For some reason Brussels sprouts is a vegetable capable of releasing passion. Like this:
I love Brussels sprouts!
or
I hate Brussels sprouts!
Very rarely do you hear, “Brussels sprouts? Meh. I could take them or leave them.”
It’s sad really, because in the much-loved, much-hated division we are all overlooking an important point: Brussels sprouts are cute.
Posted in Holiday dishes, Recipes, Side dish | Tagged Brussels sprouts, food, recipes, side dish recipes, Thanksgiving recipes | 17 Comments »
From last year’s archives, I thought I’d dig it out this annual favorite for Thanksgiving 2012!
Every Thanksgiving I brace myself for the inevitable: green bean casserole.
Posted in Holiday dishes, Side dish | Tagged Brussels sprouts, cookbook, food, recipe, side dishes, Thanksgiving recipes | 2 Comments »
Posted in Baked goods | Tagged baked goods, food, pumpkin raisin muffins, pumpkin recipes, recipes | 1 Comment »
Sometimes squash can be intimidating. They are weird looking, require a huge knife to hack them open, and then take hours in the oven to roast and soften. Spaghetti squash are the smoothest of the squash family. Their flesh, when cooked, breaks apart in strings not unlike angel hair pasta. But don’t be fooled. It is still a squash.
I just learned a great squash trick. You can soften a squash in 8 minutes in the microwave. Yes. Just halve it, scoop out the seeds, cover it in plastic wrap and nuke for 8 minutes. You’ll want to let it rest a bit so you don’t scald your fingers when you remove the plastic wrap.
Posted in Eating in season, Main dish | Tagged dinner, food, Parmesan cheese, recipe, spaghetti squash | 8 Comments »
I wish I had a picture of risotto to share with you. If I had a picture you’d see soft pillowy mounds of arborio rice, with flecks of green broccoli, and earthy mushrooms held together with Grana Padano cheese but I don’t. Because I ate it before I could take a picture. All of it. It was that good.
So here is an autumn Valentine for you instead.
It’s almost as good, right?
I felt like I had gotten a Valentine the night my friends came over to eat risotto in heaping bowlfuls. My friends are all single urbanites, charging in a million different directions. I wan’t sure who would show up at the dinner table. In the end, there were five of us – just kind of “coming home” together after a week of hectic schedules, new jobs, and surviving the ordinary. Continue Reading »
Posted in Main dish, Side dish | Tagged food, Grana Padano, recipes, risotto, salad dressing | 4 Comments »
This past summer I visited my college friend Enicia who is a “homesteader” in Wildomar, Calif. What makes my soft-spoken, gentle friend a homesteader? Maybe it is the 14 variety of heirloom tomatoes she grows, the flock of heritage breed chickens that scratch around her porch, and the .22 handgun that she used to blow away a squirrel who was ” thinking that we have been growing everything for him!”
Foolish squirrel.
Posted in Food musings | Tagged backyard chickens, farming, food, homeschooling, urban homesteading | 11 Comments »
Sometime in August my friend Monica forwarded me an e-mail with the note: “Why haven’t we heard about this?”
It was an invitation to the Boston Food Swap. Essentially, it’s a silent bidding auction where you bring something you made or grew and use it to bid on items from other people. It’s low-key, fun, and a nice way to meet other people who are interested in making and sharing their own food.
Posted in Baked goods, Eating in season | Tagged Boston Food Swap, chocolate chips, food, local food, recipes, zucchini bread | 2 Comments »
I started riding my bike again this summer. The last time I really rode my bike was in the summer of 2006. I was training for the Chicago Triathlon. I was supposed to race with my dad, but he passed away that winter. So I prepared for the starting line in Chicago anyway, as a kind of tribute to him. I trained really hard and finished strong. When I found out I placed 7th in my age group, I wept. And then I stopped riding my bike. Until now.
Posted in Breakfast, Sauces | Tagged breakfast, compte, cycling, food, pancakes, peaches, recipe | 9 Comments »
After another swim across Walden Pond a couple of weekends ago followed by plates of breakfast burritos at a local diner, my friend Kristi insisted that we stop by a local farm stand on our way back into town. She even started waving a 20 dollar bill saying she’d buy us vegetables.
Reluctantly Jenna, Lisa, and I agreed that we’d pull over for just five minutes. I don’t know what our problem was. The minute we stepped into the farm stand we started running around exclaiming over the color of the green cucumbers and purple eggplants and the towering pile of corn. Pretty soon I had assembled a still life of sorts on a rustic wooden counter and the lady running the farm stand got so excited she started bringing me veggies to add to my picture like these cute yellow cucumbers I had never seen before.
Posted in Soup | Tagged chilled soup, cucumbers, farm stand, recipes, soup | 5 Comments »
Last week we had a heat wave. Rows of 100s marched down the East Coast on the weather map. I swam outside as much as possible. And ice. I ate lots of ice.
Not ice cubes, but delicious and refreshing granita – Italian ice that you can make so easily in your own freezer. Granita is simply combining water, sugar, and fruit flavorings and then freezing it. It’s like a fancy slushy for grownups.
Posted in Dessert | Tagged dessert, granita, Italian ice, recipe | 6 Comments »
Kitchen Report 