Panzanella (Tomato and Bread Salad)

On August 24, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, salads4 Comments

If you grow your own vegetables, spring salads feature shades of green: various lettuces, herbs, asparagus, scallions, and peas. Late-summer salads burst with color, but most of my lettuces have bolted by the time tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and red onions are ready. At least that’s my excuse for replacing greens with chunks of homemade sourdough bread that can soak up the tomatoes’ juices and oil-and-vinegar dressing.

I share my favorite variation of panzanella, a tomato and bread salad, this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. It’s heavy on late-summer and early-fall vegetables and herbs, but I also throw in cheese and Kalamata olives. If your garden or farmer’s market features other produce, you can swap in plenty of other ingredients, drop the cheese for a vegan option, and replace the olives with capers or skip them altogether for less tang.

For a solo lunch, I use this recipe as a guideline when piling all of the ingredients straight into the bowl I’ll be eating from, only stopping when I reach the end of the list and the bowl is overflowing. The key is to start with a base of bread and tomatoes and build from there.
Learn to make Panzanella (Tomato and Bread Salad)

Grilled Eggplant Baba Ghanoush

On August 17, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grilledLeave a comment

You know how gardeners joke about stuffing bumper crops of zucchini in mailboxes or sneaking them onto neighbors’ porches? That’s my eggplant crop this year. Last year’s plants struggled, so we not only improved their soil and care but also planted more starts for good measure. The plants have responded, pumping out multiple full-size eggplant every few days.

My favorite eggplant dish is a smoky Middle Eastern dip called baba ghanoush, so I’ve been making a lot of it this summer. When I first started preparing it at home, I tried numerous techniques to give the eggplant the perfect smokiness. Roasting or broiling were tasty, but the best flavor came from grilling over charcoal the long, thin halves of Japanese eggplant or the round, thick slices of oval Italian ones. Once the eggplant are grilled and peeled, the dip takes about 2 minutes to make, as I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.
Learn to make Grilled Eggplant Baba Ghanoush

Summer Rolls with Lime-Chili Sauce

On August 11, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, fresh eating2 Comments

I grow enough vegetables to cook and squirrel away much of the harvest for winter, but the best part about the summer growing season is rolling all of those fresh flavors into daily meals. This means literally rolling them together in the recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

Summer rolls have just a couple of cooked ingredients—noodles and perhaps a protein—but the rest of the filling and wrapper remain raw. This makes them ideal not just for at-home meals when you want to minimize oven time but also at a picnic, on the water, and anywhere else you can spread out some fresh vegetables and set up a rolling space. Summer rolls taste and hold together best when there’s minimal time between rolling and eating. So when we want to enjoy summer rolls on a lake cruise, I cook up the noodles and shrimp and mix the dipping sauce at home, cut up vegetables either before I leave the house or before we start rolling, and have everything spread out to grab and roll before I dampen the first wrapper.
Learn to make Summer Rolls with Lime-Chili Sauce

Vegan Memphis-Style Barbecue Sauce

On August 3, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grilledLeave a comment

Some barbecue enthusiasts will tell you it’s all about the sauce. That’s certainly the case with the new recipe I share this week my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. You can’t buy one off the shelf that duplicates it—especially if you want a vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free option. Homemade barbecue sauces and other marinades also lack the high-fructose processed sweeteners so common in commercial bottles. Plus, you can make them for a fraction of the cost if you already have many of the base ingredients in your kitchen.

I developed this tomato-based barbecue sauce recipe intending to pair it with smoked and grilled mushrooms and then tested it with a couple of meaty types. Full-size portobellos pick up the most flavor in their large gills, but baby bella (aka cremini) mushrooms also work. The thick stalks and wide caps of King trumpet mushrooms would hold up as well to smoking as they do to pickling. As another variation, we’ve enjoyed this sauce with eggplant that has been smoked over very low heat, so that it stays firm, and then grilled until it softens but still holds shape. Of course, you can always serve this sauce with smoked brisket or pulled pork.
Learn to make Vegan Memphis-Style Barbecue Sauce

Pasta That Pops

On July 27, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grainsLeave a comment

We typically choose cherry tomatoes for fresh dishes, but they’re delicious when preserved and cooked. The easiest way to save cherry tomatoes is to freeze them, as I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, along with my favorite way to cook cherry tomatoes and intensify their tart-sweet taste.

