Garden Recipes, Gardening

Chopped Salad w/Blue Cheese Dressing – My Nepenthe

April 18, 2011
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We’re half way through April 2011. How did that happen? Are we the only ones feeling like we should still be in February? From the sound of all the snow falling throughout the cold regions of the country, we certainly should be in February!

Obviously we’ve been hammered with work and we’re definitely not complaining. It’s been a wild and wonderful ride so far this year. With some ups and downs lately, we’ve been able to pick up and start over again and we still love our job.»

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Fried Minted Artichokes – A new addition to the Spring garden

April 10, 2011
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Every spring, Diane and I go through the annual “What veggies are we going to plant?” ritual.

First the weather starts to warm and we begin to crave more than leafy greens, sugar snap peas, radishes, and carrots.  We’ll hit Home Depot and nearly buy a bunch of boring varieties which we don’t really want but that is all they have because is it too early in the season. We’ll barely hold off on purchasing, then two days later the weather will drop winter cold again and we congratulate ourselves on not buying too early.

Repeat two more times.»

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Stuffed Tomatoes w/ Quinoa, Soft Tofu inspired by 101 Cookbooks “Super Natural Every Day”

April 3, 2011
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The sun has been very kind to us over the last week. We had two fabulously warm days to dry out all the dampness that late Winter left behind. Indeed, we’re very lucky to be living in warm Southern California weather where our garden basil is looking fantastic and we are getting some early season tomatoes at the market.  And somehow, we got our hands on Heidi Swanson’s new Super Natural Everyday cookbook.

Honestly, today’s post isn’t meant to make anyone envious. We just kinda won the weather, produce & cookbook lottery!

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Homemade Kumquat Marmalade with Brie Cheese and Blue Chair Jam Cookbook Giveaway

March 13, 2011
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I don’t like brie cheese. It’s boring.

There. I said it, I meant it, and I’m ok with you despising me for it. But before you send off that nasty email, I must clarify, I’m not talking about the real deal, raw milk, wheels of wonder that are true Brie cheeses.  Cheeses from milk so pure you can taste what moseying bovines feasted upon.

If only most “Brie” cheeses were so divine… But they’re not. Most are a bunch of bloomy rinded discs of boring. However there is salvation.  Salvation in a little orange jar and a cast iron »

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Baked Sweet Pea Pot Stickers w/ Ginger Soy Dip

February 27, 2011
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Truth be told, we have killed many garden plants, none of which were intentional. Since the Sunset Magazine articles about us and our garden were published, everyone thinks we’re master gardeners. Folks! There’s a long list of garden failures that we’ve yet to publish. Maybe we’ll share some of our garden disaster stories so you can see how much of our initial gardening career was (and still is) by trial and error. But what we love so much about gardening is that it’s a continuous learning experience.

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Passion Fruit and Mint Cooler: Don’t give up

January 17, 2011
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This recipe is a testament to why gardeners should never give up to quickly on their favorite plants. A couple years ago, we determined we had to grow passionfruit. As anxious gardeners and lovers of fresh passion fruit, we didn’t just invest in one vine. After all, in addition to our own personal garden fruit greed and long list of passion fruit recipes we wanted to explore, we had an extensive list of friends who were equally devoted to fresh passion fruit.

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Grandma’s Persimmon Cookies Recipe for Mom

January 10, 2011
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This is an open letter of apology to all the mothers of those who work in the service industry. There is no substitute for the absence of hugs and shared holiday meals.  There is no explanation which will ease your hearts of our absence, and for that we are sorry.

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Winter’s Citrus, Double Tangerine Cocktail

December 26, 2010
tangerine cocktail

We’ve been pounced with rain for well over a week now. The unforgiving rain turned our roads into raging rivers and the dark clouds shut out the sun for about 5 days straight. That’s a rarity in Southern California, to not see the sun for so long. Now we know what the rest of the country feels like! Yes, we’re spoiled.»

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Orange & Fennel Salad with Toasted Fennel Vinaigrette – Welcoming Citrus Season

December 2, 2010
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Citrus season has finally arrived in our garden and hopefully in about 4 more weeks, we’ll be able to share a few rounds with friends. Last year we doubled up on an extra blood orange tree (for Katie!) and an extra Eureka lemon tree. Plans for this year are to add 3 more citrus trees because, yes, we’re addicted.

No, you really can’t have too much citrus, that’s our life motto. All the better to make cocktail with!»

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More garden tomatoes in November

November 10, 2010
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When we thought we had picked the last tomatoes, these sun gold vines  proved us wrong. Today we changed over some of the vegetable plots to winter peas and greens. It was time to pull up these sun gold vines and they were still producing fruit in November!

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