Vegetables

It’s the end of the month. It’s cold.  What better time for a hot spicy bowl of chili? If you’ve been curious about some of those meat substitutes that have come on the market, here is a chance to try them out. Or, not.  This…

  I’m sitting here waiting for the big storm that is headed for Southern California. Right now it is sunny and the billowy white clouds drifting over my home are beautiful…the calm before the storm.  Two nights ago, during the pre-storm wind storm, a couple…

You want raisins with your spaghetti? Turns out that you definitely do. This Spaghetti With Spinach, Pine Nuts and Raisins is a knock-it-out-of-the-park variation on traditional spaghetti recipes. There is the silky smoothness of the noodles, the crunch of the pine nuts, the healthfulness of…

Like suitors proffering lovely flower bouquets, young men stood along the side of the road offering beautiful bunches of fresh green asparagus. It was a long-ago trip and we were on the road from Rabat to Tangier. I was enjoying the green countryside, but I…

“When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I…

As the old Southern New Year’s saying goes, “Peas for pennies, greens for dollars, cornbread for gold.” In other words, these foods, when eaten on New Year’s Day, promise prosperity.  My mother was in the black-eyed-pea school of Southern New Year’s cooks. I always wondered…

This creamy Cauliflower and Zucchini Soup is just the mug of soup you need to warm your body and spirit during this winter’s chill. It’s definitely soup weather–even here in relatively warm southern California.  Cauliflower, of course, is good for you, too, as you move…

Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.”  Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipes are for holiday dishes involving cranberries–one a home-made sauce and the other a squash side dish.  You can…

I finally got my hands on a copy of Melissa Clark’s Dinner In One cookbook. To say that the cookbook’s delivery was “delayed” is an understatement. Seems that in the crush of pandemic-delayed shipping, the original cargo container carrying Clark’s cookbook went plunging into the…

For me, baked beans hit all the right flavor notes–sweet, savory…a bit of tang. As a home cook, I love the long slow baking process and the wonderful aromas that waft through my kitchen when I bake beans. I’m not alone in this romance with…