Author: Julie Laing | Twice As Tasty

Learn how to eat well year-round by preserving, pickling, freezing, dehydrating, fermenting, and more at TwiceasTasty.com.

Birthday Cake: Year 3

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Baking, Topic2 Comments

It’s Twice as Tasty’s birthday month, and that means cake. Get birthday cake recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
This month, we’re celebrating 3 years of Twice as Tasty! I’ve already shared some of the year’s best recipes and most popular workshops. And since my favorite “desserts” are usually served in a cocktail glass, I was quick to pass on my favorite recipe for homemade liqueur. This week’s post is for those of you who prefer to eat your dessert.

As I mentioned in last year’s birthday dessert post, I think a good celebratory cake must be moist, easy to decorate, and delicious. This ginger cake nails all three. The molasses not only adds the requisite gingerbread flavor but also keeps the crumb moist. The caramel glaze simply pours over the top: no fussy frosting time required. And the three versions of ginger—fresh, ground, and crystallized—replicate the flavors I fell in love with in Triple Gingersnaps.
Learn to make Triple Ginger Cake and Fresh Caramel Sauce

More Rhubarb

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Ingredient3 Comments

Paired syrup and jam recipes highlight the essence of Twice as Tasty food. Get rhubarb recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
I always think that I have plenty of ways to enjoy rhubarb, and then I come across another idea or recipe. It’s a good thing, because in my shaded, woodland garden, rhubarb grows all summer without bolting, and my two plants can easily yield what I need for this week’s recipes in one harvest.

These recipes highlight the essence of Twice as Tasty food: You start with one basic ingredient. You use it to its fullest extent. And you ideally come out of one prep session with multiple products—in this case, jars of syrup and jam. As you’ll see when you read the recipes, they’re heavily linked to each other. But they also build on two previously posted recipes that use gingerroot and vanilla bean. So really, all this multitasking in the kitchen uses three ingredients to their fullest extent and ties into four products. This is the kind of stuff I geek out on, but hopefully I’ve made it easy for you to enjoy the results.
Learn to make Rhubarb–Ginger Syrup and Rhubarb–Earl Grey Jam

Alcohol Infusions

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dry storage, TopicLeave a comment

Start with vanilla extract, and then expand your repertoire to drinkable liqueurs. Get alcohol infusion recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
It seems that almost every baking recipe, and many other sweet treats, call for vanilla extract. Although the price of full beans and their extract may tempt you to substitute imitation vanilla, the cooks in my family were firm believers of using the real deal long before Jamie Oliver told the world that the fake version comes from the beaver anal gland. He didn’t have that quite right, but other sources of synthetic vanillin include coal tar, paper waste, and cow poop, which don’t sound any more appealing. Since companies are only required to use the label “artificial vanilla” or “imitation vanilla,” you’ll never really know what you’re eating.

When a 2017 cyclone wiped out a large chunk of Madagascar’s vanilla crop, prices for beans skyrocketed. So in splurging for the real stuff, you can get the most bang for your buck by making your own extract from vanilla beans: Scrape out the seeds needed for your recipe, and then use the pods for your extract, like you would for vanilla-infused sugar. Once you realize how easy it is to infuse this vanilla flavor, you’ll be on your way to making alcoholic infusions you intend to drink—liqueurs like triple sec.
Learn to make Homemade Vanilla Extract and Homemade Orange Liqueur

Twice as Tasty Turns 3

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Event, WorkshopsLeave a comment

Twice as Tasty is now 3! Read more about what’s new at Twice as Tasty.
It’s hard to believe Twice as Tasty is now 3 years old. Like a quickly growing child, it seems that just yesterday this blog was taking its first baby steps. But a scroll through the recipe index makes the 3-year growth spurt clear. Whether you’ve just found this blog or have been part of the core group of supporters, thank you for joining me on this adventure.
Read more about what’s new at Twice as Tasty

Scallions and Radishes

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Ingredient, UsingLeave a comment

These scallion pancakes are gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, easy, and tasty. Get savory pancake recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
When the summer harvest hits its peak, one of my favorite meals is a batch of Zucchini Pancakes with Fresh Asian Salad. I enjoy these so much that a freeze grated zucchini so that I can make them all year. But the salad, with its freshy harvested tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil, is really a summer thing. So I’ve been craving a combination I could enjoy earlier in the season, while my tomato plants are still seedlings.

