Greek Olive Salad Pizza

A recipe for vegetarian pizza topped with olives, sautéed mushrooms, feta and fontina cheese. Sounds gourmet but you'll make it at home!

It's pretty slick when you can take a couple of containers out of the refrigerator and produce dinner, especially a dinner that would be found on the menu of some fancy pants pizza joints. [Can you be both fancy pants and a pizza joint? I think so.] Continuing my message of how to have varied and interesting pizzas at home, let's talk about long-storing preserved veggies aka Veggies in Jars.

I started this . . . lesson? discussion? rant? soliloquy? all terms would work . . . the other week with Cheesy Garlic Scape Pesto Flatbread, suggesting you make and freeze garlic scape pesto, fresh tomato pesto, roasted garlic and even plain old ordinary pesto while these items are seasonally abundant and inexpensive.  Meghan reminded me to add caramelized onions to that list--how did I forget those?--and Angie suggested onion marmalade.  Great additions for my list!  Let's move the storage device from freezer to fridge and continue the discussion.

My love affair with olives continues [hey, if my then-deployed spouse can go to a website and fall in love with . . . well, wiener dogs . . . why can't I carry on a love affair with olives?].  I've been buying olives by the Costco vat, and that means that I've got plenty for this pizza.  Since I'm also buying feta cheese by the Costco vat--well, ♫ "put 'em together, it just makes sense"♫ *.  Just like my Very Veggie Puff Pastry Pizza Bites, fresh spinach from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share would go nicely on this pizza.

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For more pizza recipes, broken into category because I like to organize things a heck of a lot more than I like to dust, please see my Visual Pizza Recipe Index. For more recipes using mushrooms, please see my Mushroom Recipes Collection. For more recipes using vegetables in jars (or buckets, as the case may be), please see my Veggies In Jars Recipe Collection. They are 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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Greek Stew Meat Tacos

Beef cubes, marinated in artichoke, lemon, and olive juices served taco style with avocado dip.

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One way to be a meat-eating local food eater is to buy a cow, or part of a cow.  We did, and that's how I got the cow that lives in the freezer.  One of the cool things about going in on a cow (ok, technically he was a steer), like I've mentioned, is that you get a LOT of cow parts that may be new to you.  And in cooking them, you learn new dishes that you love. Like tail.  I love me some tail!  You also get meats you may be less desirous of--thanks Dawn for bringing over the liver your family isn't fond of--we use it in meatloaf.  When you get a portion of cow all at once, you can find yourself with a package of stew meat tucked away in the corner of the freezer when you're not really interested in fixing a stew.

Just because a package says "stew meat" doesn't mean you need to make stew with it.  It just means that the meat needs tenderizing, either by long slow moist cooking, or by a long soak in a tenderizing marinade.  I opted for the latter this time.


This goes back to my mom wanting to use up the liquid left in the olive and artichoke jars because she never throws anything away without some sort of reuse.  (See where I get it from?)  When I made the Slow Cooker Greek Chicken Tacos the artichoke/olive juice marinade made for tasty meat--so I did the same thing with beef.  Note:  this has an overnight marinade!

For more recipes using avocados, please see my Avocado Recipes Collection. For more recipes using carrots, please see my Carrot Recipes Collection. For more recipes using olives, and artichokes, and other veggies in jars, please see my Recipes Using Veggies in Jars Collection. These collections are 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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Red Russian Kale and Turkey Sausage Pasta

Red Russian kale and turkey sausage flavor a tomato cream sauce in this kid-friendly pasta

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I work in a thrift shop, and one of the perks is being able to purchase some of the merchandise before it gets out to the sales floor.  [Another perk is shopping the clearance section before opening hours to find colorful napkins and placemats, interesting kitchen gadgets, and more that you see in my photos.]


