Recipes from the Edible Family

The heart of a home so often is the kitchen. This is especially true for our Edible Communities family. As with Edible Indy, the people behind our 75 or so sister magazines throughout the United States and Canada converse in the kitchen. Literally, about new recipes and seasonal ingredients to highlight. And spiritually, through connections we have established over the years of mapping our local edible landscapes in stories and recipes. Here are some of those recipes from our Edible family and the stories behind them.

MAMA MIA!

words, recipe & photography: Jennifer L. Rubenstein, Edible Indy

Growing up, one of my favorite homemade meals was cast-iron pizza. The recipe was written in my mother’s handwriting and while I honestly have no idea where this recipe came from, to me it is my mom’s pizza crust. Pizza nights were a free-for-all where we could put on our own toppings and the cast iron would make the pizza crust just the right texture of not too chewy yet brown and crispy like a perfect pie crust.

My daughters now love to make this recipe with me, using a KitchenAid mixer with plumes of flour in the kitchen air and the delicious smell of the activated yeast. Our favorite way to cook it is on the grill (we use our Traeger). Wrigley loves it in the cast-iron skillet, while Mara loves it on a perforated pizza pan that gives it hand-tossed perfection. My husband, Jeff, and I spread it thin and cook it on parchment as we like it crispy and thin.

Toppings are another fun adventure. Of course, a cheese pizza—Mara’s choice—is always easy. Wrigley’s toppings lean to green peppers, onions, black olives and mozzarella cheese (the shredded kind). Jeff and I lean into BBQ chicken pizza with a sweet and spicy barbecue sauce, roasted chicken, red onions and I love to add on pickled banana peppers and red pepper flakes and we use a combo of goat cheese and fresh mozzarella. This is a weekend treat for us as it brings us together and gives us the chance to cook and eat together, a family tradition we relish.

RECIPE: Mom's Pizza

AND DON’T FORGET THE BISCUITS!

I would be remiss if I didn’t include Nick’s Buttermilk Biscuit recipe as it is my daughter, Mara’s most favorite thing I make for weekend breakfasts.

CLICK HERE: edibleindy.ediblecommunities.com/recipes/basic-buttermilk-biscuits to get the recipe and then give yourself a morning hug.

OH MY JOTA

words, recipe & photography: Francine Spiering, Edible Indy

The high mountains of the Triglav National Park in Slovenia provided the backdrop for some serious family bonding this summer. Together with my husband, son and daughter-in-love, we spent six arduous days navigating narrow, rocky and steep trails, hiking from hut to hut, dining at communal tables and sleeping in bunk beds.

It rained the first three days, and we dried our stuff around the traditional wood-fired tile stove in the mountain hut’s common room, along with everyone else. The musty smell rising from drying socks, shoes and shirts didn’t bother us bunch of dead-tired mountain trekkers one bit. We recuperated over crackling-covered buckwheat porridge, gut-warming jota—a regional dish of sauerkraut, potatoes and beans cooked in hearty broth—and lip-smacking blueberry strudel. We were there to enjoy our adventure and sample what this beautiful country had to offer.

One family tradition of ours is to re-create at least one “vacation dish” at home. We picked jota, nourishing and moreish. Loosely based on how a hut host described his recipe to me, our jota is a bowl of shared memories for all four of us.

RECIPE: Slovenian Sauerkraut Soup

TOURTIERE DU QUEBEC

words & photography: Tracy Walsh Freeman, Edible Sarasota

For French Canadians, this is the time of year when we prepare the tourtieres to be enjoyed during the holidays. My fondest food memories are of my mother preparing the tourtieres for Christmas Eve dinner. The smell in the house was wonderful—a mix of spices, sherry and buttery pastry. This is a variation of my mother’s recipe and how she taught me to make it. The recipe is a little different for every family, but it is generally a combination of meats, potato and spices (cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg).

CLICK HERE: ediblesarasota.ediblecommunities.com/recipes/tracy-s-tourtiere-du-quebec to get the recipe.

The Freemans, publishers of Edible Sarasota, left to right: Matt and Tina; Tracy and John

PIEROGIS (VARENYKY)

words & photography: Tina Bossy Freeman, Edible Sarasota

Growing up in Montreal, Canada, with a French Canadian–Irish mother and a Ukrainian father, we had lots of traditions. Weeks before Christmas I would find my dad sitting at the kitchen table, covered in flour, making dozens of pierogis (varenyky) and cabbage rolls (golubtsi) for Christmas Eve. My dad passed down his recipes, which had been passed down to him from three generations. Today I carry on the same tradition with my daughter Mia. I hope one day she will do the same with her kids.

