It was one of those perfect moments - a crisp fall day when the light is just right. That day, Get Up! student Leia brought this delicious roasted veggie dish that is the perfect embodiment of fall food. This would be a great addition to your holiday table, work lunches, or weeknight dinners. Enjoy and feel grateful for the bounty our gardens provide.
Read MoreThis is the best kind of picnic food, hearty and easy to transport. It's what I made when I took Get Up! and needed a healthy and satisfying lunch for a group. It's great for dinner at home with leftovers for lunch. It could even be a great side at Thanksgiving, especially if for whatever reason you had to, gasp, forgo the stuffing.
Read MoreSandy, an educator and cook with a group of volunteers we host from Access SFUSD, couldn't believe we considered composting our zucchini stems as we cleaned up our vegetable beds. Sauteed in olive oil and garlic, she says these stems make a perfect stir fry to go along with rice.
Read MoreThe GFE garden is bursting with our own summer crops - the classic lettuces, radishes and squash, but also basil (in the inner sunset! - we're pretty proud). Our bush & pole bean production is in overdrive and we have to harvest them diligently to encourage the plant to keep producing. I brought home a bag one day and found a recipe for blanched green beans with an almond pesto.
Read MoreWhile it almost looks like rose petals, this tea is cultivated from the Hibiscus sabdariffa flower, and is popular all over the world. I've been steeping some of the dried flowers in cold water, overnight in the fridge. What results is a deep red tea, the most beautiful color, that is slightly tart and really delicious. You can sweeten it to your taste, and I like to add some sparking water to make it extra refreshing.
Read MoreWe grabbed a bag of dry, red chiles of medium spice and were thrilled to find fresh green chiles - exactly what we were looking for. These chiles, grow in the Hatch Valley of New Mexico, are the state vegetable as well as its signature crop. They grow both red and green varieties in the Hatch Valley, and the green chile it turns out is also called an Anaheim pepper, easily found at markets here in San Francisco.
Read MoreCabbages takes forever to grow, get huge, love to suck up nutrients and love extra worm castings. Bugs and slugs also love cabbage and can often take down starts before they've even had a change to grow. But a full grown cabbage is such an immense thing of beauty, with curled outer leaves and tight dense heads. With exceptional Harvest interns this spring, 2015 was going to be the year we grew a cabbage.
Read MoreOne of my favorites is carrot soup because it's sweet but easily balanced out with strong spices and a bit of tart yogurt. I usually do a more Indian spin on it, with tumeric and lots of cumin and coriander so that it's slightly spicy and deeply rich. I love those flavors in Fall but by this time of year I'm looking for something fresher and and brighter. I found this carrot soup, so simple but so good. It's the perfect, seasonal way to have my soup and eat it too.
Read MoreBull's blood beets live up to their name. They'll also stain anything, from your fingers to countertops - turning anything in its wake a nice, bright pink. The striking color makes them so fun to cook with, and I recently made a pasta stuffed with beets and goat cheese. A plin is similar to a ravioli, and when you bite through the pasta you are greeted with a ruby red filling.
Read MoreSquash is hearty, smooth and silky and a perfect staple for mid-winter diets. I love it blended with coconut milk and cayenne for soup, wedged and roasted with lime juice, baked until soft and mashed with butter and black pepper. But my favorite way to eat it has started with a less than pleasant experience. Dicing squash is an athletic event, one that involves holding down a round objet on slick countertops and large knives wielded dangerously. There tends to be lots of cursing, sweat on my brow and results in a bad mood.
Read MoreThis ginger-chicken soup recipe is my foolproof way of getting better, and fast. After one bowl, my stomach warms and I can feel my nose clearing and chest opening. The considerable amount of ginger makes the broth almost spicy and it cooks for so long the meat becomes tender and the soup takes on a beautiful rich color. It's warm and comforting and simple - just how I like my Januarys.
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