Yard Fresh Pt. 8

There's been a lot to report here on the blog lately so posts like this tend to get put on the back-burner. Even though I made most of these foods weeks-to-months ago I still hope you find something here to inspire you or at the very least just make you hungry. I promise that the next Yard Fresh installment won't be so delayed and will actually reflect the season. Happy eating!

One more thing, if you want to purchase signed copies of my book you can get them straight from the source with shipping included here.

Roasted chicken with sauteed chanterelles, annaheims and zuke and rice.

Lamb kibbe stuffed zukes topped with a thickened warm yogurt sauce.

And breakfast with leftover kibbe and corn tortillas. Kibbe migas sounds like a funny combo but it was delicious.

Lemon cuke, grape tomato and French feta salad with oregano, mint and vinaigrette.

Since we didn't get many, we cherished the tomatoes we got this year -- simple and unadorned.

Yard Fresh Pt. 7Yard Fresh Pt. 6Yard Fresh Pt. 5Yard Fresh Pt. 4Yard Fresh Pt. 3Yard Fresh Pt. 2Yard Fresh Pt. 1

DIY Galley Cooking (And not cooking...) On A Small Sailboat Pt. 3

This is my last installment for small boat cooking. Our sailing trip to the San Juan Islands late September/early October seems so far away now so it's nice to go through the photos again and share some of the food and drink ones with you. In my last post I left off at our arrival on Lopez Island. I'll keep it chronological and start at Lopez here.

Please let me know if you have any special boat foods you like to make -- either before the trip or while underway...

We got to spend a couple days and nights with great friends on Lopez and before we set off again we had this Odlin Bay picnic with really good sandwiches that Sandy made and all sorts of cheese, chips and snacky goodness.

Lunch on Matia was leftover peanut, serrano and garlic pasta with hardboiled egg and pinto bean sandwiches

We ate at Doe Bay's Cafe on Orcas Island a few times. This was their fresh from the garden list for a week in late August. Soooo good.

Doe Bay Cafe rocked. We ate our breakfast sandwich with pickled onions and garden greens and huevos while calming our sea legs.

Second mug shot -- literally. Kathryn Taylor Chocolates in Eastsound on Orcas was awesome and served Stumptown. Hello cappuccino.

Farewell dinner with Sandy and Vern back on Lopez Island in their outdoor dining room.

That's what was for dinner -- fresh Vern-caught Dungeness. It doesn't get better than that in my books.

We cooked the potatoes and corn on the fire in the foreground and everything else in the outdoor kitchen behind the bus.

DIY Galley Cooking On A Small Sailboat Pt. 1DIY Galley Cooking On A Small Sailboat Pt. 2

Homemade Soybean Miso

Every year I try to make at least one new type of food/drink ferment. This year it's miso. One of my favorite discoveries while writing my book was Earnest and Sumiko Migaki's local Jorniji Miso. They cracked the world of miso wide open for me and now I appreciate it more than ever.

I love Jorinji's misos and have been lucky enough to try a lot of their more unusual products such as lima bean miso, chickpea miso, miso butter cookies, aka-shiso juice and amaranth juice.

Now I'm trying my hand at home miso making because I'm curious and I love fermented foods. I used Sandor Ellix Katz's recipe from Wild Fermentation to make my first batch of soybean miso in the photos below. Now I just have to wait a year until it's ready!

If you're making miso you need to source koji. I bought my koji at Uwajimaya but I know that People's Food Co-op also carries it along with a lot of other Asian markets...

Commercal rice koji. You can also buy other grain koji as well as inoculate your own koji if you buy the mold culture.

Koji mixed with a strong brine and a couple tablespoons of mature miso...

After I mashed the soft, cooked soybeans I mixed that with the brined koji and mature miso mix above...

Finally I salted my fermentation vessel (a food-grade bucket in this case) and packed the miso in. I added a good amount of salt to the top before weighing it down with a plate and covering it with a towel. I'll let you know how it tastes a year from now!

Read about my homemade red bean miso.

Chanterelle Foraging

This fall was a record mushroom harvesting season here in the Pacific Northwest -- chanterelles especially. I'd never been chanterelle picking until this year but I've gone on a lot of other mushroom hunts and I love it. I love being out in the woods without a trail to follow and that combined with the magic and mossy hunt of golden chanterelles makes for a perfect rainy weekend day with friends.

And rain, and even hail, it did a few weeks ago when went chanterelle picking. We got dumped on but warmed up in the car afterward with dark rum spiked hot apple cider and homemade bacon apricot cornbread muffins with maple buttercream frosting that our friend Teresa brought. She spoiled us. And as if that wasn't enough we chased our snack with an early dinner at Tad's Chicken 'n Dumplings a.k.a. the chic dump.

I did a quick sort and clean of my mushrooms once I got home because even though I used scissors to harvest, leaving the mycelium intact and also leaving the muddy base behind, there was still (as there always is) a lot of dirt and needles to get rid of. After I cleaned the chanterelles I put them on a pan and warmed them dry in the oven.

We got a good amount from our spots but it wasn't a huge haul. I think we each got 3-4 pounds. That's what it felt like. I made two things with mine -- a really good risotto and a penne pasta with chanterelle cream sauce. Both were delicious.

Here's some more tasty chanterelle posts from local and afar food folks that I love:

The Portland PickleGood Stuff NWHunter Angler Gardener Cook

Chanterelle risotto with crispy fried sage leaves and bacony brussels sprouts.

Penne with chanterelle cream sauce and toasted hazelnuts.

Friend Food

It seems like every week or so we give and receive delicious homemade and often homegrown food. You know, the old take over a pot of soup one week and the next week get your pot back and it's filled with something else delicious. What can I say, we have great friends and lucky for us they are all good eaters and many are fantastic cooks.

Especially our neighbor Alison. Every time I take Alison something I've made to eat (she's vegan so it's not as frequent as I'd like) she brings us back something incredible. She's a really good baker and her sweets -- especially her pies -- are hard not to make a meal out of. They're that good.

The last few weeks we've been gifted some really tasty food and drink. Here's some of what I'm talking about...

Nick Zukin's guajillo salsa. He handed this to me at a food event late this summer. Awesome. I got to try all sorts of his homemade salsas and Mexican dishes at a dinner party at his home a few weeks ago. There's a very important reason for that. Mum's the word now but you'll find out more soon...

Culinate's Kim Carlson dropped off a bag of these tasty local sweet dream peaches and summer flare nectarines in September...

Pine State Biscuit's Kevin Atchley gave me a jar of his oh-so-very-good homemade pickled okra.

Our friend and neighbor Alison brought us back all these tasty treats from her cross-country trip this summer.

Our friend Karen gave us a tray of seed saver celery starts this summer and we've been enjoying a lot of great soups and stews the last several weeks as a result.

Our friend Craig gave us a bunch of different hot and not-too-hot chiles from his garden and we've been making lots of sautees and salsas with them.

Alison gave us these delicious apple tarts this Monday. We had them Tuesday morning with coffee. So good.

Go make some yummy things and give them to your friends. They deserve it.