I started with roots this time in the garden. Flowers, herbs and roots. It’s not like me at all. I usually like to get a healthy selection of greens going, and drag my feet on the radishes, carrots, beets, parsnips, and salsify. They grow slowly and need extra soil amendments, and it usually feels daunting,…
Tag: naturally sweetened
Chocolate Chevre Cheesecake with a Chocolate Cookie Crust (grain-free)
The high days of summer have brought the rains at last, the grey and sandy days broken by the tropical sun. Nothing is gentle here in summer. The rolling thunder and pounding rain, the blinding sun and baking heat all work an alchemy and draw the green and the sweetness out of the earth for…
Easter
This was the first year we were able to dye eggs with all home grown dyes: turmeric, beets, red Brussels sprouts leaves, mulberries and spiderwort flowers. The natural dyes are so subtle and beautiful. They blend in beautifully with nature and are really hard to find. I woke up early to cut dewy grass and…
Loquat and Mulberry Cobbler (grain-free; Paleo)
We stopped in at my mom’s house in town to pick mulberries from the ancient mulberry tree in her front yard. The tree is huge and covered with berries, but the birds have begun to eat the ripe ones already and we mostly found berries which had just recently fallen. My mom tempted the girls…
Kale, Apple and Cheddar Salad
It was the middle of the night when I seemed to hear the dogs barking in the midst of a dream, gradually drawing me back from an immaterial world and into the loft under the dark rafters. I lay listening for a moment, wanting to roll over and drift back to sleep, but the voices…
North Florida Pecan Pie
The first of the winter frosts came through last night. We spent yesterday chopping cassava stalks, making a shelter for the goats, and moving flats of tiny lettuce into the cold frame. It got later and later in the day and by the end of the afternoon we realized we didn’t have enough cover or…
Sumac Lemonade
Early yesterday morning I heard the cold winds of a front rustling the branches of the naked cherry trees and making acorns rattle down on the roof from the oaks that grow all around and over us. I lay awake for a while, listening to the strange thumps and rumbling of paws outside. From far…
Wild Muscadine Meringue Pie
Suddenly everything seems to have changed. New flowers are blooming bright yellow in the weedy ways, Bidens and Sida, partridge pea and golden rod. Ripe poke and beauty berries bend the slender branches waiting for the birds. The golden and gossamer webs of the orb weavers stretch high up between the trees, and the weavers…
Spiderwort Soda, A Magical Elixir
I have always been enchanted with the herb Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohioensis I think is the Latin). The thin, succulent leaves, like grass leaves, poke out at a pixie-like angle, and the luminous blue three-petaled flowers, each petal delicate like a fairy’s wing, whose color delights the eye and changes even as you stare, shifting between blue…
Old-fashioned Pumpkin Pie
I was lugging a wheelbarrow full of hay and manure into the garden when the weather changed. The air was warm and still, and seemed to hang like a muggy curtain around the pea trellis and rows of young cabbages, lettuce, and broccoli as i trundled clumsily along the narrow path. A sound almost like…
All-Raw Eggnog
There was a raccoon raid on the chicken coop last night. We had seen the scoundrel lurking around the barn earlier in the evening, and in retrospect we should have dispatched him then. But everyone was tired and chilled, and Ethan felt really ill. Much later, long after the restless teenager had ceased to flick…
Dried And Frozen Persimmon Treats
Glowing orange and as sweet as candy, the cultivated persimmons are ripe and abundant right now. They are one of the delicious treats early fall has to offer, along with sweet potatoes, roselle, and pumpkins. These cultivated persimmons seem huge and mild compared to the wild persimmons we have already enjoyed. This was the first year we…
Toadstools And Fairy Rings 