Fridge Organizing + Zucchini with Croutons

Fridge Organizing + Zucchini with Croutons

At the risk of creating the most boring Maggie's Market Guide to date, I thought I'd share my approach to fridge organization. In the last couple of months, in an effort to reduce food waste, I have taken on a new approach to sorting my food and it's working! Leftovers are getting eaten, produce is not languishing and it's been easier to look and see what's for dinner.

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Basic Bean Recipe

Basic Bean Recipe

For the longest time, I didn't bother to cook my own beans (and still often end up reaching for a can at times) despite people telling me how far superior home cooked beans are. I'm not great at planning meals ahead, and was always bound to have last minute plans come up the day after setting beans to soak on my counter. The notion that I had to remember to soak beans and then be sure I was home to cook them was more than I could deal with. And yet, everyone really was right. Home cooked beans are outrageously good.

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Seasonal Grain Salads

Seasonal Grain Salads

This is the best kind of picnic food, hearty and easy to transport. It's what I made when I took Get Up! and needed a healthy and satisfying lunch for a group. It's great for dinner at home with leftovers for lunch. It could even be a great side at Thanksgiving, especially if for whatever reason you had to, gasp, forgo the stuffing.

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Kimchee

Kimchee

Cabbages takes forever to grow, get huge, love to suck up nutrients and love extra worm castings. Bugs and slugs also love cabbage and can often take down starts before they've even had a change to grow. But a full grown cabbage is such an immense thing of beauty, with curled outer leaves and tight dense heads. With exceptional Harvest interns this spring, 2015 was going to be the year we grew a cabbage.

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Dicing Winter Squash

Dicing Winter Squash

Squash is hearty, smooth and silky and a perfect staple for mid-winter diets. I love it blended with coconut milk and cayenne for soup, wedged and roasted with lime juice, baked until soft and mashed with butter and black pepper. But my favorite way to eat it has started with a less than pleasant experience. Dicing squash is an athletic event, one that involves holding down a round objet on slick countertops and large knives wielded dangerously. There tends to be lots of cursing, sweat on my brow and results in a bad mood.

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Market Guide: Tomatoes

Market Guide: Tomatoes

This time a year in the Bay Area, markets can turn into a wide sea of different tomatoes. Some are firm and almost storybook red, others are lumpy and misshapen, and there are long skinny ones with almost mealy flesh. Each of these tomatoes has unique flavors, textures and uses but how do you know which will be the best one to use for your grandma’s famous tomato soup? Or sliced up on a large platter for a simple September meal? Below you’ll find a guide to tomato shopping and eating – how to choose, how to store, which ones are best for sauces, canning, slicing, salting and just plain munching.

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