Category Archives: The Recipes

Farm life, The Recipes

Fall Blossoms, Fresh Grass, & New Lettuce

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For a brief moment earlier this week, I felt a huge sense of September-style relief. I had just met a big deadline. Whew. Then suddenly the nights got deliciously chilly, the mornings even chillier, and the cool, crisp dawn air seemed to wrap around me like clean bed sheets, letting me know the peace and quiet (and rest) of autumn and winter were on their way. This was a calm feeling I needed to imbibe, because in a flash, my dance card began to fill up again, and I found myself anxious and wondering why my so-called simple life can get complicated so quickly.

The truth is that while I should feel grateful for the success I’ve had as an author, many days I am resentful of the corollaries that fall out from that. Not only is my time not my own right now, but I have to force myself not to work in the garden—my Zen place—because it is too time-consuming, and too low-down on the priority list. Of course I still do my farm chores and harvest for the farm stand every morning, and it’s then that I try not to think too much about looming commitments—book signings, photo shoots, media events—and stay in the moment as much as possible. I wish I could keep that feeling all day, but I just don’t seem to get it from other activities. I’ve written about this before, but I often feel a distinctly spiritual aura when I’m outside on a beautiful, breezy day, maybe walking Farmer down the long path through the fields behind us, goldenrod blazing in bloom against a cartoon-blue sky, bees buzzing, geese honking, milkweed crackling. Or simply just crouching in the bean bed  in the garden, picking and tossing, feeling my hamstrings stretch, chuckling at an overgrown bean the size of a small corn cob.

Right now I am capturing (and holding) little bits of joy in a couple ways. First, there’s lettuce. Roy knows how much keeping the garden going means to me, and in only a few evenings of work, he dug and hauled away the dead tomato plants, re-dug the beds, and planted six new rows of lettuce for me to make salad mix for the farm stand. He’s also been clearing a lot of brush and junk with the tractor, building a new storage shed for my garden stuff, and getting ready to build our hoop house. And just today he re-fenced a new area for the chickens so he could move them on to fresh grass; they look so lovely and happy milling around in all that green. When we stop to look around, it is nothing short of exhilarating to see the farm we are building with this little opportunity we’ve been given.

Secondly, there are the flowers. I am tickled to death by all the blossoms in the garden who are turning up their noses at the threat of cold weather. (They’re smart, really—they know frost is still a long way off.) The eggplants are still blooming, the cosmos are rioting, the beans we planted in August are flowering like crazy, some of the cherry tomatoes are still blossoming, and Libby’s Ring of Fire sunflowers just started opening. There are zinnias aplenty, and marigolds and nasturtiums, and garlic chive blossoms and borage. Russian sage. Coneflowers. Cucumber blossoms. And my birthday rose—the one that nearly died from a delayed transplanting, is not only once again covered with leaves, but it just offered up a new bud this morning. Maybe it will bloom when my next deadline is past. I can’t wait.

The Recipes

Labor Day Already? Five Things To Do With All Those Tomatoes

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How does it happen that it’s Labor Day weekend already? I don’t know where the hour, the day, the week, the month, the summer went. I just know I’m exhausted.

This week I spent two days recording 50 new 1-minute “recipe-lets” for WGBH Boston and Fine Cooking magazine. (You can listen—and giggle if you want—to one I recorded last spring here.) This time I recorded them at the lovely WCAI Cape and Islands NPR radio station in Woods Hole. That meant just a short hop on the ferry for me, without the drive to Boston added on. Nevertheless, those two days came and went in a blur, and then I jumped on some overdue recipe developing—and forgot completely about my blog this week!

Now here it is Friday and, already, the afternoon. Um, correction, evening. I tried to start writing this about six hours ago, but got a call to return to the clinic (waiting lines are long for doctors around here, especially in August, so you get on a list, they take your number, and call you back.) I have a nagging cough mixed with horrendous seasonal allergy. (As luck would  have it, I am allergic to my favorite place in the world—the outdoors—especially this time of year. And breathing is becoming an issue!)

