A creamy lightly-spiced cauliflower soup with robust flavor from toasted almonds, slight heat from harissa-infused browned butter and a bright earthiness from a sprinkling of dill as garnish. I think you’ll love this warm earthy soup in the winter months!
Read MoreThis recipe is a very humble one, but much beloved. We all look forward to zucchini season so that we can make this! Delicious as a side to a cookout (or other meal), it also makes for a good meatless main course served on its own with a large salad and maybe a watermelon.
Read MoreI’ve shared before my love for galette. It is so elegant and pretty without demanding too much work. It is a blank canvas for any creative cooking inspiration. It is hardly ever a dud, thanks to the nearly fail-proof flaky, rich crust that ties it all together. This ham, potato, and cheese variation was intended to be a crowd pleaser (with children particularly in mind), a departure from my usual veggie laden galettes. A classic flavor combo, it was a big hit, no surprise.
Read MoreMy husband eats chips and salsa like I eat popcorn: after the children have gone to sleep, in peace and quiet, as a way to unwind and relax. I churn out a batch of my simple salsa about once a week, but sometimes I’ll go off road a bit and do a salsa verde or a roasted red salsa or add something fun like black beans or corn or whatever. Usually it is a function of whatever I have in my kitchen. This salsa was something I threw together because of a couple poblanos getting a little soft in my fridge. Since the elements are broiled and charred, it has a much deeper flavor than my usual, which is quite bright and acidic. The product is delicious, but the method is dead simple and lends itself to any amount of variation. Look through your fridge and be creative!
Read MoreHave you had bok choy? I never did until we started growing vegetables for a living. It is well received at market, so it has become a spring staple. It is a Chinese cabbage that is delightfully crunchy, crisp at the bottom (sort of like celery) with dark, tasty leaves on top. It has the slightest hint of the spice you get from a turnip, a touch of bitter earthiness like kale, and the tender smoothness you get from spinach. It is also tastiest on the smaller side. Then it is much more tender and can be eaten raw, sliced into a salad or on its own. As it gets bigger and more mature, the bottom becomes much tougher and the flavor less delicate.
Read MoreAn all-time family favorite, this broccoli tuna noodle casserole is comfort food at its best: cheesy, creamy, crunchy, warm.
The broccoli adds a bright pop of green, and there’s enough of it to satisfy the veggie-conscious out there, but it’s also disguised enough to be acceptable to picky eaters.
Read MoreOkay so when I was in college, there was this local coffee shop in town that also served breakfast and lunch fare, and the Grilled Chicken Caprese was kind of the sandwich. It had a cult-like status among students.
I spent many lunch dates the last semester of my senior year picking apart the Grilled Chicken Caprese, analyzing the components, and storing it away in the back of my mind.
Lent: it’s the time of year when more meatless meals make it into the weekly recipe rotation.
To make things easier for you (and ourselves!) we’ve rounded up some of our favorite meatless meal recipes from the blog into a single post.
Read MoreThe inspiration for this dish came from 1) how often we eat rice and beans or quesadillas with beans or burritos with rice and cheese and beans, and 2) a dish called Gnocchi alla Romana that my family loves. Gnocchi alla Romana, if you’ve never had it (but you should!), is nothing like the potato gnocchi you proably have had before. Basically you cook semolina flour in milk, beat in some eggs and Parmesan, let it cool and firm up, cut into circles and layer around a dish, and then recook in a hot oven until puffed up and crispy and golden. Its AHhhhmazing. We love it with a meaty red sauce or some roasted veggies and Italian sausage. Or just plain. But back to those rice and beans. We eat a lot of that kind of meal. And I doubt if we could ever get sick of it, but still - it’s nice to add a little variation. So I thought, why not swap in a corny grain, use cheddar or monterey jack cheese, and serve it with refried black beans? So I did and it was delicious and the kids loved it and I love having a new way to eat gnocchi (alla Mexicana?) AND beans.
Read MoreThat’s right, folks. This is not your grandma’s meatloaf.
That’s because it’s our grandma’s meatloaf.
