Category Archives: healthy

Spring Potato Salad with Asparagus and Peas

River Dog Farm Potatoes, Asparagus, and Spring Onions, County Line Radishes, Swanton Shelling Peas. Chervil, Parsley, Chives, Green Garlic-Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette. I think this was the best potato salad I've ever made. Water saving tip: Steam the potatoes whole (makes them more consistent too) Use the same steaming water to steam the asparagus (2 minutes, [...]
Also posted in from the market | Leave a comment

Pinto Bean Fattoush Salad

I'm doing a piece for the magazine Eating Well. The concept is one pot of beans; many meals. It will be published in the September/October issue, but it's due soon, which explains the obviously out of season ingredients in this salad.  This one was so good I had to share. I don't know how the [...]
Posted in healthy | 1 Comment

January Events: Book Signing, Winter Soups and Stews Class, Fermentation Workshop

Hitting the New Year Running: Saturday, January 10th–book signing and food samples from Heirloom Beans at Omnivore Books3-4 PM Free! Wednesday, January 14–Winter Soups and Stews class at Sur La Table in San Francisco 6pm. $75 Saturday, January 24–Fermentation Workshop at The Cooperative Grocery in Berkeley. Time of day to be determined. Email or leave [...]
Also posted in Books, classes, community, food news, pantry staples | Leave a comment

Asian Culinary Forum

Saturday I devoted the day to something I love more than anything: studying, talking about, tasting, and discovering food traditions from different cultures. I attended two events at the Asian Culinary Forum. The forum is an educational nonprofit that aims to celebrate, investigate, and expand Asian food and culture. Founded by cookbook author Andrea Nguyen [...]
Also posted in Asian, Books, classes, community | Leave a comment

Hunger Challenge Pinto Bean Soup with Sweet Potatoes and Spinach

Sorry about the not nice photo. It might not look it, but this was the best tasting and most filling recipe I’ve made yet for the Hunger Challenge. It didn’t leave me wishing for something else to eat immediately and was super simple to make. I also believe that it has literally the most nutritional [...]
Also posted in food justice, hearty | 3 Comments

SF Food Bank Hunger Challenge: Enjoy your lentils, but no caffeine for you!

Ok, so this Hunger Challenge thing…kind of fun really. I like a challenge. I like being resourceful and cooking with what’s available. Until I realize: WHERE’S MY COFFEE?? Ok, now this is bad. I’ll admit, I’m not really strictly doing the Hunger Challenge for a whole week. More like developing some recipes (and of course [...]
Also posted in food justice, hearty | 4 Comments

How to Clean Sardines and Eat as if you live in Spain

My recent post on cleaning squid became so popular, it was picked up by CBS-5 and, for the first time, people that don’t actually know me started reading my blog. I guess there’s a call for that sort of thing, so now we’re going to learn how to clean sardines. Those of you who know [...]
Also posted in seafood | 6 Comments

Homemade Tortillas and Fish Tacos

Ever since I moved to the East Bay away from my beloved La Palma, I haven’t been able to find good tortillas. Read the labels at most grocery stores and you’ll find that tortillas contain all manner of unpleasant and unneeded (except for shelf life) ingredients. They should only contain three things: Corn, lime, and [...]
Also posted in Latin American, breads and pizzas | 1 Comment

Full Belly Farm Wheat Berry Salad

The Cooperative Grocery that I’m a member of is a drop-off point for the Full Belly Farm CSA and we also carry Full Belly whole wheat flour and wheat berries. I haven’t made a wheat berry salad in years, but I figured I would just treat it like farro. I didn’t know that it would [...]
Posted in healthy | 2 Comments

How to Clean Fresh Squid &Thai-inspired Squid Salad

With more types of seafood becoming nearly extinct or too expensive to afford every day, I’m always looking for delicious, healthy, sustainable, affordable, preferably local seafood. Two of my favorites come from the Monterey Bay and fit all the requirements above: Sardines and squid. Unfortunately, both can be daunting to clean. I picked up 3/4 [...]
Also posted in Asian, food sustainability, seafood | 2 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.