I picked up a copy of Giada de Laurentis' Everyday Pasta this way, primarily because when I flipped to the index, looked up kale, and checked out this recipe her headnotes mentioned that it was the only way she'd eat kale as a kid.  Since I have plenty of varieties of kale in our community supported agriculture (CSA) farm share and kids who don't readily eat kale (though they'll eat it in soup and pizza) I figured I'd give this recipe a try.

The original recipe calls for spicy sausage.  My son is the child into spicy foods, so I used some turkey breakfast sausage instead.  My daughter has been the one to snag all of the leftovers of this dish, so I think that the pinch of crushed red pepper was just fine by her.  I used Red Russian kale in this, but it would work with blue curly kale or Lacinato kale as well.

For more recipes using kale, please see my Kale Recipes Collection or my Cooking Greens Recipes Collection. These collections are 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?

Green Tomato Bacon Jam Burgers

A simple burger with a little something extra--green tomato bacon jam mixed into the beef makes each bite juicy and full of flavor

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There's just something about the flavor of these burgers.  Mixing in the Green Tomato Bacon Jam adds such richness to the meat that they deserve their own post.  And if I get this up before Memorial Day?  Well, let's just say that I'm so happy to be enjoying these burgers hot off the grill that I can't wait longer to share with you all.

In a way I feel like I'm recycling a post here, which is I'm sure not cool for a relatively new blogger to do.  I did it for me, though--I didn't want to wade through my Green Tomato Bacon Jam recipe for the burger recipe, nor did I want others to do so.  Even if you don't make your own Green Tomato Bacon Jam--and I just made a batch the other day through the magic of canned green tomatoes since my own plants are 3 to 8 inches tall--I think the jam flavor is so terrific in the burgers I must share now so you can try this over the summer months.  [Can you buy green tomato bacon jam?]

Making your own Green Tomato Bacon Jam is easy--if you can chop or use a food processor, and stir a bunch of stuff together in a pot for an hour.  The ingredients are not hard to source, and it keeps in the fridge or the freezer--no scary canning required.

[I freely admit to continuing the brain washing I started last month about canning tomatoes and freezing assorted pizza toppings.]  Each time I open up my freezer or pantry during the winter and grab something yummy I put up over the summer, I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

I want you to feel that sense of accomplishment, too.

For more recipes using green tomatoes, please see my Green Tomato Recipes Collection. Not one of them fried! This collection is 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?

Pasta Salad with Grilled Fruit and Goat Cheese {Recipe from MELT}

A sweetly savory summer side dish or light vegetarian supper--pasta combined with grilled fruit, goat cheese, herbs and nuts. From MELT: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese

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I want to talk about barriers to successful grilling.

[Those of you with your grills hooked up to your natural gas line, skip ahead to the recipe. Lucky ducks. The rest of you, read on.]

See, for 9 of the past 10 years we have tried--key word--to be successful at grilling.  Our grill is the largest tiny portable one there is, and it has a nice loop to hold a tiny propane tank (the kind a restaurant might use for creme brûlée). Each time we wanted to grill out, we'd carry the grill out of the shed, set it up, preheat, put the food on the hot grill, and then . . . when it was time to turn the meat, the small propane tank was empty and the grill was cooling. When this scenario is played out often, it makes you want to just crank up the oven and heat up the house!

Last summer I decided to tackle our grilling barrier head on.  We got a standard size propane tank, one that has to be carried separately from our little grill. Finally I could trust that when I started the fire I'd be able to see the cooking through, and with that our grilling changed.  We do store our grill in the garage (because we've since moved to a house with a garage) so once it's hauled out and set up I like to grill anything handy and used the grilled items in future meals.  I've used this technique in my Grilled Veggie Ciabatta Pizza, but now I'd like to share a terrific picnic side dish or light summer supper:  Pasta Salad with Grilled Fruit and Goat Cheese.

At its heart this a recipe for macaroni and cheese, so it's no surprise that I got the recipe from MELT: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese (link to the author's website).  I received a copy of this terrific cookbook last fall and have made several recipes with it, including Macaroni and Cheese in a Pumpkin and Pumpkin Cranberry Maple Kugel.