For a quick spring variation, I hit upon the pairing of scallions and radishes. You can easily find scallions, or green onions, at the grocery store year-round, but if you grow a garden you can harvest scallions or young perennial walking onions in spring, the tops portions of full bulb onions in summer, leeks in fall, and chives from pots all year. Each can be used in this pancake recipe. To make this recipe even more accessible, I decided to keep the pancakes gluten free, dairy free, and vegan.
Learn to make Scallion Pancakes with Chickpea Flour and Lemony Radish Salad

Chive Blossoms

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Ingredient, Refrigerating, Using1 Comment

Chive Blossom Vinegar taught me to love infusions beautifully dress salads. Get vinegar and salad recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
We recently had a friend over for dinner and somehow ended up talking about vinegar. Well, not just talking—I was soon pulling an array of vinegars from a shelf in my tiny kitchen and explaining why I have so many, how this is just the daily stash, where I store gallon jugs for pickling and canning, and how we had unexpectedly found a mother in one jug that I was using to start my own vinegar. I may have been a little excited.

You could say that the tang of vinegar is my jam. My pantry collection typically numbers 7 bottles, which I put into everything from drinks to mac and cheese to pie crust. But because I like to mix and match flavors and keep many herbs and spices on hand, I only saw the point of infusing vinegars after I discovered a chive blossom infusion in Harry Rosenblum’s Vinegar Revival. It’s so easy to make that my recipe varies little from his instructions, but my first attempt, and probably favorite flavor, used garlic chives. The resulting flavored vinegar beautifully dresses a salad featuring fresh spring herbs.
Learn to make Chive Blossom Vinegar and Herbed Bean Salad with Fresh Mozzarella

Pickled Asparagus

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Ingredient, RefrigeratingLeave a comment

At some point, even I run out of ways to eat fresh asparagus. That’s when I turn to brine. Get pickling recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
Whether you grow it or buy it, asparagus will be among your first spring vegetables. These green, purple, and even white spears can star on your table meal after meal until other produce ripens. I start with Grilled Asparagus as a standalone side dish with some lemon and herbs. I also serve it over arugula or with pasta in a salad. It’s delicious served under hollandaise or on pizza, stirred into risotto, baked into a frittata, or tossed in a stir-fry.

At some point, even I run out of ways to eat fresh asparagus. Whether you grow your own patch or buy bundles in season, you too probably end up with more asparagus in your kitchen than you can eat in one meal. But you don’t want to ignore it: the asparagus season ends as quickly as it arrives. That’s when I fill a jar or two with a brine. Although you can process pickled asparagus in a boiling water bath, it keeps its flavor and texture better when it heads straight to the table or rests in the fridge.
Learn to make Asparagus Refrigerator Pickles and Quick-Pickled Asparagus

No Recipe Required

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Topic, Using2 Comments

Spring’s first edible gems are so delicious that recipes are not required. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
May began with a week of firsts for Twice as Tasty. I had my first experience baking in a real woodfired pizza oven during a Grilled Sourdough Pizza workshop, and I taught my first Fine Dining: Front Country workshop for Outsiety. In both classes, I was able to share first cuttings freshly snipped from the garden. This week, I also baked the first stalks of rhubarb into a dessert to share with friends.

My first cuttings are almost always from perennials pushing up through the ground year after year. You probably think little of these plants when you see them in a produce section: they’re not showy, or colorful, or supersized. But when they’re the first edibles to pop through your garden soil, on their own time and with no effort on your part, they’re gems. And my favorite ways to eat them are so simple that you don’t even need a recipe.
Read more about simple spring meals

Learning to Eat Well

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Topic, WorkshopsLeave a comment

Want to get a jump-start on the summer season? Take a Twice as Tasty workshop. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
It’s time: Uncover beds, clean up the garden, thin the berry patches, pull the season’s first weeds, and plant seeds and starts. Gardening season has begun.

Although your mind might be reeling with the to-do lists that will get your garden up and running, give a little thought to where its bounty is going: table, fridge, freezer, pantry, and more. I’ve already loaded the blog with lots of information to help you enjoy what you’ve grown—now and later. But you’ll get an even bigger jump-start on the season with a Twice as Tasty Live workshop. You’ll learn more, faster, among friends, and with my personal help. This week’s post highlights some of the best workshops to get on your calendar this summer. As days grow longer, my schedule gets tighter, so pick your topics and contact me soon to set up your personalized workshop for the summer season.
Read more about learning to eat well

Mozzarella

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Fermenting, Ingredient, Using1 Comment

Mozzarella was the first cheese I learned to make and use. Get cheese-making recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
Mozzarella may seem like the epitome of soft cheeses, but as I’ve mentioned previously, it was the first cheese I learned to make. I have to thank the Cheese Queen, Ricki Carroll, for this: her books, kits, and company are the reason most people, including me and my young niece, started making cheese at home. Most of the recipes you’ll find today for quick mozzarella are nearly identical to her original kit instructions, including mine. But after years of making mozzarella at home, I’ve learned enough techniques and tips that I’m posting my own version, along with a recipe that will use the first harvest from your garden.
Learn to make Quick Homemade Mozzarella and Spring Pasta and Fresh Mozzarella Salad