In Sarasota this week, Sunshine Community Compost is hosting a “Compost-A-Thon,” a special event for folks to try composting. It’s a cool concept – pay a small fee, get a bucket, save your kitchen scraps all week, then bring the bucket to the event, weigh it and transfer to a bin to start the composting…
Vegetables & Sides
Quick-Pickled Veggies
Visiting Florida farmers markets this time of year is so fun. It’s easy to find beautiful carrots with their greens attached, huge celery bursting with crunchiness, bright greens, deep purple eggplant, colorful peppers, big bunches of fresh herbs, and more. I don’t have a bag or basket big enough to carry everything I’d like…
Warm Vegetable Salad
“You don’t win friends with salad,” says Homer Simpson. I disagree! I adore salad and actually have lots of friends who love it, too. Heck, I’ve even started new friendships over salad! Fresh salad is awesome – tender greens, crisp veggies, something crunchy like toasted nuts or bacon, maybe grilled salmon or chicken or some…
5 Uses for Fresh Lemongrass
Lemongrass is a lovely, citrus scented herb in the grass family – it has a very pleasing lemon scent, and cooking with it offers none of the bitterness of the actual lemon, so it’s versatile in sweet or savory dishes, spicy or mild. But do you find yourself with lots of lemongrass and don’t know…
Cheesy Polenta with Roasted Veggies
You might recall that I’ve been lacking in the cooking inspiration department lately. . . Thankfully, signs are pointing toward improvement! I know this because I’ve been paying attention to what other food writers are cooking, noticing what’s fresh/in season at the farmer’s market, what’s on special at the supermarket, and even thinking about Fall-type…
A Frittata to Save the Day
Things have been topsy turvy here in southwest Florida due to a long-running episode of red tide in the Gulf, along with algae wreaking havoc in our canals. I’m not gonna mince words. . .it has been horrible. I think it’s the worst bout of red tide I’ve seen in the 28 years I’ve lived here….
Buddha Bowl with Quinoa, Beets & Chickpeas
If you’re like me, you’ve noticed tons of “Buddha bowl” pictures on social media. You know, those beautiful photographs of colorful food artfully arranged in wide-mouthed bowls, so gorgeous in fact that they make you want to reach in for a bite? Well, today I decided to make my own, but here’s a little back…
Mango, Peach, Basil & Ginger Salsa
It’s mango season in Florida, when we see them on trees, at roadside stands, in supermarkets, at farmers markets, and in bags carried by neighbors sharing them with friends, like these beauties I got recently: Those who have trees know that the timing of when to pick them is sort of delicate, because the longer…
Rosemary-Garlic-Lemon Marinated Veggies
My garden is thriving, thanks to milder temps in Florida this time of year. It has been an eventful few months, including lots of work prepping beds, composting, planting, staking, weeding and watering, while suffering a few tragedies due to record-cold temps (the squash gave up and the bunching onions, well, they bit the dust),…
Cooking with Friends
Sharing time with friends in a kitchen is special. It’s even better when one is teaching you how to cook something you’ve never cooked before, and it’s ideal when one of the folks is one gal’s mother. And that’s exactly what happened over the summer, when my mom and I were invited by her friend…
Maple-Cinnamon Roasted Sweet Potatoes
Everything comes to an end, which is just what happened in June when my 2016-2017 garden, from which I harvested arugula, beets, kale, tomatoes, peppers and squash, finally gave up the ghost. . . That’s when high temps and humidity moved in on us in southwest Florida so, sadly, I pulled out of my raised…
Nopales Salad & Fried Plantains
I recently visited the Sarasota Swap Meet to do some research for an article I’m writing for Visit Sarasota. There weren’t many vendors, but that’s probably because it was Sunday, off season, and a scorcher of a day. I saw lots of gently-used treasures, but the best stuff was at the Latin produce vendor tent…
