Peach Pie with Ginger Crumble Topping

Summer peaches nestled under a snappy ginger oat nut topping make a surprising crumb-topped pie.

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I blog about seasonal eating--using the produce from my garden and Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share to feed my family.  It's March, it's Pi day, so why am I sharing a recipe featuring peaches?

One of the primary ways I make the most of our seasonal produce is by putting the abundance up for winter use.  Last summer, when our peach tree was laden with vanishing fruit courtesy of the Certified Wildlife who must have read the Habitat sign Carla posted about making--and putting up--peach pie filling.  Since my daughter and I had been over to glean a friend's heavily laden tree, above,  I had a bunch of peaches when I read the post.  I followed Carla's clear and simple directions and put up several peach pies' worth of filling.  In the winter time, we can enjoy a taste of summer (and enjoy the additional heat in the kitchen) while we're continuing to eat locally.

I really wasn't planning on sharing this recipe today.  Even though the weather swings from sunny and 67 degrees Fahrenheit to accumulating snow back to sunny and 50s over a 3 day period, I'm thinking Spring!  I've got a roasted asparagus pizza and a radish pizza on deck for future Friday Night Pizza Nights.  But yesterday morning, when babbling about what to post today, my neighbor Dawn said 'but it's Pi day' and I thought, you know, I *do* have a pie recipe to share.  Besides, I've got so many peach pizza recipes for this summer you'd get bored with another peach recipe in August, right?

If you'd like a more savory pie for Pi Day, I gotcha covered.  Last year I shared the food of my spouse's home** in Pasties, A Meat Pie for Pi Day.  I've also shared a Beef and Bok Choy Pie that we enjoy when we've got Bok Choy from the farm share and beef from the freezer.  I'm still chicken on the concept of homemade crust, though.  My achilles heel.


If you came here looking for a Friday Night Pizza Night, I gotcha covered there as well.  Here's my Visual Pizza Recipe Index, and it's broken up my categories that make sense only to me:  recipes for pizza dough, recipes for pizzas with fruit, recipes for vegetarian pizzas, and recipes for pizzas with me.  Homemade pizza crust?  So NOT my achilles heel.


For more recipes using peaches, please see my Peach Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.


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Avocado Lemon Feta Yogurt Dip

An easy and versatile vegetable dip of creamy avocado, bright lemon, and salty feta in a yogurt base

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One of my New Year's Resolutions, for the second year running, is to add more avocado to my life.  I love in it guacamole.  I love it filled with corn and black bean salsa.  I love it smashed with some salt, spread on toast, and eaten with an over easy egg.

I got that idea off a BBC show about astronomy and the SOFIA project where I saw some German astronomers--working on the Very Large Telescope--who who were being interviewed over breakfast high up in the Atacama desert in Northern Chile. One astronomer was smashing an avocado with his toast and egg.  Try it--it's delicious. 

Avocado is just delightful--and no, I'm not being paid to say it. It's a New Year's Resolution that I'm able to keep, which is the best kind of resolution.

Brighten up a mashed avocado with a splash of lemon, add the salty tang of feta cheese, make it even creamier with yogurt, and you've got yourself a real winner.

This is the first of two avocado dips I'm sharing this spring.  My second is Avocado Feta Hummus. Both use the delightful combination of avocado and feta, first brought to my attention with Maria's Avocado Feta Dip and cemented into my palate with my Slow Cooker Greek Chicken Tacos and Five Layer Mediterranean Chicken Dip.  I like to serve these dips piled with vegetables and sprinkled with additional feta cheese, and we scoop them up with carrot slices, celery sticks, fingers, or pita chips.  I stumbled across this concept last summer, making my supper out of a Layered Vegetable Appetizer, and refined it during January's #AppetizerWeek when I made a week's worth of vegetable appetizers with a talented group of food bloggers.  You can see all our creations on the #AppetizerWeek Pinterest board.


Not into avocado + feta? How about queso? You can find my Avocado Queso Dip here. 

