Free Range on Food: Deciphering the state of your produce, gazpacho's elegant cousin, this week's recipes and more!

My husband bought me one of those kitchenaid ice cream maker attachments. It's nice if I want to just make a small amount or if I'm doing add-ins. But, the paddle attachment is awful. It pops off before the ice cream is done and then we have to reattach it as the ice cream is getting hard. When my husband helps me, the f-bombs are flying. Can you all recommend some other kind of ice cream maker that is better designed? Ice cream should be more fun than this.

Help! I just picked 17 cucumbers on top of the 20 I picked a few days ago. Can you please provide a fool proof pickle recipe? Or anything else to do with them? Thank you -my co workers will only take so many...

Hi, I recently sprang for a jar of real maraschino cherries from Italy. Given how pricey they are, I want to savor the cherries and the juice. Any suggestions for cocktails that would show off the juice (as well as the cherries)? Thank you!

WHERE IS THE ARTICLE? I CAME TO THIS PAGE FROM A FRONT PAGE LINK OVER THAT TOPIC, AND IT ISN'T HERE !

I made this, but thought it was a little bland. Any ideas on how to rev it up a bit? I tried sherry peppers, chopped red onion, and even hot red pepper flakes but none of these were the right flavor.

Submitting early because I usually can't make the live chat. Last week, I bought some premium gelato from Whole Foods (I'm in NorCal) in a milk chocolate flavor. The problem - it is grainy. It doesn't taste freezer burned, but the texture is definitely not fitting for a premium (and expensive!) gelato. So, any suggestions on what I can do with this gelato to make it more palatable? I'd hate to throw it out, but it's just not worth the calories to eat it as is. TIA!

I love having raw garlic in dressings like ranch, but I often don't need to use all the dressing at once. I'd like to save it, but I've always heard you shouldn't touch raw garlic after a day unless it's been in oil. Do other fats like buttermilk also preserve it for longer? Or should I still toss it and not try to save it for later use?

We finally succumbed to Instant Pot mania, and now have no idea what to make. What are a couple of good starter recipes (no chicken)? And any good cookbooks you'd recommend?

So, we have a produce drawer filled with asparagus and are getting ready to leave town for a week. We'd love to make something with it and freeze the results but aren't sure what direction to take. What about asparagus soup -- will it freeze? Or any other ideas?

Thank you for the article on cutting fruit. It was a much needed reminder that preparing even simple foods is an act of love to others and to myself and not a chore. I've been slicing nectarines with a different attitude since then. And thanks for referring to "equators" and "latitude" on round fruits. I thought I was the only one.

Several years ago our family went to Mexico for a wedding. We rented one of those resort places for everybody. They provided a large bowl of tropical fruit so one day I stood in the kitchen and cut up all the fruit. It was relaxing for me. My sister in law stood there silently watching me. I don't think she normally has access to that kind of fruit and wouldn't have taken the initiative to cut it herself. She was so patient. When I was done she practically pounced on the bowl. It made me happy.

I've been woefully behind on my free range chatting (having a tiny human in your life seems to do that), but just did some catching up on past chats. So sad to see Bonnie depart from these pages, but what a pleasant surprise to see Olga pop up in the free range gang! I've been a fan since way back in the sassy radish days - your roasted tomato salsa and the hearts and minds chocolate cake are still in our regular rotation three states and many years later - can't wait to see more here!

Help! What to do with an overgrowth of rosemary? I'm not a huge meat/steak person, so a bit stuck on how to best use it...

I have a pretty strong hatred of soy sauce. I'm fine with it if it's just a few dashes in a soup or much larger sauce where it's just providing some umami and I can't actually pick the flavor out. But once it's concentrated enough for me to taste it, no thank you. This means pretty wide swaths of whole cuisines that seem to use it in most of their dishes are lost to me. I really would like to explore some of these cuisines, but when soy sauce makes up a large portion of a dish or sauce, I'm at a loss as to what to do. Is there some substitute I could use? Even just maybe broth? I cut it out when I can, but so often it seems to make up a significant part of the recipe (like the miso dressing in the list published recently).

