Vegetarian

Apricot Tart

Apricot Tart

  Wow!  Just wow! What do you get when you combine a shortbread crust, a frangipani custard base and beautiful just-in-season apricots from the farmers’ market?  This tender and absolutely stunning tart! Take my advice and eat this tart just warm from the oven when the warm apricots…

All that and a bag of chips! Artichokes!

    Tender artichoke hearts. Lemon. Grape tomatoes. Herbs galore. Yum. A friend served this as the main course at a dinner party I was fortunate to attend a few years ago. She confided that the recipe came from a Jamie Oliver book, The Naked…

Middle Eastern Eggplant Rice

To my delight, I’ve realized that I have some holes in my cookbook collection. My Middle Eastern cookbook shelf, in particular, is a little thin. I say “to my delight” because, believe me, I welcome any excuse to buy new cookbooks. Picture me with a…

Avocado-Cilantro Salad Dressing

Avocado-Cilantro Salad Dressing

  I’ve lived in my home for forty-seven years and for most of that time we had an enormous Haas avocado tree in our back yard. Talk about an embarrassment of riches! In addition to the abundance of avocados we had to eat and give away…

Mr. Bates and The Queen’s Cake

  Apparently Queen Elizabeth is a foodie. She loves raspberry jam cookie sandwiches, white peaches, Dubonnet and gin, and chocolate biscuit cake. Scones are a constant at her tea table where she reportedly crumbles some of them up and slips them under the table to…

Day-O! and Banana Cake

    Join Juliet and me as we conga around the kitchen island singing Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song . Got you in the mood for a banana recipe? The way I figure it, everyone needs a few good banana recipes. Bananas are a health food, after…

Me, Serena Williams and Cauliflower Rice

Me, Serena Williams and Cauliflower Rice

  You know how you put stuff off? Me, too. I don’t usually sing my own praises but I’m not shy about saying that I excel (I mean really excel) as a procrastinator. In fact, I’m the Serena Williams of procrastination. So, today I decided…

Edamame Salad

Edamame Salad

      These days many food sites exhort us to “eat the rainbow”–a colorful visual cue to remind us of the importance of incorporating a variety of nutrients into our daily diets.  Good advice. I know I need the nudge. Here is a recipe for…

Olive Oil Cake

Olive oil in a cake? Yuck. Don’t get me wrong. I love olive oil. I regularly drive to Los Alamitos’ Antica Olive Oil store to buy the best olive oils I can find. There, I enthusiastically swirl, sniff, sip and swallow  the various offerings freshly poured…

Savory Bread Pudding with Sautéed Leeks and Butternut Squash

I love bread pudding. It is my idea of a soothing comfort food–right up there alongside refried beans and candy corn. That said, I guess it’s pretty clear that carbs whisper sweet nothings in my ear when the pressure’s on in my life . While…