The beautiful triangle of seafood sustainability, good taste, and good health is hard to come by: lots of fish and seafood are overfished or are farmed under ecologically devastating conditions, fresh fish (and therefore fresh taste) can be hard to find, and canned/tinned fish like tuna is more often than not packaged in less-than-stellar oils [...]
Bunnies may be cute and fluffy and great starring characters in children’s books, but they are pests when it comes to the garden. Especially when lettuce is involved (although they seem to avail themselves of darn near everything). Your best bet to keep the bunnies at bay is to have a fully clawed and voracious [...]
Continue reading about Keeping Long-Eared Varmints Out of Your Garden
Nothing beats a salad that’s waiting for you ten feet outside of your door! Freshly snipped lettuce won’t have time to wilt before it hits your plate, plus lettuce is even easier to grow than herbs are. The only trick is planting the seeds in a pot that’s high up off the ground — otherwise, [...]
Continue reading about Lettuce Seeds + Elevated Pots = Fresh Salads
This is taking the surf ‘n’ turf concept to the next level, folks — we’re bringing together the darlings of the surf (shrimp) AND the turf (bacon). And it only takes 10 minutes to throw all of this together if you have some pre-cooked bacon on hand. Even if you have to cook the bacon, [...]
Continue reading about Luxury (Yet Affordable!) Surf ‘n’ Turf
What do strawberries and pickles have in common? More than you’d think! In honor of spring shading (sunning?) into summer, I thought I’d try making a seasonal sweet-and-sour salad by tossing together strawberries and pickles. Roasted asparagus and Romaine lettuce provided the backdrop, and a creamy Dijon dressing tied it all together. It’s simple and [...]
Sweet corn, savory herbs, juicy tomatoes — what more could you want? Summer brings out the best on our plates. (Summer also means that my refrigerator tends to be a bit bare since a lot of my future meals are anchored to my garden dirt.) And now that we’re — sniff! — at the tail [...]
Continue reading about Guaranteed Summer Hits: Sweet Corn & Fresh Herbs
It’s strawberry season! Not to mention chive season and lettuce season. Cool evenings and not-too-hot days make for smoother, softer-tasting chives (as the season progresses, they get more and more oniony) and sweeter, softer-tasting lettuce (hot days = more bitter leaves). All of that means it’s the perfect time to enjoy simple salads, either as [...]
Continue reading about Spring is in the Air…and on the Plate
Crunchy lettuce is great…but so is wilted lettuce! Lettuces with a faint bitterness/pepperiness to them — arugula, watercress, frisée — are especially good complements to savory dishes. Plus, because they wilt so quickly, they’re a snap to toss into a sautée or stir-fry at the last minute. Just the heat coming from the pan and [...]
The arugula piles up sometimes, doesn’t it? (Especially now that we’re getting into lettuce-growing season.) Even if you don’t have a lettuce garden, I bet you’ve stared down a half-full container of baby greens and wondered what to do with it. Salads are great, but no dish can tickle your gastronomic fancy 100% of the [...]
Popeye was a forward-thinking guy–he recognized the value of a fresh head of spinach! While it’s a bit much to think you’ll have biceps bigger than Arnold’s if you eat like Popeye, it’s true that you’ll feel better and have more control over your weight when greens take up more of your plate. The feeling-better [...]
