You’ve probably had brown lentils and yellow lentils since both are beloved soup ingredients, but have you ever tried green lentils? One variety from France — called Le Puy lentils since they’re grown in the Le Puy region — is particularly nice in stir-frys and pilafs because the lentils are more firm than most other [...]
Ah, collards, how I do love thee! Ditto for bacon grease rendered from real bacon, by which I mean bacon from pastured hogs. No sense in wasting that! Especially not when collard greens taste so darned tasty when cooked in it. Throw in some onion slices and a generous sprinkling of spices, and all you need [...]
Finally! Spring is here! Once more, ’tis the season of colorful veggies. And fresh-cooked whole grains to complement those lovely vegetables. Millet, amaranth, quinoa, even steel-cut oats are great candidates for savory suppers. Or how about a member of the rice family? Brown, black, red, and purple are all as delicious as they are visually [...]
If you’ve never had prosciutto di Parma — that’s imported prosciutto from Parma, Italy — give it a try. While domestic prosciutto offers a faint taste of the faintly smoky, deeply savory, and lightly cured flavor so intrinsic to good prosciutto, the real deal offers a much richer, more pronounced taste. Yes, the good stuff [...]
Continue reading about The Beauty of Combining Cured Ham with Roasted Squash
French onion soup has always been one of my favorite soups — I just love the way the onions are sauteed into rich, velvety smoothness that captures all of the best aspects of onion flavor and dispenses with any suggestion of harshness (a.k.a. the dreaded “onion breath” effect). The only bad thing about French onion [...]
As much as I adore raw food (no grains means no gluten — yay!) and especially the dehydrated main courses like meatball subs and falafel wraps, I’m not wild about the typical dehydration period of anywhere from 12 to 20 hours. That’s too much planning and waiting even for me. Plus, although dehydrators run at [...]
Continue reading about Sometimes Rules Are Meant To Be Broken
If you happened to catch me on the local Fox morning show this week, you probably saw me cooking with coffee in the station’s studio kitchen. One of the recipes I made was coffee-spiked pozole. Yep, I said coffee. It goes beyond the cup! I created this recipe because I wanted to infuse this traditional Mexican [...]
Nothing warms up a cold winter night like spicy soup. I don’t mean spicy-hot, I mean spicy-variety — in this case, a simple blend of curry powder and cilantro. (Technically, cilantro is an herb, but I’m going to lump them together under the concept of “spice.”) The slightly sweet carrots provide the perfect canvas for [...]
Should you find yourself with leftover turkey this holiday season, rejoice! There’s no end to what you can do with leftover turkey. (Or chicken, for that matter. In fact, just about any leftover meat can be put to a myriad of culinary uses.) This easy-to-make soup includes a host of holiday ingredients: carrots, green onions, [...]
Continue reading about Simple & Savory Ideas for Holiday Turkey Leftovers
Traditional tapenade includes the holy trinity of salty garnishing ingredients: olives, anchovies, and capers. It’s an intense blend of flavors and a perfect example of the “a little goes a long way” school of thought. For this batch, though, I’ve decided to go alter the main ingredients and go with the holy trinity of umami, [...]
