Growing Lifestyle
Container Gardening
Unless you really need or want the bounty of a conventional garden, container gardening has much to recommend it. At ... (read more)Container Gardening
Many types of containers will work for container gardening, as long as they can drain through the bottom. You can be as ... (read more)Gardening in Eden
'Though an old man,'' Thomas Jefferson wrote at Monticello, ''I am but a young gardener.'' Every gardener is. In ... (read more)Lasagna Gardening A Book Review
In addition to growing vegetables, Lasagna Gardening is perfect for growing flowers. In fact a large portion of the ... (read more)Gardening In Sandy Soil
There are some advantages to gardening in sandy soil, but if your soil is mostly sand you know there are even more ... (read more)Grassroots Gardening: Rituals for Sustaining Activism
In 2003, Minister Donna Schaper wrote an op-ed for The New York Times detailing her rejection from the Coral Gables ... (read more)Water Gardening In Containers
You don't need to invest in an elaborate setup to enjoy water gardening. It this booklet you'll learn to create, ... (read more)Vertical Gardening
There are many different vining plants that work great for vertical gardening. They come in many different colors, both ... (read more)Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
This hefty reference manual is absolutely packed with specific information on everything from bee-keeping to window ... (read more)Fall Gardening To-Do List
Grab your gardening journal and make note of what worked and didnt work. Also note which plants did especially well ... (read more)Gardening: I Can Do It
Covers all the basics of gardening and cooking how to get started, what tools to use and fun activities. 'How to do it' ... (read more)Fun With Gardening : 50 Great Projects Kids Can Plant ...
By finding out about gardening, children help things grow and watch life develop. Kids will learn how to help the ... (read more)Encyclopedia of Gardening (RHS)
One of the best encyclopedia Since its release, "RHS Encyclopedia of Gardening" has been flying off the ... (read more)Dig, Plant, Grow: A Kid's Guide to Gardening
During the past ten years, children's gardens have become popular additions to botanical gardens across the U.S. Dig, ... (read more)Dig, Plant, Grow: A Kid's Guide to Gardening
During the past ten years, children's gardens have become popular additions to botanical gardens across the U.S. Dig, ... (read more)Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed
Simply Recipes Vegetarian
Mom's Warm Potato Salad
I don't know about you, but summer around here has us making potato salads more often than in other seasons. This is the latest one my mother put together; my father has made her make it several times since, and my brothers have devoured it with raves for mom. No mayo, just a simple rice vinegar olive oil dressing.
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Grits with Corn and Onion Greens
A dear friend of mine from Alabama called me recently and demanded to know, "why aren't there any grits on your site?!" Uh, because I'm not Southern and I don't know what the heck I'm talking about when it comes to grits and I can't even try to fake it with our readers? Well, not knowing what we are doing has never stopped us in the past, and my dear ole dad found a recipe for grits he couldn't pass up. This was so good I made him make it twice. What I have learned in researching grits is that people who grew up eating them are passionate about how they like them - white corn, hominy grits, with syrup for breakfast, etc. So, if you have a particular way that you like your grits, please let us know about it in the comments.
By the way, according to NBC, Michael Phelps eats grits for breakfast, along with several fried egg sandwiches, an omelet, three slices of French toast, and a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. Breakfast of champions.
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Wax Beans with Mint
Every weekend during the summer, if we are lucky, there will be a good supply of wax beans at the farmers market. These golden yellow (and sometimes purple) versions of green beans are harvested young, and are sweet and tender. Here is a simple way to prepare them, with the subtle flavor of a mint infusion.
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Blueberry Peach Fruit Salad with Thyme
Please welcome Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who shares this delicious cancer-fighting fruit salad with us. ~Elise
Recently my mom, Suzanne McCord, was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was surprised when I heard the news, my mother is in her early sixties, but is insanely active and healthy. The woman recently participated the AIDS lifecycle event; a 6 day, 550 mile bike ride. A few days after, she was off to Egypt and Russia. I get tired biking to work, and my last big trip was Napa which is only an hour away. In fact, her main concern after being diagnosed was that the surgery would get in the way of her bike riding.
After hearing about mom, I went to work doing some research about ways I could help using what I know best - food. I wanted to put together something that was easy to prepare, full of flavor, and packed with cancer fighting vitamins and antioxidants. After a bit of research into cancer smart foods and what seemed to work well, I developed this recipe.
