Vegetables

Pasta Salad With Feta and Herbs

Pasta Salad With Feta and Herbs

When I was twenty-two and had my own kitchen for the first time, I knew absolutely nothing about cooking. Nothing. So…I bought my first cookbook–a used copy of the 1963 edition of The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook. The book’s provenance is interesting. The name Sugar Bardy…

A Promethean Fennel Gratin

A Promethean Fennel Gratin

  Cooks should have a whole lot of respect for fennel.  According to Greek mythology, Prometheus used a large stalk of fennel to carry fire from Mount Olympus to earth. But, alas, while fennel is a popular ingredient in Italian and Indian cuisines, it is…

Anxiety Eating Antidote: Spicy Cauliflower and Potato Soup

Anxiety Eating Antidote: Spicy Cauliflower and Potato Soup

I bought a cauliflower recently with good intentions. I’ve been doing a little a lot of anxiety eating lately as I sit here in California in Covid19 lockdown. My scale tells me I need to up my nutrition game. I know cruciferous vegetables are super foods.…

Gadget Madness: Spiralized Vietnamese Cucumber Salad

Gadget Madness: Spiralized Vietnamese Cucumber Salad

I’m a gadget girl. I have drawers and drawers (and drawers!) of cooking tools–some whose function I no longer remember. So, like most of the rest of the cooks in America right now, I’ve been doing some pandemic kitchen cleaning and organizing. I’ve put off…

I’ll have a cup of vodka with that! Pasta alla Vecchia Bettola

I’ll have a cup of vodka with that! Pasta alla Vecchia Bettola

“I’d much rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size zero.”                                            —Sophia Loren   I’m with Sophia. Why not start your pasta…

It’s a pizza!

It’s a pizza!

This, quite deservedly, is King Arthur Flour’s recipe of the year. It is a wonderful puffy deep-dish pizza you can make in your cast-iron skillet. Easy-peasy, by the way. Here is the recipe.     It’s a pizza! Save Recipe Print Recipe My Recipes My…

Carpe Diem and Pass the Chiles: Spicy Spinach, Bean and Pasta Soup

Carpe Diem and Pass the Chiles: Spicy Spinach, Bean and Pasta Soup

  “Ask not (’tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years, Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers. Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past, Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our…

Pickled Beet Salad With Puy Lentils, Baby Spinach and Feta

Pickled Beet Salad With Puy Lentils, Baby Spinach and Feta

This is a beautiful salad inspired by Hetty McKinnon’s recipe for Pickled Beetroot With Puy Lentils, Baby Spinach and Cheddar in her wonderful cookbook Community. You have a lot of colorful choices within the beet (Beta vulgaris) family, too. You can make this salad as…

Cucumbers in Sweet Lime Vinegar

Cucumbers in Sweet Lime Vinegar

    Who doesn’t need a good condiment now and then? That is particularly true now. Those creative dishes we are all making with pantry staples can get a wee bit boring. This over-the-top lime-flavored cucumber dish rocks. If you are a lime juice devotee…

Sweet Memories and Russian Salad

Sweet Memories and Russian Salad

Memories. This coronavirus crisis has given me a lot of time to explore my food (and other) memories. I imagine you have done a lot of that, too. On a lazy afternoon recently, I asked myself where I would most like to revisit (and dine)…