This scrumptious little spread is creamy, buttery, herbalicious and highly snackable for nearly any occasion.  It doesn’t have the crumbly texture of French Boursin but it’s still ding dang delicious and great for any edible vehicle that can transport it to your mouth.  The cracker in the photo is a Mary’s Gone Crackers Super Seed, one of my favorite crunchies.  The seedy ones are high in protein and hold up well.     Blend it all together and serve,

  Our monsoon rainfalls in the upper Midwest this summer have resulted in a bumper year for mushrooms….we take those silver linings whenever we can.  The Northeastern U.S. on the other hand has probably experienced a crummy year for the moisture-loving fungi, I believe the Midwest has squeezed every drop of Wetness out of the air and left none for them.  Sorry folks, we would truly love to send some of this excess precipitation your way.   Here we see a pile of adorable Oysters, Miniature Puffballs, Entaloma

  Green and creamy-frothy on the tables of our favorite little Mexican restaurants, we have spent many a delicious moment speculating about the ingredients of this green condiment.  Emulsified oil, figured that out.  Some kind of chile, yep.  And beyond that we weren’t sure if there was lime, vinegar, mayonnaise or avocado…but just kept on eating regardless of the speculations. This is different than a tomatillo salsa verde which is also incredibly yummy but not as creamy.  Sometimes this sauce

  All rice is not equal.   I have had creamy rice before, but this was another branch in the tree of amazing grains. People from Anson Mills in South Carolina were at the Seed Savers Exchange Annual Conference last weekend, and beforehand they offered to mail me their Carolina Gold Rice Grits if I would use it in the conference’s Saturday evening meal.  They sent ‘middlins’, or rice grits, which cook up in a similar manner to a creamy arborio rice.

  Last weekend we ventured up to the old haunts of Minneapolis to help my dear friend Julie JAO with an evening of speed painting performance in her studio.  Some of you may have seen her speed painting the signature stick figures but now she’s moved onto Celtic creatures….not exactly a simple choice for painting with abandon. These are a few from the evening, soon I can give you links to the live videos so you can watch them being born

    It’s true, there was a similar post last year about lemongrass pork patties, but when something tastes this good it’s okay to do variations on a theme. I made these buddies small for a tapas-style potluck, but you could make them larger for full servings or into little balls served on skewers.  The small ones were handy for post-meal snacking, tasty even when they were cold.   Outdoor dinners, they might be the best part about summer.  Serve

  Nothing like trying out new recipes on a few hundred people…   There was a request for plantains at a large graduation party a couple of weeks ago.  I’ve made simple chips before by slicing the starchy fruit and either frying or baking the cute seasoned circles as a side dish.  A friend recommended I try these which were a whole new territory and more like a cracker.  The recipe she sent to me is from the blog Paleo Mom,

  My little Sweet Bean. A few weeks ago a friend asked if I would concoct a hummus out of local ingredients for a celebration at the Farmer’s Market.  They wanted to serve hummus in lettuce leaves which is a traditional Iranian dish of spring, but because the group intended to bring focus to reduction in fossil fuels we looked for ingredients we could use from our region.  This took a little pondering.   Basic Hummus is made from garbanzo

 photo by Roy Hampton It has been so fun going through my father’s photos of our times in Mexico.  Good memories of a slower life, and my oh my we all looked so young. This is a print of two nopales (prickly pear cactus) growing on a hilltop.  One grey day while taking a walk on the mesa my father noticed he could see these dancers when he was at a very particular place in the road.  A few feet either

  An Irish potato pancake just in time for St. Patrick’s day. These are hearty buddies for any kind of meal and a great way to use your leftover mashed potatoes. The basic idea is to mix mashed potatoes with grated raw potatoes and an egg, but there are infinite possibilities of variables that could be introduced.  Herbs, garlic, curry, jalapeños, horseradish, siracha, yams, caraway, saffron…   The origin of the name is likely the Irish phrase arán bocht tí meaning “poor-house bread”.