Vegetarian

Pearl Couscous With Creamy Feta and Chickpeas

Pearl Couscous With Creamy Feta and Chickpeas

I’m loving this dish. Couscous has long been a staple food in North Africa’s Maghreb but it has become popular around the world in recent years. I remember discovering it on a long-ago trip to startlingly-beautiful and exasperatingly-strident  Morocco. Most of us here in the…

Happy Valentine’s Day: Apple Pie and Roses

Happy Valentine’s Day: Apple Pie and Roses

Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Roses. These sweet little roses are made with apples, puff pastry, a wee bit of apricot jam and a smidge of creativity. Trust me. You can do this. Despite looking intricate, these apple roses are a cinch to make…

Oh My! Applesauce Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Oh My! Applesauce Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

You’ll want to treat yourself to this one! It’s decadently delicious. While applesauce cake has been around in America since colonial times, it became especially popular during WWI. In fact, it was considered downright patriotic to eat applesauce cake during the war. By foregoing the…

Small Sorrows and Chocolate-Hazelnut Banana Bread

Small Sorrows and Chocolate-Hazelnut Banana Bread

OK. It’s no polar vortex, but it is cold, dark and rainy here in SoCal—window-rattling thunder, too. My nerves are noticeably jangled. Sweet Juliet, with plaintive break-your-heart “Mom: Make it stop” eyes,  is hiding among the folds of her favorite blanket. No question. We’re quite…

Orange Chocolate Cookies: That Little Black Cookie You Need in Your Repertoire

Orange Chocolate Cookies: That Little Black Cookie You Need in Your Repertoire

    How do you define elegance? Audrey Hepburn? That exquisite little black dress at Nordstrom’s? Dinner at The French Laundry? Camilla Parker Bowles? (OK. Just kidding about that last one.) It may be time to revisit your definition and add this delightful cookie to…

Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Keller: Elevating Macaroni and Cheese to an Art Form

Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Keller: Elevating Macaroni and Cheese to an Art Form

John F. Kennedy famously remarked that a White House dinner he held for Nobel Prize winners was “the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” Ah,…

Like A Boss: Glazed Shiitakes With Bok Choy

Like A Boss: Glazed Shiitakes With Bok Choy

Do Asian vegetables confuse you? Don’t know your bok choy from your choy sum? Neither do I, but when David Tanis, one of my favorite food writers,  published this recipe for Glazed Shiitakes With Bok Choy in his New York Times column City Kitchen, I soon found…

Hated the Biscuits; Loved the Bread Pudding

Hated the Biscuits; Loved the Bread Pudding

  I made biscuits the other day. It sounded like a good idea but I ended up hating them. B-o-r-i-n-g.  Even a generous pat of Kerrygold butter couldn’t bring them to life. OK. I’ll admit that it may have been me. I am in my…

Smooth As Butter: Roasted Butternut Squash With Lentils and Stilton

Smooth As Butter: Roasted Butternut Squash With Lentils and Stilton

How do you feel about butternut squash?  No, really. For those of you who might shy away from the squash, consider the following: It is a fruit; who doesn’t love fruit? It is a healthy food; who doesn’t want to eat healthy?  It is inexpensive;…

Chickpea Soup With Orzo and Spinach

Chickpea Soup With Orzo and Spinach

How about a hearty chickpea soup for New Year’s Eve or  New Year’s Day? This recipe features all sorts of good vegetables to launch your new year–chickpeas, carrots, fennel, spinach and on and on. If you sprinkle some grated Parmesan over the soup at serving…