It would have been smarter to get up early and make a beeline for the clinic, but of course I’m busy every morning harvesting and getting the farm stand set up. Probably I could do a much faster job of setting up if I didn’t stop to fuss over the veggies like I do—or run inside to get the camera to take pictures, like I did today. The farm stand looked so pretty this morning that I had to snap a few pics before putting the sign out. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before a stream of cars came down the driveway (traffic is certainly up for the holiday weekend), and the flowers were gone and most of the green beans. I wish I had a magic hat from which to pull more green beans.

But there are still plenty of tomatoes, and I thought I’d better explain that our tomatoes were not a total disaster this year. My friend Eliza read last week’s blog and called me up, worried that the tomato problems were catastrophic. Really, with all the things that have befallen the plants, it’s amazing that we’re still harvesting a lot of fruit. I’m not sure what we’d have done with them all if we’d gotten a bigger yield. As it is I have two sheet trays of tomatoes on the kitchen table that aren’t sellable, but aren’t quite chicken food yet. I’ve been meaning to make and freeze marinara, but I need a clone or a kitchen assistant in order to get that done. (I’m kinda thinking, well, Libby’s ten now, maybe handling a sharp knife would be okay. Nah, I think not. Besides, she’s on egg patrol. Actually, she’s waiting for me to finish this so we can all go get lobster rolls for dinner up in Menemsha!)

I am thinking maybe there are more than a few of you out there with a glut (or just a bounty) of tomatoes on your hands this Labor Day, so I thought I’d pass along five of my favorite things to do with them. In short, they are Bruschetta, Bread Salad, Pasta, Veggie Gratin and Roasting. (And more roasting, of course.) I’d offer up more ideas (many favorites over at finecooking.com), but the sun is setting, August is almost over, and one last lobster roll is calling.

The Recipes

Humble Pie and Hot Dogs on the Farm

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Lest you think I am eternally positive and upbeat about all things farm-ish, I offer this report.

This morning we woke to find two flats of beefsteak tomatoes sampled by mice. Mrs. Mouse or her kin took a nibble out of nearly every tomato, then settled in for a feast on the few that were the fattest, the ripest, and the juiciest. She has good taste, I will give her that. But her days are numbered. Tossing those tomatoes to the chickens almost felt like crumpling up dollar bills and setting them on fire, except that at least the tomatoes will enrich the hens’ eggs.

If only Kitty hadn’t died, we might have better control over the varmints around here. Kitty (aka Sparkle, according to Roy, who attempted to befriend the stray with hot dogs and saucers of milk) showed up a few weeks back and poked her little orange baby face (so cute) out from under the wood pile or from under the front porch a couple times a day. She also visited our neighbors up and down the street but hadn’t settled in anywhere. We laid a blanket down in the barn (next to the hot dogs) and could tell she had slept there a night or two. But we hadn’t yet gotten her to come close to us.

This week she got hit by a car out on State Road and her short little kitty life was over. This is the way it goes sometimes on the farm.

We spent maybe ten minutes patting ourselves on the back for all the ribbons we won at the Fair—and then turned around and started pulling our hair out over all the weird plagues that have befallen our tomato plants. The leaves are black, the pests are thriving, the giant beefsteaks break off and fall down before ripening, the red cherry tomatoes have green shoulders, and on and on. We’ve always done a good job with our tomatoes, and our plants did set a lot of fruit this year, but they look hideous now and we have to learn from our mistakes. (Though there’s absolutely nothing we can do about weird weather patterns. One expert gardener friend said that the very dry soil from the drought followed by the rain and humidity caused some of the tomato problems. Also, our tomato plants are in a low spot in the garden this year, and the morning fog and dew hangs around extra long down there.)

It goes on like this all the time—up and down. Just when I think our farm stand traffic has come to a standstill, four cars come down the driveway at once. Just when I’m kicking myself that I don’t have more fall crops planted, we look around and see that one ridiculously huge butternut squash plant (a volunteer) and four others I planted have literally dozens and dozens of fat, ripening fruits on them.  Since they are planted amongst the beans, we think they are feeding off the nitrogen that beans fix in the soil. And they are on irrigation this year, too, so they’ve had plenty of water.  I also planted late cucumbers which are rioting with flowers and tiny fruits, and my cranberry beans germinated 100 percent and practically came up overnight.  The two rows of green beans that lost all their blossoms to a mysterious pest have all recovered and are yielding like crazy. The squash-vine borers have pretty much brought the zucchini down to its knees, but I somehow managed to get rid of the Colorado potato bugs that were destroying the eggplants and we’re harvesting plenty of those fruits.