One of the first recipes that caught my eye was an orzo salad with Humboldt Fog goat cheese and grilled peaches. Since I eat seasonally I figured I'd need to wait until peach season to try it--but first I found myself with some fresh figs at the same time  I found Humboldt Fog marked down at the fancy cheese counter.  Score! This tasted so yummy that the name--Humboldt Fog--stuck, so since then I'm always on the lookout for it in the marked down bin.

The next time I came across the cheese coincided with cored pineapple selling for the same price as whole pineapple.  I prefer not to pay for the parts that just go into the compost anyway, so I picked up a container of prepped pineapple. While we had the grill going for steaks, I whipped up the marinade and tossed the pineapple in to coat.  I was out of orzo, so I subbed in elbow macaroni.

This savory-sweet pasta salad is a refreshing addition to summer meals. We prefer it served freshly tossed or at room temperature (do not microwave to reheat the leftovers).

For more recipes using figs, please see my Fig Recipes Collection. For more recipes calling for fresh peaches, please see my Peach Recipes Collection. For more recipes using pineapple, please see my Pineapple Recipes Collection. These collections are 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?

28 Recipes Using Garlic Scapes {Recipe Round Up}

Got garlic scapes? Need inspiration? Here's a round up of more than 30 recipes, from appetizers to main dishes to side dishes, using that mild seasonal treat the garlic scape.

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One of the reasons I started this blog was to provide practical support for local eating.  

Eating locally means you're eating foods in season--when they taste the best! It also means you're introduced to new foods. At the start of the farmer's market and CSA season these funny looking garlic scapes are many folks' first experience with a new food.


I'm so pleased with this Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up! Right here in one a single place I've gathered more than 28 recipes using this wonderfully versatile and locally available plant part.

Pin this for later!

The garlic scape is indeed a plant part! Like I use unwanted onion skins and celery leaves in my frugal freezer Soup Stock Packs, while saving the main part of the vegetable to use/eat directly, the scape is the {unwanted} flowering portion of the garlic bulb. After cutting off the scapes and using them in one of the dishes below, you'll still harvest the Main Attraction, the garlic bulb, a few weeks later.  How cool is that?

This amazing photo is from Stephanie of Garden Therapy

My fellow food bloggers and I share what you can fix if you have scapes from your garden (it's easy to grow your own garlic), your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, or your farmer's market. Garlic scapes are ready to harvest all at once, only once a year, so it's a good idea to have a mess of ideas in your toolkit so you can plan ahead in the kitchen.


I've broken down the recipes by category [because cataloging recipes seems to be something I like to do on this blog]. I've got pestos, starters, sides and mains.  There are garlic scape recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  There are gluten free and vegan recipes using garlic scapes.  There are recipes for stove top, oven, microwave, and grill.

For even more recipes using garlic scapes, please see my Garlic and Garlic Scape 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?

My favorite way to use garlic scapes is to put up a mess of Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto. I freeze it into small cubes and use it year round in salad dressings, Chicken Garlic Scape Meatballs, pizza sauces, Herbed Garlic Scape Cream Cheese Spread/Dip, my Cheesy Garlic Scape Pesto Flatbread, Grilled Garlic Scape Pesto Smashed Potatoes, Shrimp and Garlic Scape Pesto Scampi, and this hummus. I've got a quick video how I make it, and you can find the Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe specifics here.

Pin my Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe here!

While there is no single garlic scape pesto recipe, my favorite is my Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe. While arranging all the links these bloggers have thoughtfully provided for me, I found a wide variety of pesto recipes.  Each recipe below is different--using a variety of leaves, a variety of nuts, but always using the mild garlic scape.  I thought I knew all there was about putting up pesto, but there's a wealth of information, tips, and tricks in these posts.





The Starters category covers appetizers, dips, and soups. When the weather is warm I like to eat lighter, and having appetizers for a Dip Dinner keeps my kitchen cool and my family happy. Dip dinners with a big plate of whatever's handy from the farm share makes it a fun way to eat a lot of vegetables.





