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At Least We’ve Got Some Beautiful Garlic….

Our vegetable garden has been fairly catastrophic this year. Aside from a decent harvest of peas and some nice lettuces, much of what we have planted has been eaten by critters, rotted by excessive rain, wilted by excessive heat, or inexplicably stunted. The radishes never took off, the broccoli hasn’t produced a single floret, the eggplant looks like an bad bonsai experiment — utterly lacking in buds to boot — even the basil has been chewed to a lace and ribs, and do you know ANYONE who can plant zucchini two years in a row and only have ONE, that’s right, ONE SINGLE SOLITARY, zucchini to show for it? That’s just pitiful.

Helping out with garlic harvest at Restoration Farm (in 100 degree heat!?!)

Well, I could go on, but that might jinx the tomatoes, which actually look quite good, except I think my watering has not been consistent and there could be some blossom end rot in my future.

So, I will look on the bright side and say that not only did our garlic produce lovely scapes earlier in the season, but we are also drying a healthy bunch of our own garlic bulbs, planted last October in our raised beds from a head that I reserved from Restoration Farm last season.

Accentuate the positive...our homegrown organic garlic is beautiful and heady with fragrance. My friend Vic Munoz calls this stage: terrestrial jellyfish

Accentuate the positive…our homegrown organic garlic is beautiful and heady with fragrance. My friend Vic Muñoz calls them terrestrial jellyfish for their look!

So, no recipe today. Just a deep breath, thanking goodness that I am not depending on my crop to feed my family. A celebration of what has gone right. And a resolution to keep trying. Because knowing how to grow your own food is important and because perseverance is important and because everything takes time to master.

Wish me luck with the fall vegetables, some of which are already planted….

Tags: gardening, garlic, planting

Comments 12 Comments
Categories CSA, farming, Food, gardening

Three Deliciously Sweet Blueberry Baking Ideas

14 Jul

Blueberries are in at Restoration Farm, our C.S.A.! We pick our own, each family picking as much as seems reasonable, given that we share with a lot of people, but keeping in mind that these berries won’t stay ripe forever.

Blueberries are one of those power foods, loaded with anti-oxidants, which may or may not counter the aging process. We just know they are powerfully delicious! The good news is they don’t seems to lose that phytonutrient power when frozen. They are also native to North America, which makes it positively patriotic if you are from around these parts. The bad news is that even domestically-grown blueberries are high in pesticide residue, according to the Environmental Working Group. So use their freezeability to your advantage. Buy them organic while in season and freeze them for later use!

Here are three of our favorite blueberry recipes — should you be brave enough to turn on the oven in the middle of a hot summer. Or, store these recipes when you store your blueberries in the freezer, and pull them out for a burst of summer in your baking in the middle of winter!

Blueberry-Strawberry Muffins

We like mini-muffins because you get so many you can share them around!

Blueberry Pound Cake

Blueberry pound cake is rich and tart and sweet

Blueberry-Lingonberry Muffins

A favorite for tea, lunchbox or thoughtful treat for neighbors, caregivers and friends

Tags: blueberries, cooking, desserts, food, muffins, poundcake, recipes

Comments 12 Comments
Categories CSA, desserts, farming, Food, Recipes

I wouldn’t say I am cheating on you, but you might see it differently….

10 Jul

While I haven’t been posting with my usual frequency here on Hot, Cheap & Easy, I have been busy working on stories for Edible Long Island’s blog (and for the upcoming digital launch). it has of course, involved food and agriculture.

So if you’ve missed me lately, I have missed you too!

So let me catch you up a bit on what I’ve been up to. Please click on the images or links and feel free to comment over there as well as over here. We love feedback!!

A Slow Food Huntington potluck at Restoration Farm!!!!

Click on image to go to my short post on Edible Long Island about the Slow food event!

Do NOT call it a garden! The Stony Brook Heights Rooftop FARM at Stony Brook University Hospital.

An unusual location that makes perfect sense…a farm on a hospital roof!

Tags: community farms, Edible Long Island posts, Stony Brook

Comments 10 Comments
Categories CSA, Edible Long Island, farming, Food

Cilantro & Parsley Pesto Variations With Queso Fresco and Without Nuts

26 Jun

We’re moving on up! I was invited to do a cooking demonstration recently at The Old Country Road School, a K-5 school in the Hicksville Union Free Public School District. The school was celebrating its successful garden project, now in its third year! It being a school, I figured it would be a hoot to let my then-five-, now-six-year-old show everyone to make one of his favorite sauces – hand-ground basil pesto! I mean, if a five-year-old can do it, why can’t everyone?

Proud, Proud Mama! Photo: Kara Gallagher

He was a star, waving the garlic around, handing out basil for the kids and their parents to feel and smell, and smashing the pesto into a paste with great gusto. He wasn’t a bit nervous, but I think there are a few Food Network stars who should be…Come to think of it, maybe I should be nervous too?

This pesto holds its bright green-ness much better than basil pesto!

Continue reading →

Tags: buffet ideas, cilantro pesto, cooking with kids, no nuts, nut-free pesto, parsley, potluck dishes, school gardens, seasonal summer

Comments 8 Comments
Categories Entertaining, farming, Food, gardening, Italian, lunch, Pasta, Recipes, Vegetarian

The True Tasting Room Experience – A Summer of Wine and Work at Paumanok Vineyards

30 May

The other day I posted a remembrance of my experiences behind the bar. I had meant to talk about a day in the tasting room at Paumanok Vineyards, as I came back to lend a hand over Memorial Day weekend. But somehow the post morphed into a mini-memoir about my time pouring drinks in a biker bar and I didn’t really do enough justice to the original intention.