Roy and a skunk had a disagreement over some garbage last night in the dark. (Roy had a stick, so he won, but not before the skunk left his parting statement.) During the day, Farmer and I have been rounding up fugitive chickens who manage to find ways to escape their new enclosure. “Not again!” I always think when I see them wandering around the yard. But on a good note, I’ve learned that Farmer seems to like cornering them, but not eating them. (They crouch, he sniffs, and I scoop them up.) Farmer of course is on a leash or a lede—I think we are a long ways away from designating him as chief chicken babysitter.

Seems like there’s a silver lining to just about every minor tragedy on the farm. Take all those damaged veggies coming out of the garden right now—the blemished ones that we can’t sell on the farm stand but that aren’t necessarily chicken food yet either. A lot of those are making their way into the kitchen (see salad above) or onto the grill. So we’re eating pretty well. Mostly. Except for the nights when we’re too busy harvesting or weeding to do much more than throw hot dogs on the grill. But please, don’t tell anyone the author of vegetable cookbooks eats hot dogs. Okay?

The Recipes

A New Chicken Villa — and Opening Day at the Fair

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Keeping focused is going to be nearly impossible for me today. I can smell sausages and burgers and funnel cakes and roast pig and French fries and egg rolls. I can hear loud speakers, crowd murmurs, thumping music, giddy children shouting, and rides cranking up. It’s the first day of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society Fair, and as I told you last year, we live RIGHT across the street from the fair grounds. This could be a problem if you weren’t in the right kind of spirit (our neighbors have left town!), but we are totally into it. In fact, we are Fair nerds.

We were up at the crack of dawn arranging all the veggies we are submitting to be judged in the “Hall” where hundreds of pies, preserves, photos, crafts, and of course, home grown veggies, will be displayed. (The theme of the Fair this year, is “Display with Pride.” I took that literally and entered the herb competition for the first time, which required an arrangement that I think I could be really proud of—if I were in sixth grade. But I’m not embarrassed. I totally had fun putting it together—at 11 o’clock last night since time evaporates in a whiff around here.) It’s all I can do not to get up from my desk to run over and see the ox pull and the pet show. But maybe we’ll get over to the Fair tonight in time to see the swimming pig races. Or the corn-husking competition.

But you can see I’m already distracted, off topic, and generally heading towards not getting any work done today (which really is not an option). I intended to write about Roy’s new chicken villa, so I must at least give you the quick scoop.

The “babies,” as we still call them at 4 months old, started laying eggs last week—a little earlier than we expected. So far we’re only getting a few a day (little brick-red eggs), but once all 49 start laying daily, we will be inundated. In anticipation, Roy has expanded their living quarters three-fold. (They need all the grassy pasture we can get them on to make those eggs yummy!)

First, he replaced the temporary outdoor pen next to the coop with a permanent structure (of full standing height). Much relief here as the temporary pen wasn’t tall enough for us to stand in. Now there’s even a door to the outdoor pen, where we can come and go to fill the groovy new water trough Roy built. He took two pieces of gutter and fit them into a hen-height structure that has a little roof over it so they can’t mess up their water as they love to do. (They roost on top of anything.) This beauty holds a lot of water, too, so we’re not constantly running down there to refill. Plus, all we have to do is plop the hose in it to fill it up. The standing chicken waterer had a whole cap-and-pressure system that made it impossible to refill without two hands and/or moving the whole thing. And it didn’t hold enough water for 49 chickens for a day! (Fun chicken fact of the day, as seen in photos at left: chickens can’t swallow unless they tilt their heads up!)

Next Roy moved the temporary pen to a nice shady area (connected to the permanent pen) so the girls can go hang out over there in the hottest parts of the day and dig dust baths. Lastly, he made another temporary pen on fresh grass (also connected) for excellent snacking. The temporary pens are movable so that we can put the hens on to fresh grass from time to time. (Daytime pens still have to be covered with netting to protect the birds from hawks, but they don’t require buried fencing, as predators like skunks and raccoons only do their stalking at night. Theoretically, all the hens should be inside the coop by nightfall, but one of our girls likes to stay out and enjoy the moonlight. So Roy always has to persuade her to go inside so that he can drop the door (lowered on a new slider he made) to lock them in.

