The night of the first frost I came home from the market, unloaded, and then in the dark began pulling big sheets of frost cloth over the plants I hoped to save. The wind whipped around me, tearing at the edges of the cloth as I scrambled to secure it down. The campers who had…
Category: Recipes from my kitchen
FIVE FLAVORS BITTER MELON STIR-FRY
Ok, I know i just did a post about how inedible bitter melon is, but this is actually becoming a recipe I crave. I love the way all the flavors blend together! In Chinese medicine the flavors influence our different organ systems. Having a balance of all the five flavors brings balance to your whole…
LATE SUMMER VEGETABLE GROWING AND EATING GUIDE #4: Cucuzzi Gourd, Zucco Gourd, and Edible Bottle Gourd
Summer squash actually hates the summer here in Florida. As soon as mid- June rolls around it starts it’s slow, painful curling-up-and-dying routine while the squash bugs, stink bugs, and stem borer moths get more and more prosperous and happy. Even if you replant, the new plants look little and sad and won’t set fruit.Luckily…
LATE SUMMER GROWING AND EATING GUIDE #3: Callaloo
Callaloo or amaranth greens, are of if my favorite summer vegetables. They cook down to be very tender, and have such a delicious flavor. When cooked they are very much like spinach. Apparently any amaranth leaves can be eaten, even the thorny wild one if you’re so inclined, but some are better eating quality than…
LATE SUMMER VEGETABLE GROWING AND EATING GUIDE #1: Late Summer Asian Cucumbers
Let’s be honest – the late summer garden vegetables are gorgeously colorful and tasty, but they are definitely unusual. For a long time, I thought nothing would grow this time of year, and it rested in my gardening mind like a deep winter of sorts. That was before I discovered the wonderful selection of vegetables…
Sky Blue Sticky Rice With Blue Butterfly Pea
I just love the wild and twisting shapes, the intense, slippery flavors, and the bright colors of the late summer garden. A good late summer garden in Florida should look and feel like anything could happen, like a loud Saturday night party scene. The crickets and cicadas blare their loud music day and night, and…
Summer Omlette with Malabar Spinach and Garlic Flowers
At last the summer rains have come to wash clear the everlasting skies… I was working in the garden the first afternoon they began, sweating rivers in the baking hot afternoon. Hand clearing this wild land and making a garden is a tedious and thorny task, more daunting than difficult however. It feels pleasant in…
Green Monster Pancakes
I feel like this is a spring in my life… So many new beginnings… it makes me feel young again. I remember how difficult it was to leave my old farm behind – even afterwards more and more things from my old life have been shed or liquidated. It feels so distant now, like the…
Buttery Cauliflower With Toasted Pecans
I love the power surge that comes from the earth and sky in the beginning of spring. It happens so quickly. One drowsy winter day you fall asleep in the damp chill, and suddenly you are picked up and shaken awake in a whirl of pink and pure white and new green, and the bright…
CRISPY SESAME GARLIC EGGPLANT
The first frosts of the winter have come through. I am missing the woodstoves I left behind in my old life, but I remember, too, when we had first moved, and nothing was finished yet, and the slow process over eight years where life felt more and more comfortable. Little details, like which direction a…
Pork Meatballs With Persimmon Barbecue Sauce
I always feel a rebirth this time of year here in Florida – the winds come through and blow away the heavy, moldy, damp, boiling hot summer and bring fresh, cool mornings and bright fall skies. The crushing vines the ruled the garden wither back, and tender new things grow in neat rows in the…
Roasted Butternut Squash With Peanut Satay Sauce
They went on, and farther on, and they waded through rivers above the knee, and they saw neither sun nor moon, but they heard the roaring of the sea.… It was mirk, mirk night, there was no starlight, and they waded through red blood up to the knee, for all the blood that’s shed on…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 