We've had a string of sunny days, which gives me hope that this winter will come to a close.  Amazing how wonderful time spent in a sunbeam can feel.  I think our dogs have it right--follow the path of the sun from East-facing windows to West-facing windows over the course of the day.  [That's when they're not napping on the heat vents.] This dip makes me think that Spring is right around the corner which, looking at the calendar, it is.  Hooray!

Thai Turkey Cold Busting Hot and Sour Egg Drop Soup

Fight colds with this Hot and Sour Thai-seasoned Turkey, Carrot, and Rice Egg Drop Soup

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When I was in nursing school, in a previous life, Hot and Sour Soup became my magical cure-all for any bugs picked up at the hospital that threatened to take me down.  I'd swing by my favorite Chinese restaurant and pick up a quart when I first felt a tickle in my throat, and usually by the time I'd consumed the container I was right as rain.

Of course I've moved far away from that restaurant, and had good and not as good Hot and Sour Soups in the intervening lives years.

This soup is emphatically NOT a traditional version of Chinese Restaurant Hot and Sour Soup.  Instead, it's got the hot and sour-ness that I crave when I'm sick, coupled with the consistency of egg drop soup that soothes my throat, along with carrots and rice that comfort me like a good bowl of chicken soup should.  Except this is made with a turkey carcass.  Yes, part of my Thanksgiving turkey carcass if you must know.

This is an excellent reason to save your Thanksgiving turkey carcass in your freezer until you're ready for it.  No sense wasting it on some day-after-Thanksgiving soup when you've got amazing leftovers still in the fridge.  No, save that turkey carcass, along with the bits and bobs of vegetables collected in your Soup Pack, for a Real Need.

I made this soup while in Real Need for Soup.  While I was sharing sunny orange recipes here during HashtagOrangeWeek recently, I was sneezing and hacking my way around the Disney World Parks in Florida.  As if being sick wasn't enough, we traveled to/from Florida in a plane and my ears went wrong shortly after take off and still weren't right a week after returning home.  Add to all of the above I had a cough that made me gag and, well, if you've had kids then you know there are . . . consequences . . . when you are walking around having coughing attacks.  So there I am at Disney, sneezing, coughing, and consequencing all over the place, and hoping to survive the flight home so I could make soup. /rant

Thanking again my well-stocked pantry, I slept in (love my bed) and started this soup the day after I got home.  I was inspired by Lydia's Quick and Easy Hot and Sour Soup with Tofu, Shiitake Mushrooms and Noodles and Tyler Florence's Hot and Sour Soup. Now, normally I like the hands off approach of slow cooker soup stock, throwing everything into the crock pot for a day/night before straining and using.  And while that technique is awesome, there is one drawback--in a slow cooker you don't get the flavor concentration from evaporation like you do in an uncovered stock pot on the stove top.  I cooked this stock for 4 hours on the stove top, until it was reduced by about half [and took a picture so you could see**] then called it good.  Using mostly fridge and freezer items I threw together the rest of the soup, snapped some more photos, and we enjoyed a late lunch.  I was fortified for the rest of the day. And then a few more thanks to the awesome leftovers.

If you're looking for the cold-busting properties of a bowl of hot and sour soup, the consistency of egg drop soup, the comfort of a poultry-filled carrot and rice soup--this recipe is for you.


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Hoisin Sesame Swai with Hoisin-Roasted Radishes

Hoisin sauce and a crunchy ginger-sesame seed blend coat this firm white-fleshed fish, served with tender roasted radishes and Asian-seasoned sautéed beet greens

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Do you ever wear matching clothing? Complete track suits?  Do you wish for Adult Garanimals with coded tags that help you decide if your top and your bottom clothing choices coordinate?

Where am I going with this?

It's not very usual for me to have all the foods matchy-matchy on the plate.  [Heck, the plates don't even match each other.] Apparently I tend to get all matchy-matchy with Swai.

Like I said the first time I posted a Swai recipe, "Swai is a white fleshed fish in the "Good Alternative" category on the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch website.  Protein that is a Good Alternative, that is a great price, is good for me." That remains true today. In addition to the beef in the freezer (link to my beef recipe round up featuring 106 recipes from 66 bloggers) and the wild sockeye salmon from Seldovia Point, AK, the fish we eat the most is Swai.  It's useful in a variety of preparations, I've shared some related links below.

