High Priority – Roasted Ratatouille for the Freezer

    I have to admit that I don't love frozen vegetables for the most part. So if you have a favorite way to freeze a vegetable from your garden, please share it with me. Here is one I like and eat willingly out of the freezer come the dark days of winter. I want to share this simple thing with you in hopes you might have a similar beloved thing to pass on to me. For some rea [...]

Best-dressed pasta goes for the layers

Turn on the oven - 400F. Go to the garden and look for cherry tomatoes. Take lots of said cherry tomatoes and cut them in half and dump them into a glass or pyrex baking dish, a big one, so that they are in a single layer. Add some finely chopped cipollini onion. Or red onion, or sweet onion, or any kind of onion really. Add a few or more tablespoons of olive oil. A good one. Don't ski [...]

On Vacations and Onions

Last week, I came back from our ocean vacation, the one during which I  tried not to think about the garden for a week. This was preceded by some fast and furious hours hoeing, weeding, mulching, watering and generally preparing all plants for a week of neglect. Everyone survived, tomatoes are in high production mode, spitting out ripe orbs faster than I can use them; and the peppers and eggp [...]

A Time of Acceptance

I love garlic planting time.  You can really learn a lot about your soil when it is fall and the garden has spent a summer being tended (or not).  This is the second burst of good intentions, the first one being the entire month of May when ideas run ecstatically through the garden plan .  Garden cleanup is a confessional time in the gardening calendar. It is a time to look at mistakes, assess [...]

Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chili

This is one of my favorite things to do with butternut squash, and every time I make it, I am reminded of my friend, Robin Holland.  She made it for a mom's group I was a part of when my daughter was a baby and a toddler.  A dozen or so of us would get together once a week, share an amazing meal and, together, relish in the joys and burdens of motherhood.  I still make this often, and every tim [...]

Frugal and Fabulous

My pantry is small, but pretty well stocked with staples.  Between that and the garden, it's easy to spend a week without going to the grocery store.  I get milk from Family Cow Farmstand, eggs from a neighbor, and a few items at the Burlington Farmers' Market during the summer.  The main thing I go there for is the cheese from [...]

Garlic Planting Time is Coming

Garlic bulbs are like other bulbs that we plant in the fall for harvest the following year. There are two main categories of garlic varieties: stiff neck and soft neck. Soft neck varieties are the ones grown for making decorative braids. Stiff neck varieties are a little easier to grow and have the added benefit of shoots or "scapes" which is explained in further detail below. The [...]