The chicken villa still needs some finish work and a few more improvements, but you can already tell how happy the girls are to have all that room to run around in. They are fascinating to watch (Farmer can’t believe his eyes) and the “big girls” (our original flock of laying hens) look down the hill from their pen with obvious envy.

I’m excited, too, about all those eggs on the way. Just think, next year we’ll be able to enter eggs in the Fair, too. I can’t wait!

The Recipes

The Wait is Over—and Here’s a Recipe for Spaghetti with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Spicy Garlic Oil

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We wait and we wait and we wait and we wait for the tomatoes to ripen. Not just because, like everyone else, we want to eat them. But because we run a farm stand and every visitor to Martha’s Vineyard in August wants tomatoes, right off the vine (and right now!). Finally our Sungolds and Sweet 100s and Black Cherries are ripening by the hundreds so we can sell some and eat some too. (Of course I am eating a lot of droppers and splitters in the morning when we’re harvesting. Soon we’ll have to start feeding the splitters to the “baby” chickens who actually are now almost four months old and just started laying eggs!)

The farm stand customers are even more eager to get a hold of bigger tomatoes. Fortunately, we have lots of Early Girls ripening now, too, but alas they are not nearly as tasty as the beefsteaks and heirlooms that are still green. (The first Cherokee Purples are coloring up.) Still, I’m harvesting as many Early Girls as I can, often two or three times a day since the late morning and early afternoon sun does wonders. But when we run out, there are some disappointed looks on customers’ faces. Hopefully they are turning left out of the driveway and heading up to Mermaid Farm to get some of Caitlin Jones amazing tomatoes or on to Beetlebung Farm at the end of the road for more options.

In the meantime, since I will roast anything I can get my hands on, I am already making this delicious and easy recipe from The Fresh and Green Table that features roasted cherry tomatoes. Thought I’d pass it on to you in case you are similarly obsessed.

Spaghetti with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes & Spicy Garlic Oil for Two

Roasting cherry tomatoes intensifies their flavor (try using them in egg dishes or on crostini, too.) The other big flavor secret here is the infused oil. My Boston chef friend Tony Rosenfeld, who learned to cook great pasta dishes in Rome, taught me the flavor-boosting secret of infused oils. In this pasta (similar to the classic Spaghetti Aglio Olio), I simmer extra-virgin olive oil with garlic and crushed red pepper and use that as the “sauce” for the spaghetti. When I fold the cherry tomatoes in (which hold up surprisingly well after roasting), they add just enough of their residual juices to give the spaghetti a lovely color and extra flavor. Lots of fresh basil and a little Parmigiano, and dinner is served. Keep in mind this is a small-portion recipe—treat it as a starter or side if you’re feeding more than two. You can certainly double it, too, if you’ve got a couple pounds of cherry tomatoes. Bigger cherry tomatoes actually work a bit better in this recipe so pop the smaller ones in your mouth.

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5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, more for paper

1 pound ripe red cherry tomatoes (on the larger size), cut in half

kosher salt

6 ounces spaghetti

1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic

scant 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons (or more to taste) thinly sliced fresh basil or mint leaves, or a combination

1/4 cup coarsely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

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Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a large heavy-duty rimmed sheet pan with a piece of parchment paper. Rub the parchment paper with some olive oil. Toss the cherry tomato halves very gently with 2 tablespoons of the oil and 1/4 teaspoon salt and spread in one layer, cut side-up, on the sheet pan. (Transfer only the tomatoes to the sheet pan—leave behind any juices in the bowl as they will tend to burn on the sheet pan.) Roast the tomatoes until they are browned around the edges and on the bottom and slightly puckered (they will collapse more out of the oven), about 25 minutes for smaller cherry tomatoes, 32 to 35 minutes for larger ones. (There will be some blackening on the sheet pan.) Let the tomatoes cool for a couple minutes on the sheet pan. To remove, gently peel them away from the paper. If they are sticking, lift the paper up and pop the tomatoes off by pressing the paper from behind.