We often like to eat fish with rice, so I wanted to try an Asian preparation for this Swai.  I picked up this sesame seed blend at a TJMaxx/Marshall's, taking a page from Heather's shopping tips, and thought it would be good rolled around inside out sushi as a coating for fish.  From there the idea of coating the fish in hoisin sauce was a no-brainer.

Since I also had radishes from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share to play with, I opted to give them a similar coating and see how it played in Peoria the dining room. The result was surprisingly good.  Roasting brings out the sweetness from the radishes and the hoisin provides them with a nice tang.  We all enjoyed this meal, and to get the entire family to enjoy radishes is an accomplishment worthy of a Week In Review post.

On the plate you'll also see beet greens.  Specifically, Asian Beet Greens.  This bonus recipe is up on my FB page and my G+ page if you'd like to check it out.


For more recipes using radishes, please see my Radish Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

I'm sharing more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes like I do, follow me on Instagram. Need a good read? I'm sharing articles of interest on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Guinness-braised Brats and Broccoli-topped Baked Potatoes

A seasonal topping for a St Patrick's day supper, this simple meal consists of sausages braised in Stout coupled with fresh broccoli and a baked potato, covered in cheese.

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I made this as a simple 'use what we've got from the fridge/pantry' supper.  As I thought more about what I wanted to write for March/St Patrick's day I realized this simple meal would make an excellent alternative to a more traditional bill of fare.  I mean, I love corned beef and cabbage, especially in the form of New England Boiled Dinner, but I dislike eating it when the marketing hype tells me to do so.  Don't get me wrong--in March I love to buy cabbage and potatoes on sale, and at the end of the post I'll share some other cabbage recipes--I just don't like being told when to eat things.

If you want to go rogue for St Patrick's day (heck, I'm not even Irish) join me.  This starts, as do all good Irish tales, with a bottle of Guinness.  I confess the only time I've actually relished a glass of Guinness was in a pub in Ireland--possibly in Baltimore but I'm not 100% sure which town, though of my time in Ireland, Baltimore and the Dingle peninsula was my favorite area.

For more recipes using broccoli, please see my Broccoli Recipes Collection. For more recipes using potatoes, please see my Potato Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me scrambling around in March trying to keep eating seasonally and locally and running out of fresh food and freezer inspiration.

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Note--I microwaved my broccoli.  I probably should have roasted it, seeing as I had the oven on anyway, but this post on roasting broccoli wasn't on my mental radar screen.

Final note--do you like crispy baked potato skins with creamy potato insides?  Alyssa has a tutorial for Perfect Baked Potatoes at Everyday Maven.  Do check it out.

Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Chili with Hatch Chiles, Corn, and Beef

Sweet and spicy chili that simmers in the slow cooker for an easy supper. This chili has beef, sweet potatoes, 3 kinds of beans, corn, peppers and Hatch chiles for amazing flavor

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When my friend Mary brought her Sweet Potato and Black Bean chili to the thrift shop for lunch, I spooned up that bowl of spicy comfort and was smitten.  Mary's chili, adapted from The Clueless Vegetarian (Amazon affiliate link) was spicy yet went down smoothly, and like all great chilies each person can customize their bowl with a variety of toppings.

I don't know about you, but I tend to become smitten with foods and cook them over and over.  Being a seasonal eater works well with this tendency, because I'm always moving onto what's up next, seasonally, and don't really have time to get into food ruts. At least it works well when fresh vegetables are appearing each week in our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box!  During the winter months I tend to rely on the produce that can store longer, like the sweet potatoes and butternut squash in the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve, as well as vegetables I've canned or frozen.

I was so smitten with this chili that I made it several times. Each time I loved it even more.  My kids gobbled it up.  Shoot, it was even the first leftover my spouse scrounged out of the fridge when he returned from his most recent deployment.  The combination of colorful beans and sweet potatoes from this chili inspired my Harvest Sweet Potato Salsa.

