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Maple Syrup Season The moment that we have been waiting for all winter is here: Maple Syrup Time! The ground is thawing, and the sap is running… maple sugaring is everywhere, giving great reason to get out with your family to learn about the maple sugaring process while enjoying the first harvest of the year! Below, I have listed several sugar shacks where there is a restaurant, and the sap run is… Read More
Southern Biscuits Enjoyed with Local Western MA Ingredients Biscuits Here’s something you can make for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack…how versatile is that! Biscuits are great any time of day. They taste best slathered with butter, and even better with local honey or your favorite fruity jam. When I first met Amy, my choice of bread to go with any meal was a crusty Italian/French-type bread or a dense, whole grain… Read More
Indian Potato Fritters Potatoes Bonda Amy and I were in local food heaven! We were visiting her folks on the Gulf Coast of Florida. It is incredulous to everyone that I chose to go to every farmers’ market within two hours, rather than go for another walk on the gorgeous, tropical-blue-water-white-sand-almost-empty-of-people beach. We did all spend a lot of time together in the woods and salt marshes, watching birds and enjoying the… Read More
Here’s a recipe for Roasted Sweet Potato Lasagna! A great comfort food for cold winters in western Massachusetts.
Quick and Cozy Spicy Chickpeas and Simple Couscous The diminishing afternoon/evening light seems to get my stomach rumbling for dinner much earlier than our usual late night dinner hour. When I tune into my natural rhythms, my body yearns for meals earlier and sleep much earlier than I am accustomed to. I look forward to tuning in more deeply this winter, listening to and responding to the inner callings that are in… Read More
Harvest Season Dinner on Thanksgiving Day is a meal when extended family and friends come together to celebrate and share the harvest. It’s a holiday when we talk a lot about food, sharing cooking tips and family recipes.. and it’s the final season we’ll be featuring in our 3-part series, Seasons at Our Table. Taking a look back this year, at the beginning of Maple Sugar Season in late February, we invited… Read More
Inspiration for family dinner night… SOUP! Last year, Alice shared two of her favorite fall soups in her column, “In the Kitchen with Alice.” Download her recipes for Tomatillo and Fresh Corn Soup and Mediterranean White Bean Soup… then prepare a fresh harvest meal for your family!
Farmers’ Market Season At the beginning of the summer we invited our readers to share a family recipe using fresh local produce. Below we’re highlighting 13 submissions our readers posted, featuring local produce often bought fresh from our farmers’ markets and road side stands! Get inspired and thinking about how you can use locally grown fresh produce for your family dinner! Kat Allen of Northampton writes: I’m not a great cook, and… Read More
For the Love of Cabbage Stuffed Cabbage & Garden Tomato Sauce The weather is softly leaning toward autumn. Though my garden is full of summer’s light and fresh bounty (tomatoes, peppers, basil, zucchini, greens, beans, and dozens of other late summer delights), my appetite begins to lean toward hearty fare. This Italian-inspired rendition of Eastern European Stuffed Cabbage fits the bill for this seasonal transition time, prepared with Fresh Garden Tomato Sauce…. Read More
Pesto and Variations The drought, deer, and heat have slowed down our garden quite a bit, but the list of chores is still long and the available time is still short. We find ourselves creating quick meals from the garden. Pasta with one of many possible pestos is a standard. We have a great variety of greens in our garden, and we’ll make pesto with combinations of basil, arugula, cilantro, mint, chard,… Read More
Western Massachusetts Libraries Work to Banish Hunger In The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, residents of Panem, a future country based in the ruins of North America, struggle to survive while working to support the glamour and riches of the capital. Each year, residents of the poverty-stricken districts are forced to choose two children between the ages of 12 and 18, to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal contest where the… Read More
Hilltown Families collaborated with The Food Bank of Western MA in compiling a list of kids books on the topic of food security/scarcity for their Youth Action Hunger program. We asked our readers to share their favorite children’s book that touches on the topics of hunger, soup kitchens, food banks, homelessness, etc. See what titles our readers had to recommended, both for children and adults…
Sauteed Sugar Snaps and Radishes I’ve so enjoyed the first of this season’s local cukes. At the Creamery, we have the first tomatoes and the first cukes, picked fresh from the Fydenkevez Farm in the valley. I peel the cukes, cut off big chunks, and generously salt them before popping them into my mouth and singing praises. I love the crisp freshness and the bright flavor. Add sliced or chopped tomatoes cut… Read More
YAH! Curriculum Youth Against Hunger Education Take time this summer to learn about issues affecting your community as a family! For starters, resources from the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts’ Youth Against Hunger (YAH!) curriculum can be used to help kids learn about how issues of hunger, homelessness, and/or poverty are present within and affect members of their own communities. The curriculum, available on the food bank’s website, includes a wide variety… Read More
Safe, Healthy Food Choices: Resources for Families in the Pioneer Valley This past Tuesday, May 29th, Hilltown Families and the Hilltown Non-GMO Workshop Group hosted a community conversation, Safe and Healthy Food Choices: Educating and Empowering Families in an Era of High-Tech Food Production, at the Meekins Library in Williamsburg with three local food advocates. Herbalist Tony(a) Lemos from Blazing Star Herbal School discussed the rise in childhood allergies since the introduction of… Read More
