savory walnut thyme scones. homemade bread

I could probably change the title of this blog to something like "adventure through thyme" or "thyme to party" because, well, I love thyme. It's been my go-to herb for savory and sweet, and i keep on lovin its bright earthy taste. Out of all the huge rosemary and oregano bushes here on the farm, i am pulled towards the single wiry thyme shrub hiding amongst overwhelming comfrey. I visit it often and have so much affection for its small, yet generous offering. And here it comes, thyme and thyme again, into a savory sweet recipe. 

rainbow tomato basil feta salad. homemade healthy.

Its tomato season. Ripe, small Sungolds pop in your mouth with the sweet tangy juices spurting all over. The less juicy paste tomatoes glisten in the sun, amidst the curling tangle of vines and leaves, waiting to turn into winters tomato sauce or the freshest ketchup in town. The heirlooms sit high and mighty with their zebra stripes, massive and barely holding on the their mother vine. The slicer tomatoes, those sandwich kings, rest humbly next to their kin tomatoes, ready for a nice summer salad opportunity.

Working with tomatoes is a love/hate sort of thing. If you've ever dug deep within the seeping tomato vines to get to that vibrant red globe, you know that feeling of itchy roughness that rubs all over your arms and hands. The tomatoes, a nightshade (Solanaceae family), are related to a number of toxic plants, and you can feel that noxious materials exuding from the leaves. After trellising a greenhouse full of tomatoes, my hands were covered in green, yellow, and black sticky resin. It looked like the skin of a lizard. But once those delicious red fruits started ripening, my aversion to the fierce plants turned into sunny delight.

balsamic thyme strawberry galette. homemade sweets.

Balsamic Thyme Strawberry Galette 

I'm savory by nature. I always add a little extra salt to my granola recipes, and would choose good crusty bread over cake on most days. So when I make sweets, I like that extra balance of savory. That salty punch or lemony acid that cuts the sugary sweetness. 

This recipe is my type of dessert. Low maintenance whole wheat crust encircles a pile of balsamic marinated strawberries, topped with fresh thyme sprigs. My enthusiasm for this recipe comes after a week of summer camp cooking for young kids. I was ready for something complex and earthy, and definitely not pasta. 

The berries in this recipe came from our second everbearing strawberry crop this summer, and they are even more sweet and shiny red. Strawberries are such a summer pinnacle, and they marry incredibly well with savory additions like balsamic vinegar and fresh thyme. The crust for the galette (fancy word for a low-key pie), is made with mostly whole wheat flour, which turns out just as flaky and buttery than most white flour recipes and oh so hearty. I would experiment with a dough made with 100% whole wheat flour, or a combination with other flours, like emmer, rye, or spelt flours.

Enough talk, let's eat:

epic spring salad. homemade healthy.

I like to make salads epic. Ever since I was young I would try to scoop up all the "jimmys" at the bottom of the salad bowl. That's where all the salty brined goodies are, all the nutty bits and herbaceous bites. The right balance of salty, sweet, creamy, crunchy, and acidic can raise an everyday salad up to epic proportions. 


This week at the farm, raspberries were the star. There we were, just our sun-kissed faces popping up from behind the line of raspberry crop. I found that looking up from below for the berries was choice. Seeing that flash of juicy red flicker within the greenery sparked miniature bursts of excitement within. We picked and picked. Dark, deep purple berries, young bright berries, and sunny golden berries speckled the half-pints. Each little berry hand picked for our community to savor. After hours of picking, we each just hand a handful of pints to contribute. Our bellies were already fermenting the cosmetically-deficient berries as we readied the beautiful berries for selling. 

Rion's friends came to visit during the week of raspberries, so naturally, we had to make a huge farm dinner. Rion's friend is an spiring chef in Austin, TX, so I brought out the big salad guns to get them excited about our farm super fresh eating. We piled raspberries on the fresh tender salad greens and sprinkled chives on top. Sarah's homemade raw goat chevre added a salty bite, and roasted beets from a neighbor farm added deep rooty sweetness. The only non-farm salad topper were almonds, which I candied with butter and sugar before adding to the salad. 

We all noshed on the goodness. So many jimmys to search for! So enjoy this salad, and make sure to give thanks to all those who pick raspberries! 

mustard. homemade pantry.

mustard.

