Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

We’re in the heart of it now… the beautiful season we call autumn. There are so many things to love about the fall in New England: the spectacular foliage, the crisp sunshiny weather and the seasonal foods. Let’s celebrate the fresh, whole food and autumn-inspired recipes that the season brings us. You just might find a new favorite.

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We had a really fun harvest this week, ranging from lots of leeks to two giant heads of radicchio and a pint of Brussels sprouts. Inspiration struck and I devised a pasta dish that would use all of those, plus some leftover fresh oregano and herbed feta I had in the fridge.

Using the weekly harvest from our CSA farm in creative ways is really at the heart of my Fresh Foodie-ness, so I really got a kick out of creating this dish. I’m not sure what I’ll do in a couple of weeks when our CSA farm closes up shop for the season. Supermarket veggies just don’t have the same appeal, although I’m certainly glad we have a lot available to us.
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Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

Words cannot describe the perfect day of apple picking we experienced last weekend. Picture this: a gloriously sunny autumn day in New England, some of our favorite fellow foodie friends and a potluck picnic at the only organic apple orchard in Massachusetts. We really couldn’t have asked for much more, except… pretty apples.

Note the above picture, for those are our crop of green crisp apples (with a few Liberty and MacIntosh thrown in). Don’t get me wrong, they are completely delicious in every way and not in the least bit inferior to conventionally grown apples that are sprayed with, you know, lots of poison. But try telling that to the four-year-old.

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Perhaps it’s because I’m a busy mom and winter, with its lack of grill meals, is quickly creeping up, but I’m becoming intrigued with the idea of freezer meals.I love making pesto and freezing it all summer long so I can enjoy it even when the snow is piled high, but that’s all about enjoyment. It really only saves me about 5 minutes and washing the food processor; I still have to cook the rest of the meal.

Since I’ve got to live up to my Fresh Foodie reputation, I certainly can’t buy convenience or frozen meals, but I’m craving a simpler evening these days. So why not try cooking whole meals when I’ve got all of this fresh, whole food at my disposal, and save them until winter? It will be such a treat to have a meal everyone loves ready to go and to have a night off of cooking.

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Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

Sometimes you’ve got to make a basic dish, one that celebrates all there is to love about freshly harvested food. Can I just brag about our cucumbers for a moment? Or should I say cucumber, because it’s the only one we’ve gotten off of our pathetic plant this year, but I do believe it was the best cucumber I’ve ever tasted in my life — no, not just because we grew it. It was superiorly crunchy (even compared with two local farms’ cucumbers) and juicy and had a distinctive “snap” when you bit into it. Perfect.

Something special had to come of the magical cucumber. We tend to just eat what we pick as close to immediately as humanly possible, though cucumbers thwart us with their thick, tough skin. Which was a good thing, in this case, because it was still around to make a simple side dish that was so fresh and yummy and actually highlighted the perfect texture of my prized cucumber.

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Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

You’ve heard it here first. Yes, that’s right: I officially will stop complaining about the piddly amounts of produce our CSA farm has been giving us this season. Today’s harvest wasn’t just plentiful, it was full of variety and fun, just like our trip to the farm.

C’mon, we got to yank out edamame plants by the roots — radicchio, too! Maybe I’m a freak, but there’s something so satisfying and well, downright therapeutic about yanking out a live plant and making off with it. It feels a little dirty… I’m a bad, bad girl….

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Join Debbie as she raves about whole foods, rants about chemicals and generally celebrates cooking and eating with fresh, local, nutritious foods. And sometimes she might get a little feisty….

Really, what could be fresher than a potato salad made up almost entirely of ingredients from this week’s CSA farm harvest? Yes, it’s true: with the heat wave has come the vegetable wave, and we are finally getting a decent amount of veggies each week; a good variety too.

So while we’re still waiting for the tomatoes (I don’t suppose 10 cherries count?), there are still lots of other goodies in this salad: Yukon gold potatoes, corn, radicchio, zucchini, fresh basil and chives, all from our CSA farm. I tried to counterbalance the bitterness of the radicchio (only a selling point in my opinion) with the sweetness of some of the other ingredients as well as the balsamic vinegar dressing, and it turned out just the way I wanted it. If you’re not a fan of the bitter greens, you can use any greens you like, or blend some of the radicchio with something less strong to get the flavor you love.

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