Salads don't have to be cold This Warm Green Bean Tomato Salad proves that point very nicely. Full of garden fresh veggies, topped with a lively vinaigrette - it's good eats, summer-style. Our favorite kind of food! If you don't have a garden of your own, just about every Farmer's Market in the country will have all of these veggies right now, so getting ahold of the ingredients won't be too difficult. Great for picnics This would be great to take to a cookout or picnic this weekend ... Read More about Warm Green Bean Tomato Salad
Side Dishes
Mediterranean Orzo Salad
I'm bringing this delightful Mediterranean Orzo Salad recipe up from where it formerly appeared. It remains a huge favorite of ours, and I've had a few emails lately from people trying to find it. They couldn't remember the name, so for those folks, here is it, right up at the front of the blog again. This is a great salad to make on a busy weekend morning because you can get it put together in the morning, and consequently, it is in the fridge, waiting for you at dinner time. Great ... Read More about Mediterranean Orzo Salad
Lemon Garlic Zucchini
Do you know what special event we are celebrating today? I bet you don't... It is "Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Porch Night". Woohoo! This is an actual thing, people. A gentleman in Pennsylvania, by the name of Tom Roy, came up with the idea - there is even a Facebook Page for it! As any gardener can tell you, this is an easy-to-celebrate day because in August we are losing the battle with the zukes. Despite our best efforts to pick them small, there are always a few ... Read More about Lemon Garlic Zucchini
Cucumber and Avocado Salad with Feta
Try this delicious idea! It is the beginning of cucumber season here in Upstate NY. I went looking through my old posts for a really great cucumber recipe to bring up here to the top of things and this one seemed like a great choice. I hope you enjoy it all over again! We wait all year for the garden to begin filling with cucumbers. When it finally does, I am ready with a ton of fresh ideas for how to enjoy them. I've been dreaming about this salad since about February! I suppose I could ... Read More about Cucumber and Avocado Salad with Feta
Chili Roasted Butternut Squash
This is a rewind post, brought up to the top of the blog because of reader popularity. If you haven't seen it before, I hope you enjoy it today! Time for another piece of the puzzle - the Thanksgiving Dinner puzzle! How does your family "do" Thanksgiving? Do you have the same treasured old stand-bys year after year, or do you like to find the latest trends? Does one person do all the cooking, or do you split things up, with different people bringing things to share? Do you travel? Stay ... Read More about Chili Roasted Butternut Squash
Rainbow Veggie Slaw
If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen my post about a version of this salad at the end of last year. I was talking about how happy I was to be making a Veggie Slaw in December entirely from vegetables we grew ourselves. AKA Rainbow Cabbage Salad Some of that is due to plain luck - having fresh sweet peppers from the garden is not usual in December in Upstate New York. They somehow survived in the fridge until then, which is unusual. We had not ever grown red cabbage before. I ... Read More about Rainbow Veggie Slaw
Marinated Tomato Salad
I am writing to you from the land of grandchildren today! It's a happy place, if a bit tiring exhausting at times. We are minding our granddaughter Evelyn, while her baby brother Micah gets born - fun times for all. He is a healthy, sturdy little guy, and it's instant love the first time you hold your grandkids! We would not trade this time for anything - both spending extra time with Evelyn, and getting to know Micah when he comes home later today. I have to admit it will be nice to have our ... Read More about Marinated Tomato Salad
Spicy Zucchini “Fries”
We have had a pretty busy summer here at Creekside. I'm not exactly sure how Larry had time to ever go to work before he retired, because it seems like every day is filled to overflowing. Our latest adventure is that we have become vendors at a local market in my hometown. The Thursday Night Farm to Fork Farmer's Market is a fun venue, with music, great food from local restaurants [often using products from the vendors], and a revolving number of other local small producers. We had thought about ... Read More about Spicy Zucchini “Fries”
Rutabaga Cheddar Mash
Poor rutabagas - so misunderstood! So ignored and under-appreciated! Not around here though. They have always been a big favorite of ours, and this is the perfect time of year to enjoy them. They are a very easy vegetable to grow, though here they don't seem to become quite as large as the ones we can buy in the store - you want to harvest them at about softball size, so that they don't become fibrous. We are out of the ones we grew last fall, because though they keep quite a long time, we have ... Read More about Rutabaga Cheddar Mash
The Best Turkey Gravy
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
Southwest Cornbread Dressing
Have you planned your Thanksgiving dinner yet? At one time, the answer to that around here would have been "yes" - even if you asked me in July. That was because we had the same thing every year. It was hardly what you would call a bad thing either, because what we had was very good. Things are different now though. We are all getting more adventurous in our old age, not to mention the fact that I have recipes to test. It's awfully rough on the family to have to suffer through these trials, but ... Read More about Southwest Cornbread Dressing
Margherita Roasted Potatoes
I'm working to get the last of our summer produce "put up" before it's too late. Kind of a bummer to have to interrupt my taking photos of pretty leaves and pinning things in Pinterest to can more tomatoes, but tomatoes won't wait! I try to also find as many ways as I can for us to enjoy the veggies we have while they are still fresh. Canned tomatoes are very welcome in January, but right now I want to enjoy them straight off the vine, and all the ones I can cram into meals now, are ones I don't ... Read More about Margherita Roasted Potatoes