The Pig and I

There are a million ways to make these, and I pretty much think they're all good. But I like this way for days when you're having sausage and kraut. Hope you enjoy! 8 ounces sliced button mushrooms 3-ish tablespoons finely diced red onion 1 large or two small cloves minced garlic 2-ish tablespoons white wine (I *think* this was a pinot but I froze it ages ago so can't remember for sure) 1-ish tablespoon lemon juice pinch each: salt, lemon peel, dried thyme 1-2 tablespoons olive oil Heat the olive oil in a small pan over medium to medium-high heat, then add the mushrooms, onions and spices. When they're about 3/4 of way done, add the remaining ingredients. When the liquid is gone they're done. Serves 2 if you feel like sharing.

The fig trees have been ripe a couple of weeks now and I've been busy preserving, preserving, preserving. There's a tree on the property of the condos we live in and there's also one at Ross' Nana's house. This has put me in good supply of figs, though I'm not convinced one can ever truly have enough of these little gems of yum. Ross' family prefers a Southern fig preserve with strawberry Jell-O, so I made around 3 cases total for him and them (last year I didn't make enough for him at half a case and it was gone in a month or two so I promised not to make this mistake again). I've also made some jars of the regular fig preserve I like (figs, sugar and lemon juice only). But in the middle of all that we started what I refer to as "monsoon season" in Houston, which is NOT good for figs. I ran over to the on property tree and saw that what I thought would happen did happen. Figs were overripening faster than I could get them, even with the Pi...

I got some buckwheat a while back, intending to make it with beets. Then I forgot all about it until today when I discovered some beets in the house that needed to be used. This was substantially more delicious than I expected it to be, and we all ate it up with gusto. Hope you enjoy! Buckwheat: 1/2 cup buckwheat groats 2-2 1/2 cups water 1 teaspoon salt pat of butter (optional) Put water, salt and butter (if using) in a pot and bring to a boil. Stir in the buckwheat and boil for 10 minutes, stirring every so often. Strain out remaining water and serve. Serves 2. Veggies: 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 tablespoon lemon juice 2 beets, peeled and diced 2 carrots, peeled and diced 1 onion, diced 1 cup celery, sliced 1 small jicama root, peeled and diced 1/2 red bell pepper, diced 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, sliced in half 1 teaspoon each: garlic powder, salt Heat oil in a skillet over medium, then add beets, carrots, onion, celery, jicama, garlic powder, and salt. F...

The Piggy loves eggplant and chick peas and has been harassing me to do something with the eggplant she's been seeing in the fridge. I wanted part of it to crust with potato and parmesan but didn't want to make the whole thing that way so I also made this for her. Hope you enjoy! 1/2 globe eggplant, peeled and diced 1 can chickpeas 1/2 red onion, diced 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 tablespoon za'atar 1 teaspoon salt juice of 1/2 lemon 1 8-ounce can tomato sauce In a skillet, heat oil over medium. Add onions and eggplant with salt and fry lightly. When the eggplant has slightly crisp exterior, add chickpeas, za'atar and lemon juice then cook down 1-2 minutes. Add tomato sauce and simmer until the sauce is slightly paste-like. Serves 4 as a side or 1 as a meal.

It's figs. It's ice cream. It's a fig milkshake! As figs are coming into season, the canning is going to get out of hand. But while this is going on and poor Ross has to keep a crazy toddler out of the kitchen so we don't have to visit the emergency room over sugar burns, I figured it's good to give them something yummy to snack on while I'm preserving away. Enter the milkshake. Hope you enjoy! 8-10 figs 1/2-3/4 cup vanilla ice cream splash of milk, if needed 1 teaspoon-ish lemon juice pinch of salt small splash of vanilla extract (optional) Put all the ingredients in the blender and blend, blend, blend. Serves 1 normal sized person or 3 small people.

I first learned of this practice in a fermenting group where someone was doing it with cranberries. This is delicious. Everyone should have these in their lives. I make mine exclusively with blueberries since that's the Piggy's current favorite fruit, but friends of mine make them with other berries with equal success. I think you pretty much could use any fruit and still have it be full of win. If you're going to feed this to kids (1+ years old, please!), don't let them see the container or you'll regret them knowing where these are. Hope you enjoy! 24 ounces blueberries honey Fill a clean, quart sized Mason jar (or other quart sized vessel not made of metal) with blueberries. Fill with honey until the berries are completely submerged (this takes a while because the honey has to worm its way around all the fruit). Place a non-metal weight on top of the berries (I like to use the tealight holders from Ikea. The small size works in a standard mouth jar and the l...

I hadn't had rhubarb since I was a kid, when we used to pick it where it grew wild. But I saw some beautiful looking stalks at the store and thought it might make a lovely dessert without the usual strawberries that accompany it. Hope you enjoy! 4 stalks rhubarb, sliced into 1" pieces 1/4-1/2 cup brown sugar 3 tablespoons butter 1/2-1 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon each: vanilla extract, lemon juice Melt butter in 8-10" cast iron pan then add the other ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. Top with crust, then sprinkle with turbinado sugar and bake at 425F for 30 minutes. Serves 4. Crust: 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into bits 1 cup-ish flour 1 teaspoon salt 1-2 tablespoons vanilla sugar 5-ish tablespoons ice water Put butter, salt and sugar in a bowl and rub in the flour (I use my hands for this), a little at a time, until you have pea sized pebbles and "sand." Make a well in the middle of the butter mixture and add 4 tablespoons of water, qui...