In a small nonstick skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and the red pepper flakes and cook, stirring, until the garlic begins to simmer in the oil. Cook for just about 30 seconds more to infuse the oil. (Do not let the garlic brown.) Take the skillet off the heat and set aside (do not transfer the contents to a bowl).

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the spaghetti and cook it until al dente, according to the package instructions. Take the pasta pot off the heat, and before draining the pasta, pour a few tablespoons of the pasta water into a small cup or bowl. (Set a small cup or bowl in the sink next to the colander as a reminder.) Drain the pasta in a colander and return it to the pasta pot.

Gently reheat the infused oil if necessary.

Season the pasta with 1/4 teaspoon salt and drizzle and scrape all of the spicy garlic oil over it. Toss well. Add the roasted cherry tomatoes, the Parmigiano, and 1 to 2 tablespoons of the pasta water. Stir gently but thoroughly until the pasta turns a light pink color. (You don’t want to break up the tomatoes, just release a tiny bit of their juice.) Stir in most of the basil. Using tongs, portion the spaghetti and the roasted tomatoes into two shallow serving bowls. Garnish with the remaining basil and serve right away.

Serves 2

Farm life, Sustain, The Garden, The Recipes

A Picnic Table Changes Everything

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A few days before my birthday, a picnic table arrived in our yard, carted down the driveway in Roy’s truck. Roy held out for as long as he could, swearing he was not going to pay money for a picnic table when he could build one for much less, or better yet, build us a really lovely outdoor dining table. I know he was disappointed not to have the time to do it this summer, but at least he didn’t leave us without something to sit around for the birthday gathering.

We positioned the table under the shade of the giant maple, which just happens to be about halfway between the back door and the garden gate—the path we travel most often. We intended to move the table after the party, since it’s in the way of the rope swing. But it seems to be settling in, letting us know it’s happy where it is—and happy to do for us whatever we need. Oddly enough, it’s as if the table was always meant to be here, as if the backyard beckoned it to come complete our outdoor living room. (The grill is right nearby, too.)

And now we use the darn picnic table for everything. In the morning, I line up the harvest baskets on the benches and set out the scale and the scissors and the little green pint boxes and the jars of water for the basil and flowers on the table. After we’ve gathered zucchini and cucumbers and cherry tomatoes and what not, we sort it all out on the table and price it for the farm stand. Later in the day, I’ll perch at the end of one of the benches across from Roy, listening to him talk about his day at work while he sips his root beer.

Yesterday I procrastinated (I have two big deadlines looming!) by picking all different kinds of flowers from the garden (including one of the fragrant America rose blossoms from the rose bush Roy got me for my birthday) and arranging them in a row of jars and vases down the center of the picnic table. So beautiful! I got such a kick out of this activity (I’ve always enjoyed setting tables and arranging little flower bouquets), especially since we don’t have a big dining table inside, either. One of the quirks of our little old rustic farm house is no dining room—hence we eat on a tiny dropleaf table in the kitchen.

Of course, the best part about the picnic table is eating on it. There is something so relaxing about swinging your legs over the edge of a picnic bench (rather than pulling up a formal dining chair) that gets dinner off on the right foot. (Libby always requests dinner outside now). And since this is a big, long picnic table, there’s also room to serve dishes family-style. In fact, we put a cutting board down at one end, and anything from the grill comes straight there to be sliced up. Platters of veggies and salads mingle with the jars of flowers and glasses of lemonade, and we can all serve ourselves what we like.

Farmer prefers dinner outside, too. His outdoor lede stretches just far enough so that he can sit right under the picnic table, happily waiting for something to drop. (He doesn’t  have to wait long because he has Roy trained to slip him something every now and then.)

And if it seems like a treat to eat supper outside, it’s even more fun to eat breakfast on the picnic table. That’s my best friend Eliza and her husband Chip on the Sunday morning after my birthday in the photo here. With eggs from our hens, berries from our back yard, and a warm breeze through the trees, I’ll take this any day over a fancy champagne brunch!

