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Fall Baked Beans
These baked beans are the perfect plant-based dish for autumn meals, with maple syrup and seasonal flavors that will take you right into cozy sweater weather. They hit all the notes I need in homemade baked beans from nuanced sweetness to the woodsy quality of thyme. In this recipe, tomato puree lends more brightness than commonly used ketchup, and rye whiskey adds the necessary touch of smokiness. When you return home from picking apples, remember to save one for this recipe. A brief cook prepares chopped apples for the baking dish and ensures they cook up tender but not too soft. Before reading through the ingredient list, you can watch…
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Summer Pasta Salad
On summer days, I look forward to checking the tomato vines, watching jalapeño flowers transform into peppers, and grilling as much zucchini as possible. I hold onto the season as I make overflowing salads and enjoy the abundance that only late summer holds. Often I combine what is ready to be picked into my ultimate cold pasta salad, which can be served for dinner as easily as lunch. Sweet corn from the farmers’ market and other gathered vegetables make this dish a true celebration of everything that is summer. In my creative salads cooking classes, we explore recipes and methods using garden fresh ingredients. Each forkful of this summer pasta salad…
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Plum Custard Tart
Slice through the deep purple exterior of a black plum, and you find a center whose sweetness intensifies in the oven. Combine that sweetness with vanilla crème fraîche custard and a tender, cookie-like crust, and you have what could easily be my favorite fruit tart. This recipe made me fall in love with plums all over again, and it is a glorious way to enjoy late summer fruit. As with many of my dessert tarts, a slice rivals the best breakfast pastry. In the middle of the plum custard tart sits a half-round that becomes glazed with its own juice – no jam topping here. A generous sprinkle of raw…
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Raspberry Peach Mocktail with Rosemary
Sunlight poured through the window just as I put the finishing raspberries in my glass. A quick storm gave way to such glow I was happy to have a drink ready for the moment. Plentiful rain has given us rejuvenating late afternoons and kept the herbs growing strong, making rosemary a natural addition to this raspberry peach mocktail. Prepare the peach puree and raspberry syrup during the next midday storm and fill your glass as it starts to slow, then kick back and watch the summer light burst. Mix this drink again when the sun is unflinchingly strong for another fill of summer goodness. Lounge about, bask in the light,…
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Cooking with Edible Flowers
The nasturtiums I have been tending finally burst into mildly sweet and lightly peppery blooms. For weeks I watched their leaves pop up like parasols in my edible flower patch, sometimes shading the yellow and deep orange buds about to emerge. Throughout the spring they formed a showy display of green, the kind that makes you want to take them right into the kitchen, which now I have along with the cheerful flowers. Nasturtiums bloom profusely once they are on a roll, meaning that my salads, pasta, and plant-forward recipes will feature the gorgeous colors for weeks to come. While edible flowers each have their own culinary charms, these lend…
