Our CSA started up a couple weeks ago and for right now is limited to greens, radishes and rhubarb.  In Washington there has been more rain in the first few days of June than there typically is in the whole MONTH of June.  This has definitely affected the local farms but the nice thing about CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) is that they help farms be supported in the good or difficult growing years.  I’ve been playing around with our radishes the past few weeks to figure out some new ways to eat them besides with butter on fresh bread (which is amazing by the way!). Read more

For this month’s 24, 24, 24 event I proposed preparing food for a big party using ingredients that were locally produced, grown, and made.  Some ingredients I used were ones that I canned or froze over the summer months.  But most of the ingredients were ones that I bought this week, and in season.  It was a lot of fun talking with farmers and vendors about what’s in season during the cold month of December, and what’s available locally.  Eric and I were getting pretty excited about being locavores, and are considering trying a month of only eating local because of the bounty of local food in Washington.  Here’s a video of the local producers and the party.

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Starting 7 years ago I searched high and low for the best green bean casserole recipe.  I found ones that were too rich, too goopy, not flavorful, or boring.  Ones that did sound good involved tons of ingredients and more preparation than I felt I could spend , especially if trying to prepare a giant holiday feast.  Basically, I was constantly being disappointed.  So I decided to come up with my own perfect recipe for green bean casserole.

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Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and I’m always on the lookout for a unique mashed potato recipe.  When I was at the local farm stand I saw a bunch of sage and couldn’t resist.  I’d never cooked with before and wasn’t quite sure what to do with sage, but it smells amazing and I remembered it’s often used in butter.  I thought I’d take that one step further and make sage brown butter to mix into mashed potatoes. These are easy mashed potatoes and I will definitely be making them often.

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Would you vote for me to get to demo my recipe at the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival? Just click Buzz It for my Shrimp Alfredo Baskets.

Happy Halloween!  I know several of you are carving pumpkins today, tomorrow I’ll show you Eric’s and my amazing pumpkin carving job.  It’s awesome!  Maybe you’ve noticed that grocery stores are dropping the price of their pumpkins starting today.  We got a giant pumpkin for free from our CSA, but I also bought some smaller ones to use in the kitchen.  Did you know that you can use every part of the pumpkin?  If you want to make your own pumpkin puree, the small sugar pumpkins work best, but this year I even used a small carving pumpkin and found it still tasted pretty good in my pumpkin bars.

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