One of my favorite ways to promote my apple cookbook is by doing demos at farmers markets around New England. And now that fresh early summer apples like Paula Red and Lodi are in season, I’ll be visiting a lot of them in the coming months. Today I was at the Kendall Square market in […]
canning
Desserts
Summer Jam-Filled Thumbprint Cookies
Earlier this year I spent some time assisting Yankee’s Senior Life and Home Editor Amy Traverso with recipe testing for our upcoming annual “cookbookazine,” and one of my favorite recipes to come out of the cookbook process was the one for these jam-filled thumbprint cookies, which I am referring to as Summer Jam-Filled Thumbprint Cookies […]
New Hampshire
Canterbury Shaker Village
Summer vacations have always been a quiet affair for me. I live in southern New Hamsphire, in a rural community that endures six months of winter by envisioning the dazzling months of June, July, and August that always await us. There are other seasons to travel, but summer, for me, has been a chance to […]
Hand-made gifts are fantastic, but who has time, right? Well, this week I took to the airways to demonstrate a way to make a delicious handmade gift while you sleep! It’s my homemade apple butter, made overnight in a slow cooker. Here’s a video of me demonstrating the recipe on New England Cable News. Cooking […]
One-Pie canned pumpkin purée — an iconic New England brand keeps Maine’s canning industry alive, if only in memory.
At long awaited last, the high to peak color is arriving in the mountains of Northern New England. To be honest, I’ve actually been quite surprised how strongly the color came on in the past week. The weather has been not very fall-like, and certainly not ideal for the colors to start popping. A strong, stagnant […]
Side Dishes
Quick Bread-and-Butter Apple Pickles
This relish is actually a bit different from the bread-and-butter pickles you may know from childhood. It’s also much simpler. It does have a similar flavor profile, though: sweet and bright, with warm spices. It’s a quick pickle in every sense—just a thirty-minute bath in the vinegar before it’s ready to serve, and I simply […]
A few weeks ago while taking a quick after-work tour of my vegetable garden I made an important conclusion: I was about to drown in tomatoes. This was a bit of a sea change for me. At the height of gardening season I start thinking of my plants like they’re my own children. And like the kid […]
Gardens
Tantalizing Tomato Tips
There’s something very satisfying about picking a perfectly ripe home-grown tomato from the vine to slice and eat while it’s still warm from the sun. When properly cared for, fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes may be enjoyed far into the fall—extending one of summertime’s simple delights for a few more precious weeks. Tomato Tips What kind and […]
Cooking Advice
Canning Safety Tips
Follow these instructions to safely can your summer harvest at home. Use only clean, perfect glass canning jars (no nicks or cracks). You may reuse jars, but always use new seals (lids) and screw rings. Start with cold water when it’s time to sterilize the jars, seals, and rings by boiling. Use a rack or […]
I’m haunted by a pickle. The kitchen shelves glimmer with jars of homemade preserves after a summer’s worth of gardening, harvesting, and putting up. Clove-scented beets glow deep garnet, and the cauliflower sparkles crystalline, bejeweled with tiny bright-red–and lethally hot–Thai peppers. Zucchini pickles stack up right next to the oven-roasted tomato sauce. Strawberry and wild-blueberry […]
Desserts
Berry Festivals in New England
There is nothing like a good old-fashioned New England Strawberry or Blueberry festival. Though there are hundreds of fruit festivals, which celebrate just about any fruit imaginable throughout the New England area, blueberries and strawberries are two of the very few fruits that are native to our part of the United States. Because of this, […]