Basic Chowder Recipe

Photo by Judith Hausman Start with this basic chowder recipe and add ingredients as you go to change it up a bit. Chowder may have taken its name from the French word la chaudière, the heavy, black kettle that hung on a hook inside a fireplace. The culinary definition is basically potatoes, chunks of potatoes, […]

Recipe: Matzoh Brei

Photo by Judith Hausman Matzoh brei is essentially French toast. Passover is the time of year (same time as Easter) when Jews commemorate the flight from Egypt by eating only unleavened bread or baked goods. People have come up with ingenious ways to create recipes with potato starch, finely ground matzoh meal or ground walnuts […]

Locavore Recipe: Pesto Corn Bread Mini Muffins

Photo by Judith Hausman   Well, it’s happened again. Even though I made a distinct effort to eat, cook and give away my stockpile of garden goodness, I’m clipping the new spring chard and spinach before the packets I froze are all used up. I have net bags of garlic still “perfuming” my pantry, and […]

Stracciatella

Photo by Judith Hausman Spring soup? Well, yes, it has finally started to warm up in New York’s Hudson Valley, but a light, healthful soup, made quickly with a garden’s first offerings, can still tempt me. After a perfect Mothers Day morning of getting this year’s petunias in place and finally moving the overwintered geraniums […]

Green Peppercorn Sauce

Photo by Judith Hausman This is a classic, French-style pan sauce, usually made from the fat and browned bits left from searing meat. However, this version doesn’t depend on having just cooked meat, so it’s great for bringing leftover beef, pork, chicken or even salmon to the next level. For my own meal, it sauced […]

Rice Noodles with Pork

Photo by Judith Hausman Quick and versatile, this Asian-inflected noodle dish is perfect to make use of the first small amounts of new greens and young scallions. I bridged the seasons with the very last of the cabbage from last fall’s harvest and the very first of the spring’s turnip raab. Baby bok choy, totsoi, […]

Lemon Pizza on the Grill

Photo by Judith Hausman Our first barbecue of the season was a joint effort. My hosts offered beautiful burgers, and I made the pizza. While the fire was getting hot enough for the burgers, we maneuvered the stretched and lightly-oiled dough onto the grill first (it took 3 of us to do so!), quickly covered […]

Turkish Leeks

Photo by Judith Hausman Here’s a fresh dish for spring. A recent trip to Turkey gave me a jumpstart on spring cooking because of the milder weather there (the peach and apricot trees were already in bloom) and because of the wonderful vegetable-centric cuisine of that country. It goes without saying that cucumbers, tomatoes and […]

Pink Pasta with Beets and Ricotta

Photo by Judith Hausman This pretty pink dish put spring in your step. Here’s a humble, vegetarian pasta combination, perfect for a still-cold night. Often if I find decent winter beets in the market, I roast them right away when baking something else, so the beets can wait ready-to-eat in the fridge. Red beets tossed […]

Scandinavian Potato Salad

Photo by Judith Hausman Nordic food finds an locavore twist. Now that the best restaurant in the world (Noma) is in Denmark, Nordic food is having its moment in the sun. Could that be why the bunch of fresh, local dill I found at a farm stand recently made me think Scandinavian? Unlike the Midwest, […]