Serving chili is a great meal for a variety of eaters--you can top it with a whole host of extras if you like.  Some of our favorite toppings:

• red and green salsas
• pickled peppers
• black olives
• shredded cheese
• sour cream
• tortilla chips

My friend Rebbie hosted a chili party which included an oven full of baked potatoes.  My kids created their own loaded baked potatoes from Rebbie's topping selections and missed out on her award-winning chili, but we all went home full and happy.

Orange-Spiked Beet and Walnut Spread

Toasted walnuts, roasted** beets, and a kick of orange juice brightens up this vegan spread

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If you read Wednesday's post and thought I sounded conflicted about posting so many meat-containing recipes in a row, you're very perceptive.  I've got a Guinness-soaked easy meal, a terrific Thai cold-busting soup, and a Fast From The Farm Share supper on deck--but they all involve meat.  And I feel the need to share a vegan recipe in the midst of all this meat so here's one that's been percolating on my mental back burner for a while.

Why do I say percolating?  Well, the recipe I wanted to make just wasn't working for me.  I kept trying variations within the parameters I'd established, and when I hit upon the final concoction that worked I realized I didn't have the exact proportions to share with you.  So I'm going to explain the concept, give you some measurements as a jumping off point, and leave it at that.  I mean, with 6 ingredients [including salt and pepper] there's plenty of 'taste and adjust' for each of us to do.

I'm always on the lookout for new ways to love beets from my CSA farm share, so when I got an email from goop including a recipe for beet and walnut spread I mentally filed it under the 'Beet Recipes to Try' section of my brain.

Don't tell me you don't have a Beet Recipes to Try area of your brain? Pity.

This Beet and Walnut Dip is my inspiration, and I am sure it is delicious, but I a) was running low on tahini and had some hummus to make and b) desired to have another tahini-free appetizer in my spread.  So I took the beets, walnuts, olive oil and salt from that recipe, and was trying . . .  trying . . . trying . . . to make something other than BeetyWalnutButter.  I failed. I was about to grab the goat cheese and de-veganify it when I remembered how well beets and oranges go together (hello, Beet Juice Mimosas!). I grabbed some freshly squeezed Hamlin orange juice from the Band Fruit Fundraiser, threw the concoction back into the food processor to incorporate the juice, and DONE!  The orange juice and olive oil emulsify to fluff up the BeetyWalnutButter into an Orange-spiked Beet and Walnut Spread.

As much as I love my Beet and Goat Cheese Spread, I was looking for a vegan addition to my Awesome Vegetable Apps and Snacks collection (link to my Pinterest board) and this one works great.  I like it on carrots or crackers and spread on toasted sourdough bread in a sandwich.  I think it would be delicious topped with sautéed mushrooms, as the earthy flavors of beets and mushrooms make a nice pairing in my favorite Danish smørrebrød:  liverpostej.

If you've got beets, walnuts, an orange and a bit of time to use the oven, as well as a food processor or amazing knife skills, you can enjoy this vegan spread today.  It makes a colorful addition to an appetizer table.

For more recipes using beets, please see my Beet Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, or the garden abundance. More recipes! I'm pinning more recipes to my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like behind-the-scenes shots, please follow me on Instagram. When I encounter an article that makes me think or makes me laugh, I share it on my Facebook page--please follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Open Faced Liver Paté LeverPostej Meatloaf Sandwiches

A traditional open-faced sandwich featuring meatloaf flavored with bacon and liver, topped with pickled beets, sautéed mushrooms, even crispy bacon and onions

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This open-faced sandwich is for the hard core carnivore out there.  Not those of you who dabble in boneless, skinless, chicken breasts.  Nope.  This is for those of you who will eat the whole cow, tongue to tail.  [I deliberately exclude myself from the head, though if someone presents me with a slice of head cheese I'll eat it.  I'm just not gonna make it and blog about it, okay?] It briefly passed through my brain to apologize to my vegetarian readers [thank you for stopping by! If you'd like a vegetarian open-faced sandwich recipe, here's my shaved beet one] for posting yet another meat-containing recipe, and then I realized that no, I'm going to own this.

In my opinion, it is disrespectful to the animal to cherry pick the handful of parts that you choose to consume.  I'm not saying to rush out and eat bung, instead I am saying to broaden your horizons and try more than just steaks and burgers or boneless skinless chicken breasts.  Beef tongue is pretty tasty, and the tail--man, I'm drooling just thinking about Elise's oxtail stew recipe.  But each bovine only has 1 tongue and, sadly, 1 tail.  There's a lot more to that animal--including the liver.

