Author: Julie Laing | Twice As Tasty

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

Watermelon

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

The nose-to-tail approach to cooking meats could be called tip to top for vegetables and fruits. Get whole watermelon recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
Amid summer’s bounty, as I haul bags and boxes of produce from garden to kitchen, I always want more. I clean and trim and slice and wonder whether each root tip and leafy top that lands in my compost bucket could find its way into a dish or jar instead. The nose-to-tail approach to cooking meats could be called tip to top for vegetables and fruits, and that remains my goal throughout the growing season. It’s a goal that aligns nicely with this week’s challenge for the Montana Local Food Challenge.

Some of your harvest lends itself easily to the idea: people eat beet greens as readily as beet roots. Others seem obvious when you think about it. Like peas? The shoots carry a similar flavor and can be turned into pesto or simply mixed into salads. Grow storage onions? The green tops can be used like scallions and even lightly trimmed while the bulbs are still growing. And the classic processed watermelon rind pickle can be ready to eat alongside the juicy pink melon.
Learn to make Quick-Pickled Watermelon Rind and Watermelon–Feta Salad

Stir-Fry

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

Stir-fries are quick, go-to meals that show off well-cooked tofu. Get stir-fry and tofu recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
When the garden is in full swing and sailing season is on, one of my go-to meals is a stir-fry. In the time it takes to cook a pot of rice, the rest of the meal can be chopped, cooked, and ready to serve from one pan as a single-dish meal. In spring, asparagus, early onions, young garlic, snap peas, spinach, and herbs dominate the stir-fry; at the height of summer, freshly harvested onions, peppers, carrots, zucchini, and cherry tomatoes take over. By late summer, corn, eggplant, and fall broccoli and peas are ready to mix in.

When you’re rich in a particular vegetable, you can let it solo in a stir-fry, backed by aromatics such as garlic, ginger, and chilies. But my favorite stir-fries are created with dibs and dabs of many vegetables and a protein such as tofu. To guarantee success, fry quickly, at high heat, in an order that lets the ingredients brown evenly, with plenty of movement. It’s in the name: stir and fry.
Learn to make Fresh Improv Stir-Fry and Pan-Fried Tofu

Eating Local

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

My local food sources start with the ground I garden in and continue down the road to the closest source. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
I’ve been thinking a lot about local food lately. With last week’s official launch of Twice as Tasty Live, I’ve been making the rounds of local purveyors of flour, milk, coffee, tea, fish, and more to find ingredients for the first two Twice as Tasty house concerts coming up in the next week. I’ve also been inspecting progress in the garden, keeping tabs on what will be ready to harvest and take straight to the host’s table for each event.

But how to define “local food”? Some sources define the local food circle as within 100 miles of where it’s bought or eaten, but many federal assistance programs extend that range to 400 miles. Some define it as food grown and processed within a state, whereas others define local food systems by regions rather than borders. Giant chain stores sell local food; so do farmers from roadside stands and weekly markets.

My local food sources start with the ground I garden in, extend out to local producers and locally owned businesses, and continue down the road to the closest source for any item that isn’t grown in my backyard. I love the way Barbara Kingsolver put it in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life: “Our highest shopping goal was to get our food from so close to home, we’d know the person who grew it.” It’s a lofty challenge, but this may be the month to work toward it.
Read more about eating local

Grilled Peppers

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Freezing, Grilling, Ingredient3 Comments

You could spend a small fortune buying jars of oily, roasted red peppers. Or you could grill your own. Get roasted red pepper recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
Every year, we stuff at least 40 pepper plants into a hoop house, including bell peppers, Gypsy peppers, Poblanos, and several types of chilies. We go big because peppers can go in and on almost anything: salsas, salads, dips, sauces, breakfast eggs, lunch sandwiches, dinner pastas—the list is endless.

The challenge is in waiting for the peppers to ripen to bright yellows, oranges, reds, and purples and then capturing their peak flavor. My favorite variations use the grill to add a little char for fresh eating, such as for Corn, Bean, and Pepper Salsa and Shish Kebabs with Garlic–Soy Marinade, or a lot of smokiness before long-term storage, such as for Smoked Chilies and Home-Smoked Chili Paste. My latest trick falls somewhere in the middle: roasting peppers on the grill and then freezing them in a dice to throw in winter dishes or as a puree to use as a spread or sauce.
Learn to grill peppers and make Red Bell Pepper Puree

Quick-Pickled Beets

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Ingredient, Refrigerating, Using5 Comments

For any meal, refreshing, easy pickles take minutes to make and are gobbled up in as little time. Learn to make Get quick-pickle recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
I spend much of my summer pickling produce; it’s my favorite way to preserve vegetables. As the harvest grows and I haul pounds of cucumbers, snap beans, summer squash, and more from the garden to the kitchen, my canning shelves fill with vinegar-preserved pickles and every other available surface holds fermenting ones. There they wait for weeks, if not months.

