Reduce Food Waste: Make Pesto from Radish Greens
Did you know that you can cook with radish greens? Instead of throwing them away, you can use them for all kinds of things. They can be sautéed, added to smoothies or thrown into a salad. But my favorite way to use them is to make pesto.
It’s as easy as radish greens, some almonds or hazelnuts, garlic, olive oil and a little salt, pepper and lemon juice. Put it all in the blender and away you go.
The full recipe is up over on Foodie Underground if you want to try your own version. No point in tossing those radish greens anymore!
Catch It: A Short Film About a Passion for Life and Surfing
My friend Sarah Menzies makes beautiful films, and I remember being blown away when I first saw her short film Catch It.
When you hear “surf film” you think of a certain genre of films, and if you’re not interested in surfing, then most often you shy away from those films. But while Catch It is a film about surfing, it’s about much more than that, which is one of the reasons I love Sarah’s work. She manages to capture the essence of a person through their passion, and this film is less about surfing and more about what makes Léa Brassy tick. What makes her excited. What gives her the drive for life.
So even though I am not a surfer, I love this film. And I hope you do too.
Why We Write
“One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore.”
-Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird
I finally picked up a copy of Bird By Bird this week, a book that has been on my reading list for far too long. It’s exactly what I needed. A reminder of why I love to write, and a reminder of what it takes to be a writer: just.keep.writing.
And exploring of course.
Fika on List of Food Bloggers’ Most Anticipated New Cookbooks
As the countdown to the release date of Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break gets shorter and shorter, I am getting more and more excited about this book finally making its way into the world. Mostly because I want everyone to be having a little more fika in their everyday lives, but also because I want to hear what people think about it.
I was honored to read that one of the food bloggers who I have been following the longest – Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini – listed it as her most anticipated new cookbook in a roundup of food bloggers on Publisher’s Weekly. Coming from someone whose own cookbook sits on my kitchen shelf, that’s definitely a notable mention. Thank you Clotilde!
Fika is officially out on April 7, 2015, but you can pre-order it now. Click here for a list of places that sell it.
Oh, and that awesome tote bag? I snagged that at the cafe/restaurant Fika in London. You can get your own here.
Use Up Those Root Vegetables: Beet and Carrot Fritters (Plus Some Thoughts on Eating In Season)
This week on Foodie Underground I’ve got an easy recipe for Beet and Carrot Fritters, because we can never have too many root vegetable recipes. Especially this time of year as the winter winds down and we start to get sick just at the thought of them. But don’t worry, all that seasonal spring bounty (asparagus! radishes!) is just around the corner.
Speaking of which, I wrote an essay for Paste Magazine recently looking at what it takes to eat in season and locally. I spent a week really keeping track of everything that I cooked and ate, and the resulting essay is titled What If You Really Just Ate in Season?
Here’s a little excerpt:
Drink Local: Mt. Hood Pint Glasses From North Drinkware
If you like to drink local, then put your money where your mouth is and check out North Drinkware. They’re making handcrafted, Made in USA, pint glasses with Mt. Hood in the bottom. The result is stunning.
How to Make Dried Apples
In an attempt to eat more local, I have been trying to find things in my regular baking and cooking repertoire that I can switch out for alternatives that come from closer to home. Dried fruit is something that I use a lot of, and this week I experimented with drying my own apples. Turns out it’s super simple, and the footprint of these apples is a whole lot less than figs, apricots and dates that come from much farther away.
You use the same method you do for drying citrus peels – an hour or two in the oven at low heat (I did them at200°F (95°C)) – and you end up with tasty dried apples that are good on their own, or in baked goods. The full explanation is over on Foodie Underground.
Next on the to do list: drying pears.
Ever Felt Like This Ordering Your Coffee?
The specialty coffee industry can get a lot of flak for the intensity that it puts into making a good cup. But just like many things that we consume which take time to make – wine, beer, cheese, etc. – there will always be passionate people behind them, and we should have respect for that. You can geek out on anything after all. But that doesn’t mean you can’t poke fun sometimes.
This video that Everything But the News from PBS Digital Studios did is hilarious. I think we can all find some humor in it.
Enjoy!
Happy Chinese New Year, From Paris
Paris is a postcard city.
Even if you have never been to Paris, you have a vision of what the streets and people look like. From books and movies, you have garnered what the ambience in a bistro must feel like. From paintings you know that there are cobblestones. From history class you probably know a thing or two about the Bastille and maybe even the Eiffel Tower.
There are so many people that never come to Paris, and yet they have a view of it etched into their minds.
But while Paris is beautiful, romantic and all those other things you always want it to be, it’s also much more than that. In fact, it is so often completely different than the postcard view.
blog.annabrones.com 