Even a “failed” garden can produce a delicious meal

When we bought our place in Bedford, one of the things I was most excited for was having a real vegetable garden. We were lucky, I inherited a space that had raised beds already built into an enclosed space, protected from critters in a sunny patch of lawn. I approached the spring with lots of…

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Summer Gazpacho

Gazpacho is one of those dishes that I often order in restaurants throughout the summer but rarely make myself at home. A recent NY Times Cooking article titled,”Best Gazpacho” inspired me to try my hand at it at home using as many vegetables out of my CSA as I could. The Times ran a beautiful…

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Skillet Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread

Next my series “What to Cook with my CSA” is a delicious chocolate chip zucchini bread made in a skillet. It’s the perfect way to use up vegetables in your fridge and makes a perfect dessert, snack or breakfast. Try spreading a slice with peanut butter while it’s still warm out of the oven. The…

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“What to Cook with my CSA” Series

It’s Thursday which in the summer means pick up from my local CSA at John Boy’s Outpost in Bedford. I look forward to my haul of the season’s freshest fruit, veggies and eggs each week but also get a bit overwhelmed as I unpack my bag realizing I now have six zucchinis to use up….

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Prize Winning Lemon Pound Cake

When my daughter entered us in our local town bake-off I couldn’t think of a better submission than a lemon cake. The fact that the town is called Pound Ridge made it an even more appropriate choice. Everyone should have a great lemon cake recipe, its the perfect accompaniment to a lazy brunch, dressed up…

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Squash and squash blossom frittata straight from my garden

I completely forgot that I had planted rows of zucchini squash in my garden until their beautiful oranges blossoms began to bloom this week. As a first time vegetable gardener I’ve never cooked with blossoms straight from my garden before. I remember seeing a recipe using them in Susan Spungen’s cookbook Open Kitchen whose recipes…

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Summer Strawberry Salad

One of the silver linings of covid and a move from Brooklyn to the country is that for the first time I experienced the joy of planting a vegetable garden from seed to harvest in my own backyard. Watching pea pods grow taller than my three children, seeing them gather fresh strawberries and bowls full…

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When gatherings take on new meaning

One of the last formal writing assignments I worked on as the pandemic set in last March was reviewing the cookbook Open Kitchen by Susan Spungen. The cookbook was designed for entertaining a crowd and my copy was filled with sticky notes of recipes I planned to cook for my next dinner party. I had…

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Favorite Hamantaschens

Baking little triangle shaped Hamantaschens are usually the only activity we do in our house to celebrate the Jewish holiday Purim. I’ve tried a number of different recipes over the years and have settled on one that strikes just the right balance between butter and sugar cookie. These Buttery Hamantaschens by Tori Avey come together…

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