Thank you for the article on storing your summer produce - such a great guide! I'm wondering how you all wash your produce? Do you just rinse it under water? Use vinegar and water and let it sit for a little bit? I've seen people use dish soap to wash apples and things with a tougher skin, which always seems a little strange to me. Thanks for any help!

Chocolate milk shakes?

Can you suggest some healthy baking recipes (e.g., muffins, quick breads) that use almond and/or coconut flours. I inherited two bags from a departing neighbor and have no experience baking with either ingredient. I'm not restricted to gluten free baking and eating so if mixing them in with regular flour is an option, that would be fine for me.

Still waiting for that beautiful bean book ... :)

I probably go through a 5 lb bag of AP flour in a 6 month period. I typically keep it in an air tight glass container. Is it truly optimal for me to store it in the fridge or freezer? or is the pantry ok?

I made the summer fruit crisp for a dinner party last weekend and it was a huge hit! Everyone loved it and there was not a drop left, which defeated my sincere hope for leftovers. Thanks for the recipe!

Thanks for the fruit crumble recipe. Is the extra step of toasting nuts worth the extra time-and-skillet-to-wash on a busy day, given that the nuts will be baked in the topping for 25-30 minutes?

I like to use fresh ginger when I'm cooking, but I always feels like I can't use all of it before it starts to soften and shrivel. Rachael, are there any cool ways to use it as the ginger is about to go bad?

If you have a grill, throw the most woody sprigs of rosemary on the grill with some vegetables. The rosemary "smoke" is lovely.

I'm really looking forward to making your mushroom Wellington this week! What would you suggest I use if I can't find chestnuts? I couldn't find them at my local (crappy) supermarket, and I don't have time to do anything but one trip to Whole Foods. If they don't have it, is there a replacement? Thanks!

Use branches of rosemary as bbq skewers!

I have a big load of basil in jars on the counter waiting for me to get home from work. Pine nuts are soooo expensive—I've subbed walnuts and sunflower seeds in pesto before, but are there any other good nuts/seeds for basil pesto?

Go to this site, which has more accurate cooking times than the Instant Pot manual has: https://www.hippressurecooking.com/pressure-cooker-recipes/

Nuts don't release that much stuff when toasted, so I usually just wipe out the killet afterward. Easy peasy. No need for a full-on deep clean. And oh my yes, holy cow the toasting makes a difference!

Can you dry or freeze it? It's also lovely on top of homemade Focaccia (or you could even adorn plain store-bought Ciabatta bread with rosemary to simulate Focaccia).

If you're omnivores, maybe prepare and freeze Chicken Divan using asparagus instead of broccoli.

How about Rosemary Orange Shortbread Cookies? They're amazing.

for the bean cookbook, check out Crescent Dragonwagon's wonderful "Bean by Bean" cookbook, although I don't think it calls for pressure cooking, but you could adjust.

Freeze it. Nothing simpler than to pull it out, grate what you need, and put it back.

Thanks for the piece. I am making some ratatouille right this minute in order to use up those eggplants, onions, and peppers that are a bit past prime. I'm a long time friend to bruised and damaged produce but regular reminders are a good thing for all of us.

Put rosemary leaves into EVOO, or a neutral oil if you don't want the strong EVOO taste. Drizzle over grilled dishes, pizza, use in salad dressing.

Today's Post includes a great-looking recipe for Summer Fruit Crumble but my husband is lactose-intolerant and cannot eat butter. Is there a substitute?

I'd like to use chopped almonds or hazelnuts in place of the oatmeal in the fruit crumble. Any idea of how fine to chop the nuts and what amount to use?

I heartily endorse the Dad's Microwave Bread and Butter pickles. I've been making them for years, at least until I had to stop growing cukes because the cuke beetles kept killing the plants. But even now I buy some just to make those pickles. You can use less sugar if you prefer them less sweet (I do) and you can also add a fresh or dried hot pepper to spice them up.

Although we go through flour faster than the chatter does, we store ours in the fridge. To prevent leaking onto other items, we place the bag of flour inside two plastic grocery sacks.

Thanks to Dave McIntyre for the article explaining chardonnay. I stopped drinking it years ago because I do not like that bitter "oaky" taste. Admittedly the stuff I was drinking then was on the low end of the price scale (often from a box!) or the "house white wine" at a chain restaurant. Next time I am ot at a nice place, I'll give the chardonnay a try.