This, as you can tell from the head-scratching 'how do you pronounce it?**' title, contains liver.  If you like liver, you'll probably love it.  If you don't like liver, this smells like bacon while it's cooking and looks like meatloaf after it's baked, so give it a try.  My kids are not fans of the beets and mushrooms, so for them they are just eating a meatloaf sandwich, but you're welcome to make it your own. Try this, broaden your horizons, and respect the animal that you choose to consume.

This recipe is my adaptation of a traditional Danish open-faced sandwich or smørrebrød (literal translation is butter bread) using liver paté or leverpostej.  Like a Reuben sandwich is traditionally served with sauerkraut, swiss cheese, and thousand island dressing, the Danish leverpostej smørrebrød is served with pickled beets and sautéed mushrooms, sometimes crispy bacon or onions.

Red Cabbage, Leek, Brat and Beet Skillet Supper

A hearty satisfying skillet supper of cabbage, leeks, apples, and beets seasoned with bratwurst, maple syrup, apple cider and spices. I could say 'low carb' and 'real' if you like those words.

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If you're a regular visitor to the blog [thank you!] you know all about the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve in a cold corner of my breakfast nook.  That's where I store the pumpkins, acorn squash, butternut and buttercup squash from the Fall farm share, as well as the shorter-storing onions, potatoes, garlic and sweet potatoes. Corn gets blanched and frozen, summer squash and carrots get shredded and frozen, and beets get roasted and frozen. Turnips just get refrigerated until my spouse convinces me to make pasties again. This way I feed my family from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share twelve months of the year, even though we only get fresh vegetables seven months of the year.**

Simon and Vincent (Oliver and Crystal the pig are missing) showing off the initial SWSR.

Even though I enjoyed a week of sunshine in Florida, last week during HashtagOrangeWeek, winter has its grip on my home and I still want crave hearty fare. This recipe is a hearty skillet supper combining many of the items in a typical Fall CSA share that can be found throughout the winter.  I was inspired by this CSA Cookoff segment done by Jennifer of Homegrown.org. I thought it would be a great way to stuff beets a bunch of veggies and a sprinkle of meat into my kids.  Score!  Today I'll share a skillet full of flavor we affectionally dubbed Hot Pink Mess.

Boy, if I were a young hip blogger, this would be the name of some over-the-top decadent dessert or fried appetizer that I'd make and eat after stumbling home in the wee hours. In reality, a humble fried egg sandwich appeals to me in the wee hours, more so than chocolate. Though Meghan's granola comes a close second for nighttime snacks. 

For more recipes using beets, please see my Beet Recipes Collection. For recipes using cabbage, please see my Cabbage Recipes Collection. For more recipes using leeks, please see my Recipes Using Leeks Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from their farm share box, or from what's at the farmer's market, or on sale at the grocery store, or what grew best in the garden. I'm pinning more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. I'm sharing a carefully curated look at the world's most handsome Basset hound, Robert Barker behind the scenes on my Instagram feed, follow me there. Interesting articles get shared on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Pepperoni and Orange Pizza

Sweet caramelized orange chunks and spicy pepperoni liven up this pizza

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I'm going to round out HashtagOrangeWeek with a pizza, because it's Friday and I frequently share pizza posts on Fridays [and nearly always fix pizza for my family on Fridays, even if I've just arrived home like today].  You may think that oranges on a pizza could only be on a dessert pizza.  You'd be at the wrong blog, my friend.  I'm not saying that I'll never do a dessert pizza, but I have not yet done one and have no plans to do so at this time.  Besides, I just shared a cookie recipe using oranges, Orange Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Secret Ingredient Cookies, and a sweet muffin recipe using oranges, Orange Olive Oil Date Muffins.  

