Recipes

Delicious roe recipe for any day of the week!

Bright herbs in a patty of succulent lamb is a perfect meal when fresh herbs are in season.

Easy gorgeous lamb stuffed cabbage rolls.

Grilled or in the oven, chicken is tender and delicious marinaded with yogurt and spices.

Spring carrots are small, crisp and sweet, perfect for the fermenting jar! No need to cut them, just trim off the top and tip. They become sour and stay super crisp for months. I'm still experimenting and will let you know just how long they stay crisp, but so far they have beat cucumber pickles with crispness.

Lamb is quintessentially spring, although we eat it all year around in our grassy part of the world. This dish is fragrant and delightfully simple. Marinade and freeze your ribs in advance for an easy weeknight meal.

These December days the chance of finding lettuce in the farmers market is slim to none. Its the season where I want a salad but have forgotten the amazing chopped salads that come with winter!

These beautiful turnips surprised us with their deliciousness when we found them at the farmers market this year. We have been playing with the chickpea miso and it has been such a umami salty treat this Autumn. We love jorinji miso with is locally made and comes in amazing varieties.

We were looking for a way to use some beef short ribs we came across this summer. This is
a fragrant filling stew that has become a family favorite! Since the first round we have
made this dish with ox tail and stew meat and they are all equally delicious.

Pate is one of my favorite treats and this summer with this recipe, it turned from a treat in to a staple in our kitchen. I double the recipe each time I make it so it can go in our lunches or, we can have it as a snack or as a dinner appetizer.

This year we discovered these luscious purple Okinawa sweet potatoes and fell in love with them. When ever we find them in the market we find a fun way to cook them and this is perfect for the grilling days when we are having our most delicious burger more often.

We spent the winter working on this recipe and I couldn't get it right until this spring!I'm so excited so share it with you! The lunar new year always brings a few tangerines into our lives and we eat very little fruit so they sit around for a long time. This year I decided to use them in our cooking to dilute the sugar rush a little bit. This is a simple dish that just needs the right amount of cooking time to make it fall apart delicious, with a citrusy tang.

We laughingly call this vegetable soup because it it full of veggies, but don't make the mistake of thinking it won't be a satisfying meal! If you make the broth with beef ribs, marrow bones and knuckles it will be meaty and full of luscious collagen and fat. Make sure to make a big pot of soup so that you have enough for another meal or two.

Although this broth can be made with raw lamb bones or lamb bones roasted in the oven until browned, I have been making this with smokey lamb bones grilled. We have a habit of grilling as much as possible and when the coals are finishing to ash, I have been throwing the bones on the grill to smoke them for soup making. Sublime!

This year I have been grilling my pork bones before making this broth, but it is delicious with fresh (often frozen) bones as well. Pork fat is rich in vitamin D and has, like olive oil 10% of the omega-6 fatty acid. Just make sure you are getting the pasture raised pork bones and all that lovely fat is power food!!

This is a lovely delicate broth for making all kinds of Asian dishes including Kao Man Gai! I always have some in the freezer for easy meals when work goes late. So any of my soup recipes has it as a base.

Delicious beef bone broth.

Delicious fish stock.

This summer treat makes my heart sing. Its a clear sign the garden is going well because enough squash is blossoming at a time that I can do a round of fritters. Many recipes call for sparkling wine in the batter, but I found a recipe that uses mineral water and it tastes divine! I picked about 15 squash blossoms last week and looks like I will be making this again over the weekend. Feeling blessed by the squash deity!

As I child I saw braised tongue at my friends houses and thought it was a horrible thing: mushy and tasteless. Recently my dear friend, Ajna moved to Hawaii and when she cleared her freezer she gave us a pile of wonderful frozen meats, including a cow tongue. We weren't sure what to think, so I started my research. Following the recipe below we prepared the tongue with trepidation. We took our first bite and knew we were hooked! Tongue is one of the most delicious meats EVER!! This year we have had lamb tongues from Sudan Farms almost every week we have been able to grill. If you feel hesitant, you have to go for it. You'll be glad you did.

We were at the coast early summer and had a pile of fish from the local fish market and all I could think about was fish curry. I was short on ingredients, but I knew that at home I have everything I need to create a coconut creamy curry, sour with tamarind.

We were getting food from a moroccan food cart this winter and I was standing in the rain as they prepared our food. Mohamed, chef poured some hot soup into a cup for me to warm me up and it was the most delicious fragrant lamb stew! I asked him if I might have a serving of it to go and he laughed. He told me that was his super, not for sale. I became obsessed. Looking online I was able to find a recipe that came close to the pleasure of that rainy night.

Although the hash is pictured here with eggs, when I am not eating eggs, I put slices of avocado on my plate. I particularly like mushroom hash with lamb sausage. We used shitake mushrooms last time, but before that we used criminis which were absolutely delicious. Their flavor is deeply enhanced by the sweetness of the onion. A mix of mushrooms is delicious: any mushrooms you like! A simple way to start the day!

This recipe has the lovely Greek influence of fresh or freshly dried oregano which is just bursting forth with the spring rains. I have been marinading the lamb overnight before grilling it so that the flavors are wonderfully blended. Arm steaks are not the most tender cut but have an amazing flavor and a little piece of marrow that makes eating perfect!

I was struck dumb by this specialty of Kyoto when I saw it in Saveur magazine: not a recipe, but jars imported for a huge price. Wait a minute! We have cherry trees in abundance in Portland! I started gathering them right away. This year I know where all the best cherry trees are and began picking early in the season. The result is beautiful and the flavor exquisite. Use them in desserts, salads and salad dressings, to flavor tea.

Last year I noticed a couple of small olive trees on my way to work. The olives were ripe and dropping onto the side walk. Being the mad forager that I am, I gathered up a small pile and looked into curing them. This is the method that has worked best for me and I am now on my third batch of olives with the itch to gather more this week. I found a new tree and littered with small black olives and with this method we should be well olived all year long.They are richly delicious, salty, umami and teasingly bitter.

Here I am in my obsession with all things congee! This is another side for our wonderful congee feast which is often made with chicken eggs, but as you know, I have an obsession with duck eggs and they are bountiful this spring...

As a child I loved this condiment for my breakfast of boiled rice above all others! It is crisp, sour and salty with lots of “bones”, the crisp stem of the greens and less leaf which is what I love. It can be bought easily at most Asian markets....