So for any given meal, you can also find me making pickles—refreshing, easy ones that take mere minutes to prepare and are gobbled up in as little time. Quick pickles are defined by their name. They won’t satisfy your pickle craving through winter or preserve the bulk of your garden, but they will extend shelf life a bit and give a new flavor spin when you tire of eating a particular fresh vegetable, like beets.
Learn to make Quick-Pickled Beet Snacks and Orange-Sweetened Marinated Beets

Smoked Beets

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Grilling, IngredientLeave a comment

One of my favorite kitchen tools sits outside and doubles as grill and low-tech smoker. Get smoked beet recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
One of my favorite kitchen tools doesn’t live in my kitchen: It sits outside the front door, looking weathered and well used. It’s both, whether the summer heat has made me abandon the oven or we’re digging it out of a snowbank for a winter meal. I’m talking about an old charcoal Weber kettle grill, handed down and repaired so many times it’s probably had nine lives.

For years it was just a grill, regularly loaded with fish, shellfish, and many kinds of vegetables and fruits. Then we discovered it made an easy, low-tech cold smoker for cheese. Add a few more briquettes, and we’re smoking chilies, beets, nuts, and more.

I got excited about smoking beets after falling for a vegetarian Rueben sandwich created by a local deli. But when I started harvesting my first beets a week ago, we’d already gobbled up the winter’s stash of sauerkraut. Fortunately, smoked beets are delicious with fresh greens and sourdough bread.
Learn to make Roasted and Smoked Beets and Smoked-Beet Sandwiches

Summer Vegetables

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Canning, Dehydrating, Fermenting, Freezing, Grilling, Topic, WorkshopsLeave a comment

Summer means filling bellies not just with the freshest produce possible but also with preserved vegetables the rest of the year. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
If your garden isn’t in full swing yet, it’s about to be. Even here in Montana, with our long winters and short growing season, spring produce is beginning to wind down: Lettuces and spinach will soon be bolting, the asparagus crop has tapered off, and the strawberry bed has been picked nearly clean. In their place, summer produce is ready to burst forth, launching itself into the annual race to grow faster than I can harvest and process.

If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you’ve seen how I deal with spring’s vegetable bounty: #dailysalad. But with a large garden, summer vegetables need a different approach. The next few weeks are not just about filling bellies with the freshest produce possible but also about preserving those vegetables so that they can fill bellies the rest of the year. Here’s how I’ll be spending the next few weeks.
Read more about enjoying summer vegetables year-round

Birthday Cake: Year 2

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 and frosting recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
It’s Twice as Tasty’s birthday month, and no birthday is complete without a celebratory dessert. I’m a fan of nontraditional birthday desserts, such as last year’s Strawberry Shortcake with Lilac Cream, Apple Crumble Pie, homemade sorbet, and even fruit crisps. But sometimes you just need cake. Rich, multilayered, chocolaty cake.

Unfortunately, party cakes tend toward a dry, crumbly texture held together by an overly sweet frosting. And unless you bake and decorate cakes regularly, you’re likely gambling when you try to layer and frost a creation worthy of the special occasion. But homemade cakes for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and other celebrations can be both delicious and beautiful. You simply need a recipe that ensures a moist cake and a few tips and tricks that make it easier to layer and decorate your baked creation.
Learn to make Layered Chocolate Pudding Cake and Chocolate Ganache

Raw Shrubs

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

When you offer to pour a shrub, clearly you’re not referring to the leafy bush. But what is a shrub? Get shrub and cocktail recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
Offering to pour someone a shrub usually requires an explanation. Clearly the noun is not referring to the leafy bush. But just what is a shrub? Why would you want to drink one?

The answer to the first question has a surprisingly long history. Mixologist Warren Bobrow calls drinking shrubs “the original energy drinks” and dates them back to the 1800s. The combination of vinegar, water, and sweetener gave farmworkers a refreshing boost while in the field. Then farmers discovered they could expand the range of flavors using their harvest and the preserving properties of vinegar and sugar. Add carbonated water, and the first soft drinks were born. But these aren’t our contemporary, corn syrupy sodas: shrubs, aka drinking vinegars, capture the bright flavors of fresh fruits and vegetables at the peak of their season.

Raw shrubs take little time to prepare but need a bit of foresight. The wait for cold processing means you don’t need to heat the shrub and lose some of its flavorful pop, a particular advantage with delicately flavored fruits like citrus and kiwi. They usually need 1–3 days to get to their final form but often taste best when left for at least a week. But shrubs last a long time too—I’m told up to a year, but I’ve never been able to keep one around that long.

This shrub recipe is a concentrate; you’ll want to dilute it to enjoy it. The simplest method is to pour 1/2 ounce of shrub into an 8-ounce or larger glass, top it with sparkling water or seltzer, and then add more shrub until you get a balance you like. Or upgrade your bar by using the shrub as the base for a cocktail.
Learn to make Raw-Fruit Shrub and Basic Shrub Cocktail