I plan on starting a mustard revolution. A huge upheval in our culture, where mustard, with its nostril burning pungency and tangy burst of flavor, will rise to the top of the condiment hierarchy and rule the table-side arena. 

So I really appreciate mustard. 

And there's a mustard for everyone. No one is left mustardless in the mustard kingdom. Honey mustard for the sweeter crowd, super spicy horseradish mustard for those strong at heart, or champagne mustard for impressing those at a mustard gala. Yellow mustard is for those new or shy to the mustard world and those folks need your help in the good cause of real good mustard. 

sourdough cornmeal pancakes. fermented eats.

Sourdough Cornmeal Pancakes (with orange!)

So every Friday, after four days of weeding thousands of onions under the sweet hot Oregon Sun (I'm talking very southern Oregon), we celebrate with some pancakes. My partner Rion and I have gotten our method down, where I whip up the ingredients in a big bowl and he starts a'flippin them, one at a time on two cast irons (that's his style). We always seem to have some folks coming by for a bite, planned or not, and it is always such a wonderful morning feast. The dew is still rising from the leaf while we munch down our mini pancake stacks.

chevre red cabbage slaw. homemade healthy.

chevre red cabbage slaw

Red cabbage is a beautiful thing. Especially when its all chopped up in a white bowl, with the deep purple burgundy shreds cut with the whites of its insides. Its a crunchy confetti of purple delight, and it can become a magical bowl of veggie addiction when gussied up in a bright slaw. I threw this recipe together in less than 10 minutes, grabbing jars of nuts and mustard and running out into the garden for some chives. 

It was for a housewarming party...I mean, a tent warming party, up a short trail in the woods 

to where I currently live. We had our friends living here on the farm come from their respective homes on the property through the woods to our tent cabin, fit with a new pallet deck and a fire pit. So I made this, along with homemade cornmeal buckwheat muffins, graham crackers, and cinnamon marshmallows. 

greeting cards.homemade crafts

homemade greetings

Is someone special's birthday impending? Do you need a canvas for a juicy love letter? Sending cards to friends and loved ones is an incredibly warmhearted expression that in the digital age, continues to dwindle. You know the feeling of when you open the mailbox, and amid monotonous bills and junk mail, you find a sparkling letter with scrawled handwriting with your name on it. 

Its about the human connection of writing from the hand that loves the other, and taking the time to do so. The whole process of writing letters also provides an introspective, contemplative experience for the writer, who is forced to collect their thoughts and consider the person receiving the card. In essence, sending a card is an emotional experience on both ends.

Instead of buying pre-made greeting cards, there's a more meaningful and uniquely artistic way to do so. That's right, Do It Yourself. Making the card itself adds a deep layer of meaning to a letter, and can be an easy, fun project to experiment with. But in addition to just folding a piece of paper and adding some sweet thoughts, there are endless ways to rethink the format of the humble greeting card. And we all love when we can use recycled items to create beautiful things, right? So welcome in old newspapers, recycled paper, and small scraps of fabric to make these upcycled greeting cards.

It can be as simple as pasting an old photograph found at a thrift store on a thick brown folded piece of paper, and can become a unique work of art while corresponding to a loved one. And most likely, they will be much less expensive than the tacky ones sold at the store. So many benefits to making DIY cards! I've outlined some of the basic supplies for some of the types of cards I make, as well as a list of additions that can be fun to experiment with.

bbq tofu bao buns. homemade eats.

bbq tofu bao buns

I have only delicious memories of bao buns. Ridiculously delicious. These little buns of joy are a doughy goodness filled with the most savory fillings. Saucy BBQ pork nestled inside sweet, fluffy dough. Sometimes it would take multiple bites to find that pocket of tastiness within the puff of soft doughy outside, but I was ok with that. I actually loved that. The dough, though sweet, works surprisingly well with the salty meaty insides, creating a balanced little ball of flavor.

When I was young, my family would meet together in San Francisco for Easter, Russian style, and cruise to hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurants for dim sum brunch. I would watch as carts rolled by wrinkled, seasoned Chinese women passed by piled with little round bamboo boxes. Soon, our table would be covered with these bamboo boxes, each one a surprise dumpling sample. Little translucent dumplings filled with shrimp and pork and beef and mystery meats galore. Some with veggies, mushrooms and scallions, some golden fried and others steamed to soft perfection. And I always awaited to open that little bamboo box filled with bao.

