The Creekside Cook

Sauces, Dips and Spreads

· BY  · 24 Comments

Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette

Condiments· Dressings and Vinaigrettes· Garden Fresh· Grilling & Barbeque· Salads· Sauces, Dips and Spreads· The Basics· Vegetarian

  You will love the flavor in this Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette! As I've mentioned in a few recent posts, we've not had the best gardening summer.  Regardless, we have plenty of veggies making their way into the house still. It makes for busy days, getting everything preserved for the winter, so that nothing goes to waste. This Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette is the result of a few extra tomatoes lying on the kitchen counter at dinner time. It just makes sense - a vinaigrette is mainly an ... Read More about Fresh Tomato Vinaigrette

· BY  · 16 Comments

Easy Tomato Sauce for Canning & Freezing

Canning· Food Preservation· Freezing· Garden Fresh· Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads· Vegetables

An Easy Tomato Sauce is a must if you garden It's that time of year with which I have a love/hate relationship. The tomatoes are starting to come in the back door in multiple 5-gallon buckets now. That means that no matter what else is going on, I have to deal with them. Mostly because we only have so many buckets, and there are plenty more tomatoes where those came from. This easy sauce method helps me get through a lot of tomatoes quickly. It's been a challenging year in the ... Read More about Easy Tomato Sauce for Canning & Freezing

· BY  · 19 Comments

Garlic Scape Chimichurri Sauce

Condiments· Dressings and Vinaigrettes· Freezing· Garden Fresh· Grilling & Barbeque· Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads

The best topping for any steak! We grow a LOT of garlic.  We eat a lot of it and sell some, plus it's good for the chickens. That does give us a LOT of Garlic Scapes to deal with though. Garlic scapes are the flower of a garlic plant, and leaving them in place robs the garlic bulb of growth. The plant will put more energy into maturing a flower, which will eventually fling seeds around - nature's way of growing more garlic. Our way is to separate the cloves and plant them, but nature takes a ... Read More about Garlic Scape Chimichurri Sauce

· BY  · 12 Comments

Lemony Dill Hummus

Appetizers· Ethnic· Garden Fresh· Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads· Snacks· Vegetables

...with Cucumber Dippers! Hi there! I am picking my head up from the pails that contain our farmer's market produce to put this fantastic recipe together for you! Farmer's Market is a lot of fun, but I am not sure we could handle more than one market a week - getting everything looking good and ready to sell is a lot of work. There are people who do a market just about every day of the week, and they must be exhausted all the time! Or maybe they are a lot younger than we are. Yeah - that last ... Read More about Lemony Dill Hummus

· BY  · 14 Comments

Asiago Herb Spread

Appetizers· Holiday Fun· Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads

How was your Christmas this year? I hope it was as happy as our own, with lots of family around, fun times, and wonderful food. All of the kids and grandkids made it home to our house this year, which packs our house pretty tight, but we managed. A few more folding chairs, an air mattress or two [or 3!], and an extra trip or two to the grocery store for vital supplies like eggnog and salsa. There is nothing like a 6 month old baby to make a Christmas feel merry, and the older grands really love ... Read More about Asiago Herb Spread

· BY  · 16 Comments

The Best Turkey Gravy

Holiday Fun· Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads· Side Dishes· The Basics

A nice dark roux is the secret! As I've mentioned in a few other posts recently, we've updated some of our Thanksgiving recipes in the last few years. We have all become better cooks over the years, plus our tastes have changed somewhat and of course there is always that food blogger gene that can never let well enough alone. There's always a better recipe around the corner, right? In the case of this turkey gravy that was 100% true. For years, I used a slurry to thicken any gravy I was making. ... Read More about The Best Turkey Gravy

· BY  · 14 Comments

Kale Walnut Pesto

Condiments· Food Preservation· Freezing· Garden Fresh· Nuts· Pasta· Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads· Side Dishes· Vegetables

One thing that enjoys a cool summer is kale. Man, do we have kale! Usually, we have a lot of kale early in the summer, and then again in the fall, but this summer the spring kale never tried to go to seed, so it is still going strong. Every morning, when I go down to tend to the chickens, I make a detour through the garden to grab a handful of kale for my breakfast smoothie. Often we have it for dinner as well, and we are still overloaded. So, I wanted to find a way to use up a lot of kale ... Read More about Kale Walnut Pesto

· BY  · 24 Comments

Spicy Avocado Dip

Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads

There are very few things that ever make me think of moving from Upstate NY. We both grew up here, and despite the rough winter we're having this year, we enjoy all of the seasons in their turn. But then there are avocados. If you are trying to grow or raise as much of your own food as you can, avocados can be a bit of a brick wall when you live where we do. Along with citrus, shrimp and Shiraz, it's never going to happen here - we live far from the ocean and our climate is never going to ... Read More about Spicy Avocado Dip

· BY  · 4 Comments

Tomato Jalapeno Jam

Condiments· Food Preservation· Freezing· Garden Fresh· Jams Jellies Preserves· Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads· Vegetables

This was inspired by Mark Bittman’s recipe in the New York Times back some time ago. We found his version a bit too sweet for us, but liked it enough that I decided to see if I could alter it sufficiently to suit our taste. It’s not like I have a shortage of tomatoes for experimenting. In order to achieve a truly jam like consistency, you can’t reduce the sugar very much, because sugar is what gives jams and jellies their texture. Without it, this will just end up as a spicy tomato sauce. So ... Read More about Tomato Jalapeno Jam

· BY  · 41 Comments

Garlic Scape Pesto

Condiments· Garden Fresh· Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads

Four years ago we started growing our own garlic. And by "we", I mean Larry - as is often the case with growing things you can actually eat. I grow flowers, Larry grows food. But then, I cook the food, so he is not complaining. Anyway, this Garlic Scape Pesto is a great way to use something we get a whole heck of a lot of this time of year. When you grow two hundred heads of garlic, guess how many garlic scapes you get? That is correct - you get two hundred garlic scapes. That's a lot. Scapes ... Read More about Garlic Scape Pesto

· BY  · 7 Comments

Vanilla Bean Salted Caramel Sauce

Recipes· Sauces, Dips and Spreads

Why in the heck do we find making caramel to be such a daunting task? I suppose it might be the risk of splashing oneself with molten sugar, which will peel the skin right off you. Or the fear of burning it all and making a big mess. Or of wasting some rather pricey ingredients if you do fail to achieve caramel nirvana. Bah I say! It only seems scary until you do it a few times. First of all - you are going to be careful, right? And not let the baby stir the melting sugar, right? So, there goes ... Read More about Vanilla Bean Salted Caramel Sauce

GET MY NEWSLETTER