Double Up Farm

While I love elderberry syrup, it turns out not all children like it. My dental hygienist mentioned how her kids only liked the elderberry gummies, and asked if there was a way to buy local elderberry syrup and make her own. As is often the case - my answer was "I'll let you know". I have messed with gummies before, and don't like making them. What I do like is jello. What kids like are Jigglers!! So I made elderberry jigglers. The first batch was too loose (so, I ate t

Seriously, Kate? a month with no posting, and what brings you back is a pie? And it is not even a pie you made? Yeah, baby. Not everyone likes mincemeat pie. But it has always been my favorite. At the age of 8, when given the option to have any kind of birthday cake I wanted, I requested a mincemeat pie. But everyone else in my family hates them, so I have gotten out of the habit of making them. Today, the lady in the market booth next to me (Queen City Kitchen) brought

It is possible I talk too much about food. Probably caused by my thinking too much about food. And perhaps triggered by my actually eating too much food. And yet.... This morning was a busy one - the dogs got me up early, and while I made a gallant effort to get back in bed, it just wasn't happening. Morning chores, cleaned out stalls, cleaned out the sheep pen, trimmed Jo's mane, did some weed eating, pummeled mercilessly by bees (ow....just ow, ow, ow), sanded a chair d

There is no better time of year for serious foods than spring easing into summer. And if you are not shopping at your local Farmer's Market, why not? I grow a lot of my own food, but there are some things I don't. And man, the foods this time of year are just amazing. Dinner on Thursday was a delicious omelette (with eggs courtesy of my ladies), topped with my new favorite sauce: Chimichurri from Empanadas 2 Go. I am basically putting this sauce on everything I eat - sure

Saturday was supposed to be the day I stopped eating grain. Grain does not really agree with me - I am not allergic or anything, but I feel much much better when I limit the amount I eat. But then, at the Farmer's Market, Minnie had fresh bread. Normally, she sells out so fast I cannot even get down there to buy anything, but today it was a bit slow. I looked at that bread for two hours before I couldn't stand it anymore. All this to say, we had French Toast for dinner!!!

My mother was an amazing cook, and I have many of her recipes (which I make all of the time). One that I don't have is chicken and dumplings. So when I moved to the South, I was very excited to see it on menus. But people - you are doing it all wrong!! Here in the South, they think dumplings are basically big fat noodles. Tasty, but not chicken and dumplings. So it was with a good deal of trepidation that I decided to try a new recipe. And...And....it's right!! It has

You remember a while back I went on and on about how I hated beets but now I love them? Well eggplant is even worse. My mother did horrible things with eggplant and I cannot abide it, even covered with cheese and tomato sauce masquerading as eggplant parmesan. Until now. A friend from the Waxhaw Farmer's Market gave me a recipe for eggplant which I politely accepted and then threw away. Except that it stuck in my head, and when my market neighbor showed up with some prett

My love affair with beets continues in that early "I can't get enough of you" phase! Today's haul was a mixed beet selection - golden beets, red beets, white beets. With this batch I roasted them and ate a bowl right out of the oven. Then I took the rest of the beets and turned them into pickled beets. Beets waiting for pickling, along with the greens and some gratuitous zucchini. Ready for the refrigerator Then I cooked up the greens with bacon (of course), tossed in a ha

I hate beets. Sure, I ate those round pickled beets in a jar when I was a kid, but as soon as I was a grown-up, I avoided them in all guises. But I am at the Farmer's Market every week, and I am literally surrounded by beets - big beets, little beets, red beets, golden beets. I caved to the intense pressure and bought some. I was totally and completely wrong - it turns out I love beets. I have not tried the red ones yet, because I am so obsessed with these golden beauties

We are entering my favorite food time of the year. Sure, I love Autumn harvest stuff, and Christmas goodies, and there's always room for turkey. But we are starting the season of eating from the garden, and it makes me so very, very happy. Tonight's dinner came in two parts. Last night, I made a batch of egg and maple custard. While it was warm and liquidy, I poured it over strawberries. It is very sweet, so the balance of slightly tart berries was just luscious. Tonight