Now when I go out for dim sum as a vegetarian however, I find a much smaller array of savory dough balls. After translating the broken English of the server in Oakland's Chinatown, I find only one or two oddly sweet non-meaty bao, still delicious, but not the same as those scrumptious memories. So here I adapt a meaty BBQ pork bao bun recipe into a veggie tofu remix, still with those distinct dim sum flavors. The filling is more substantive in these small buns, but you can double the dough recipe to make thicker doughy outsides if you like less filling. I also used white/whole wheat flour instead of white flour just to add a bit more nutrition without subtracting any flavor. Though the original recipe uses melted butter in the dough, I bet you could try olive or canola oil with similar results for a vegan option.

The results were fantastic! The dough was spot on, and the fillings, though slightly different in texture, had a balanced savory taste. The recipe is somewhat time intensive, but its great for making a large batch at one time, so try doubling or tripling the recipe. You can freeze the pre-cooked buns and then steam them later, adding 5 more minutes to steaming cook time. These are great for a grab-and-go-lunch or for a Chinese appetizer for dinner, but to get the real dim sum experience, eat them for brunch on a special occasion with other steamed or fried dumplings. Enjoy!

Instead of pork, I used firm tofu along with scallions, a traditional bao ingredient.

these soft little dough balls expand in the steamer, so make sure to give them some space! Be sure to put  a square of wax paper underneath each one to prevent them from sticking to the steamer. 

Recipe time!

BBQ Tofu Bao Buns (Vegetarian)

Ingredients
Dough:
1 1/2 tsp dry active yeast
1/2 cup warm water (between 105 to 110 degrees F)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cup flour (I used white/whole wheat flour)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp melted butter or canola oil

Filling:
2 tbsp olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp grated fresh ginger

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp hoisin sauce

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp black bean sauce

8oz firm tofu, chopped roughly
1 large carrot, grated
1/2 cup chopped scallions
1 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp bbq sauce of choice
1/4 cup minced cilantro (optional)

Process

To make dough, combine yeast and water in a small bowl and add 1 tsp sugar and 1 tsp flour. Mix until well combined. Cover with a kitchen towel and let stand in a warm place until frothy, about 15 minutes.

Once the mixture is frothy, mix remaining flour and sugar in a large bowl and add the yeast mixture and butter/oil. Using a wooden spoon, mix to form a soft dough. Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 3-5 minutes. Place dough in a large oiled bowl, cover and let stand in a warm place, like a lightly warmed oven, until doubled in bulk, about an hour.

To make the filling, heat oil in a wok or frying pan over medium heat and fry the garlic and ginger until aromatic, for about 1 minute. Add sesame oil, hoisin sauce, soy sauce black bean sauce, and bbq sauce and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the tofu and carrots and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Mix cornstarch with 1 tbsp water and add to pan. Bring to a boil and stir until sauce thickens, for about 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and stir in scallions. Allow to cool completely

Punch down the dough. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes. Divide dough into 16 pieces and roll or press into 2-3 inch circles. Keep the dough covered with a damp towel while you work to fill the dough circles with 2 tsp of filling each. Gather edges together, twist to seal and cover with a kitchen towel. Repeat with remaining dough.

Cut out 16 squares of parchment paper to keep the buns from sticking to the steamer. Place buns seam side down onto the parchment paper. Fill a steamer pot or wok with about 3 inches of water and bring to a boil. Working in batches, arrange buns in steamer so that they have about 1/2 inch between buns. Place over pot or wok and cover, steaming for 15 minutes. If the water starts reducing, add more between batches. Carefully remove buns once cooked. Serve plain or with soy sauce or hoisin sauce.

These little buns may look bland on the outside, but are filled with warmed, smokey fillings that are just the best! And veg too!

noodly thai tom kha soup. homemade eats.

noodly thai tom kha soup

I went to a decent thai restaurant in Berkeley shortly after finals were over and done with (hooray!), and ordered family-style with my 5 friends. Nothing too extravagant. My friend was debating between ordering tom kha soup or another noodle dish. After much persuasion on behalf of this creamy, spicy coconut soup, she chose the noodles and the soup. Good choice. When the soup came out, the aroma of citrusy spice filled our table and memories of hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurants filled my mind. I remember a tiny restaurant, with never many customers, but the most delicious tom kha soup. With a small flame warming the steamy soup atop an elaborate donut-shaped soup vessel, the soup stayed hot and ready for devouring. It is a soup with punch, with flavor, and with a creamy balance of coconut to mellow out the palate. The soup in Berkeley was half that delicious, but it was still incredibly tasty. This soup just doesn't fail. 

