Chances are - if you have fruit trees or a garden - they are bursting with ripe bounty right about now. Don't let all that great food go to waste! Learn the art of canning and food preservation this weekend, just in time to make use of your produce. You'll have two classes to choose from this weekend at Goods for the Planet. Be sure to give yourself time to browse through the store, and don't forget your Chinook Book coupon to save $10 on any purchase over $50.

Trust that you'll be thanking EcoMetro as you enjoy vitamin-rich and delicious food throughout the winter.

Image Credit: TGV/Creative Commons

Intro to Home Canning
This workshop is for students with little or no experience with home canning as well as for experienced canners who need a brush up on the basics.  Topics will include everything a novice needs to know about equipment, procedures and planning for Home Canning. This class is designed to give beginners the confidence they need to proceed with home canning using approved recipes. (Unless otherwise noted all classes are based on the USDA approved methods for home food preservation.) Cost is $10, payable day of class.
Aug 16, 11am-12pm
Goods for the Planet

Peaches, Pears & Plums. Preserving Washington's Tree Fruits
This workshop will familiarize students with the fruits currently fresh in the markets and help them plan on saving some of these for the winter. We will talk about what needs to be peeled, how to do it, how to can fruits, pie fillings, and fruit butter, how to dry fruits using a dehydrator and standard oven. Cost is $10, payable day of class.
Aug 16, 1pm-3pm
Goods for the Planet More...

Several years ago, when I first got a call about working here at Celilo Group Media, I had just torn the Zipcar coupon out of the Portland book that very day (there isn't a coupon in Seattle There is a code for $50 in driving time in the ad on page 41, and look for a coupon in the 2010 book). Had I heard of the book? Of course I had! Did I ever redeem the coupon...er, no.

It wasn't just calculating the cost of gas, insurance, and upkeep that finally made me take the leap and sell my car--it was realizing that I drive so infrequently that spiderwebs connected the window to the steering wheel like something out of a cartoon. My bike was carrying me a dozen miles a day for free while I paid for spiders to practice tightrope walking between leather and glass. I sold the car and patted myself on the back (plus bought a pair of new shoes). And then, immediately, I missed an opportunity because I didn't have wheels. More...

Continuing along on our journey through the land of weird foods you’ll find in the farmer’s market, this week we’ll taste a green of many names:  mizuna.  Mizuna also goes by the names of Japanese greens, Japanese mustard, and California peppergrass.  Botanically, it is classified as Brassica rapa.  B. rapa is commonly known as “field mustard” or “turnip mustard” and includes cultivars such as tatsoi, napa cabbage, turnips, and rapini.   

When my friend Katie showed up at my door with a bouquet of freshly-sliced mizuna leaves and told me what she’d brought me, I gave her a look of disbelief.  When I plucked a leaf and popped it in my mouth, however, I was pleasantly surprised.  The intricate, delicately shaped leaf had a flavor to match. More...

We’ve come a long way as a society since the 16th century. Women (in America, at least) are now able to drive cars, own property, vote… and eat artichokes.

This last may seem like an odd inclusion on the list, but as an avid artichoke fan, I shudder to think that I may not have been able to enjoy the oddly-shaped thistle. Artichokes were considered aphrodisiacs for a long while, and only eaten by men (Henry the Eighth was famous for his love of them). 

Thankfully, Catherine de Medici changed all that when she married Henry II, King of France. When she moved to France from Italy, she brought along her servants, her trousseau, and her passion for artichokes, causing a bit of a scandal. Luckily, we can all hop on over to any supermarket and find artichokes most of the year round. Nearly 100% of the artichokes consumed in America are produced in California (especially the northern part of the state), which makes them a relatively low contributor to your carbon footprint. More...

Inspiration (and cheap local food) can be found in the strangest of places.  While searching for a cooking show to watch on my computer, I stumbled upon “Cook on the Wild Side.”  I’d never heard of this particular program before, and the titled seemed titillating, so I clicked.

Am I ever glad that I did! I discovered the joys of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a Brit with several cooking shows dedicated to sustainable and local foods he’d prepared himself. In “Cook on the Wild Side,” Hugh travels around the country side searching for food he can “poach,” or scavenge. While I won’t be babbing for eels or searching for pigeons any time soon, there’s one food we can all scavenge. This humble plant is overlooked consistently, and many of us try to eradicate it: the dandelion green, of the genus Taraxacum.

Though the greens and flower heads can both be consumed (the famed dandelion wine is made from flower tops), this article will mainly focus on the greens. Dandelions have quite a lot of nutritional value – more vitamin A than broccoli, and substantial amounts of Vitamin K, calcium, and iron. That’s quite a punch for a “weed.” More...

Becki Walker writes about farmers market manners on Fridays and crafts recipes. We're running a recipe a day until May 22nd.

I consider myself a somewhat philosophical person, as do, I imagine, a goodly number of people who read this blog.  Chewing over questions in our brains is a good exercise for our mental mastication muscles, but I’ve taken the teeth out of one question: for the purposes of this blog, the chicken comes after the egg. Yesterday we ventured into the shelled world, today we’ll focus on our feathered friends. More...

Becki Walker writes about farmers market manners and crafts recipes. Search our database for a farmers market near you, and leave your review.

As we scavenge our cupboards and refrigerators in search of the next great meal, we often overlook some of the more common ingredients in our pantries.  We pass over these foodstuffs because they seem less glamorous than other treats lurking in our kitchens, but that doesn’t make them any less tasty. With a little creativity, you can create a classy meal out of nearly anything, including today's special ingredient: eggs. Pickled, frozen, aged, and sauteed. More...

There are a few ingredients a cook can’t live without. Mark Bittman of the New York Times offers up an excellent article regarding kitchen staples (Fresh Start for a New Year? Let's Begin in the Kitchen), featuring foods like real lemon juice, Parmesan cheese, and walnuts… but there’s one item I can’t imagine ever cooking without – garlic, the little bulb that can do anything!

I’m not the only one – garlic has been gracing kitchens since the dawn of time. More...

This salad can be a fun addition to any smoky barbeque or a reason alone to fire up the grill. The flavors are light, bright, clean and simple. Chicory (also known as a Belgian endive) can be notoriously bitter, but a delicate toss in an herby vinaigrette and quick sear on the grill transforms this green into sweet, tender goodness.

Grilling lends a nice caramelization and new flavor to tomatoes as well. It's still a little early in the season for most locally grown heirloom varieties, but since this preparation requires firm, barely ripened tomatoes, the timing is perfect. There are over 600 kinds of 'heirloom' tomatoes and they all have these fantastic secret double agent names like Black Krim, Bloody Butcher, Mr. Stripy, or Jersey Devil. For this recipe I used the less menacing Green Zebra's and White Queens, both of which get on quite well with fresh dill and basil. More...

This post is dedicated to a green with what seems to be multiple personality disorder. Today, we examine endive, or rather chicory. Or frisee. Or grumolo. Or succory. Or escarole. Or witloof.

Endive/chicory/etc. is botanically referred to as Cichorium endivia.  However, within that species, there are a number of varietals – including radicchio, untarelle, and Belgian endive. The two main varieties of endive we eat in the US are broad-leaved (escarole) and curly-leaved (frisee, which is also a technique for wilting leaves in oil). We usually eat only the leaves of the plant, but if you travel to Louisiana, you’re bound to see chicory coffee. This coffee doesn’t have lettuce leaves in it – it contains ground Cichorium root. Do yourself a favor and drink a cup or two with a beignet – it’s delicious. More...