What do Brussels sprouts, potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms have in common? They were all in my pantry begging to be made into soup. The lentils looked lonely, too, so I threw them into the mix. Hearty soups are best made in the winter, after all, even if the term “winter” doesn’t seem to currently imply [...]
Who says you can’t have a fiesta in the wintertime? (Especially when it’s 48F outside. It’s like spring in the winter!) Unlike mexicanized restaurant food in the U.S., actual food in Mexico is fresh, vibrant, and light in a satisfying and hearty kind of way. Case in point: a crisp, refreshing version of pozole, served [...]
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Cold weather = a great time for hot soup. (And hot chocolate!) Hot soup with a Caribbean flair is an even better way to ignore the outdoor chill. I was lucky to have tinned conch on hand when I decided to warm up my evening with hot Caribbean soup, but you could just as easily [...]
I think creamy veggie soups are the perfect fall dish — they’re thickly hearty and warming, but all the vegetables remind me of summertime. (Ah, my poor garden! But hopefully the winter months will give the freshly laid compost some time to sink in…) And the fact that there are lots of ways to make [...]
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Raw bell peppers are delicious, but roasted bell peppers are even better. They’re also ridiculously easy to roast yourself: just put the pepper(s) on the center oven rack and roast for 20 minutes at 425F. Immediately drop the pepper(s) into a plastic zip-loc bag, seal, and let sit until cool enough to handle. (The cooling-off [...]
It’s almost summer, things are finally green, and I’m actually excited about mowing the lawn again. It’s a lot better than shoveling snow! Or mopping the basement floor with an old towel when the heavy early-spring rains hit and you get water in places you don’t want to get water. Hot summer days sound pretty [...]
When it comes to versatile flavor and nutritional bang for your buck, you can’t beat dried beans. On the downside, though, dried beans take a while to reconstitute — depending on how you do it, there’s either a lot of soaking and simmering involved, or a lot less soaking and simmering time and a lot [...]
I’ve been thinking a lot about mushrooms lately. I’ve also been reading a lot of books about foraging lately. Come to think of it, the latter probably explains the former… While I’m not ready to go out and collect my own mushrooms — there are far too many dangerous varieties for a neophyte to gather [...]
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In my continuing quest to see what else I can do with goat yogurt (so far there’s been ice cream, and stay tuned for muffins!), I decided to see what I could do with goat yogurt in the soup world. Pairing the tangy yogurt with the bright acidity of tomatoes turned out to be a [...]
I’m a big believer in making your own sauces, dressings, and condiments — they’re usually easy to make, and it’s a lot quicker and cheaper to craft your own blend with ingredients you already have on hand than it is to go out and buy a big bottle/jar of something that’ll take you forever to [...]
