Local hazelnuts, known to some as filberts, are a wonderful counterpoint to a lot of fruit and vegetable flavors. They also can add a crunchy texture to soft foods, and ground hazelnuts make a nice finishing touch as a topping for meat sauces, desserts, and casseroles.
This recipe uses hazelnuts to add some complexity to both taste and texture in a simple side dish. It’s a good example of how you can use just a few simple locally grown ingredients to create a memorable finished dish. Continue Reading
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This recipe is extremely flexible and makes a small quantity, so you can try it many times with various ingredients. Feel free to adjust to your own particular taste. 
Caramelized onions add a sweetness to savory dishes that is hard to beat. If you want to make people hungry, start sauteing some onions. Works every time!
My daughter Joan created this delectable recipe, inspired by ingredients harvested from our home garden. Our garden is small, but we grow an amazing amount of food in it.
By August, local food sources are overflowing with bounty. Early berries are pretty much gone, but nearly every kind of vegetable is being harvested, and the promise of fall apples and pears are on the horizon.
Blackberries inspire ambivalence in most of us who live around them. Their aggressive, spiky, spreading growth requires fortitude and determination to prevent their unwanted invasions into parts of the yard intended for human use. 
Today’s recipe is a good example of how little you need to do to produce extraordinary flavors when cooking with fresh, local ingredients picked ripe. There is so much natural flavor in Dragon’s Tongue beans that a little butter, basil, salt and pepper are more than enough to round out the dish. Dragon’s Tongue beans are a variety of green beans which are yellow like wax beans, but with vivid purple stripes. They are tender and sweet, with no tough strings. Just wash and steam! How easy can it get? 
Finding locally grown organic food can be a fascinating treasure hunt, but it also can be time consuming, especially at first. Here are some food finding tips to help jumpstart your locavore lifestyle:
As we begin to approach the peak harvest season in Whatcom County, I enjoy going to the Farmers Market to look for different or unusual varieties of vegetables I haven’t tried before. Instead of sticking to a shopping list, sometimes I like to let the vegetables themselves inspire my menus.
Fixing a meal that takes awhile to cook just doesn’t sound inviting on hot summer days. A nice aspect of our Northwest climate is the occasional cool rainy days which give us a break from warmer weather.
Pizza was on my mind as I drove to the Lummi Island Farmers Market last Saturday morning. To make a pizza, I need four things–crust dough, a sauce for the base, toppings, and cheese to melt over it all.