CLICK HERE: ediblesarasota.ediblecommunities.com/recipes/tina-s-varenyky-pierogi to get the recipe.

Edible Reno-Tahoe publishers Jaci Goodman and Amanda Burden

RACLETTE SMASHED POTATOES

words: Amanda Burden | recipe: Jaci Goodman, Edible Reno-Tahoe

Jaci would make this recipe as a special treat when we were camping. For years, the main areas where we camped were Downieville, California, in a full-hookup spot along the Yuba River, in the Mendocino area near the abalone-shell-strewn beach, or at Burning Man (where I’ve been 12 times and Jaci six). In the morning, she would whip out her Lodge cast-iron skillet and sizzle up flattened boiled potatoes in olive oil, then melt slices of raclette cheese on top. Served with eggs, bacon and a hot cup of coffee with cream, this meal was the perfect fuel for our adventures: hiking or mountain biking for me and fishing for her. When she cooks the dish at home, it makes me so happy. The aroma takes me back to lying in a lounge chair outside our trailer (nicknamed Taj for Taj Mahal). I envision kicking back by the campfire with a stack of magazines and my dogs staring at me, yearning for a bite. What’s better than cheesy potatoes? Whether camping or at home, this dish is simple, decadent and delicious.

CLICK HERE: ediblerenotahoe.com/recipes/raclette-smashed-potatoes/ to get the recipe.

Cheryl Koehler (center), publisher of Edible East Bay works with friends Kit Robberson and Rick DeBeaord to prepare the Burning Lamb feast. The bread is always the ceremonial centerpiece. Photography: Stuart Johnson.

BURNING LAMB BREAD

words & recipe: Cheryl Koehler, Edible East Bay

Imagine sitting on the edge of a high mountain meadow at 6,400 feet in California’s Sierra Nevada north of Lake Tahoe. It’s the summer solstice, and you’re spending the longest day of the year mixing and kneading bread, watching the dough expand in your big metal bowl as a woodpecker taps out a rhythm on a nearby Jeffrey pine. You bake the bread alongside a lamb stew, a garbanzo stew and some rice pudding, all sealed into cast-iron pots that are set inside a stone-and-brick wood-burning oven at the site. The oven—the reason you’re here—was built over 100 years ago to supply sheepherders spending summers in nearby meadows tending their sheep. It was later restored by archeologists charged with interpreting the site’s successions of nomadic use by 1) the early-20th-century sheep company, 2) various late-19th-century immigrants and gold seekers and 3) the indigenous Washoe people for millennia before the historical era. Now it’s you and your intrepid friends—undaunted by the lack of electricity or piped water—who gather here nearly every summer to celebrate the season and all the many people who paused and ate at this unlikely spot throughout the centuries. One of those intrepid friends jokingly called the event “Burning Lamb” and the name stuck.

CLICK HERE: edibleeastbay.com/2007/02/15/the-saga-of-burning-lamb/ to get the recipes.

STUFFING!

words & recipe: Karen Elgersma, Edible Vancouver Island

When I was growing up, my mom often hosted Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and we always had turkey with all the trimmings: Brussels sprouts, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce and—my favorite—stuffing! But whenever someone else hosted, I would load up on stuffing only to decide it tasted horrible. My mom’s turkey stuffing became the only one I would eat. So of course, before I hosted my first turkey dinner as an adult, I asked her for her stuffing recipe (which she wrote on a scrap piece of paper that I still treasure to this day).

One year, I had 42 people coming for Thanksgiving dinner, so I had to find a way to make enough stuffing for everyone. I used my mom’s stuffing recipe as a base, but then added cream, apples from our tree and locally made curry chicken sausage, and I baked them in a muffin tray. These little savory bread cupcakes are now a staple of my holiday dinners, and each year when friends and family gather around my table, I hear, “This is so good! What’s the secret?” Of course, I always smile and say, “Love”—love from one mama to another.

RECIPE: Savoury Apple and Sausage Bread Pudding

CLICK HERE: ediblevancouverisland.ediblecommunities.com to explore Edible Vancouver Island.