This simple fruit salad works at the start of the meal or as a dessert. The fruit is lightly glazed with either a simple syrup or agave syrup. Ginger, a bit of lemon, and some savory thyme which pairs amazingly with summer fruits accents the tartness of the berries and the sweetness of the stone fruit. In recognition of my awesome, kicking cancer-butt mom, Ive nicknamed this a Suzanne Salad.
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Grilled Tomatoes
Mid July is about the time of year when tomatoes start coming full steam into season. I have 5 tomato plants in my garden that are now producing more tomatoes than we can think up ways of using them. (Gazpacho anyone?) One quick and easy recipe that I played around with this week is to simply grill the tomatoes, cut side down, and season with olive oil, salt, pepper, and sliced basil. When you are working with garden fresh tomatoes, sometimes doing less is more, because the produce is so good to begin with.
Do you have a garden that is full of tomatoes? What are your ways of using up the bounty? Please let us know in the comments.
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How to Make Fruit Leather
When you have your own fruit trees (or access to someone else's) sometimes you can feel a bit buried in fruit, whatever happens to be dropping off the trees at that time. Summer becomes a mad dash of canning, jamming and freezing, trying to preserve the bounty to enjoy throughout the year. One thing you can do with excess fruit of the season is to make fruit leather, sort of the beef jerky of fruit. I used to love this stuff as a kid, made for a great snack and instant energy, and was easy to pack. Last fall I made fruit leather with the leftover grape mush from making grape juice, and this week it was fruit leather from our neighbor Pat's apricots (Pat's apricots are so ripe that when you go to pick one, two more fall off the branch). What follows is a general guideline to making fruit leather, no set recipe. So much of it depends on the specific fruit you are working with.
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Grilled Corn Salad
There are, I think, three essential ingredients to this salad - corn, which you can grill or even prepare by toasting frozen kernels on the stovetop, onions, and cumin. The rest is a medley of whatever fresh vegetables you might have on hand. In this case I had zucchini and a serrano chile pepper from my garden and a big red bell pepper. I tossed in some cotija cheese for good measure. Although this is a grilled corn salad the other vegetables benefit from some searing heat as well. A simple seasoning of cumin, salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar or lime juice pulls everything together. I made this for my parents today and my father insisted that "this one needs to go on the site" while polishing it off. Enjoy.
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Mexican Green Bean Salad
One of our favorite ways to eat green beans is with salsa. The tomatoes, onions, chiles, spices, and vinegar perk up the beans in the most wonderful way. This bean salad recipe is sort of a riff on the salsa theme, taking it up a notch with pickled jalapeños, cilantro, cotija cheese, and avocados. It would make a perfect picnic salad for a Mexican themed potluck. If you love Mexican food, I'm willing to bet you'll love this salad as much as we do.
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Sautéed Zucchini with Gruyere
After several years of observing the results of my feeble gardening attempts, my next door neighbor Pat (76 and still going strong) graciously responded to my pleas for help and has been guiding me this spring with soil amendments, starter plants, seeds, and all around gardening advice. As a result, here it is early June and I have a zucchini plant that is growing with wild abandon (amazing what a little water, sunshine, and organic fertilizer can do). The plant produces almost one zucchini a day and has been for about a month. Blessed with this new bounty, we now have a very good reason to try out new zucchini recipes, so be warned, you may be seeing more zukes on this site the summer than usual. (Have a favorite zucchini recipe? Please let us know in the comments.)
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Fava Bean Dip with Goat Cheese and Garlic
Fresh fava beans require patience. You have to shuck them twice, once to remove the thick shell, and then again, after cooking the beans, to peel the outer skin. Are they worth the effort? You tell me. Fresh favas, or broad beans, are only available for a short time in spring, so it's not an effort that you have to, or get to, make that often. I kind of like the meditative aspects of plopping out the beans from their pods like mini-green-bean rocket ships. Cooked in salty water, they taste a lot like edamame, and can be just as deliciously addictive. Here is a recipe for a simple fava bean dip with garlic and goat cheese. It's terrific with jicama, and cucumber slices. The cool crunchiness of the jicama or cucumber works well with the creamy beany-ness (for lack of a better word) of the dip. Many thanks to fellow Sacramento food blogger Hank Shaw for supplying me with bunch of fava beans from his garden.
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Soba Noodle Salad
Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who prepared this fabulous salad for us the other day. Big, big hit. ~Elise
"Very tangy and sweet! With just enough crunch from the peanuts."
"It's so colorful and aromatic, you can just smell the mint and garlic!"