And I don’t think I’m prejudiced when I say it’s the best.
Read MoreI’m always on the lookout for yummy vegetable sides that add interest (but also aren’t too fussy). Where most veggies taste very, very yummy just tossed with olive oil, seasoned to perfection with salt and pepper, and roasted in a hot oven, sometimes it is nice to have something a little different, especially for special occasions. So when it was my husband’s birthday recently, I tried out this recipe from The Silver Palate Cookbook.
Read MoreI have to thank my sister-in-law for finding this recipe. She was hosting for a family birthday and had a bunch of asparagus that wasn’t going to stretch far enough for everyone. The original recipe was only potatoes and asparagus, but she threw in some salad greens and now we are forever grateful. My husband grows organic greens for a living, so salad is an everyday thing. But we can get into a rut of the same old, same old. This was a welcome variation, and so dang delicious! Even the pickiest salad eaters enjoyed it. (The blended onion is sort of a revelation to me, and I want to play with it more.)
Read MoreThis is about the most basic you can get with salsa. As you can see, the cast of characters is almost embarrassingly simple. But for that same reason, I can basically always whip up a jar of salsa in a matter of seconds.
There’s nothing fancy about this but it makes a great salsa both for chips and dip and adding onto all your favorite Mexican foods. Give it a try, and maybe even adapt it to your tastes!
Read MoreI received a subscription to Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street for my birthday and after a couple of months decided to set the goal of cooking two recipes from the magazine each week. Otherwise, the issues come and go, I page through the recipes and lust after them, and nothing ever comes of it.
Read MoreGone are the days of french fries being a hassle to make.
I thought about titling this post “French Fries, Every Day,” because this method is truly that easy. And dangerous for the waistline. You can get piping hot, crispy french fries ready to go in 30 minutes or less, in the convenience of your own kitchen, every night your heart desires.
Read MoreCubanos are the basically the best thing to come out of a pot of carnitas. Much as I love a good taco, sandwiches are my favorite food form. And of sandwiches, the ones that get griddled and crispy and melty are at the top. That’s why these Cubanos are a long-standing family favorite. They’re simple as anything but so delicious.
Read MoreDo you ever use pickled red onions? If you don’t, you’re missing out. If you do, you know how good they are - how much they add to such a wide variety of dishes. They are magical. I can’t technically call them a secret ingredient because they’re added after the fact, but they really do an amazing job of ramping up flavor and providing a delightful contrast and bite to an otherwise muted or rich or creamy dish. Off the top of my head, I put them on: bagels and cream cheese; scrambled eggs; toast with goat cheese; sandwiches; salads; most any Mexican food (put them on carnitas!) or Mediterranean food or Middle Eastern food. Need I go on? You can change up the pickling spices a bit if you wish to adapt them to a particular flavor profile, but the recipe I have below is basically good for everything. Also, sometimes I add thinly sliced carrots and/or jalapenos. The carrots keep their crunch a bit more and the jalapenos add some kick.
Read MoreShortly after we started the blog, I posted my recipe for homemade flour tortillas. I continue to make them whenever we’d like to have tortillas at a meal. They simply taste so, so much yummier than typical grocery store brands. Having made them many more times since originally posting, I thought could refresh my recipe with tips and notes I’ve picked up along the way. I’ve definitely found ways to make them turn out more regularly shaped and to roll out nice and thin, but also stay soft enough to wrap and fill. The more I make them, the less work they seem too! For your first time making them, however, plan for them to take an hour or more.
Read MoreI’m always on the lookout for vegetarian meal ideas because I try to plan three meatless dinners each week. My kids (and husband) would almost certainly be happy with a pasta dish on each of those days - and honestly I wouldn’t be too bothered about it either - but for the sake of variety and creativity and (probably) a trimmer waste, I usually mix it up with other vegetarian staples like eggs or beans and lots of hearty vegetables and grains. But beans and rice and frittata all get a little tired, no matter how many variations you try, so when I saw Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian at the library, I was so excited at the prospect of freshening up my meatless menus. And this book definitely delivers!
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