Category Archives: DIY

Brisket Success!

This was a difficult recipe for the book that I finally had great success with. If you’re thinking it sounds strange for someone who rarely cooks meat to make a big ‘ole brisket, you’re right. All I can say is the book has a recipe for killer ketchup. One makes barbecue sauce with ketchup and [...]
Also posted in hearty | Leave a comment

Curtido & Raita from the Eat Real Festival

Thanks to everyone who attended my fermentation demo on Friday at Eat Real. I had a blast and it was great to see so many enthusiastic fermenters out there. As promised, here is the curtido recipe for those who did not get one and following that, a link to Nishanga Bliss' blog post about fermenting [...]
Also posted in classes, community, healthy, pantry staples | Leave a comment

Vittles for the Great Outdoors: Camping Food

What do you eat while you’re camping? Do you go easy and already prepared? Do you make up soups, stews, chilis ahead? Do you grill? Do you plan to the last detail or do you wing it? Camping food is one of the best things about camping, in my opinion. A week or so ahead [...]
Also posted in Latin American, from the market, hearty, seafood | Leave a comment

Recalibration Eating

Let’s just say I’m not the “cleansing type.” I like to think of myself as a self-indulgent healthy eater. I don’t deny myself anything I want (though I never want to eat fast food or most processed food) and eat a great variety of mostly very healthy stuff. But after a months-long period of intense [...]
Also posted in Asian, breakfast, healthy | Leave a comment

What to cook when there's nothing to eat

One of my favorite MFK Fisher books is How to Cook a Wolf. The wolf, of course, is hunger. The point being that a resourceful cook is one who can find something to eat when the larder is empty and the wolf is at the door. I cooked my own wolf the other night. True [...]
Also posted in gardening, healthy | Leave a comment

Homemade Buckwheat Pasta with Cabbage, Bacon, Brown Butter, and Sage

You wouldn't know it was June from what we've been eating around here. It's cold in the Bay Area this week. Creepily so. So Sunday night I figured why not test a recipe from the book that fits the "season"? Sorry about the heinous picture in bad light but I wanted to get down to [...]
Also posted in from the market, hearty | Leave a comment

A Photo Essay from the Grain Chapter

I'm all out of words. Three weeks to manuscript and I don't feel like writing. So here are some photos taken over the last few months. This is the wood-burning Alan Scott oven at Headlands Center for the Arts. My friend Eduardo Morell has generously shared his sourdough bread baking skills and methods with me [...]
Also posted in breads and pizzas | Leave a comment

All my Pretty Pickles and a Happy Announcement

It's been pickling pandemonium around the homestead these last two weeks. Why, you ask, am I making pickles with not-quite-in-season vegetables when summer is just around the corner? Yes, they look delicious, but definitely out of character. The reason is because I'm working on a new book and deadlines don't care what's in season when. [...]
Also posted in Food and Drink, healthy, pantry staples | 2 Comments

Homemade Cultured Butter

I love the tangy, complex taste of cultured butter, but I rarely buy it since it is pretty expensive. It's pretty easy to make regular butter (just overwhip some cream) but that seemed too easy. When I started researching how to make cultured butter, I realized that the technique for culturing it is the same [...]
Also posted in Science, pantry staples | 2 Comments

Homemade Red Wine Vinegar

So I got a line on a 100 year old vinegar mother from the old Cribari wine family. I got my instructions and I'm ready to go. Truth be told: I was a little apprehensive about the wooden barrel. They are expensive, require curing, and though picturesque, they're not the best thing for vinegar. The [...]
Also posted in pantry staples | 6 Comments
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    The recipes and images on this site belong to Vanessa Barrington. Feel free to link here and if you’d like to use a recipe or image, please ask permission first. Thank you.