Sauces and condiments
Recipe: Holiday Cranberry-Satsuma Relish
Here’s this year’s Thanksgiving cranberry sauce recipe. It’s sweet and tart, vegan and low glycemic. It’s great on turkey sandwiches before AND after the holidays … it’s a keeper!
Late summer vegetable harvest, pickled
My vegetable crop was relatively small this year. One reason was out of my control; July and August were tremendously foggy this year. But I didn't amend the soil or set up the drip irrigation like I did the past two years, and that certainly made a difference. But...
Best barbecue sauce recipe
Years ago, maybe when Kid Two was a baby and my parents, Downtown Tom and Grandma Juju, were visiting, I got it in my head to make barbecue sauce. I remember glancing at a few recipes, getting the gist of it, then just going to town improvising with some mad...
Must-try cranberry sauce
Fresh cranberry sauce – who would have ever guessed something like that would, in retrospect, come off as the superstar food winner from this holiday season? Here is my new favorite condiment.
Carrot and radish leaf pesto
When our week 3 CSA box arrived I was determined to use every bit of the animal - um, I meant vegetable - to the fullest. That meant getting creative with root vegetable greens, the fresh leafy tops from the radishes and carrots in the box. How cool would it be, I...
Spicy pickled vegetables
Here's a quick recipe for pickled vegetables for you to play around with. I'd been making a batch of pickled red onions every couple of month ever since I found Monica Bhide's recipe in a magazine last year and finally started playing around with it to mix up the...
Taste memory of Loreto: pineapple and jalapeño salsa
"If we're in Mexico, does the menu really have to say Mexican food?" This from my very astute Kid Two while reading the offerings at Loreto's La Palapa, a tourist destination-type restaurant conveniently situated between the ocean and the town square. I had a few menu...
Ollalie-peary jam
The sweet, juicy ollalieberry - hybridized grandchild of the blackberry, raspberry, and dewberry vines - resembling like a knobby oversized version of its forerunners, growing best in tangled brambles along the foggy California coast. Here in Santa Cruz, ollalieberry...
Bacon jam – the best recipe yet
December 14, 2011. My 21st anniversary of meeting LL and the 20th anniversary of our engagement. An occasion that called for - at the very least - a dinner treat - but dinner was elusive that night. Kid Two had a 6:00 keyboard lesson, his first with a new teacher,...
Make your own taco seasoning
Save the planet and mix up your own taco seasoning with ingredients from your spice rack. Tangy, spicy, and gluten-free as a side bonus! Here’s how.
Caesar dressing recipe
Yesterday, fresh off the plane from 24 hours in Las Vegas, I drove straight to the harbor to meet my mother and father-in-law. They brought sandwiches and bottles of water, and as we sat and watched Kid Two's sailing lessons it dawned on me that the Santa Cruz Harbor...