• ROC National Diners’ Guide 2012 | Restaurant Opportunities Centers United- “WE ALL ENJOY EATING OUT.Unfortunately, the workers who cook, prepare, and serve our food suffer from poverty wages, no benefits like paid sick days, and little or no chance to move up to better positions. When the people who serve us food can’t afford to pay the rent or take a day off when they’re sick, our dining experience suffers.The newly released ROC National Diners’ Guide 2012 provides information on the wage, benefits, and promotion practices of the 150 most popular restaurants in America. The Guide lists responsible restaurants where you can eat knowing that your server can afford to pay the rent and your cook isn’t working while sick.”
• A Zagat-Style Guide for Ethical Diners | Mother Jones – A summary of the ROC NATIONAL DINERS’ GUIDE 2012

• Plank-Grilled Salmon With Lemon and Fennel | Real Simple Recipes
  Here is the recipe:
  Ingredients1 large or 2 small cedar planks1 fennel bulb, very thinly sliced, plus 1⁄2 cup of the fronds1 lemon, very thinly sliced1 tablespoon olive oil1 2 3⁄4- to 3-pound piece salmon fillet (skin on)kosher salt and black pepperDirections
  Soak the cedar plank(s) in water for at least 30 minutes.
  Heat grill to medium. In a medium bowl, toss the fennel and lemon with the oil.
  Place the salmon on the plank, season with 1½ teaspoons salt and ½ teaspoon pepper, and top with the sliced lemon and fennel mixture.Place the plank on grill, cover, and cook until the fish is cooked through, 35 to 40 minutes.
  Sprinkle with the fennel fronds before serving.

• The New York Times -Watermelon, Tomato salad
  (tags: recipes watermelon tomato salad minimalist)
• Zesty Cilantro Lime Roasted Chicken | Food Renegade
  Chicken from pastured hens is split, marinated in a blend of cilantro and lime, and oven roasted to create this flavorful dish shared with us by Megan Keatley of Health-Bent. A very easy way to use cilantro to make soem great tasting chicken.
• Nikki’s Cilantro Cornbread
  A very good recipe for cornbread. we’ve been making this with the cornmeal we got at the mill at Babcock State Park, WV.

• Penzeys Spices Home Page
  premier spice store
  (tags: food spices cooking)
• Welcome to World Spice Merchants
  Spice shop in Seattle, recommended
  (tags: spices food cooking shopping)
• Mark Bittman’s Customizable Soups – NYTimes.com
  “Here are easy-to-follow instructions for making vegetable (vegetarian and, for the most part, vegan) soups with common ingredients, a variety of choices and terrific flavor. “
  (tags: recipes food nytimes basics)
• InformIT: What Makes a Good Programming Language? > Language, Framework, and Runtime
  “A programming language is a compromise. Translating a language such as English directly into a machine language is very difficult for a machine. Similarly, “speaking” a machine language well is very difficult for a human. A programming language is one that a human can speak reasonably well, and that a computer can translate into a language that it understands.”
  (tags: programming comparison languages language importantlanguage)
• Mike Vanier: opinions
  (tags: programming languages language design lisp importantlanguage)

• Slow-Baked Beans With Kale – Recipes for Health – NYTimes.com
  Beans baked very slowly for several hours develop a creamy texture, while the liquid they cook in, which thickens to a syrup, acquires a caramelized flavor. The kale practically melts in this casserole, going from bitter to sweet. I love using lima beans in this dish because they’re so big and their texture is so luxurious.
  (tags: recipes vegetarian recipe food nytimes)
• A Food Manifesto for the Future – NYTimes.com
  “Here are some ideas — frequently discussed, but sadly not yet implemented — that would make the growing, preparation and consumption of food healthier, saner, more productive, less damaging and more enduring. “
  (tags: food nutrition policy farmers)
• The Minimalist Chooses 25 of His Favorites – NYTimes.com
  Links to 25 best articles
  (tags: recipes food cooking recipe lists minimalist)

• Moroccan filo pie with butternut squash & courgette « My Salt is Maldon
  (tags: recipe filo butternut eggplant)
• Dinner Tonight: Spiced Butternut Squash, Lentil, and Goat Cheese Salad | Serious Eats : Recipes
  “Main dish salads are tricky to pull off, especially around this time of year when you can’t just dump a bunch of ripe tomatoes into a bowl with lettuce and call it a dinner. With autumn here, a little extra effort is required. But it also means the results can be even more soulful and satisfying. That’s especially true for this salad from Bon Appétit, which mixes roasted butternut squash with French green lentils.”
  (tags: recipe butternutSquash lentil)

• How to Make Thin-Crust Focaccia Pizza | Slice Pizza Blog
  Looks like a really good pizza recipe
  (tags: pizza recipe)
• Chart Of The Day
  Everyone loves a chart
  (tags: marketing_data data visualization)

Pickles - in the jar June 12, 2010

We’ve had a great crop of cucumbers so far this year. All from 8 plants, four pickling type and four English cucumbers, bought at Doug’s Grocery in White Oak at the corner of Ringold and Brooke Roads. We’ve been eating cucumber salad all week and  I started some cucumbers for pickling yesterday.

We’ll taste the results in a few days. I put together a couple of different recipes for this, so we’ll see how that turns out.

The recipes were taken from Putting Food By and Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects.

Picked the cucumbers yesterday and did a short brine for about 24 hours. (Following directions from Putting Food By )

• Clean the cucumbers
• Put them in a crock with   one gallon of water and 3/4 cup of kosher salt for the brine.
• Keep the cucumbers submerged with a plate and let them brine over night.

Today I put 3 quart jars in a a big pot, submerged them, and heated the water until it boiled. Then to each jar I added (sort of following directions in Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It: And Other Cooking Projects)

• Two dill sprigs
• Two dill seed heads
• Two tablespoons of Penzey’s pickling spice
• Two tablespoons of kosher salt
• Four cloves of garlic, crushed

Then I added vinegar until the jars were half full and then added water the rest of the way.

Here is what we came up with. We used a variation of the first bread recipe below and made honey-lavender butter. Each is very good, and they went together to the party and received lots of compliments.

• Lemon Zucchini Bread – All Recipes
  (tags: yellowsquash zuccuinibread recipe)
• Cooks.com – Recipe – Summer Squash Bread (Yellow Or Zucchini)
  (tags: yellowsquash recipe)
• Cooks.com – Recipe – Yellow Squash Bread
  (tags: yellowsquash recipe)
• Mom’s Summer Squash Recipe | Simply Recipes
  (tags: summersquash recipe)
• my little kitchen: Yellow Squash Summer Cake
  (tags: summersquash recipe)
• Summer Squash Salad Recipe | Simply Recipes
  (tags: summersquash recipe)

• Lavender Recipes – Happy Valley Lavender and Herb Farm
  (tags: lavender recipes cooking)