I have an employee potluck on Sunday. We have pescatarians, cheatin' vegans, gluten-frees, and allergies to chocolate. Suggestions? I'm not opposed to making/adapting a second dish for the gluten intolerant. Apps, mains, dessert, I'm up for whatever.

Rangers, I made homemade salad dressing for the first time last night - olive oil, lemon juice, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, fresh basil. However, the dressing is a bit too tart for my taste. Any suggestions please on a way to rescue it that doesn't involve sugar or gluten? (I'm avoiding both right now for health reasons.) Thanks for any advice!

While preparing peaches for the summer fruit crumble recipe, I scalded my peaches for ease of peeling. I noticed that every peach was bubbling air out of the stem hole while in the water. When I peeled them and cut them open, every seed had split. I know that this does not affect the quality of the peach itself, but what does it say about the age or storage conditions of the fruit?

ON a whim, I bought a small basket of tomatillos at the farmer's market last Sunday, then I looked for recipes for something besides salsa verde. I found these instructions https://www.wikihow.com/Roast-Tomatillos for cooking them in a cast iron pan on the stove (didn't want to use my oven), and they came out REALLY tasty. I put them in a skillet dinner with onions, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and a can of black beans, seasoned with chili powder and cumin. It was delicious. I will buy them again.

Zucchini, butternut squash and the like seem to leave a film on everything the cut sides touch. Do you know of any solutions on how to clean knives, cutting boards and my hands? There seems to be a lot of inquiries and complaints about it online but nobody has a solution. Running the plastic cutting board through the dishwasher doesn't even work! Scrubbing the knife under hot soapy water for five minutes seems to remove some of the "stain" but that's using a lot of water.

Legumes! Lentil or chick-pea salad, curried lentils or chick-peas, etc.

Several weeks ago somebody asked how her mother got frozen peaches to stay all bright and not get browned. I think the answer is Fruit Fresh. My mom used to sprinkle it on sliced peaches before freezing and it worked pretty well.

When I was a child, we had a pick your own farm for the Southern vegetables that were not available in the stores (and still aren't). It meant we got the passed over vegetables...like misshapen tomatoes, funny cucumbers, under/oversized squash, partly filled bean and pea pods, curly okra. When we go to the farm stand now, I can choose the flavor filled items and I don't overlook the scarred ones. I miss fuzzy zucchini (which means it's fresh--California stores have this). I miss the Ventura farmer's market.

I followed Joe's advice to toast it in a hot cast-iron pan, and while it took a while for all the liquid to cook away so that it would brown, it was worth it. I put some in a salad and some in a leftover pork chop & apple sauce and both were grerat.

Return it.

Sietsema mentioned this ingredient in a recent review and now I really want to make some. Have any of the rangers done this?

Loved your description of the constraints of your co-workers. My favorite true story was about an employee who, while eating a huge, regular brownie complained that the company provided pasta and pizza and she's gluten intolerant and there was nothing she could eat Make something you love that you kow other people will love and joy of pot luck is that there's always more than enough and not everyone needs to eat everything

Vinegar is my go-to for such things.

I have a delicious granola recipe (3 cups oats, 2 cups mixed nuts, 1/4 oil and 1/2 cup maple syrup, some vanilla and cinnamon) that I would like to use to make granola bars. I've seen suggestions for adding nut butter to make it all stick together but will that really turn it into a bar? I'd love to have your guidance on how to turn granola into bars (that don't immediately fall to pieces).

I don't eat mango, but my daughter loves it, so I recently went to cut one up for the first time. Didn't even know there was a pit in the middle, so it was quite a shock when I hit it and had to figure out what to do. Luckily the little one waited patiently, and she gobbled it all up once I was finished!

I find this interesting because I've never had that problem, and I wonder whether it's the tap water in the homes of those who do have it? I've found tremendous differences in cleaning ability in different places. Over-softened water is particularly bad for deep cleaning.