The compliments Elise and I praised this salad with are plentiful. Really, this is a wonderful spring and summer salad, with Asian inspiration. Soba noodles, if you are not familiar with them, are thin Japanese noodles made with buckwheat flour, and are often served cold. Soba noodles can be found in the Asian aisle of many markets; they have a nice body to them and an earthy, old world taste. In this noodle salad, the mango, mint, and various other flavors contrast and match well with each other, giving the whole salad a good balance.
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Jicama Salad
Are you familiar with jicama? This tuber looks like a seriously overgrown radish and is the root of a vine native to Mexico and Central America. The flesh is crunchy, mild, and even faintly sweet, and is often served with a little lime juice and chile powder to accompany Mexican dishes. I first encountered jicama (pronounced HICK-ah-mah) years ago in cafeteria salad bars, and on its own (how they typically serve it in those places), jicama can be a little boring. With some seasoning and lime juice, however, it comes alive, and is wonderfully refreshing, especially along side tacos and refried beans. This recipe comes from my friend Arturo who suggested to me the ingredients. (Thanks Arturo!)
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Roasted Asparagus
Have you ever had roasted asparagus turn out tough and stringy? Here's a tip from my friend Alanna: use the fat spears, not the skinny ones, for roasting. This is a quick and easy recipe for beautifully roasted, tender asparagus.
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Mustard Greens
Have you ever tried mustard greens? Related to kale, cabbage, and collard greens, they are the peppery leafy greens of the mustard plant and are used frequently in Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cooking. I find them less bitter than kale or collard greens, and more peppery, like arugula. Just one taste of a raw leaf and you'll know it came from a mustard plant. Cooked, they taste a lot like spinach, but with more body. My father recently discovered mustard greens at our local farmers market and they're his new love. I like them with a dash of dark sesame oil, but you could easily just cook them up with a little garlic and olive oil.
Do you have a favorite way to prepare mustard greens? Please let us know about it in the comments.
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Curried Potato and Vegetable Soup
In honor of my friend Barbara and her efforts with the food blogger Taste of Yellow event raising awareness for Lance Armstrong's LiveSTRONG Day, I set out to make a vibrant, yellow soup. This curried potato soup is filled with Yukon Gold yellow potatoes, cauliflower, yellow bell peppers, yellow onions, corn, and yellow summer squash. Can one possibly get more yellow than that? Wait, the butter is yellow too, and turmeric stains everything it touches yellow. This recipe uses a couple summer seasonal ingredients - the corn and squash - but you could easily substitute a sweet potato (put it in early with the Yukon Golds).
My mother and I both loved it, especially with some cilantro mixed in. My father doesn't like curry so his vote doesn't count.
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Healthy Recipes
Seaside Stir-Fry
Fish is such an easy, quick cooking food. I would say it is a perfect food for those on the run! If your family doesn't like it, try changing the cooking method, or complementary ingredients.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Orange Roughy in Orange-Mint Yogurt Sauce
Fish for dinner is one way to have a really quick and tasty meal. Don't forget the romaine on this one, it really makes a nice salad.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Turkey Noodle Tetrazzini
This recipe is a great way to utilize leftover turkey!Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Fillets in Lemon with Quinoa
Quinoa is a delish grain that has a high amount of protein. It is more filling than the usual grain, and can be found in most grocery stores. If it is unavailable, ask your grocer to order it.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Turkey Burgers
Feel free to be creative in this recipe!Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Korean Barbecued Beef
This marinade is simple, and can be used for chicken, pork, or tofu as well.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Mexi Scramble
Corn and beans for breakfast--need I say more?Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Low-fat Potato Soup
I served this soup with corn on the cob and a grilled chicken breast for a comforting dinner. MMM!Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Spider's Nest Dip
Analysis for Yield=24 To make lighter version: use light cream cheese, sour cream and cheese. Calories: 209 Fat: 10gHealthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Italian Fennel Stir Fry
There's no pasta in this stir-fry, but the fennel is a nice alternative. This is a nice alternative for wheat-sensitive individuals.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Chickpeas with Roasted Vegetables
This is a comforting recipe that uses many vegetables with high nutrient contents.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Mini Frittatas
Serve these mini fritattas with a fresh fruit salad and your tummy will be thankful.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Cioppino
Serve this tasty fish stew over rice along with plenty of hot wheat bread or wheat rolls and a glass of white wine to complete this meal.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Florentine Baked Ziti
to prepare in advance, prepare as recipe directs but to not bake. refrigerate for up to 8 hours.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
Cauliflower au Gratin
Fat free sour cream and low-fat cheese used in nutrient analysis.Healthy recipes hand-picked for good taste and nutrition. Includes low fat, low calorie, good source of calcium or fiber, or low sodium recipes.
