Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Tue, Sep 4, 2018 at 2:13 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Melon-marigold cream cooler

Labor Day has come and gone, but with temps in the 80s or higher for much of this week, I'm gonna go ahead and declare that summer is still very much in play.

That means continuing to enjoy lazy evenings down by the river, or on the deck, soaking in every last second of warm weather … with icy pitchers of cocktails brimming with flowers. I like to eat flowers whenever I can. It makes me feel cosmopolitan and attractive.

Yesterday's beautifying drink du jour made use of fragrant marigold and bee balm (flowers and leaves!), along with overripe melon and a few glugs of Vermont Spirits White Vodka, which is distilled from whey.

Tags: Cocktails , recipes , vodka , flowers , summer , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 1:47 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Pesto potato-leek pie

In my house, pizza happens at least once a week, sometimes more. Lately, I've been into making sourdough bread (it's quite the rabbit hole, as any home baker can attest), and I make enough bread dough for a big loaf of bread plus two or three pizza crusts. If I'm out of the baking habit, I just buy raw pizza dough — Hannaford carries a decent option from Maine's Portland Pie Co., Red Hen Baking offers par-baked crusts at several retail outlets statewide, and there are others, too. Check the fresh pasta section or the freezer section.

And, yes, I use a cookie sheet as a pizza pan because I've not gotten around to buying a pizza stone or a proper round pan. It's still delicious,  thank you very much.

Tags: Recipes , pizza , potatoes , pesto , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Tue, Jul 17, 2018 at 2:07 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Sesame beef skewers (and a hungry dog)

Here's an idea: It's sticky and gross outside, so let's grill.

In my non-air-conditioned old farmhouse, this weather calls for dinner outside. Most days,  the sun is waning and the evening breeze has picked up by the time we get around to cooking dinner.

Last Friday I headed to the Chelsea Farmers Market, just over the hill from my house. Chelsea's is a small market, and a lot of the farms are one- or two-person operations. So, at this point in the season, many of the vendors are selling the same things I'm harvesting from my own garden.

Still, the chance to bump into folks in my regional farm community, and to partake in a few awesome specialty products — including a cool and creamy cup of goat's milk gelato from Sweet Doe Dairy — make market visits a treat every time. With hot days in the forecast, I grabbed a package of Angus beef kebab meat from Allenville Farm and earmarked it for Monday's dinner.

Tags: Recipes , beef , grilling , Farmers Market Kitchen , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Tue, Feb 27, 2018 at 1:21 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Classic Ricotta Lasagne

One of my earliest food memories is making lasagne with my mom. She worked at Bradford's Colatina Exit as a prep cook when I was little, and I'm pretty sure her method came mostly from that kitchen. Over the years, she made the recipe her own, and now I've worked it into the regular rotation at my house, using my home-canned tomatoes, local meats  (usually from PT Farm, in Haverhill, N.H., but most pig farmers sell it at market), cheese (Mountain Home Farm makes beautiful ricotta) and whatever spinach I can get my hands on — frozen is cheap and works really well.

The result is a totally classic, midcentury-style Italian casserole: savory and rich — I cook the raw sausage right in with the tomatoes, so all that fat goes straight into the sauce, not down the drain. It's pretty easy to prepare and nearly impossible to mess up. Prep can take half an hour if you're efficient about it, and it bakes for about an hour.

Tags: lasagne , recipes , vegetarian , ricotta , sausage , cooking , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 6:30 AM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Delicata squash flaugnarde

It's kind of like a cute joke: A custard and a fruit pie walk into a bar. Sparks fly, yada yada, and — voilà! — a new dessert with characteristics of both magically emerges from the oven.

That dessert would be flaugnarde: French for sweet, custardy pancake with fruit. It's quite similar to clafoutis, which is traditionally made with cherries only, but which I sometimes make with blueberries. And it's a great means to do away with a couple of the squash that may or may not be languishing in your larder right now. In deep winter, I sometimes get the feeling that my delicatas — harvested in late August, before the first frost — are silently taunting me to eat them. Because by now, I'm pretty over eating squash. Am I the only person who feels this way?

Thankfully, I love a good bouncy custard, so today I made one with squash and added just a touch of pumpkin-spice spices, with wholly delightful results. Take that, snickering squash!

Tags: delicata , custard , dessert , recipes , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 2:00 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Pasta tossed with wilted kale, tomatoes, feta and pesto.

I made this pasta the other night and it was too lovely and simple not to share. I'll break it down more specifically below. But the recipe is basically: Set pasta to boil. Boil chopped kale with pasta for 30 seconds, spoon kale into mixing bowl. Add crumbled feta, diced tomatoes, lots of basil pesto. Toss well, add strained pasta when ready, toss well again, garnish with more cheese and basil, crushed chiles and pepper.

Tags: Pasta , Vegetarian , Pesto , Tomatoes , Feta , Cheese , Recipes , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 12:09 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Breakfast salad with egg, radish kimchi, sautéed radishes and greens, and butter-grilled bread

Despite my deep love for all things meat, I eat more like an herbivore when I'm cooking for just myself.  One of my morning go-tos is the breakfast salad. Loosely speaking, this calls for the following, any of which you can leave out if it's not your jam:

• Garlic and oil, butter or animal fat
  
• Fresh veggies that cook quickly
  
• A bit of sausage, bacon, ham, etc. (optional)
  
• Salad greens
  
• Kimchi or kraut
  
• One or more dairy product: feta, chèvre, mascarpone, blue cheese,  plain yogurt
  
• Hot sauce
  
• Bread or tortilla

Tags: Breakfast , salad , recipes , vegetarian , vegan , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 3:17 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Scalloped potato pie

I like to think of early spring as dairy and potato season. It's a little soon for fresh greens, except from the most zealous farms with over-wintering greenhouses, and by now I'm pretty sick of of winter squash, carrots, rutabagas and the like.

But potatoes, butter and cheese? I never really tire of those. And you can always find them at the farmers market in colorful arrays.

Tags: Recipes , Potatoes , Cheese , Pie , Pastry , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 3:23 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Corndogs!

With a growing number of farmers growing grain in Vermont, it's becoming easier to access locavore staples such as flour and cornmeal. Charlotte's Nitty Gritty Grain Co. offers hybrid yellow cornmeal, as well as meal milled from its heirloom Wapsie Valley corn, which is somewhat richer in protein and minerals and coarser in texture. At Butterworks Farm in Westfield, Anne and Jack Lazor's Early Riser meal is similarly nutritious.

Find these and others in the baking or bulk-foods sections of your local market or co-op. In addition, smaller farms sometimes offer cornmeal at farmers markets, so keep an eye out next time you go.

All of these will work well for cornbread — or, should you feel so inclined, corndogs!

Tags: Corndogs , Heirloom Corn , Recipes , Image , Web Only

Posted By Hannah Palmer Egan on Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 4:45 PM

click to enlarge

Hannah Palmer Egan

Coconut carrot squash soup

I love a good winter soup. Last summer, my garden gave abundant storage squash and a boatload of carrots, which we harvested just before December's first major deep freeze. These are so candy-sweet I've been digging (get it?) eating them raw, but they're also fabulous roasted or — in this case —  in soups or stews.

Last weekend, I threw together this easy little blender soup, which is basically just squash and carrots and coconut milk — heart-healthy and vegan in a season during which I tend to lean on cheeses, meats and potatoes for calories.

Tags: Recipes , Carrots , Squash , Coconut , Vegan , Gluten-free , Image , Web Only