We bought a can of Israeli tehina recently to use in a hummus recipe. The hummus turned out especially well, light and creamy. I was putting the empty can in the recycling when the ingredient list caught my eye, and it turned out that the tehina was essentially hummus. So the secret to good homemade hummus is...the addition of store-bought hummus. And the moral of the story is to read the ingredients, even if you think you know what you're buying! :)

What you want is French chardonnay. I too am tired of California's overload of oak & butter both in chard and sauv blanc so I stick to European whites.

I finally used my bamboo steamer and then realized I don't know how to clean it and may have used it wrong. Use - I cooked broccoli directly on the slats because that seemed like the way steam would get through but now the slats have a greenish tinge. Some internet sites say to use parchment paper or a plate inside the steamer. Should I? For cleaning, now that it's sat on the stove, used, for a few days, should I clean it with some big deal antibacterial like Formula 409 or would that leave a residue that would contaminate the next thing cooked in it? It doesn't look like it's meant for the dishwasher but really I don't know. Thanks for clarifying.

Nicaraguans sometimes put fresh rosemary in bath water, a Nicaraguan once told me. I don't recall if it's for the scent or something medicinal or soothing but someone reading this may know.

It's refreshing and stimulating. Alternative therapies use it to, say, counter jet lag.

I put a thin sheen of mineral oil on my bamboo steamer every once in a while. It keeps things from sticking pretty well. I put parchment for pot stickers, because they STICK

Trying to use only garden grown veggies: peppers (sweet and mild chilies), spinach, broccolini, blueberries, strawberries, carrots, shallots, leeks, coming soon squash and sweet corn. I swear I have tried every combination I can think of. Every meal is like Chopped for foragers. I need some outside ideas. Help?

Any suggestions for food to give a vegetarian friend in the early stages of chemotherapy treatment? She's very slender to start with but I don't know if she wants calorie-rich food and anything with refined sugar or white flour would be outside her eating norms. I guess whatever won't seem nauseating is a good start. All I can think of is applesauce.

While looking through a stack of my older cookbooks, I realized there were reasons why I bought them and good memories of special stuff I made from them. One little jewel was Ainsley Harriot's "Meals in Minutes". While not a vegetarian cookbook, it has a recipe for what he calls a "beanburgher" I made it for a vegetarian cousin who's a very fussy eater, and she ate it! Make new friends, but keep the old...

I really loathe sweet pickles and the cucumbers I'm growing (West India Burr Gherkins) have a delicate taste that I think sugar would spoil. Do you have something that has an acidic tang but is still fresh tasting in mind?

Every home gardener eats their own home-grown imperfect as well as perfect produce. As long as the stuff hasn't actually gone "bad"... We also can our peach "seconds," trimming away bad spots. Ditto with apples for homemade applesauce.

I find myself with an excess of peach syrup (bottled - a gift) and have no idea what to do with it. I love baking, and was thinking maybe a crumble or something with nuts or bourbon, but don't know how it's liquid form will work. Baked goods? Cocktails? Dressing? All suggestions welcome.

I've been perfecting my biscuit game with all the soft fruits out there, making cobbler topping, and I'd like to try a batter-type cobbler topping like I grew up with. Do you have a recipe that isn't too sweet & cake-y? I like to let the fruit flavor dominate.

The French embassy served a very, very nice white burgundy during the enviro film festival the year before last. It was a little overchilled at the start (which surprised the heck out of me), but was perfect about 5 minutes later.

I make this WaPo soup, subbing spinach for watercress, then add a bit of pepper to compensate. Try leek instead of onions.

Thanks, everyone!

When I was a slip of a boy, we lived up the road from a pick-your-own farm. Whenever there was a thunderstorm in the fall months, Mom would bundle us into the car after it was over and rush us down to the farm to gather dropped apples that the storm had brought down. Drops cost less than picking from the tree, and they were always delicious because you knew they were ripe. Sigh... I wish there were more pick-your-own places around here.

I'm allergic and am starting to wheeze just from reading this chat! The orange shortbread cookies look great, though. Would a different herb work, and if so, which? Thanks!

Thanks...but equal amounts flour and sugar? Way too sweet for me. But I will try it with a half cup of sugar and report back.

Thanks for the recommendation. Are we all welcome to crash there?

. . . also serves amazing cheese and bread!

What are your thoughts on air fryers?? Worth it?