candied citrus peels. homemade sweets

I'm definitely not a white sugar kind of person. I'm usually the one demonizing society's fetish of all things refined and white, especially sugar and how its so unhealthy. Its one of the root causes of widespread obesity and health problems due to its addictive and cheap accessibility. 

So with that...I was hesitant in making candied citrus peels. Because well of the word "candied" in the title, as well a the amount of white sugar in the recipes I found. 

But I had a ton of peels. Orange peels and lemon peels and grapefruits from my parents backyard. The little grapefruit tree in the back corner of the yard finally had a global warming bumper crop in southern california, and we rejoiced over the thick-skinned pink-white fleshed fruits. 

Anndddddd, with this overflow of fruits with beautiful skins with nutritional and flavorful potential, I couldn't just toss them out. That little grapefruit tree tried for years to pop those fruits out, and now I'm going to reject half the fruit? My ancestral homesteading brain told me there was a way to preserve and consume these bitter, fleshy rinds. 

chickweed pesto. homemade healthy.

chickweed pesto.homemade healthy.


Spring is blowing through the Rogue Valley here, with daffodils highlighting the sidewalks and fruit trees glowing with whimsical sweet blooms. Flowers everywhere! And tender spring greens too. I can't help but pluck the new flowers as they open themselves up to the world, adding more and more to our overflowing kitchen table.  

100% whole wheat curried flatbread. homemade bread.

After traveling for over 2 months this winter, I learned a lot about what I miss about the home kitchen. I moved around almost every week and could not realistically carry my whole pantry of baking supplies and spices with me in my backpack, so the food I ate was simple. This was pretty easy to do in Hawaii, where juicy papayas and avocados grow all over and easily satisfy a low-budget traveller like myself. 

Halfway through the trip, however,  I was craving foods like kimchi and sprouts and of course, freshly baked bread. These things that take time and patience and a home base to create. I yearned for my own kitchen space to make a mess and experiment in without intruding on my hosts. Of course, my day to day experience was full of hiking and swimming and learning and failing how to surf, so I might not have wanted to spend hours babysitting my rising bread inside. In any case, it felt great coming back and rewinding into winter (still very mild) here in Oregon and cozying up next to a warm oven full of my kind of bread. 

This bread is from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes A Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. Their approach is unique and very useful for a busy schedule, as there is no kneading involved and the recipe makes enough for baking multiple loaves a week. Very versatile, very simple, and very delicious!

a guide to hummus. homemade healthy.

Many of us have made hummus. There are loads of recipes all over the internet that will tell you how many cloves of garlic to put in and how much oil to add to make it just right. But after I forgot to measure the dry garbanzo beans the night before, my thoughts of writing down an accurate recipe for hummus were gone. I don't think I've really ever used a strict recipe for hummus (or for much else for that matter), so I feel as though outlining some guidelines and ideas on how to improve you hummus-making technique will be much more appropriate. And this way you have the ability to amp up the garlic to extreme levels, if that's how you roll, or keep it mellow. I'll also add some ideas for addition to make your everyday hummus experience novel and exciting. 

While I was living in the Berkeley Student Cooperatives during college, we had a work-shift where housemates made hummus for communities of 50 to 150 every week(because berkeley hippies demand hummus!). They'd cook massive pots of beans, foam frothing in billowy clouds, and overheat the food processor after 12 batches of the stuff. It would all end up in 5 gallon kitchen bins for others to smear on sandwiches whenever they pleased. It was great to have unlimited homemade hummus around all the time, however, I was never satisfied with how they made it. Maybe it was because I was the biggest foodie in the house and probably the only one that cared enough. In any case, I always hated the grainy oily texture that made it taste too heavy and over-seasoned. Hundreds of coop residents were coming to believe that this was what homemade hummus tasted like. I couldn't really taste the beans themselves. Something had to change. 

coffee n' nibs chocolate bars. homemade sweets.

Coffee n' Nibs Chocolate Bars. Homemade Sweets

Last minute Valentine's Day treats can be spectacular...and exceptionally easy. This was my thought process as I impulsively bought a bag of chocolate baking chips today, the day before Valentine's Day, to make something nice with. I flipped through some cook books, passing over chocolate mousse and chocolate tart recipes due to the long list of ingredients. No energy for that right now. I wanted something with chocolate, just chocolate, and mostly chocolate as the ingredients. Nothing fancy, you know. Rarely does chocolate need much to make it delicious.  

I actually thought it was Valentine's Day today, don't ask me why, but either way, either day, you could make this quick chocolatey treat within 30 minutes and be a superstar lover. 

I just got back from traveling for a month in Hawaii, and brought back some raw cocoa beans and coffee grown on the Hilo side of the Big Island. With these in mind, I crushed both types of beans in my heavy duty mortar and pestle and sprinkled the crumbs over a layer of melted chocolate to make some super simple and satisfying dessert. Why buy a chocolate bar when you can do it yourself and make that special someone (could be a friend or yourself too!) feel extra loved?

Here's to love. To love of another, to love of yourself. To the love of chocolate, for goodness sake. 

spiced pumpkin custard. homemade sweets.

We had our first frost here on Monday morning, followed by another the next day. For most, frost is a very normal part of Autumn, a sign of Winter coming. But for me, a beach girl raised in balmy Southern California and then the Bay Area, I had never seen frost. Sure, I've been knee deep in the Winter's snow pack in Lake Tahoe and Steam Boat, CO, but I've never been around more temperate parts in the subtle transitional phase of Fall. 

So Monday morning I woke up an hour before the alarm set at 8:00am. I felt utterly awake. Rion and I would be doing morning animal chores in a couple hours, but I felt impelled to get up and out into the world. The bright crisp sky outside the window lured me outside onto the farm. And how quiet it was out there. No other humans up and about. Just me, with my morning eyes and already frigid nose. And the first thing I saw was the blue green grass. It looked like a fairyland, with the icy coolness encrusting every surface like delicate lace. 

fruit of our labor. home grown.

Sometimes fresh carrots pulled straight from their underground hollows are all you need to feel just right. Remnants of the dirt you tried to wipe off on already encrusted jeans add the perfect gritty crunch to the carrot's brisk sweetness. No need to roast these fresh moments. No need to dress up these moments into a moroccan carrot salad. The carrot is just perfect the way it is. Sometimes, this is how I feel.


Its something I've learned after the season working at White Oak Farm, tending to thousands of plants that sustain me and my community. Sometimes the food itself, when its grown well (with love!), is the best it can be. The carrots are so sweet. The raspberries a tangy burst. And the spinach is so rich and deep and crisp. I was often seen stuffing lettuce in my mouth like one of the goats while trimming the leaves off for the farmer's market. It just felt right and tasted even more right.

My cooking style has simplified this season, as the vibrant food I've eaten stood on its own. Why make a watermelon feta salad when a plump watermelon, waiting on a juice-splattered cutting board for slicing, is all I crave in the heart of summer? When the lettuce is just bitter enough for a bite and crunching with flavor, a salad has never shined so bright. 

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: