Roasted kale and popcorn are probably my two favorite snacks (or dinners, for that matter). They’re both crispy-crunchy and can be tossed with a variety of spices and umami-rich flavors: kale with tamari and sesame and popcorn with anything from Ethiopian berbere spice blends to Indian curry powders. My only problem is that I tend [...]
Continue reading about Kale: It Just Keeps Getting More Delicious!
While it may seem odd to be making ice cream when it’s getting cold outside, I say what the heck — damned tasty ice cream is damned tasty any time of the year. And you can always stand over/in front of the heating vent while you’re eating your ice cream. It’s fun to play up [...]
Continue reading about Blueberry Bliss (and Buttermilk, Too!)
Thinking of Italy probably makes you think of pasta…and with good reason. But in many parts of Italy, pasta isn’t the preferred culinary co-star. Arborio rice — the kind used in the famed Italian risottos — isn’t always a front-runner, either. Polenta is. The Romans adored this simple corn-mash-turned-cake and ate it everywhere, from the [...]
Continue reading about An Ancient Roman Favorite in Modern Times
Sometimes kitchen “scraps” are actually the best part. Plenty of classic dishes are based on that “Waste not, want not!” mentality: French ratatouille, Spanish paella, wedges of Italian polenta served with garlicky white beans. Good thing there have always been thrifty cooks among us! Just goes to show that great flavor doesn’t have to have [...]
Continue reading about Stems, Scraps & Rinds: How To Be Deliciously Thrifty
Yesterday, I raided my garden and pantry for what turned out to be one of the tastiest and easiest dishes I’ve made in a while. It was all the more stunningly easy because of its main flavor: bacon. Yep. Completely non-messy, completely crispy, completely delicious. If you start with bacon from pastured hogs (which has [...]
Continue reading about Bringing Home the Non-Messy Baked Bacon
They call it raita in India, tzatziki in the Middle East, and tarator in Bulgaria. We call it tartar sauce, and we make it with pickles instead of cucumbers and mayonnaise instead of yogurt. Frankly, though, it’s time to revisit the original versions for some inspiration, because rich, creamy Greek yogurt kicks commercial mayonnaise to [...]
Continue reading about Adventures in Sauce (or How to Make the Dip Your Own)
Unrefined oils are a deliciously wonderful thing. They can also be difficult to find even when you know what you want. Fortunately, though, extra-virgin olive oil is in just about every grocery store aisle nowadays, and many non-chain stores and health-oriented stores — read: not Wal-Mart, Costco, Meijer or Kroger’s — also stock unrefined peanut [...]
Remember the Ranch days? The days when everything was dipped in and topped with Ranch dressing? Ranch fries, Ranch burgers, veggies swathed in a sea of slightly speckled white. There’s no denying Ranch’s creamy, herby appeal…but you can create a much tastier, much more nutritious version of it using plain Greek yogurt and fresh or [...]
Continue reading about Giving a Favorite Dressing a New Wardrobe
My basilophilic nature (yep, just made up that word) has spurred me to figure out yet another way to use my favorite summer herb: in ice cream. Freezing basil is pretty much only way you can chop, slice, or otherwise cut basil and still have it be green rather than chop, slice, or otherwise cut [...]