So….for your reading pleasure, a true taste of The Tasting Room Experience. This is an article that was published in 2007, in Spanish, in Puerto Rico’s Le Connoisseur magazine for which I was a contributor for much of the magazine’s ten-year or so life. It recounts my experience s in the tasting room — what I learned and the fun we had. And explains why I am in that picture with Hillary Clinton. This article has never been published in English before! Please remember…it is an article published in 2007 recounting the summer of 2005. Some of the information may have changed slightly in the ensuing years!

Salim Massoud serving up on a busy day in 2007

Continue reading →

Tags: Long Island, North Fork, Paumanok, Paumanok Vineyards, wine, working in a tasting room

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Edible Long Island, farming

Light Yet Hearty Springtime Spanish Tortilla

19 May

The pressure was on! We had an invite to a brunch that would bring together some of the contributors to the new Edible Long Island magazine (launching first edition digitally in July, and then print editions starting in September). And everyone was to bring something.

A brunch full of food writers focused on local, hand-crafted food is a brunch full of people who know their way around a kitchen and know good stuff when they taste it. So this called for a dish that features seasonal ingredients, preferably locally-sourced, and perhaps expressing something about who I am and where I come from.

Portable and tasty, tortillas are a terrific potluck solution

Continue reading →

Tags: asparagus, cooking, food, frittata, recipes, seasonal spring, Spanish egg cake, tortilla

Comments 28 Comments
Categories Edible Long Island, eggs, Entertaining, farming, Food, Party Snacks, Recipes, Side Dishes, Spanish

Food and NCC: Oran Hesterman, Fair Food, and a Trip to Restoration Farm

22 Apr

(Update from Natalia: please see comments for a response from Dr. Hesterman!)

Spring has sprung upon me with flurry of all good things. Reunions, gardening, visits from family, coursework, channeling my inner drama queen for my film student cousin’s movies (!), learning opportunities, parties…It has been a terrific few weeks. However, it has left my blog community rather neglected! I have missed you too.

Dr. Hesterman and students (and me, bottom left)

Mind you, I have been cooking, but some of it has been experimentation that hasn’t quite worked out yet (falafel comes to mind). Other stuff has been tried and true recipes that you have read about before. And well, yes, I have been out to eat, ordered in, skipped meals, eaten a lot of salad (in anticipation of the shorts and T-shirt season), fed my son pizza (even for breakfast! oh, the shame…) and scavenged from my parent’s leftovers. So I don’t have as much as usual to report on the actual making-of-food front.

I do, however, want to share a few tidbits with you and happily, they involve a unification of my food world and my teaching world! (But if my students tell you I made them shovel shit, it is simply not true! Well, not entirely. Read on for details) Continue reading →

Tags: CSA, Dr. Oran Hesterman, environment, Fair Food Network, food, food stamps, food system, Nassau Community College, sustainability

Comments 16 Comments
Categories CSA, farming, Food, gardening

Where Do You Get Your Seeds? (Reader Input Request and Poll!)

22 Feb

As we get into the planting season, several people have asked me where I get my seeds. The answer is, from several sources (not all organic, as it happens, with my Puerto Rican herbs and peppers): the local garden supply stores like Hicks or Starkie Brothers, giveaways at foodie events, friends who send, seeds I’ve saved from our own garden or from the C.S.A. box.

Click on the radishes for Botanical Interests.

Radish French Breakfast Organic HEIRLOOM Seeds

Click here for High Mowing Seeds. Click here for Johnny’s Seeds.

So, I’m putting it out there…what are your most reliable and/or beloved seed sources and why? Please click on Comments at the bottom of the post to add your spoonful of wisdom.

And the poll (which refuses to be centered!)

Tags: buying seeds, gardening, kitchen gardens, organic farming, seeds, where to find organic seeds

Comments 15 Comments
Categories CSA, farming, Food, gardening

Kids in the Kitchen (6 ways to get them involved)

11 Nov

I am lucky in that my son is healthy and bright and a regular kid in most ways.

I am not lucky, as in: “You are lucky your son eats so well.”

Planting garlic (photo by Marianne Goralski)

In the food department, my son does eat quite well, but my “luck” is — as much of what we call luck is — the result of a lot of effort.

It’s not just that I cook and that I come from a family that has always cooked and eaten well. There are a number of things I do to get Leandro involved in the kitchen and in the food he eats; it doesn’t always lead to direct consumption of say, raw carrots, but over time it has made him a kid who knows where his food comes from and who is willing to give things a try. So I thought I’d share a few with you! Continue reading →

Tags: cooking with children, gardening with kids, good eaters, kids and food, picky eaters

Comments 12 Comments
Categories baking, CSA, desserts, farming, Food, gardening

Chicken Feet Stock (not for the squeamish, so don’t say I didn’t warn you)

19 Oct

It’s not every day that someone swings a plastic bag of severed extremities at you by way of “hello.”

My Precioussssssssss

But when that day comes and if the swinger happens to be Caroline Fanning, one of the growers at Restoration Farm, and she happens to follow her swing by saying, “Hey do you want some chicken feet?” then you should most definitely say “YEAH!” Continue reading →

Tags: basics, broth, cooking, food, making stock from chicken feet, preparing stock, recipes

Comments 7 Comments
Categories Chicken, CSA, farming, Food, Preserving, Recipes, soup

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