A Photo Essay on Soaking Beans
I had to make beans for my favorite 9 year olds' school for Pioneer Days. For 60 kids as a side dish, I thought five pounds seemed about right. Of...
The Rancho Gordo Blog
More on Grinding Masa
this video will be about as interesting as watching mud dry for most of you, but it demonstrates the Indian machine called Ultra Pride and how it grinds nixtamalized corn...
Perfect Pintos
Here's another reader recipe. Canice Flanagan is going to need to start her own blog pretty soon. Followed by a cookbook deal, television show, guest judge stint on Iron Chef,...
TRUE CONFESSIONS! Or Anything I've Learned of Any Value Comes From the Garden
Unfortunately I came to gardening and growing late in life. I grew up a pretty typical child of the 1960s in California. The good parts were my parents' love of...
Here They Come!
We went from late frosts to heatwaves here in Napa so there wasn't a lot of time to do things right. I didn't prepare the beds well, I completely blew...
Google Mapping Your Garden
You may think I'm nuts but this seemed incredibly fun and possibly helpful. I took a screenshot of my place using Google Maps and then drew a diagram to show...
Growing Beans in a Pot
We're finally coming to an end of the planting here in Napa. I have almost 2 acres chock-a-block full of beans that I found in Mexico, ordered from the Internet...
Christmas Limas in Anchovy Dressing
So half of my batch of Christmas Limas went into my debauched pancetta-cream creation. The second half went into a slightly less indulgent salad of sorts. I strained the beans,...
Christmas Limas with Pancetta, Cream and Gorgonzola
I was eating some Christmas Limas and I was thinking about how great they'd be as a side dish with a big steak. Then I started thinking about how well...
Planting Spring Gardens
I'm nearly finished but the thought of what's left is almost too much. Here are three new beans I'm growing from Native Seeds/SEARCH. This is an organization that supports the...
Something Good Is Coming
Here's a hint and it's not the corn: My favorite way to eat corn was to squeeze it with lime and then add a little salt. Now, this chile mixture,...