You can make this week’s pasta sauce with other tomatoes, fresh or frozen, but it won’t “pop” as the skins burst and you may want to stir in a tablespoon of honey or sugar at the end if the tomatoes aren’t as sweet. Larger tomatoes may also release more juice—which means you’ll need more of them to end up with the same volume of sauce and they’ll take longer to cook down. When freezing larger tomatoes to cook into pasta sauce, soup, or stew, you can cut them in chunks and bag them by weight. It takes a little more time than freezing them whole, but tomato chunks need far less freezer space.
Learn to make Pasta That Pops

Huckleberry–Rhubarb Galette

On July 20, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn baked, Column4 Comments

Huckleberries are the flavor of summer in Montana, whether you venture into the woods to find your own or not. Pickers horde them to enjoy all year, reliving memories of summer days with each burst of the sweet, intense fruit. As I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, once I’ve left a mountainside with purple-stained fingers and tongue and a bellyful—perhaps too full—of huckleberries, I use my haul judiciously to stretch out the berry season.

This week’s recipe, pairing huckleberries and rhubarb in a freeform tart, does just that. If you freeze hucks on a tray and then bag them for the freezer, and if you chop and bag rhubarb to freeze, you can make this tart off-season too. Blueberries can stand in for huckleberries if you don’t harvest the wild fruit, and tart apples can stand in for the rhubarb if you don’t grow and freeze the stalks.
Learn to make Huckleberry–Rhubarb Galette

DIY Herb Blends

On July 13, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, dehydrated3 Comments

When I moved into my 500-square-foot cabin, building custom, open shelves for the tiny kitchen was a top priority. I designed them for exactly how I planned to use the limited space, sketching out what would live on each shelf. That included two 3- by 24-inch shelves where I could stack a set of little canisters holding 50 different spices.

I adhere to Madhur Jaffrey’s view on spices: “If you can put one spice into a pan, you can easily put in ten or even fifteen.” So I happily stored individual canisters of each spice and herb I use regularly and had little interest in premixed blends. But I slowly started to see their value: pickling spices for canning, a version of a favorite restaurant’s Cajun mix, za’atar to sprinkle on just-boiled bagels and popcorn, a friend’s sweet spice blend to replace cinnamon in almost anything.

When my parents asked for easy ways to keep their meals flavorful yet simple, my first thoughts turned to spice blends. Mom knows the value and versatility of individual spices, but aging dulls taste and smell and makes small kitchen tasks more challenging. Topping my list to prepare for her was a simple blend of homegrown, home-dried herbs she could sprinkle on anything. I share it this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.
Learn to make DIY Herb Blend

Dill-Infused Yogurt Sauce or Dressing

On July 6, 2023July 6, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Ingredient, TopicLeave a comment

Dill may be an annual herb, but it self-seeds so readily that I think of it as part of my perennial collection. Like cilantro, I save some seed to use each year in the kitchen, letting the rest drop in the garden for next year’s crop. Dill seed isn’t quite as versatile as cilantro seed (better known as coriander), but I keep a bit on hand to use in pickles and mustards.

Fresh dill fronds can find more uses, as I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. Sometimes called dill weed to distinguish it from full dill heads or individual seeds, its strong flavor goes a long way, although I do pile it on when making gravlax. With a self-seeded crop, I can harvest plenty of fronds without running short on dill heads. We recently discovered another bonus of growing dill: a brood of black swallowtail caterpillars. They’re such beautiful and effective pollinators I’m happy to share some of my dill with them.
Learn to make Dill-Infused Yogurt Sauce or Dressing

Chocolate Pudding Cake, Snack or Stacked

On June 29, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn cakes, ColumnLeave a comment

Seven years! Seven years ago, I started writing the Twice as Tasty blog. What started as a personal project led to workshops and house concerts, a cookbook and a column, and the launchpad for so much of the other food writing I do today. I’m especially appreciative of those of you who have been following my journey from the beginning, and I’m thrilled that so many more of you have joined in over the years.

To celebrate, I share my favorite chocolate cake recipe this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon. When I say “my favorite,” really I mean that unless I have a surplus of zucchini, this is the only chocolate cake I make. My mom discovered the original recipe when I was still a teenager. I’ve made a few tweaks but I’ve never needed another technique because this one is that good.
Learn to make Chocolate Pudding Cake, Snack or Stacked

Cheese- and Bacon-Stuffed Burgers

On June 22, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, grilledLeave a comment

One of the perks about writing my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon is that I learn about food I don’t eat personally. Mitchell Farm, where I garden, raises and sells all-natural, purebred Red Angus beef. So I was excited when the owner and my garden partner, Leah Mitchell, offered to share a favorite recipe with my meat-loving followers.

On a recent evening, I learned the ins and outs of burger making and how to get the right sear on a Traeger Grill, a tool I’d never used and was eager to try. My contributions to the meal were mainly burger toppings: German-Inspired Spicy Mustard, Half-Sour Dill Pickles, Grilled Onion Relish, and other options from my pickling cookbook. I also found my own spin for the main recipe: The cheese filling, without the bacon, makes a delicious pescatarian-friendly topping for grilled salmon.
Learn to make Cheese- and Bacon-Stuffed Burgers