Why am I sharing a week's worth of recipes featuring oranges from Florida?  I spent this week in Florida watching my son's high school marching band parade at Disney while soaking up sun and warmth.  Since the trip was financed, in part, by selling Florida citrus in the Band Fruit Fundraiser (link to my recipe round up featuring 156 Recipes Using Fruit, from 66 bloggers) I decided to take this week to share recipes I've been making using the fruit we bought in the sale.

The BLUF of this recipe is that it's good to have a broiler.  This pizza benefits from being hit from above with a direct heat source to finish it.  The cheese browns and the oranges caramelize, just a bit, and that is a nice touch.

The other weekend we were at a sled hockey tournament in Ft Wayne, Indiana and the TV didn't get any Olympic coverage. Boo. However they did have Food Network (I don't at home), where I saw a gal in Minnesota make a kimchi pizza in an amazing copper oven.  She'd lift up the pizza--with a super-long pizza peel--to the top of the oven to hit it with a final blast of heat.  Wish I had that set up.  In a second kitchen as there's no room in mine.

It is tricky, timing the amount of 'broilerage' required for the oranges without overdoing the crust and cheese.  If I had a creme brûlée [hey the spell checker automatically put all those hoodads on the letters. Wicked cool] torch I'd hit the oranges individually with that instead.

For general hints, tips, and photo collages please check out my Pizza Primer post, a brain dump of all things related to making pizza in my home kitchen.

For more recipes using oranges, please see my Orange Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me overwhelmed with Band Fruit Fundraiser citrus or who just like to stock up when it's on sale at the store or who live next to a citrus farm. You pick. 

For more pizza recipes, including an entire category of Savory Pizzas With Fruit, please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index. I'm also pinning interesting pizza recipes I find to my Pinterest boards, follow me there. I'm sharing my latest pizzas in rough form on my Instagram feed, follow me there. I'll share articles that catch my eye on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Orange Oatmeal Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies

A tender and tangy twist on the classic chocolate chip cookie--with freshly squeezed orange juice and zest, some oats, and cream cheese.  This is a wonderful cookie.

Welcome back to HashtagOrangeWeek here on the blog.  While oranges aren't exactly a local, farm fresh, food to me in Ohio, we've been enjoying cases of citrus shipped up from Florida as part of the Band Fruit Fundraiser.  Why did the band sell fruit?  To raise money to travel to Florida and march in a parade down Main Street in the Magic Kingdom! Where am I now?  In Florida, watching the band march in a parade down Main Street. See how the circle comes around?

On Monday I showed you how I treated myself--and the kids--to Orange Olive Oil Date Muffins. On Friday I'll throw oranges on a pepperoni pizza--and live to tell the tale.  But for now, while I bask in the sunshine of the Sunshine State . . . I present you with Orange Oatmeal Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I'm realizing that I treat my son's sled hockey teammates, and their families, better than I treat my own family.  I'm sure that's a symptom of something--taking those closest to you for granted and being kinder to complete strangers.  In addition to eating more avocados in 2014, I shall resolve--at this late date--to make more treats for my family.

I had it in my head that I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies with cream cheese in the batter.  I tried a few cookbooks looking for recipes without success, but a couple of minutes on the laptop and Boom! I found Kelly's Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies.  I wasn't content to merely make a tried and true recipe to share at the team dinner.  No, I had an idea to use one of the Band Fruit Fundraiser oranges to add an orange-chocolate twist to the cookies.  Apparently cooking something for the first time for an audience--who don't have to like it--is getting to be a habit.  Oopsie.  Thank goodness for amazing food bloggers!

Kelly's directions are clear and easy.  I was able to make her recipe, including my orange & oatmeal adaptations, one afternoon while dinner was in the oven.  Then, like I always do with cookies and often do with pizza dough, I stuck the dough in the fridge to bake the following day.

Imagine my surprise when I got online for Chef Dennis Littley's weekly Good Day Google Plus Hangout on Air--and one of the panelists is Kelly!  It was pretty cool to be able to say "hey, I've got your dough chilling in my fridge".  I know whenever someone tells me they've made one of my recipes it makes me feel good!

