary, wild garlic, ramps, strawberries, blueberries, cherries
Eat fresh seasonal produce to stay healthy and help your food budget.Learn more about seasonal and sustainable cooking at Sustainable Table - In the Kitchen.