One of my goals this year is to increase the number of side dish recipes on this blog--here are some ideas for all of us to use this summer.  I'm currently inspired to try Sarah's Garlic Scape Vinaigrette in a pasta salad or as a marinade for grilled vegetables. For more inspiration check these recipes out:





The Main Dishes with Garlic Scapes category covers breakfast dishes through dinner meals.  I remember touring a garlic farm in Japan where there was garlic wine (I was pregnant and didn't taste it though the spouse said it was . . . interesting) but I don't recall a garlic dessert.  I'm glad.




In addition to these Clickable Collages [I learned how thanks to Anyonita's tutorial] I've also added a Garlic Scape Recipes board on Pinterest, where I've pinned each post and will continue adding as I find more recipes using garlic scapes throughout the internet.  If you missed my many calls for garlic scape recipes and would like me to pin yours to my board, please feel free to leave the link in the comments and I'll add to the post. Thanks!



Since I'm still finding links I'd been squirreling away, let's make this 28+ recipes! :)

Susan's Fresh Primer: Green Garlic and Garlic Scapes

Casey's Feta and Gruyere Pizza

Lindsey's Garlic Scape Powder

Lindsey's Pickled Garlic Scapes

Garlic Scape Pesto Cheesy Flatbread Pizza (Pizza Night!)

Mild garlic flavor from the garlic scape pesto, plus plenty of shredded cheeses, makes a Cheesy Garlic Scape Flatbread--a seasonal treat that can be enjoyed year round thanks to your freezer.

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I want to talk about making pizzas at home, and share a way you can keep it innovative.

Having a stash of pizza topping options in the fridge and freezer keeps our weekly pizza nights interesting.  It's super simple to throw some leftover protein (chicken, ham, ground beef--links to some of my pizza posts) onto a meat-containing pizza.

It's a breeze to add fresh vegetables (peppers, spinach, or mushrooms--more links to suggested recipes) and/or preserved vegetables for a vegetarian pizza.

I store a lot of pizza cheese in the freezer [NOT always a good idea to use in a pizza], have a vat of feta standing by, and sometimes you don't even need cheese [this would be the place where I'd link to the Beef and Broccoli Pizza if it had been posted].

It takes some time to build up that pizza topping stash, but it's worth it.  Preparing a batch as each vegetable hits peak season means that I'm not constantly slaving away in the kitchen [it only seems like that in August-September with the tomato canning, though, like childbirth, I'd do it again] yet I get to enjoy a wide variety of homemade, locally grown sauces on our pizzas throughout the year.

I don't want to tell you what to do want to subliminally brainwash you to consider trying to put up one pizza topping in your freezer this summer. Here's some suggestions, in order of when they're ripe and ready throughout the season--all of these store well in the freezer.

• Will it be Garlic Scape Pesto? (link to my recipe)
• How about Roasted Garlic? (link to my recipe)
• Maybe some jars of Fresh Tomato Pesto? (link to my recipe)
• Perhaps plain ol' ordinary Pesto? (link to my recipe)

Think about it and get back to me.  In the meantime, here's one way you could use your bounty: pizza.

I'm not sure if regular readers noticed, but it's turning into Garlic Scape Week around here. I'm preparing a Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up for my next post and wanted to include some of the ways I feed my family garlic scapes from our garden and the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share.  [In order to include my recipes in the round up, I kinda needed to post them first.]

I started off by sharing how I put up my scapes in the form of pesto, combined with a variety of leaves (I'm partial to parsley and basil) as well as an assortment of nuts (I'm partial to pistachio and sunflower seeds).  I use this pesto in all sorts of things, from Hummus to Shrimp Scampi and now, because it's a Friday and my family likes our Friday Night Pizza Nights, on a pizza.