Orange Date Olive Oil Muffins

Sunny orange juice and zest, sweet dates, and a splash of olive oil make these muffins a treat made from things my grandma could have found in her pantry

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This week I am in Florida, watching my son's high school marching band parade down Disney's Main Street and enjoying some warmth and sunshine. I thought a good theme for the week would be recipes featuring oranges, so I'm calling this week HashtagOrangeWeek.  See, the oranges I'm using came direct from Florida as part of the Band Fruit Fundraiser (link to my round up of 156 fruit-filled recipes from 66 bloggers). Why was the band fundraising?  To go to Disney and march down Main Street . . .

Today I'm sharing muffins, because it's a Monday and I like to share muffin recipes on Mondays.  That whole alliteration thing.  Wednesday I'm sharing Orange Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Secret Ingredient Cookies, and Friday I've got an Orange and Pepperoni Pizza. If you are in a cold area, I can't bring you warmth but I can share some sunny citrus.  [And rub it in, a wee bit.]

You ever do something just for yourself?  I made these muffins just for me.  Normally I make muffins for the kids' breakfast or after school snack, or to bring to a function, or--rarely--to eat with dinner.

Not this time.  Not these muffins.

I had a hankering for Orange Date Muffins even though I'd never tried them.  Probably due to repeated exposures to the Orange Date Muffin recipe page in Muffins: A Cookbook (Amazon affiliate link) written by friends of my mom.  Every time I'd read the recipe over the years, though, I was missing some vital ingredient [like oranges or dates].  Since the Band Fruit Fundraiser Citrus Recipe Round Up, though, I've had cases of citrus at the ready, and as it is sled hockey season I have been to Costco and have dates aplenty.

Quick Pickled Beet and Herring Salad

A quick side dish or simple lunch of roasted beets tossed with picked herring in wine sauce. Two ingredients and a few minutes to throw it together and you have a vibrant bowl of flavor.

You didn't think I'd let a Valentine's day go by without beets, did you?

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There are many ways to show love.

Even though this is a food blog, I do other things besides cook to show my love.  Earlier this week I showed my love for my spouse by cleaning out the refrigerator.  True, I did get a side bonus by having a clean refrigerator, free of unknown items science experiments moldering about in the back.  But, if left to my own devices, I would have spent that time working on a different project.

I chose to show love instead.

Last year, while writing about the holiday of love, I encouraged you to show your love to  your family and friends by preparing a pizza for vegans, vegetarians, or omnivores.

On Monday, I asked you to show your love to hungry children you'll never meet by donating $10 to #feedsouthafrica.  If you didn't have a chance to donate, you can still do so here.  We're more than halfway to our goal of providing 100 kids lunch for an entire year, and if each of the participating food bloggers could get just one reader to donate--we'd be there!

Today, I want to talk about showing love to yourself.

I am the only one in my household who likes pickled herring and pickled beets.  Sure, my family will eat the herring with me on Christmas Eve, and they eat beets in a variety of dishes, but they don't like it like I do.  So I very rarely eat this, even though I enjoy it.

This dish is one way I treat myself, perhaps a winter version of my Sautéed Beet Greens and Spring Onions with a fried egg.  I can roast [technically, I'm oven steaming] a bunch of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share beets at once, freeze some for later use, and chop up one to make myself a bowl of this salad.  I like to eat it for breakfast, lunch, or a snack.  The rich red color delights me as much as the briny, tangy taste, and I thought it would be pretty for a Valentine's day recipe.

If you've never tried pickled herring in wine sauce--only buy a teeny tiny jar to start, or get a bit at a deli counter.  It's a taste I acquired after many years of starting our Christmas Eve smorgasbord glaring at the pieces of fish I'd been served, and daintily eating a bit of lettuce and some pickled onion while impatiently waiting to ditch the first plate and get to the good stuff--Swedish Meatballs.  My palate and I have matured, though, and now I buy giant jars of pickled herring at Costco and I treat myself to the whole jar--one bowl at a time.

For more recipes using beets, please see my Beet Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating seasonally from the farm share, the farmer's market, garden abundance and grocery store sales. For more recipe inspiration I'm pinning good stuff on Pinterest, follow me there. I'm sharing articles that catch my eye on Facebook, follow me there. I'm showing a carefully curated peek behind the scenes on my Instagram feed, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Cheesy Leeks and Orzo

Let your leeks shine in this simple and quick side dish of orzo pasta, leeks, and cottage cheese. 

