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 [...]
Want a tastier, healthier substitute for commercial mayo? Try using plain whole-milk Greek yogurt whenever you’d normally reach for the mayo. If you want to give it even more of that mayo-like tang, just stir a squirt of fresh lemon juice and a small spoonful of mustard into the yogurt. The result? A full-flavored, creamy, [...]
Lately, I’ve been happily browsing through cookbooks featuring New Orleans cuisine, which means I’ve had jambalaya and gumbo and étouffée on my mind. The fact that the weather is about to get downright cold — we’ll miss you, 70 degrees Fahrenheit! — is making me even more inclined to whip up some hot-off-the-stove flavors of [...]
Continue reading about The (New Orleans) Mother of All Omelets
With the days so dang hot, odds are you don’t want to fire up all of your burners to make dinner. You also might be inclined to lighter, satisfying-without-making-you-feel-stuffed fare. Maybe you even have some veggies growing rampant in your garden. What does all this add up to? No-cook soups. Just toss everything in a [...]
Ever wanted to make soup but been out of broth? Never fear! There’s an easy way to make instant broth out of a few handy condiments that you probably already have on hand. If you don’t have these on hand, in fact, you might want to stock them since they’re great pantry items and can [...]
Continue reading about Better Than Bouillon (or How to Make Your Own Instant Broth)
This is taking the surf ‘n’ turf concept to the next level, folks — we’re bringing together the darlings of the surf (shrimp) AND the turf (bacon). And it only takes 10 minutes to throw all of this together if you have some pre-cooked bacon on hand. Even if you have to cook the bacon, [...]
Continue reading about Luxury (Yet Affordable!) Surf ‘n’ Turf
One of the many wonderful things about the world of food — perhaps the most wonderful — is that the stuff that tastes the best is also the stuff that’s the best quality and the most sustainable. I’m talking grass-fed beef, eggs from pastured hens, well- managed wild seafood, etc. People who think about the [...]
Want to get more efficient in the kitchen? Make multiple-pot meals. Heck, you’ve got four burners, so why not have them all in motion? If you simmer two ingredients while you sautée a third (and chop a fourth), your prep time will be only as long as the longest-cooking item of the bunch. For this [...]
Continue reading about Some of the Best Dinners Have Just Four Ingredients
Why taste one thing when you can taste three? Or four or five? Not only are nibbles — or “small plates,” if you want to get fancy about it — usually something quick and simple, if you have enough nibbles on a plate, you have a meal! So the next time you’re in the mood [...]
Continue reading about Unleashing Your Inner (and Thrifty) Gourmet
Marinated mushrooms: those tasty fungi at the end of grocery-store olive bars that pretty much everyone ignores. I must have passed by the garlicky little suckers a dozen times before I even registered their presence. Once I tried them, though, I knew they’d be delicious in a wide variety of dishes … not to mention [...]
