Lisa on March 4th, 2013

It’s a banner day, folks! Not only is my stubborn cold finally gone, this is my 1,000th post. (Too bad 10 a.m. doesn’t seem like an appropriate time to bust open a bottle of bubbly!) To celebrate, I thought I’d share a tasty pizza recipe that was the happy result of looking in my fridge [...]

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Lisa on September 16th, 2012

Cooking is fun, but it’s even more fun when you’re doing an Extreme Food Makeover challenge! This weekend, I’ve been brainstorming recipe ideas for Cooking Matters Michigan‘s EFM contest. I and my fellow competitors have each been given a dish to remake with what we have on hand plus three purchased ingredients AND a “secret” [...]

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Lisa on August 22nd, 2012

When it comes to breakfast breads, pancakes are fun, crepes are elegant, and waffles are luxurious. I say “luxurious” because waffles are far more time-consuming to make than pancakes and crepes. Then again, waffles are the best reheaters, so you can make a week’s worth of breakfasts at once and then just pop a waffle [...]

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Lisa on August 15th, 2012

From tortillas to naan to crepes, every culture has its favorite flatbread. (As opposed to risen, rounded breads.) One of my favorite flatbreads is whole-corn tortillas. While crepes are delightfully supple and soft, tortillas become magnificently crunchy after a few minutes on the stove — just heat in a dry skillet over medium heat for about two [...]

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Lisa on April 9th, 2012

If pizza had originated in Morocco rather than Italy, I have a sneaking suspicion that lamb would have been the meat of choice, not pepperoni. (Or perhaps pepperoni made with lamb. Hint, hint… I can only hope the American Lamb Board is reading this!) And perhaps the sauce would have been been made the way [...]

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Lisa on January 4th, 2012

This is a tale of two culinary possibilities: turning a classic pasta dish into a pizza of sorts and how to save your summer tomato surplus without having to resort to canning. I’m all for canning, mind you, but it’s a lot easier to throw something into a bag than can it. The fact that [...]

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Lisa on January 2nd, 2012

Happy New Year, everybody! I thought I’d start off 2012 by breaking an established culinary tradition: pizza toppings. Don’t get me wrong — I love mushroom and (pastured) pepperoni as much as the next guy — but I also enjoy venturing into off-the-spun-dough territory. I first had Thunfisch (tuna fish) pizza in Germany and have [...]

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Lisa on November 28th, 2011

Here’s a truth that’s inconvenient for the dinner-in-a-sack industry but is great for the rest of us: fast food doesn’t have to be junk food. You’ve probably already got a lot of tasty quick meals loitering about in your kitchen, from canned beans that can be made into hearty salads to canned squash or pumpkin [...]

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Lisa on October 14th, 2011

Got some green tomatoes still clinging to the vine? Or maybe you’re like me and you’ve got a bag of them sitting in your kitchen. Now that we’re firmly in fall, we can only pluck the last of what’s in our gardens and hope that whatever still needs to ripen ripens indoors. In my case, [...]

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Lisa on December 20th, 2010

The best part about roasted vegetables isn’t the fact that they’re ridiculously easy to make.  It isn’t even the fact that they taste so good that avowed vegetable haters have just as much of a penchant for roasted vegetables as vegetarians do.  No, the best thing about roasted vegetables is that leftover roasted veggies can [...]

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