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After a busy AppetizerWeek last month where I really buffed up my appetizer section, I poked around on my recipe index by category (on the right side bar, not to be confused with the recipe index by ingredient up along the top) and thought that I ought to be sharing some more simple side dishes that I feed to my family, using the vegetables from our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share. Wow--that was a run on sentence. My apologies. The unrelenting cold numbs my fingers and brain. Perhaps after a week in Florida I'll be coherent? Gotta get through this week first.

Today's recipe came about because I wanted a side dish that would appeal to the whole family and my CSA farmers had grown a stupendous crop of fat and sassy leeks.  I generally wash, slice, spin dry, and freeze my leeks for use over the winter (in soups, stews, etc) but I like to use some fresh, too.

While leeks are usually supporting players in my dishes, I've seen gorgeous ways to showcase them like Kristy's Crispy Leeks.  I wanted a softer leek (my son had recently had his wisdom teeth out) and to let that nice mild flavor shine through.  We had this side with spicy salmon, but it would go equally well with chicken or pork.  Leftovers reheated well the next day.


For more recipes using leeks, please see my Leek Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for local seasonal eaters like myself who want to make the most of their farmer's efforts. I'm pinning all sorts of recipes to my Pinterest boards, follow me there. I'm sharing recipes and articles that catch my eye on my Facebook page, follow me there. For a carefully curated behind the scenes (complete with howling Basset hound) please follow my Instagram feed. Want to know How To Use This Blog?

Multigrain Sourdough Bread (in a bread machine)

Multigrain sourdough bread--sounds hard, but use the bread machine to easily make this loaf!

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Today I am joining with my fellow food bloggers to encourage our readers to donate to The Lunchbox Fund, an organization that provides daily meals to South African children.

Why am I asking you to help feed kids in South Africa when there are hungry kids in our own communities?  It's simple.  I feel everyone who can help has a responsibility to help others.  In my community, I give my time and my food to my local Foodbank.  With 65% of all kids in South Africa living in poverty, nearly 20% of them orphans, it is clear to me that my help is needed outside my own community.  By participating in this campaign with The Giving Table, we are hoping to raise enough funds to provide a daily meal to 100 South African children for a year.

There's strength in numbers, people.

I just donated $10 to help feed kids in South Africa, it took me about 2 minutes, and you know where I coughed up the money from?  I spent the weekend at a sled hockey tournament in snowy Ft Wayne, Indiana.  Instead of picking up drinks and snacks on the road/at the venue, I packed from home.  That saved me easily $10, and other than a bit of planning ahead it was painless. And better for us.


I'll tell you more after the recipe, but first--a bit about this bread.  When Nicole asked me to share a lunch recipe I was stumped.  I mean, more often than not my daughter comes home from school and we eat leftovers for lunch. "Remove container from fridge.  Reheat in microwave." is a pretty short recipe, you know?  Then I started thinking about my son, and how I forced him to he's been making his own lunch this year, which is usually a sandwich.  The foundation of his sandwiches is usually this bread.

I started making bread 6 months ago after reading Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Amazon Affiliate link) while participating in the HOMEGROWN.org summer book club.  Learning about what all goes into a loaf in a Wonderbread factory left me unsettled.  [Not that I'd been buying Wonderbread, mind you.]  I had a packet of dried sourdough starter so I decided to go for it.

Over the months I've tweaked the recipe I started with, from Best Bread Machine Recipes (another Amazon Affiliate Link), adding flax meal and oats, adjusting the amount and kind of flours originally specified.  Because I started making this bread in August, when my kitchen is crazy hot (it's crazy cold in the winter) I chose to dust off my bread machine.

Rant: Some folks may say that this is a cop out, that I am not really baking bread.  You know what?  When I load dirty clothes, washing soda, vinegar, detergent and fabric softener into my washing machine, close the lid, and push the start button I say I'm doing laundry.  And I'm not even controlling the amount of water used to wash the clothes!  Use the tools available to you, if you like.  At the thrift shop where I work, I see bread machines each month--usually in the $10 to $20 range. /rant