Family & Home

This is the thirteenth post in the series Great Grains, highlighting unusual whole grains and easy ways to incorporate them into your diet.

We’ve officially arrived at my favorite time to live in Minnesota: Summer! Bicycles fill the streets, farmers markets are vibrant and packed with patrons and our farms and gardens are bursting with the season’s bounty. Food is everywhere and the temptation to buy more food than necessary is always an obstacle for me. Each year I struggle to make good use of all the wonderful food I ether bring home from the market, or grow in my home garden. But this year, I’m inspired to do better. 

When I think of rhubarb season, the same scene always comes to mind: I’m nine or ten years old walking barefoot through the dewy grass with my mom out to her rhubarb patch early on a Saturday morning. She lifts back the giant leaves and cuts the perfect stems – not too green, not too pink, not too long, not too short. Each stalk is then stacked across my outstretched arms like tiny cordwood.

This is the twelfth post in the series Great Grains, highlighting unusual whole grains and easy ways to incorporate them into your diet.

If quinoa had a résumé, I’m pretty sure that every one of us would have to hire it for whatever job it wanted. Ten seconds on Google pops up enough qualifications to make me wonder why I ever eat anything else:

This is the eighth post in a series about hunting for food -- truly meeting your meat.

I ran into a problem last summer: too many herbs were coming out of my garden, so many that I couldn't keep up with them. The easy way to deal with this overflow would've been to make large batches of pesto and tabbouleh, or other variations on crushed-herb sauces or greens-and-grains salads. I did my best, but I still had a surplus. By the end of the growing season, I had to cut back armfuls of sorrel, thai basil, lemon thyme, curry, and others. All these great flavors (for which I had so many plans last May), and I ended up pitching them into the compost bin. It was silly: what was the point of nurturing these plants out of the dirt if I was only going to transform them back into dirt in a few months?

Spring is finally here, and along with it comes a whole new hunting season. I’m not referring to the spring turkey season; I’m talking about the spring foraging season. As the woods and prairies come alive with new growth, a plethora of wild edibles come into season. From May until the first snow falls, there are literally thousands of wild plants that grow in the wild. And these plants, berries, and mushrooms are as delicious – if not more delicious – than anything you can buy in the grocery store. I love getting out into the woods and finding wild foods that I can take home, not just because of their distinctive flavors but also because foraging is a great way for me to stay connected with nature and to scout possible hunting areas for the upcoming fall hunting season. 

This is the second post in a series on making your own sourdough bread. In previous posts, Jillian explained  why make your own sourdough and also how to grow your starter.

This is the second post in a series on making your own sourdough bread. Last week, Jillian explained why make your own sourdough

As a hunter, one of my primary thoughts when I am out in the field or forest is: How am I going to use whatever I kill? One of the complaints I hear from people who hunt is that they get tired of the same old ways of preparing wild game. It seems like a lot of hunters let their wild game go to waste or give it away because they don’t understand how versatile wild game can be. I grew up in a family that took most of the venison we shot and turned it in to summer sausage or jerky -- not very creative. We ended up giving a lot of it away because after eating the first 30 pieces of jerky or summer sausage sandwiches every day for a week, you lose interest and don’t want to eat either anymore.