Chocolate Zucchini Cake

On September 10, 2026September 10, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cakes, ColumnLeave a comment

When it comes to a prolific crop like zucchini, you can’t have too many ways to use it. My first choices are always savory: gratings for Zucchini–Basil Pancakes, slices for a fresh Mixed Vegetable Stir-Fry, or cubes to fold into Shrimp and Summer Squash Enchiladas with Homemade Enchilada Sauce, toss with pasta, or skewer onto Veggie Shish Kebabs with Garlicy Marinade. I pickle plenty of zucchini too, especially as a grilled side dish of Zucchini Escabeche and jars of Double-Spiced Zucchini for my refrigerator, two of several zucchini recipes I included in my pickling cookbook.

Zucchini also bakes beautifully into sweets, such as Zucchini Bread with Sesame Seeds and the cake recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. I usually fold other homegrown and homemade ingredients into these bakes for truly Twice as Tasty treats.
Learn to make Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Grilled Pepper Pancakes with Goat Cheese

On September 8, 2026September 7, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grainsLeave a comment

Last week was a busy one, so I’m a bit behind in sharing the latest recipe in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. It’s another easy meal made with grilled sweet peppers and grilled vegetables, which I featured heavily last month. These Grilled Pepper Pancakes, and other savory pancake recipes, pair well with a topic that had much of my attention last week: pickles.

Pickling cucumber season is winding down, so I was excited to bring several pounds of a locally grown variety to my workshop at Columbia Falls Library and let people fill jars with sliced cucumbers and their choice of brine and seasonings for refrigerator pickles. I’ll be busy teaching many more workshops through the end of the year—not just privately hosted workshops but also several at Flathead Valley Community College through its Continuing Education program. Many of the FVCC cooking workshops for the fall semester have already sold out, so sign up soon if you want to get in on the fun.
Learn to make Grilled Pepper Pancakes with Goat Cheese

Creamy Grilled Pepper, Onion, and Garlic Pasta

On August 28, 2026August 28, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grilledLeave a comment

Every summer, I can jars of tomato-based pasta sauces, freeze pestos, and preserve other vegetables so that they can quickly be tossed with pasta for a weeknight meal. But when the garden is producing heavily, I prefer to make easy pasta sauces from the fresh harvest, including the sauce I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

Grilling the vegetables makes this particular sauce so speedy yet taste like it spent hours developing its deep flavor. Sweet peppers, along with alliums like onions and garlic, caramelize and pick up smoky notes from the open flame.

The grilling process itself might seem like extra work, particularly if you need to set up and clean a gas grill or wait for charcoal to fully light before you start. I typically make this meal when I already have a mound of its vegetables to grill for freezing or canning or when we’re out on our sailboat and it’s as easy to pop a full gas canister onto a portable grill as the portable burner. When I’m grilling bowlfuls of vegetables but already have a dinner plan, I set aside ones for this pasta, or for the savory pancakes I’ll share next week, to make an ultrafast dinner a night or two later.
Learn to make Creamy Grilled Pepper, Onion, and Garlic Pasta

Watermelon-Basil Syrup or Shrub

On August 14, 2026August 14, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

In summer, my refrigerator is divided fairly equally into four quadrants: freshly harvested homegrown vegetables and fruit; jars of pickled foods; syrups, shrubs, and kombucha; and everything else. When I first started making drinking shrubs—concentrates made from fruit, sugar, and vinegar that are then diluted with seltzer—I usually had one or two flavors on hand at a time. Now the varieties grow with the season, and since I’ve added kombucha to the options, a dozen bottles typically line my fridge shelves after I’ve just decanted a fresh batch.

Of the collection, the watermelon shrub and syrup recipe that I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon has some of the freshest flavor because the juice is never heated. The herbs I add to shrubs and syrups enhance their complexity. Like watermelon, basil stays fresh and bright with the no-heat method. Other herbs also pair well with watermelon, including cilantro, lemon thyme, and the mint featured in Watermelon-Mint Sorbet and Watermelon and Feta Salad.
Learn to make Watermelon-Basil Syrup or Shrub

Watermelon-Mint Sorbet

On August 6, 2026August 6, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, frozenLeave a comment

Sorbet is so easy to make and doesn’t require special equipment, like an ice cream maker, so I freeze small batches throughout the summer as different fruit hits its peak in my garden, from rhubarb to berries. I occasionally grow enough watermelon to make the sorbet I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, but usually I have to buy the melon.

