Down to hEarth

I love making stuffing. It is basically a savory bread dish served as a traditional side for Thanksgiving. I've found many types of bread dishes from a variety of cultures; and yet, this particular dish is all about the fall harvest. Wild mushrooms, vegetables, herbs with homemade focaccia and simmering stock. My local farmer's market is my guide - what are they selling at their last harvest market of the season? Onions, leeks, mushrooms, celery - all are available late November where I live in the PNW. I can get fancy and add in some of those oyster or chanterelle mushrooms - or just stick to everyday white mushrooms. It all works. The trick to good stuffing is to make each part of the dish tasty in its own way. Using a carton of stock? Simmer it with herbs and half a head of garlic. Try the stock - does it taste yummy? Buying bread from the market? Get a loaf of uncut sourdough and dry out big thick slices to cut up. No fresh herbs? Find dried sage and thyme in the spice aisl...

* Updated April 2022 as I visited my faraway child in KL...  This is a family favorite and one of my daughters, my faraway child, is craving this soup. The challenge is to bring what is a fairly simple chowder recipe to her high-rise apartment in Kuala Lumpur. I'm crossing my fingers that she can enjoy this tasty chowder while abroad.  We found everything - except crab. There are small clawed crabs in the market - but not what you want to sit and pick apart to make chowder. So we used scallops and one lobster tail (that wasn't worth the cost). My hope is that my daughter will play with the recipe to find ways to make it her own. Different chilies for the pesto; fish or other seafood for a crab substitute. Homemade fish or chicken stock made with green onions and ginger - there are so many ways that she will be able to experiment and have fun. For now, however, she wants the 'taste of home' - so we tried to make it as close to our NW favorite as we could. Let's get s...