I was determined to make it right. With all the exotic spices, like galangal and kaffir lime leaves, I was ready to do it just like the old restaurant that is now unfortunately, closed. After briefly searching health food and asian grocery stores in my area, I decided to use what I had to make my own version of this warming, flavorful soup for a cold New Years supper. I found fresh lemongrass, but not galangal or kaffir lime leaves. In my way of cooking, making substitutions and alterations is normal and quite welcomed. It takes you on a new path, still connected to the starting destination, but moving forward to an unknown taste experience. Experimenting is what cooking is about. Especially when you can't find galangal and kaffir lime leaves in Orange County. It happens. 

So, instead, I plucked off some lime leaves from our little lime tree in the backyard. Lemon leaves could probably work too. Lime zest helps brighten the lime flavor in the soup. If you need more lime flavor, add more lime juice at the end. Instead of galangal, i used fresh ginger root and 1 tsp dried galangal, found in the depths of our spice drawer. You could probably used dried ginger in a worst case scenario. I also added soba noodles, a very untraditional thing to do. But very delicious. If you want a heartier meal on its own, you can add the noodles, but for a starter or side, you can omit them if you prefer. They are very good vessel for coconutty broth though, and quite tasty!

Results of all of this alteration? Noodly goodness! I used a very spicy serrano chile instead of thai chilies, another amendment that ended with a fiery result. I kept the seeds in, not thinking that it would add too much more, but man, that little chili slapped me in the face. In a good, spicy way, of course. If you can find a nicer, calmer Thai chili, go for it, but add any type of chili that you think you can handle. The spicy, zesty flavor was a perfect way to cleanse all of 2012's holiday bingeing, bringing in the new year with flavor, pizzaz and those spicy face slaps. Now i'm ready for 2013. Bring on the spice. 

Here we go:

First step adds the coconut milk, vegetable broth, and spicy aromatics to extract the pungent flavors into the soup broth. 

Heat up the oil to saute the tofu. Make sure the oil is nice and hot!

Saute the tofu until browned on the outside.

Traditional tom kha does not have noodles in it, but I added some soba noodles for a heartier meal.

Garnish with cilantro and lime wedges. Enjoy!

Recipe time!

Thai Coconut Noodle Soup

Adapted from vegetarianrecipesandcooking.com

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 50 minutes
Servings: 4 dinner servings; 6-8 side servings

Ingredients:

2 14 oz. cans coconut milk
2 cups vegetable stock
8 kaffir lime leaves, or 8 regular lime leaves and 2 tsp lime zest
3 stalks lemongrass, white parts only, halved and cut into 2 inch pieces
6 1/2"- thick slices of fresh galangal, or fresh ginger and 1 tsp dried galangal
2 black peppercorns

1 package firm tofu, cut into bite-size cubes

2 tbsp olive or canola oil

16 oz. oyster or enoki mushrooms, sliced
1 Thai chili, diced very small
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 small onion, diced
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

3 tbsp lime juice

3 oz soba noodles

cilantro for garnish

lime wedges for garnish

Directions:

Add coconut milk, stock, galangal/ginger, lime leaves, lemongrass, and peppercorns to a pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer on low (with the cover on) for 30 minutes. 

While the broth is simmering, heat up the oil in a large skillet at medium high heat. When the oil is hot, add the tofu and saute until browned on the edges, about 8-10 minutes.

Strain solids through a sieve to remove aromatics, if desired, and return to pot. Add mushrooms, onion, tofu, chili, soy sauce, and cilantro. Simmer for 10 minutes or until mushrooms are cooked through. Add the soba noodles and cook for 5-7 minutes until noodles are tender. Add lime juice, stir, and serve.

Garnish with cilantro and lime wedges. 

Tips about lemongrass: You can find fresh lemongrass in most health food or asian grocery stores. We found ours near the fresh ginger. Look for stalks that are lemony-green on the lower stalk near the bulb and darker green towards the end of the stalk. To prepare, strip off the papery outer layers to get to the soft, fleshier layers inside. Cut off the lower end of the bulb. You can use the green parts for the soup and strain it out later if you like, or cut lemongrass up until the woody green stalk and discard/compost the rest.