The Recipes

Mom’s Favorite Fourth of July Veggie Recipe – A Gratin with Tomatoes and Zucchini, Of Course!

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It’s always a good sign when your mom tells you she’s dog-eared the pages of your new cookbook. When I sent my mom, Pauletta, an early copy of The Fresh & Green Table, she sat down and went through every page, marking all kinds of recipes she wanted to try. Yay! I thought. I must have a hit on my hands if Mom likes it. First she made the Tuscan Kale and White Bean soup for my Dad, and then… well, I had to laugh at her next choice. It’s a variation on something I’ve made and she’s made many times over since I started creating veggie dishes after culinary school so many years ago. In fact, it’s a dish that is unsurpassed in popularity among my friends. Even my cookbook editor, Bill LeBlond at Chronicle Books, who has edited hundreds of cookbooks over the years, makes my recipe from Fast, Fresh & Green frequently for parties.

What is it? It’s basically a layered vegetable gratin, but in France it is called a tian for the type of shallow baking dish it is baked in. A tian often features zucchini and tomatoes in the summer, but I also make them with eggplant and tomatoes, with potatoes and tomatoes, and with lots of different herbs and a variety of cheeses and crumb toppings. I take special care with a bottom layer of sautéed onions, leeks, bell peppers, garlic, fennel or other aromatic vegetables so that when the tomato juices seep down to the bottom of the pan during cooking, they combine with those aromatic veggies and herbs to make delicious flavor. My other tip for the best tasting tian is not to undercook it! During the first half of cooking, the tomatoes shed a lot of liquid, but then the liquid begins to reduce and becomes incredibly flavorful, so the dish needs time in the oven for this to happen.

The variation I included in the new book is especially tasty (Mom and Dad loved it), so I’m offering it to you today in case you’re in the throes of planning your fourth of July menu. Also, I am feeling kind of sentimental, wishing I could be with my family this holiday. Many years we gather in Delaware this time of year to celebrate all our family birthdays together, but this year, of course, Roy and I are too busy to go anywhere! I’m happy that my sister Eleanor will be with Mom and Dad on this holiday and I bet you I know one thing they’ll be cooking!

P.S. The beautiful photo (top)—one of my favorite, in fact, of the many lovelies Annabelle Breakey took for The Fresh and Green Table—actually shows the tian being assembled a little differently than my directions call for. (There’s a funny story there, but another time.) It really doesn’t matter, but in case you’re trying to compare the directions to the photo, know that I arrange the veggies in rows going across the pan, not up and down the pan. Either way you do it, it will be delicious.

Mediterranean Zucchini, Tomato, and Bell Pepper Tian with Pine Nut Crumb Topping

I love to cook this in my enameled cast-iron Le Creuset oval gratin dish, because I think the cast iron conducts heat so beautifully that the juices get extra caramelized. But other 2-quart shallow baking dishes, like a 9 x 7 Pyrex, will work fine, too. Take this dish to a potluck or picnic. It will be a hit, I promise. But if by chance you wind up with any leftovers, you’ll love those too, as it tastes great the next day.

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5 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil, more for the pan

3 tablespoons chopped toasted pine nuts

3/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs

3/4 cup coarsely chopped grated Parmigiano-Regianno

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons honey

3/4 pound zucchini (about 1 1/2 small zucchinis), sliced thinly on the diagonal (about 1/8- to 3/16- inch thick)

1 1/4  pounds small to medium red and orange ripe tomatoes (about 4 or 5), cored, sliced about 3/16-inch thick (cut medium tomatoes in half first, then slice)

kosher salt

2 small onions (about 8 ounces total), thinly sliced (about 1 3/4 cups)

1 small or 1/2 large red or yellow bell pepper (about 4 ounces), cored and very thinly sliced

2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic

3 tablespoons finely chopped oil-packed sundried tomatoes (drained)

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Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Rub a shallow 2-quart baking dish with a little olive oil. In a small bowl, combine the pine nuts, the bread crumbs, 2 tablespoons of the Parmigiano, 1/2 teaspoon of the thyme, and 2 teaspoons of the olive oil. Mix well.