I made two pizzas using this Garlic Scape and Pistachio pesto:  a plain cheese one and a more involved Sun-dried Tomato, Artichoke, and Olive with Fresh Mozzarella pie.  Since I was making a number of pizzas, I told the kids to go ahead and eat the cheese one while it was hot.  By the time I joined them they'd nearly demolished it and my son told me "this tastes just like cheesy garlic flatbread". Well, now I don't have to come up with a creative title--thanks!

Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto Hummus

Garlic scapes, basil, parsley and pistachios combined in a traditional hummus base for a fresh Spring dip. Garlic scape pesto freezes to have this seasonal treat year round.

For other recipes using Garlic Scapes, please see my Garlic & Garlic Scapes Recipe Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for seasonal eaters faced with a staggering amount of fresh produce we just don't know what to do with. I've got a Pinterest board of Garlic Scape Recipes here, and a Round Up of 28+ Food Blogger Recipes Using Garlic Scapes here. Want to know how to Use This Blog?

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Part One: The Making of Garlic Scape Pesto

To paraphrase Dick Van Dyke's Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ("Don't waste your pucker on some all day sucker.  And don't try a toffee or cream.  If you seek perfection in sugar confection, well, there's something new on the scene") don't waste your scapes in some Spring stir fry, instead try this pesto, it's green.

When I read Annie's post about garlic scape pesto I was intrigued.  I'd never tried it, but it sounded good.  When my CSA farm share and my garlic bed provided me with garlic scapes I knew I'd give it a try.  As it turned out, I didn't follow my own directions for stocking up on pesto supplies before the garlic scapes appeared.  I did have a block of parmesan, but I didn't have any pine nuts.

I got to thinking . . . why do I have to use pine nuts in pesto?  Weren't the original pesto makers just using what was readily available to them, not sourcing to China to make a sauce? (Check your bag of pine nuts, you'd be surprised)  I mean, I had great success using almonds and cashews in my Fresh Tomato Pesto.  In my pantry I've got almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and sunflower seeds available--I chose pistachios for this just because they are green and would enhance the bright green of this garlic scape pesto.

[In fact, I had a lil' ol' pestopalooza party with all the garlic scapes and fresh herbs after my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share resumed--that flood of green after the long winter was so welcome--sure, the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve provided some lovely orange veggies, but man, I missed getting a big ol' box of leafy veggies each week!  I made pesto using garlic scapes and sun dried tomatoes.  I used basil and parsley for the leaves. I used pistachios and sunflower seeds for the nuts.  I wrote down the various combinations, but my favorite is the one I'm sharing below--garlic scapes with pistachio nuts and basil.]

Because I plan ahead, and will be putting up this pesto by freezing it, I keep it a little thicker by using less oil.  By freezing this pesto, the plant cell walls that weren't disrupted by the food processor will burst, resulting in a more liquid pesto when thawed.  If you're not planning on saving some for later, use more oil.

{HNTM} Lou Malnati's Chicago Classic Deep Dish Pizza

{How Not to Make} Lou Malnati's Chicago Classic Deep Dish Pizza, packed with sausage and cheese and flavorful tomato sauce.

Don't worry, like the trashy romance novels I adore, there is a happy ending [and a viable recipe] at the end of this post.  But when you find yourself saying 

"once I drained the pizza, it tasted pretty good"

you know there's a story worth sharing.

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Once upon a time [actually last month] a family traveled to Chicago for a short vacation. The dad planned out the route, the lodging, and the sights to see.  The mom prepared what to eat en route, arranged for the dogs to spend their first nights away from the family at a loving kennel, and scouted pizza places to try Chicago's famous deep dish style pizza.  [The kids grumbled about not spending a week lying on the couch staring at screens.]

