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braised rhubarb with herbs and saffron

Monday, June 8th, 2009

rhubarb

At this point in the season, the rhubarb plants have peaked, attempted to bloom their heads off (and been thwarted by my Felcos), and are beginning to settle back into merely being a large green presence in the yard without actually attempting to overrun or squash anything. We’ve had rhubarb crisp, clafoutis, pie, compote, and muffins, and stowed away a large freezer bag of chopped stalks for later.

fresh rhubarb

Despite all that, I’m nowhere near rhubarb burnout, and there are several recipes left that I want to try – for instance, I’ve still never roasted rhubarb. Or poached it in red wine. I have, however, braised it with green herbs, onion, tomato and saffron. Sound weird? It’s actually really, really good.

…Continue reading braised rhubarb with herbs and saffron

in the garden: a new blog!

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

lilies

I have news!

As you may have noticed, ever since I started this blog, I’ve been amusing myself with a self-indulgent weekly Saturday post featuring something blooming in my garden. I have no idea if this has been interesting to any of my foodie readers, so I decided to do a little rearrangement.

Henceforth, Food on the Brain shall be food only. Those wishing for more of a garden photo fix, or just see what’s blooming here in Skagit Valley, may now repair to its sister site, Jessamyn’s Garden. I can definitely say that there will continue to be some crossover, since food and gardening are my passions and they keep leaking into each other, but it won’t be quite such a jumble. I’ll be moving all the old “in the garden” posts to the new site as I have time.

Please check out the new blog, and let me know how you like it!

Edited 8/4/08: I have moved all the old garden posts over, and deleted them from this site.

Edited 9/14/09: I started the new blog as The Weekend Gardener, but got tired of it and changed it to Jessamyn’s Garden as of today. Hopefully it’ll stay put now!

a new way to eat garlic

Monday, June 30th, 2008

garlic scapes

I’ve been growing garlic for years – it’s one of the few vegetables that I consistently have in my garden, and I can usually grow enough that we only need to buy a few heads in the spring to tide us over. I used to grow softneck, but I discovered Rocambole hardneck garlic about 5 years ago and have grown it exclusively ever since – I think it has a better flavor, and it’s often much easier to peel.

One major difference between softneck and hardneck is that hardneck puts up flower stalks in the spring. If you leave them on, the flowers turn into little clusters of bulbils, taking energy from the main bulb, so it’s best to cut them off – I haven’t always been good about this, but I usually make it out there at some point, haphazardly whack off the flower scapes and compost them.

garlic scapes

But this year! This year I’ve been reading food blogs, and I’ve discovered something new. Turns out, if you pick the scape before it blooms and hardens, you can eat it! I have never seen this information in a cookbook, not even my Alice Waters book. …Continue reading a new way to eat garlic

spring break!

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

spring in the back yard

We are off to the Big Island of Hawaii today, to experience the delights of hot lava, sulfur gasĀ and plate lunch! The garden and this blog will have to get by without me for the next week. As you can see, the garden’s doing pretty well on its own anyway (ignore the weeds), and I’ll have at least one post lined up so the place won’t be completely deserted. I won’t be around to respond to comments, though, unless I stumble across a computer along the way.

But with any luck, I’ll have some great material when I get back!

in the garden: rhubarb

Saturday, March 8th, 2008

the first rhubarb stalk

The rhubarb in the back yard is just beginning to sprout. It’s not any sort of fancy variety – in fact, it came with the house. But it’s vigorous and tasty, and we’re really looking forward to our first rhubarb pie.

The early stalks have a certain alien quality to them, like a gunnera or a tree fern. Who first thought that it might be edible?

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