Whisk together the balsamic vinegar, the honey, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Put the zucchini slices in one bowl and the tomato slices in another. Add a pinch of salt and 1 teaspoon thyme to each bowl, and drizzle half of the balsamic mixture over each. Toss gently. Let sit while you prepare the rest of the recipe.

In a medium (10-inch) heavy nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions, the peppers, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and peppers are limp and the onions are golden brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Stir in the minced garlic and cook until softened and fragrant, about 30 seconds. Transfer the onions and peppers to the baking dish and spread them evenly in one layer across the bottom. Let cool slightly. Sprinkle the sundried tomatoes and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of the thyme over the veggies.

Starting at one narrow end of the baking dish, arrange a row of tomato slices across the dish, propping the slices up against the end of the dish at an angle as you go.  Sprinkle a little Parmigiano over the row of tomatoes, and then arrange a row of zucchini slices, slightly overlapping each other and slightly overlapping the row of tomatoes. Again sprinkle Parmigiano on that row, and continue to arrange rows of tomatoes and zucchini, each sprinkled with Parmigiano, until you get to the end of the dish. You should have just about the right amount of zucchini, but don’t worry if you have extra slices. You will definitely have extra tomato slices (and ones that you’ve chosen not to use because they’ve fallen apart!) But as you are going along, if it looks like you will have a lot of extra, gently push the rows back up towards the end of the dish you started at to make room for a few more rows.

Scrape any remaining seasoning and juices from the bowl the zucchini was in over the veggies. (Leave the extra tomato juices behind or use them in a gazpacho!) Sprinkle any remaining Parmigiano over the veggies. Drizzle the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the veggies, and top with the bread crumb-pine nut mixture.

Bake until well browned all over and the juices have bubbled for a while and reduced considerably, about 65 minutes. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Serves 4

The Recipes

Why Did The Chicken Fly the Coop? To Get to the Peas & Carrots, Of Course

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I’ve been running inside a lot this week to grab my camera. It’s been one photo moment after another on the farm. On Sunday, we let the babies out of their coop into a temporary outdoor pen—their first foray onto grassy turf. This was hysterical to watch. It took quite a few minutes for the first chicken to advance out onto the plank. Three or four followed, and then the first one changed her mind and turned around and headed back inside. It went on like this for a while—a few would venture out and then turn around. You could just imagine the conversations going on.  (Personally, I had the Cockney voices of the talking vultures in Disney’s animated version of The Jungle Book in my head.) “You go. No you go. No way—YOU go. Nuh-huh, I’m staying here.”

Libby waited patiently in the pen for them to come out, approach her, and eventually start hopping on her lap. She is very calm around animals and they trust her. I couldn’t get enough pictures of the interaction between them all.

In the garden we are harvesting the most amazing peas and carrots, so I’m taking lots of pictures of these, too—while they last. I am so happy that I’ve finally figured out how to grow both of these veggies well. I just hope I can repeat the same success next year. (Or even this year with another round of carrots—which should have gone in the ground weeks ago!).

This morning I had fresh peas and carrots and strawberries for breakfast while I washed all the veggies. I smiled, thinking about peas and carrots, because they mean something special to Roy and me, and today is our anniversary. (The anniversary of our first date, that is, three years ago.) For some reason, when we were first dating, the movie Forrest Gump kept coming on TV. If you remember, Forrest says early on in the movie, “From that day on we was always together. Jenny and me was like peas and carrots.” Roy picked this up (in Forrest’s voice, of course) and started saying it to me a lot. Who knew what we’d be doing three years later! Peas + Carrots + 60 babies (baby chickens) + one amazing little girl=love.

(And not to forget Farmer, who enjoyed Libby’s cart ride with one of the chickens.)

The Recipes

One Thing At a Time

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Yesterday, Farmer escaped his harness, Houdini-like, and galloped down State Road against oncoming traffic with me running behind him shouting and waving. (He’s okay.)

I drove to Connecticut and back for a meeting on Tuesday.

I planted 50 tomato plants last night.

Roy hurt his back lifting a staircase (don’t ask). His clients want to move into their remodeled house in two weeks.

Our friends Scott and Angie came and helped us with the garden and the farm stand last Sunday because they could see what we couldn’t: We needed help.