Forgetting that pesky time zone thing, we arrived early enough to walk/roll around the downtown area, and especially to walk to the first pizza place on The List:  Lou Malnati's.  We ordered a Chicago Classic and a Lou. When they arrived, I took some mental notes:

• The crust is not puffy, not like a yeasted dough that's allowed to rise at the edges.  It's not like Zebra Room flaky pie crust either. It's crispy/crunchy . . . maybe cornmeal?
• The sausage was undisturbed until I cut through it with my fork--it was in a disc the size of the pizza pan, and without browned edges--I think it was placed raw on the pizza and cooked during the pizza baking time.
• The tomatoes don't look like tomato sauce--they look more like my canned crushed tomatoes.  The juice is clear, not cloudy like in a cooked sauce with tomato paste.

And the taste?  Delicious!  Must re-create at home.

With a basic idea in mind I set out to make a deep dish pizza.  My previous attempt at a deep dish pizza ended in a spectacularly inedible failure, shown on my FB page, when I attempted to cram way too much Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share spinach into the pizza.  But that merely tasted terrible.

My first attempt at a pizza similar to Lou Malnati's Chicago Classic involved grabbing a ball of previously fresh mozzarella out of the freezer.  Now, I know that using thawed balls of mozzarella results in a seedy pizza.  I've commented here about the phenomenon. However, I didn't heed my own advice.  First Big Mistake.

I also scooped out the crushed tomatoes using a slotted spoon, which meant that the tomatoes were already pretty juicy when they went onto the pizza. You know the heat of the oven is going to denature the proteins in the plant cell walls, causing them to burst and release more fluid--so that was my Second Big Mistake.

With those two mistakes synergizing in my skillet, it's no wonder why it happened. When I pulled the skillet out, the pizza looked great--if a little jiggly.  The cheese was browned, the sausage cooked and the crust was crisp--what you want in a pizza.

Then I tried to extricate the pizza, and a tsunami of fluid swarmed out--over the skillet, the counter, the cooling rack, and into the sink [everywhere but where the dogs could reach--they were disappointed]. Thus leading me to the comment.

"once I drained the pizza, it tasted pretty good"

Wild Violet Granola (On Mothers and Mentors)

Nutty crunchy granola, sweetened with wild violet sugar and wild violet syrup, is a tasty breakfast or bedtime snack.  The mothering/mentoring part is just bonus.

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Mentors are a lot like Mothers.

Both mentors and mothers nurture their protégées.  They provide support--practical, physical, and emotional support.  They want to see their charges succeed.  Mentors gently correct mistakes and provide honest feedback.  Mothers do as well [even if it exasperates us to provide the same feed back again and again].  While I don't think I am exactly friends with my own children, I do consider my mentors to be my friends.

My friend and mentor Meghan is to blame responsible for this recipe.  She handed me a bag of her Basic Granola when we met.  I brought it home and was blown away by the chunks, the tender nuts, and the amazing flavor. [And I'd been pretty happy with the Trader Joes granola I'd eat with kefir whenever the mood struck.]

Granola and kefir?  I got into that tasty combination after spending a lovely weekend with my mom and her college buddies and their daughters. The weekend was hosted by my friend and mentor Alanna, and I hope we honored her mom's memory. We sure did it up right.

My own mom continues to be an excellent mentor.  My attitude towards leftovers I learned from her.  Not being afraid of canning the summer harvest? Learned at my mom's shoulder.  Now she's showing me how to age gracefully. Watching my folks pro-actively move to a more supported living arrangement is something I've observed since they moved out of the big suburban house into a city condo the summer I graduated from high school.

What do these three women have to do with the recipe I'm sharing today? Let me braid the strands together. Meghan got me interested in making homemade granola.  My mom taught me to use what I had on hand to create new meals. Alanna has been mentoring my blogging since I first emailed her saying 'I'm thinking of starting a CSA blog' . . . later she told me about the 30 Days to Better Food Photography course I finished a year ago which has helped me improve my images.
We eat first with our eyes, if we are fortunate enough to see, and since I can't have you reach through the screen to sample this granola the least I can do is make it look appealing.

For other recipes using wild violets, please see my Wild Violet Recipes Collection. It's a part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the front yard, 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?