One of my very best friends was coming to dinner with her family. She is a tremendous cook in her own right, and she has some food restrictions. No gluten, no dairy, no sugar, no raw kale/collards/broccoli. When I looked at my go-to recipes, they almost all have dairy in them. I turned to my friends at the Union County Farmer's Market, and put together a wonderful meal - everything fresh from the garden that day. Wonderful meal, wonderful friends, and I am feeling pretty

That's me in the middle, with my sister, father, and grandparents - no, you are not imagining it - I was quite the looker. I have had a long love affair with Beef and Barley soup. In 1973, as a 13 year old in the middle of trying family circumstances, I first had this at a restaurant in Michigan called The Wooden Nickel. Over the years, I have had it again and again, and finally a while back I found the perfect recipe. It is my family's absolute favorite, but today was extr

So, I have this neighbor who has been pestering me for like two years about kombucha. Oh it's delicious, Oh it's so good for you, Oh it has so many benefits. But here's the thing - it is gross, and slimy, and tastes nasty and why would I want to go to a lot of work to make something that icky? And then, a couple of weeks ago, some friends at the Farmer's Market showed up with jars of it, and being too polite to make a gagging sound, I took a swallow. IT WAS DELICIOUS!! No

If you know Mr. Double Up, you know he does not eat anything green. And if you know me, you know I have devoted my life to sneaking vegetables into his menu. This week, it is kale in all its splendor. I had never tried kale until 3 years ago, when my gardening friends pressured me into growing it. I love the stuff now, although I don't really eat it the way normal people do. I don't grow it any more either, because my friend at Scott Howard Farms grows more delicious kale

You may recall that I am all about the hens, and the eggs. And if you hang around farmish egg people, you know that fresh eggs can be extremely difficult to peel when you hard boil them. This is because as eggs age, the white starts to shrink, the egg becomes more acidic, and just, ewwwww. Trying to peel fresh eggs means you lose most of the white and end up with just the yolk. But most people don't know this, because they are getting their eggs from the grocery store, wh

I love doing things from scratch. It's fun, it's satisfying, other people enjoy it; it's just a win win all the way. But sometimes, I get into a rut, or I run out of time, or I have to go into the office day after day and I am so exhausted even a bowl of cereal sounds like too much work. And I don't really like going out to eat that much. So, I decided to try one of those subscription deals where they send you all of the ingredients to make a meal. I wasn't really optimis

Sometimes, I lose sight of the fact that food, and our interaction with it, is a very very good thing (okay, I don't lose sight of it very often...) But, for most of my life, I viewed my obsession with food as a bad thing. And to be fair, it has occasionally been a negative driver. But I really loved what Shaye Elliott wrote. I'm a good writer, but this....I could not have said it any better. This is a long read (given today's 15 second attention span), but it reminds me

I don't remember why I even had a bag of that flaked coconut. But it has been sitting in my cabinet for a long time. Sure, I could just throw it out, but that would be cheating. So I decided to make a coconut cake. I started with Ina Garten's recipe, but since Mr. Double Up does not like coconut, I cut the recipe in half. Then I doubled the coconut, because that was the whole point. The result is perhaps the densest cake I have ever had, but it is really delicious and mo

Even after 12 years, I cannot get used to the idea that we get snow in the Deep South. I mean, come on people, if you have to put up with 100 degree heat in the summer, you should not have to deal with 10 degree cold and snow and ice. If only I ran the universe... So, it is cold, and icey, and snowing. And yesterday I shared a recipe for super easy bread with a friend. And today, I wanted a sandwich. And my store-bought bread was downstairs in the freezer. In Double Up

We typically enjoy Prime Rib for Christmas. But this year, we had so much food leftover, that we saved the Prime Rib for New Year's Eve. We are pretty basic Prime Ribbers - rub with salt, pepper, garlic and rosemary. Slice and eat. Normally, my daughters lay claim to the rib bones, but since they are currently not speaking to me, the dogs have a happy windfall. Zoe and Charlie parked themselves at the entry to the kitchen and advised no one would pass unless they were provi