Homemade Strawberry Jam Recipe
Hamutal goes strawberry picking and shows us how to can our jam like a locavore
Hamutal Dotan
Hamutal never planned to become obsessed with food, much less with sustainable food. It crept up on her when she wasn’t looking.
At first it was pure self-defense: her parents, though well intentioned, had no idea what to do in a kitchen, and so she had to learn a bit about cooking, sheerly for the sake of her sanity. Chopping things, it turned out, was great for soothing the savage teenager. Skip ahead several years, and she’d figured out that making your own jam from local organic berries was even grander.
Love of food led to love cooking, led to love of ingredients, led to love of markets, led to love of farmers, led to love of land. Hamutal is profoundly convinced that sustainability and pleasure are the best of friends, and tries to write about both of these in equal measure.
She can be reached at hamutal (at) green prophet (dot) com.
A Warm, Sunny Earth Day Kind of Dessert: A Recipe for Lemon Curd
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Greening Your Breakfast: A Recipe for Winter Muffins
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Classic Middle Eastern Cooking: Kibbeh Recipe
Kibbeh is one of the stalwarts of Levantine cooking, and comes in as many versions as there are towns or people who make it. Loosely, kibbeh refers to a mix of burghul (bulgur), ground lamb, and spices. It can be served raw (kibbeh nayye), spread flat and baked (kibbeh bis-sayniyyeh), or formed into small ovals […]
Taking on Middle Eastern Classics: Baba Ganoush Recipe
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Muhamarra: the addictive red pepper and walnut spread from Syria
Winter cooking is often pantry cooking. When the rain is coming down at a 45° angle, the last thing most of us want to do is brave the elements to make a grocery run. It’s handy to have a stash of recipes that rely on what you already have in the cupboard – and conversely, […]
Dianne Onstad's Whole Foods Companion, A Charming and Chock-Full Book
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Making the Season Last: Tomato Confit Recipe
Tomatoes are still, mercifully, quite readily available. Though we hate to think about it, this won’t always be the case. In just a few short weeks, tomatoes—at least the good, locally grown varieties—will be gone on winter hiatus. It always seems to come too soon, and it always somehow seems to take us by surprise. […]
Carlo Petrini's Slow Food, A Review
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Vegetarian-Friendly Protein: Quinoa Salad Dinner Recipe
Quinoa isn’t just for Passover anymore. Revered by the Incas as sacred, quinoa looks like a grain but is actually a plant related to beets, chard, and spinach. Its tiny seeds cook up into fluffy, nutty goodness in fifteen minutes, and can be used in any number of ways. Quinoa is fantastic for vegetarians and […]
What to Do With All That Whey – Make Biscuits!
As you may recall, we recently delved into the wonderful world of cheese-making. And when we did, we told you to save up all that leftover whey, as we’d be featuring it in a recipe sometime soon. Soon, dear cooks and bakers, has arrived. Now, what if you don’t happen to have embarked on the […]
Holiday Recipes, Sukkot Edition: Make Your Own Ricotta
What exactly does ricotta have to do with Sukkot? After all, Shavuot is the holiday that features dairy so prominently. In part it’s a question of ecology: meat is a high-impact food, and if we can all cut down a bit, the planet be much better off. In part it’s a question of health: with […]
Rosh Hashanah recipe for pomegranate-nut Salad
Many of us are rushing around today, crossing things off lists though simultaneously putting new ones on, trying to get ready for Rosh Hashanah. It’s a big food holiday – bigger than most, even – and most of us will have family recipes and traditional fare serving as the staples for dinner tonight. Far be […]
Pickling 101 – Vinegared Cucumber Salad Recipe
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Have a Healthy Ramadan: Greening Your Fast
We’re now just over a week into Ramadan, and hopefully those of you that are fasting have settled into a comfortable routine. For any of you that may still be trying to find your way, though, we thought we’d do a bit of research into the best ways to keep your eating healthy and earth-friendly […]
Making the Most of Stone Fruits: Plum Buckle Recipe
There is something so profoundly compelling about a dish named buckle. Just think of it: buttery golden batter, giving way – buckling – under the weight of juicy, jammy, slightly caramelized hunks of fruit. A buckle is more exuberant than a plate of muffins, yet more modest than a cake. Serve it with coffee in […]
Zucchini Blossom Frittata Makes the Most of Farmers' Market Jackpot
Zucchini flowers, or squash blossoms (for culinary purposes these are interchangeable), are one of those off-the-supermarket-beaten-path ingredients you tend to find only at farmers’ markets or fancy restaurants. (Or Italy, though that doesn’t really help most of us all that much.) This elusiveness means that if you do come into a supply – either because […]
Fresh fava (ful medames) beans for salads
Ful medames; ta’miyya; bissara — fava beans have given rise to iconic dishes across the Middle East. Egyptian cuisine is unimaginable without them. They’ve been a staple in the region for about eight thousand years, and were one of the first plants cultivated for food. Most often, they are used in their dried form: rehydrated […]
Wasting Not… A Recipe for Pea Pod Soup
Shelled those garden peas? Now you have a soup you can make from the unused pea pods.
Organic Whole Wheat Bread for Harvest Time and Shavuot
(image credit: giggul371) Shavuot is best known as the holiday which commemorates the bestowal of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. It is also the celebration of the harvest of the Bikkurim, the first fruits of the year. Pomegranates and figs may come most easily to mind, but wheat is another of the Shiv’at Haminim, […]