While I’m looking forward to the spring flowers that our April showers will bring, I’m still in full-on winter mode in terms of wanting hot beverages. How can your mind not edge towards hot chocolate when it’s gray, cold, and wet outside? Twenty degrees Fahrenheit and sunny seems warmer than 45F and raining. So in the [...]
Continue reading about An Antidote for Rainy, Cold Spring Days
Crepes are one of those things that sound hard to make. They’re not. In essence, they’re pancakes with extra milk, so if you can make a batch of flapjacks, you can make crepes. Admittedly, crepes are thinner and therefore more prone to breaking, but all you need to deal with that is a spatula to [...]
Continue reading about How About Chocolate, Crepes, and Strawberries for Breakfast?
Ever since I went to Spain last year, I’ve started to enjoy the occasional cup of coffee. Turns out the reason I didn’t like coffee before going to Spain was that I had only had bitter, instant-style American coffee. Freshly roasted and ground beans taste entirely different — mellow, almost sweet, and needing only a [...]
Muffins are the perfect breakfast, especially when made with whole-grain flours, oats, and plenty of eggs. Toss in some crème fraîche and some apples, and you’ll have a delicious reason to get up! But the best part about these muffins — aside from the taste, of course — is that they’re so satisfying that they [...]
If you’ve ever been to one of my culinary/health talks or have spent much time hanging out in my online kitchen, you know I’m forever singing the praises of plain whole-milk Greek yogurt. Why? For many reasons. It has one-quarter the sugar of low-fat flavored yogurt, for one thing. The ingredient list on Fage plain [...]
Continue reading about DIY Cream Cheese Makes the Freshest Cheesecakes!
If I say, “Name a nut!” you probably won’t say “Chestnuts!” I don’t think of them much, either — when I think “nuts,” I think of walnuts and pecans and pistachios and macadamias and peanuts and pretty much every other kind of nut except chestnuts. I’d probably think of Brazil nuts before chestnuts. But lately [...]
As a chocolate purist, I’m a big fan of nibs, otherwise known as chopped-up cocoa beans. (Kind of like steel-cut oats are chopped-up whole oat groats.) Some nibs are toasted, some are raw; some are sweetened with a dusting of unrefined cane sugar, some are not. I tend to favor roasted over raw — as [...]
When I’m on an ingredient roll, I like to use it every which way I can. That’s why last week I wrote about mesquite-dusted popcorn and this week I’m writing about mesquite-infused banana bread. The caramel aspect of the mesquite combined with the natural sweetness of the bananas means that you only need 1/4 cup [...]
Happy holidays, everybody! In the spirit of the season, I’d like to share a recipe for homemade eggnog. It’s gorgeously rich and creamy and has just a hint of sweetness. Please note, though, that you should only make this ridiculously quick and simple version if you don’t mind consuming your egg yolk mostly raw. It’s [...]
I’ve written about crème fraîche in the past — it’s far too lovely not to write about! — but usually within the context of serving a dollop of the velvety cultured cream with fruit or using it with savory dishes the same way you’d use sour cream. (In effect, crème fraîche is a VERY-MUCH upgraded, European [...]
Continue reading about Turning Milkshakes into Health Food, One Glass at a Time
