I love a slaw. Not the traditional coleslaw, laden with weepy, white cream-based dressings, but a slaw nouveau is what I’m talking about. A bit of cabbage, some acid– be it astringent vinegar, or tangy citrus juice, you can’t forget the olive oil, and some other stuff: nuts, herbs, thinly sliced onion, other vegetables, fruit even– you name it, I’ve probably thrown it in a salad bowl.

What is so satisfying about a slaw is that they’re sort of seasonless. In the winter, when I tire of roasting my vegetables, when I want a vegetable to make some noise, have a crunch, I can always get a head of cabbage, slice it thinly, make a slaw, and chew ’til my heart’s content. In the summer, when I’m wilting from heat exhaustion, and can’t imagine turning on the stove, I turn once more to the lowly head of cabbage, and slice up [...]

This is what we had on New Year’s day at my house:

And it was perfect!
The holiday season is over, and as much as I heartily welcome it each year; I am always ready to bid it farewell in January. Having the holidays fall on a a Tuesday this year really messed with my head. I can only handle merriment once a week and it’s usually on the weekend. Therefore, Monday felt like Saturday, and Tuesday was Sunday for sure! And Joe’s special is the perfect food to eat on a lazy Sunday– which is why we had it on New Year’s day. (Got that?)
Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area I remember Original Joe’s, I don’t however remember Joe’s Special. Maybe that’s because when I was a kid, I didn’t like eggs. Yup, I wouldn’t eat them, especially scrambled, as they are in this dish. I am still quite [...]

I know that it’s almost Thanksgiving. (Gobble gobble, to all of those omnivores out there!) Most of you already are busy planning and cooking your meal. You will have the much-loved side dishes to be paired with the turkey: stuffing is a definite, most likely you’ll have mashed potatoes, maybe you’ll indulge in some creamed onions. While baking an additional pot of baked bean, might be too large an undertaking for you this holiday, I must leave you with this one final recipe before we sign-off for turkey day.
Beans? You might be saying. She’s leaving us with a bean recipe? Yes! These slow-cooked beans were that good.

I hadn’t had baked beans in years. And, come to think of it, I don’t know that I had ever eaten a true pot of baked beans. The baked beans I had eaten came from a can. They were shiny, and coated in a [...]

It’s November, and Thanksgiving is early this year. If you’re anything like me, you’re already making mental checklists of everything you want/need (really, is there any difference?) to cook and bake for this holiday that beats all other holidays, culinarily speaking.
I’ll be baking a pie this week on local television. (For those of you who want to see the segment, I’ll link to it when it’s on-line.) In preparation for Thanksgiving, and since I now reside in New England, birthplace of the pumpkin in this country, I’ll be making the fall classic– pumpkin pie.

But this post is not about the pie part of pumpkin pie; it’s about the pumpkin. For those of you who have never roasted a pumpkin, I implore you to give it a try this year. Homemade pumpkin puree is richer, smoother, more pumpkin-y. It really is delicious– and so easy to make there is hardly a [...]

There is something about potato leek soup that is humbling. It’s cold outside and you pour yourself a cup. You slurp it down while wearing fingerless gloves. Maybe you’re in a barn. It is dusk. Dark clouds are rolling in. It is all very Dickensian.
Humor me.
That might be the potato leek soup that is composed of three ingredients– leeks, potatoes, and water.

But this is the potato leek soup that is made on a Sunday afternoon, at the close of a full weekend. You may be miles away from a barn, but it is still humbling… and satisfying to boot. There  are more than three ingredients in this recipe, but not too many more. In fact, the soup comes together in under an hour, always a welcome direction when you’re busy.
So let’s get down to the “plus” business. Well, there’s stock used instead of water. This adds another dimension of flavor. [...]

I must admit, it was the name of this casserole that got me at the start. It reminds me of nursery rhymes. As I glanced through the list of ingredients, trying to determine how the recipe got its moniker, I realized that the “little red” was in reference to the light tomato sauce that’s made in which to stew the hominy. Simple enough. Now I felt a little slighted by the name, but the recipe did look good.
I am not big on casseroles. It’s not that I don’t like a one pot meal, it’s just that I don’t think that everything has to go together, but this casserole was more of a side dish– a side dish I could do.
So I just popped out to the store to pick up a can of hominy. Who knew that would be the most difficult part of the assembly? Hominy was nowhere to [...]

Soup or side dish. That’s a difficult one.
Cream corn straddles those two food groups. So let’s just call it a soupy side dish.

Cream corn is good, some might even say great. It is soothing, comforting; it screams summer. (For those of you that haven’t ever had fresh cream corn, it may scream, “I come from a can!”. That’s fine too.) But this cream corn is updated. And might I say, it may be better than the cream corn of yore?
Sadly, I know that in many parts of the country the corn crop this year is dismal, but here in Connecticut it has been stellar. (Not to rub it in.) The corn I’ve been getting at the farmer’s market is super sweet, and bursting with juice. I’ve been buying a lot of corn, and have been making it every which way, so I had planned on making cream corn. As I [...]

This “compote” is just like baby food. If babies liked harissa.
And if pediatricians regularly recommended raw garlic as a part of an infant’s healthy diet. Or freshly ground caraway– babies probably don’t love that. And coriander seeds– those are probably a bit strong too.
Let me amend that last statement.
This “compote” looks just like baby food. It a puree after all. And maybe you’ll be as happy as roly poly baby after you eat it.
I ate a lot of ham over the holidays. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good ham. I also love all of the leftovers that come with the ham: the ham biscuits, the souffle with ham and Gruyere cheese, the fried ham steaks. (I am nothing if not resourceful. But I couldn’t face any more leftovers, therefore have stuck the bone in the freezer and will make split pea soup at a later date.) Come January [...]

Remember the pathetic growing season I had last year? When I couldn’t get my tomato plants into the ground and had to “grow” them in pots? Then it rained practically all June long, leaving me with a few measly, watery tomatoes. This, my friends, is what I call a serious dearth. Well, this year we tried again. We actually got the tomatoes into the ground, in soil no less! They were slow going. Slow to ripen. But then they got a little crazy, bushing out, tossing their tomato cages out of the garden. If not for the care of a diligent and mindful friend while Brian and I were in California, I fear that we would have had to hack our way through the tomato jungle when we got home. In fact, we sort of did.
This was only one of [...]

First there were the radishes.  They seem like a distant memory to me now.  They grew, we ate, we conquered.  And for the first time, I decided to grow some peas– sugar snap peas to be exact.  If the the radishes were gratifying, these peas are, well… joyous.  Joyous?  Yes, joyous!
The fence that Brian and I grew the peas against was slippery, and plastic, meaning it would have to be nail-free.  So we constructed a trellis out of some tall bamboo stakes plunged into the soil, and some natural twine.  At first they were slow going.  I would run out to the garden each day, and all that I saw was a pile of plants.  But then, ever so slowly, the snap peas shot out frail tendrils.  The tendrils are what did it!  Like pieces of ABC (already-been-chewed) gum, each tendril was sticky, reaching for a stretch of twine.  And [...]