When I have plenty of options, I look for a whole small watermelon that isn’t seedless, because large, fully formed black seeds are easier to remove than the edible ivory seed coats that run down a seedless melon. But I primarily look for the ripest melon. In a recent article for Simply Recipes, I interviewed a watermelon expert about the biggest myths around watermelon ripeness and how to pick the best melon. You can get his tips here.
Learn to make Watermelon-Mint Sorbet

Two-Meal Garden Risotto

On July 30, 2026July 30, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grainsLeave a comment

I love risotto not just for its texture but also for the variety of garden goodies that taste so delicious in it. Every time I teach a risotto workshop, the vegetables I bring vary: peas, asparagus, and rhubarb in a spring workshop; peppers, beans, and zucchini in a summer one; and winter squash, mushrooms, or frozen vegetables at the changing of the year. Summer provides so many homegrown options that it’s hard to choose. But as temperatures climb, it’s also hard to stand by the hot stovetop as the rice slowly absorbs stock.

I was thrilled to learn that restaurant chefs who need to get orders to tables faster than Arborio rice cooks have a technique that, when applied at home, reduces the heat in my kitchen: parcook the rice. One night of food prep that produces two dinners and minimizes my cooking time on night 2 is one of my favorite ways to beat summer’s heat. I explain how it works in this week’s Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.
Learn to make Two-Meal Garden Risotto

Grilled or Baked Fish Cakes

On July 23, 2026July 23, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grilledLeave a comment

I have mixed feelings about fish cakes and burgers. The first versions I remember tasting were British patties heavy on potato with little fish flavor. Then I discovered small Thai-style cakes that tasted of the sea but whose spiciness sometimes overpowered the mild fish. My favorite fish cakes fall somewhere between: just enough filler to keep the fish-loaded patties from falling apart, and plenty of flavor without overpowering the fish.

The fish cake recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon hits both marks. I originally created it as an oven recipe, because baking on trays let me leave some larger chunks of fish in the patties. It works well—if you don’t mind the heat and lingering aroma in the house. When I want to avoid those, I fire up the grill, both for the initial roasting of the vegetables, which adds flavor and removes moisture so that the cakes hold together without breadcrumbs or potatoes, and for the final cooking, which happens quickly on a hot grill mat.
Learn to make Grilled or Baked Fish Cakes

Smoked Cherry Clafouti (Pudding Cake)

On July 17, 2026July 17, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cakes, ColumnLeave a comment

I harvested another 7 pounds of sour cherries from my lone tree yesterday. I’ve plucked 18 pounds so far, and it looks like I’ve barely started. This seems likely to be another bumper crop year for cherries.

I’m down to my last small jar of Bourbon-Infused Smoked Cherries from last year, so I smoked my first cherry harvest and now have a new half-gallon jar infusing in my unheated mudroom. When I plan to use freshly smoked cherries without infusing them in alcohol, I let them chill in the refrigerator for a couple of days first so that their flavor becomes more even. I also have a few bags of unsmoked sour cherries left from 2025 in the freezer. All of these cherries, whether raw and fresh or frozen, recently smoked, or in bourbon, taste delicious in clafouti, the easy French pudding cake I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.
Learn to make Smoked Cherry Clafouti

Smoked Cherries

On July 2, 2026July 2, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grilledLeave a comment

The summer grilling season typically conjures up images of burgers and brats, but I get fewer raised eyebrows these days when I suggest in my Grilled and Smoked workshop, and share recipes for, grilling asparagus, corn, and pineapple. Smoking vegetables and fruit is just as effective at adding flavor, as I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

With smoking, you have the option of adding heat or not, which creates a different effect from a searing-hot grill. Cold-smoked vegetables retain more of their raw crispness, and cold-smoked fruits, like cherries, stay plumper and juicier. Hot smoking or preroasting works better for dense root vegetables that you want to make soft and tender, like beets.

Because produce absorbs smoke far more quickly than, say, brisket, you don’t need an expensive smoker—and some might actually get too hot for cold smoking. I smoke all of my vegetables, fruits, cheese, and fish in an old Weber kettle grill. I started with woodchips and a few briquettes and now use a smoke tube loaded with pellets to ensure the lowest smoking temperature.
Learn to make Smoked Cherries

Basil Buttercream Frosting

On June 25, 2026June 25, 2026 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

My favorite childhood birthday cake was angel food, partly because it was always so light and airy and partly because it didn’t call for frosting. I was never a fan of the frostings that topped typical children’s cakes, which tasted supersweet and set up almost as stiff as pavlova. It wasn’t until I learned to make buttercream that I truly embraced frosted desserts.

As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, a good buttercream frosting is both rich and airy. It practically melts on your tongue, without leaving it feeling coated in sugar crystals. It accepts almost any flavor, from classic chocolate or vanilla bean to the unexpected in both color and taste, like the leafy green hue and hints of spiciness and anise imparted by basil.
Learn to make Basil Buttercream Frosting