I remember my first childhood encounter with stinging nettle all too well. My family was camping up in the bluffs above the California coast for the weekend and I had found a ground of kids to play a campground-wide game of hide and seek with. When the countdown began, we all took off flying on our bikes to find the best bit of shrubbery to launch ourselves into. Can you guess where I decided to hide?…
Urban Farming
Spruce Tip Shortbread
On a recent trip up to our neighbors in Canada, I was fascinated by all the beautiful spruce trees around where we were staying. I remember vaguely watching some chef documentary a while back where they used spruce tips in their cooking and really wanted to try to it out. I’m all about forgaing for random edibles, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to tell which type of tree was which….
Purslane: The Super Weed
While attempting to tackle the growing colony of weeds that have taken up residence in my vegetable garden this past weekend, I came across a plant that looked pretty similar to what I was just served at a fancy restaurant. I did some googling and found that it was called purslane. I decided that if a restaurant could serve it, so could I – I yanked it up by the roots and dragged it back to my kitchen for some test runs. …
The Hunt for the Prickly Pear
While hiking in one of my favorite haunts near my house, I stumbled upon (and nearly right into) a HUGE patch of prickly pear. Having seen the spiny, pink and green fruit in the grocery store on occasion, I more or less knew what I was looking at. My limited experience with prickly pear cactus, however, meant that I was woefully unprepared to snag any to take home with me. …
Meet the New Family Members: Chickens!
As you may have noticed, I have taken a brief hiatus from The Kitchen Flamingo as of late. Being lazy is certainly part of it, but more importantly.. we have new additions to the Kitchy Flam family! These little babies are already growing up so fast… they’ll be full grown chickens before I know it….
Fig, Caramelized Onion + Goat Cheese Tart
Whenever I hit up my local farmer’s market, I’m always so tempted to snag myself some figs and just head for the hills to devour them whole. The biggest turn-off about a fig? The price tag. I don’t know about you, but I can’t justify spending $8 a basket on 6 or 7 beauties, no matter how perfectly ripe and tasty they happen to be. Luckily for me, I made a discovery last month that I have been waiting patiently to come to fruition (hah, get it): My neighbor’s fig tree….
Homemade Mozzarella Cheese
As you may know, cheese is my favorite food group. Yes, I said food group. In my book it deserves its own group separate from dairy in which it can shine to all of its cheesy goodness potential. …
Bonus Post: Cooking with Tortoise
My beloved little dude is such a ham, what can I say. When he’s roaming around the house, he just wants to be where I am at all times. When I’m cooking, this means he likes to be RIGHT at my feet, which can make moving around the kitchen a slow and tricky process.
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