Did you know that the discovery of gold in the Sierra foothills created the largest migration in US history? More than 300,000 pioneers, full of dreams of hitting it big, headed to California's Gold Country between 1848 and 1855, and changed life here forever. San Francisco exploded from a population of 200 in 1846 to 36,000 in 1852! Agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the new settlers. An early crop brought by prospectors traveling from the East Coast ...
Spiced Fig Jam
Fall is in the air here in the Sierras. And for me, that means making a batch of this spiced fig jam. If you've never made jam before, this is a great one to start with - it's so perfect for fall. I've included excellent tips I learned in culinary school to guarantee success! I used to participate in a blog exchange, and one month was assigned Karen at Lavender and Loveage. Karen splits her life between North Yorkshire in the UK, and SW France, where she has a cookery school near Bordeaux and ...
Easy Homemade Sauerkraut
A few weeks ago, some friends visited us for the weekend in Tahoe, and we got to talking about healthy snacks. It turns out one of their favorite healthy snacks is sauerkraut. “Seriously?” I asked, my eyes bulging a bit at the thought. “Yep. We make a fresh batch every week and leave it on the counter to snack on. You should try it.” I’d been thinking more along the lines of reduced sugar cookies made with coconut oil for a healthy snack. But anyone who knows me knows I’m usually game ...
Spicy Red Pepper Jam
Red peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and onions all come together in this spicy jam. Transforming summer vegetables into jam is great fun, and this is one I make every year. It's actually almost equal parts sweet red peppers and tomatoes, so technically I suppose it's a spicy red pepper-tomato jam. But whenever I make it, I'm more aware of the peppers and the heat from the garlic, so I tend to omit mention of tomatoes in the title. It feels misleading. I actually got the recipe from a chef at an ...
How to Dry Your Own Herbs From the Garden
How to dry your own herbs from the garden. I know. This isn't really a recipe, except that it's making such a difference to my food lately, I can't NOT post about it. I planted just 3 oregano plants about a year ago and the abundance billowing out from of them now is of epic proportion. If I don't take some scissors to them once a week, I think they'd grow to my knees. Initially, I confess, I threw away what I wasn't using. Which I know is Just. Wrong. So I started to dry my own herbs. I ...
Pickled Beet Salad with Chive Oil
Quick pickled beets tossed with chive oil, feta cheese, and pepitas. Quick pickled vegetables and fruits add accent notes to creamy entrées and create memorable sassy side dishes like this salad of roasted beets, feta and pepitas. For entrées, think pickled tomatoes added to creamy asparagus risottos or pickled apples tossed into a celery root mash like in these Vegetarian Cornish pastries. For a side dish, make this roasted beet salad. Wimpy Tips If you want to turn this salad into a ...
Roasted Strawberries
Slow roasted strawberries to spread on crackers with cheese, on toast with butter, or spill over your morning yogurt. I posted a dessert last Friday incorporating roasted strawberries, and I'm finding lots of ways to use these little guys. So I thought I'd do a post just on roasting them, since they've quickly become a new pantry item for me. I keep them stored in a zip-lock container in the refrigerator, and as of last count, they've lasted over 2 weeks without losing any of their punch. ...
Pickled Onions in Cardamom-Cinnamon Tea
Sassy pickled onion using cardamom - cinnamon tea in the pickling juice. The earthy onion isn’t known for her subtlety. Unwrap her papery robe, and slice her open, if you doubt this. She’s a woman of many moods, though. Invite her to join some warm oil in a sauté pan, and watch her melt into the moist warmth, and taste the mellow, savory depth she adds to dishes. Throw her butt-naked into a bean salad, and she packs crisp heat. But get her pickled, and she really lets loose. Once she dips ...
Strawberry Balsamic Jam
Soft set strawberry balsamic jam that balances the sweetness of strawberries with tart balsamic vinegar. Every year I make a little more jam, a little more experimenting with seasonal fruits at their peak. And every year I wonder why I don’t do this more often. It’s really so easy, and besides a funnel, a candy thermometer, and a really large pot, there’s not a lot of special equipment involved. My little jam operation here at kitchen central is small production; sometimes only enough jam to ...
Make Your Own Mascarpone Cheese
Making your own mascarpone cheese might be the best mascarpone cheese you've ever had. Mascarpone and I met later in life. I knew about it, sure. I had witnessed people swooning, waxing poetic over its creaminess and delicate flavor. But I never really understood all the fuss. To me, this Italian soft cheese tasted like a pale imitation of the familiar cream cheese of my childhood. Adding to its faults, it was hard to find in my local stores, and I couldn’t figure out why people pronounced as ...
Maple-Honey Pumpkin Butter
Luscious pumpkin butter sweetened by apple cider, honey, and maple syrup. For me, nothing evokes living in the country quite like fruit butters. A warm, soft biscuit fresh from the oven burnished with apple butter, and immediately I'm curled up in the kitchen of a farmhouse like a cat in the sun; lazily listening to chickens cluck outside as they peck hungrily, staccato-like, at the ground. And I’m once again in Parker’s kitchen. When I was very young, and my mother went back to work, she ...
Fresh Farmer’s Cheese From Your Kitchen
Step-by-step instructions on making your own farmer's cheese, with photographs. Before the age of mass distribution and consumerism, dairy farmers started making cheese to preserve excess milk. Farmer’s cheese was one of the first, and arguably the easiest, they likely made, which is probably why this type of cheese has a wide-ranging culture and long history around the world under a wide variety of names such as chevre, paneer, Neufchatel, and Queso Blanco. Farmer’s cheese typically ...