Today a farm stand customer, a lovely lady who I barely know, came down the driveway with a loaf of challah bread she had baked for the Jewish Sabbath (which begins Friday evening) and wanted to share with me. A very special kind of challah called Chernowitzer, named for a once beautiful Austrian (now Ukrainian) city devastated in World War II, its many inhabitants sent to Auschwitz. Farmer and I ate two slices of this amazing bread for breakfast.

My new book was officially released this week (early). My publisher, Chronicle Books, pushed the date up after the positive review from NPR and went ahead and ordered a second printing.

I went down to Bunch of Grapes bookstore to sign 50 copies.

The Splendid Table excerpted this recipe (Greek Spinach-Salad Pasta with Feta, Olives, Artichokes, Tomatoes and Pepperoncini) from the book, and suddenly blog posts popped up all around from folks making the salad. Amazon put The Fresh and Green Table on its June list of editors’ favorite cookbooks.

I am developing recipes and taking pictures for a new project.

Every morning, I harvest chard, arugula, lettuce, baby bok choy and greens for the farm stand. I pulled the first carrots this morning. The peas—hundreds of them—are just days away.

The peppers and eggplants are not in the ground yet. Many beds to weed and mulch. Irrigation is a bad word. New chicken pens for both ladies and girls still to be built.

I ran into my friend Mary in the post office yesterday. She is a landscaper and garden designer…on Martha’s Vineyard…in June. Yikes. “Everything’s compressed. It’s like there’s no time, it’s all just a little too much. But at the end of the day here we are. So lucky.”

Yes, lucky. And when it all seems like a lot, I take it a little at a time. And I have Farmer to remind me to take it easy and pay attention.

I cinched up his collar extra tight and let him sniff all the daisies he wanted on our walk through the field this morning. (He slept on the bed last night, too. ) A warm soft breeze and bright sunshine made us both stop for a minute and look around. A turkey hen crossed our path with her single baby toddling behind her.

We walked home past the garden gate that Scotty built, stopped to pee on Roy’s potatoes (sorry!), checked on the blushing blueberries, and smiled at the shovel left speared on a mound of dirt. Shovels remind me of my Dad. Always. I know what he’ll be doing on Sunday, and it won’t be sitting down, waiting for the world to come to him. Thanks Dad. It’s all good, even when it’s all a bit much.

The Recipes

Moving Day—The Baby Chicks Get a Big-Girl Coop

Once he got started, it only took Roy two Sunday afternoons to get the new chicken coop built. Just in time, too, as the girls (all 49 of them!) are getting big. Plus, as I wrote about last week, there is so much to do around here that lingering for too long on any one thing just isn’t an option. So after choosing the perfect site for the new coop, Roy built the foundation and nailed the floor Sunday before last, then set to work on the walls and roof this weekend, using salvaged doors, windows, and boards.

I got a kick out of watching the whole thing come together (see photos below) into what looks like a pretty iconic chicken coop to me. (It has a built-in storage area for food and tools, too, which will be particularly handy.) The girls have an excellent spot, under some shade trees and with a killer view of the fields behind us. They’re still a little young to be out grazing, but next up is a big covered pen for them. In the mean time, they seem very happy with their new spacious indoor digs.

We used a plastic harvest basket to carry them, six or eight at a time, from the brooder in the barn to their new home.  All went smoothly, if a bit squawk-ily.

Even Bambi, who we successfully returned to the flock a couple weeks ago, seems happy, hopping up to greet us at the door from time to time when we go down to visit or refill the food and water. Farmer is anxious to see her, too, as he and she got to be pals. Fortunately, we can still identify her by her right foot, which is missing the middle toenail. Sorry for the graphic details, but this is how these things go! When we brought her inside on day two, she had an injured middle toe, which turned black and looked like it might be something fatal (with chickens, it’s all about the feet), but it miraculously healed itself, as you can see in the photo of Bambi on Libby’s shoulder taken a few weeks ago. (Or could see, if the photo were bigger!)

Below is a photo run-down of the coop-raising. Now, we have only three months to wait (and a lot of chicken food to feed) before our 49 new ladies are laying eggs. I can’t wait to see how that is going to work—me collecting four dozen eggs every day is not going to help the attention deficit disorder I already have around this place!