Published in 2014
224 pages
As the voice behind the award-winning blog gardenbetty.com, Linda Ly has been demystifying the art of gardening, homesteading, farm-to-table cooking and fearless exploration for a global audience since 2010.
Her love for food is inspired by her hilltop homestead on the California coast, otherwise known as a little house with a big, big backyard. There she grows hundreds of vegetables, fruits and herbs, raises a flock of chickens, and attempts to craft a more sustainable and “simple” life, though anyone who tends a homestead knows it’s anything but simple!
Linda lives in Los Angeles with her photographer husband, Will Taylor (whose talent can be seen in her first book, The CSA Cookbook), and their two pugs. Beyond the homestead, they enjoy surfing, snowboarding, climbing, kayaking, backpacking all over the great state of California, and fixing up their off-grid surfside bungalow in Mexico.
What is this book about?
Make the most of your CSA membership—or your garden harvest—with simple yet bold, inventive yet nourishing meals from acclaimed blogger Linda Ly.
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs have connected farms to consumers and made people more in tune with where their food comes from, but still leave many stumped beyond the conventional uses for their produce. How many times has a CSA share arrived with things you’ve never seen before or not known what to do with?
The CSA Cookbook will help you cook your way through a CSA box (or farmers’ market or backyard bounty) with 105 seasonal recipes that utilize every edible part of the plant, from leaves and flowers to stems and seeds. Think of it as a nose-to-tail approach—for vegetables.
With innovative ideas for preparing the lesser-known but no-less-delicious parts of plants, tips for using the odds and ends of vegetables, and easy preservation techniques, Linda Ly helps you get from farm to table without a fuss. Chapters include tomatoes and peppers, leafy greens, peas and beans, bulbs and stems, roots and tubers, melons and gourds, and flowers and herbs. You’ll find globally-inspired, vegetable-focused recipes that turn a single plant into several meals—take squash, for instance. This year-round vegetable brings a variety of tastes and textures to the table: Sicilian Squash Shoot Soup, Squash Blossom and Roasted Poblano Tacos, Autumn Acorn Squash Stuffed with Kale, Cranberries, and Walnuts, and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds. If you grow your own food at home, you might be surprised to learn you can eat the leaves from your pepper plants, or pickle the seed pods from your radishes.
The CSA Cookbook aims to inspire curiosity in the garden and creativity in the kitchen. You’ll look at vegetables in a whole new way and think twice before you discard your kitchen “scraps”.