Spring Garden: What to do with Chives, Rhubarb & Asparagus CHIVE FLOWER VINEGAR I begin the season of preparing herbal vinegars with Chive Flower Vinegar. We pick handfuls of beautiful, spiky purple chive flowers. We pull the petals off some of the plants to decorate our dinner salad, but the rest get stuffed into a mason jar, covered with apple cider vinegar that we made last fall, and left to brew for… Read More
Fiddlehead Arugula Salad One of the most joyous culinary moments of the year for me is the arrival of the season’s first fiddleheads. It’s among the first of the “just-picked” cooking rituals that will continue to unfold until late autumn. Each year I repeat the simplest of preparation techniques for my first fiddleheads of the season: blanch (cook in boiling water) for 4–5 minutes; drain well; sauté briefly with butter or olive… Read More
Hilltown Families presents… Safe and Healthy Food Choices: Educating and Empowering Families in an Era of High-Tech Food Production A Community Conversation with Local Food Advocates Tuesday, May 29th in Williamsburg Hilltown Families presents Safe and Healthy Food Choices: Educating and Empowering Families in an Era of High-Tech Food Production on Tuesday, May 29th from 7-9pm in the Hawks~Hayden Community Room at the Meekins Library, 2 Williams Street in Williamsburg, MA (FREE). This… Read More
Maple Flan We were given some fresh eggs by a friend with chickens. The variety of colors, shapes, and sizes invite inspiration. Hmm … we have some Taproot Commons Farm raw milk to use up. Amy’s going to be happy tonight! Whatever we have for dinner, we are going to end our meal with creamy, delicious Maple Flan. Everything is local except for the vanilla and the sugar for melting into caramel…. Read More
Enter to Win a Farm Share from Crimson & Clover Farm this Summer! Locally grown food is a great community connector! This past winter families could enjoy Winter Farmers’ Market all throughout Western MA while connecting with friends and neighbors during these often festive weekly markets. And during the growing and harvest season Farmers’ Markets happen nearly every day of the week and have quickly become places the community not only shops… Read More
Share a Recipe and Win a Breakfast Giveaway Package Including Groceries, Coffee & Maple Syrup How does food bring your family together? Maybe you enjoy cooking with your kids, sharing family meals together, shopping for locally grown and/or produced foods, exchanging stories at the kitchen table… however it is that food interweaves into your family one thing is certain, food has a way of bringing families together both in the kitchen and… Read More
Local Food Heaven I was like a kid in a candy store, or, as my Uncle Mike used to say, “like a mosquito in a nudist colony”! I spent Saturday at Sarasota Farmers Market, buying bags (my own cloth bags of course!) of just-picked produce from local organic farmers located in Southwest Florida. I came home with sacks of oranges (several varieties), grapefruit, limes, and lemons. I got just-picked strawberries (not as… Read More
Soups to Warm Your Tummy on a Cold February Day CBS SOUP Winter is finally upon us (where is the snow?!?), and it’s time for some hearty, warming, comforting foods. I enjoy cooking soups when it’s cold outside because they often take quite a while to cook (helping to heat our house!). I often bake bread to accompany the soup (helping to heat our house!) and they usually don’t require a lot… Read More
5th Annual Winter Fare in Greenfield Kicks off on Saturday, Feb 4th for a Weeklong Celebration Greenfield’s annual Winter Fare will take place on Saturday, February 4th! Along with the farmers’ market, workshops, and barter market that Winter Fare offers, there will be several events happening across Franklin County to celebrate local food, too! Greenfield’s first Winter Fare took place five years ago, spearheaded by Juanita Nelson, and was designed as a… Read More
If you have never made butter, these instructions may sound strange, but trust me, it works wonderfully. The first thing to do is to let the cream sit on the counter, at room temperature, for about 12 hours. I put it out on the counter after supper, and I had freshly made butter on my toast the next morning.
100 Links (Spring/Summer 2011) Nearly every day we add recommended links to the Hilltown Families bank of on-line resources. Some of you might find these links well suited for your family, others, maybe not so much. But it’s a fun and useful list worth perusing of online resource that are educational and entertaining! Where are these links? Hilltown Families Del.ici.ous Page! This icon can be found at the top of our site,… Read More
100 Links (Winter/Spring 2011) Nearly every day we add recommended links to the Hilltown Families bank of on-line resources. Some of you might find these links well suited for your family, others, maybe not so much. But it’s a fun and useful list worth perusing! If you have a link you’d like to share, post it in our comment box below. Where are these links? You won’t find them on your blog… Read More
Farm Film Fest: A Day of Film and Food Sunday, March 13th in the Berkshires In celebration of Spring and the upcoming growing season, the Williams College Sustainable Food & Agriculture Program, Storey Publishing and Images Cinema will present Farm Film Fest: A Day of Film and Food on Sunday afternoon, March 13. Hosted by Images Cinema at 50 Spring Street in Williamstown, two screenings and five films about food and farming… Read More
100 Links (Fall 2010/Winter 2011) Nearly every day we add recommended links to the Hilltown Families bank of on-line resources. Some of you might find these links well suited for your family, others, maybe not so much. But it’s a fun and useful list worth perusing! If you have a link you’d like to share, post it in our comment box below. Where are these links? You won’t find them on your… Read More
Thanksgiving 2010 Episode Saturday from 9-10am & Sunday from 7-8am November 20th & 21st, 2010 WXOJ LP – 103.3 FM – Valley Free Radio Northampton, MA Featured Video: “That’s How A Pumpkin Grows” from Brian Vogan‘s CD, Little Songs. Video is illustrated by Alberto Cerriteno and animated by Fashionbudda Studio. GIVEAWAY: We’re giving away 4 DVD’s by artists we’ve featured here on the Hilltown Family Variety Show. Tune in to the radio… Read More
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