Ah, summer farmers markets. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning, especially when the weather’s nice and the stands are overflowing with such great stuff. And even if it’s a little too sticky outside to be comfortable, the bounty is usually worth it. No, it’s always worth it. I’d walk…
Dinner in a pinch, made to impress! Puff pastry with ham & Gruyère
This time of year is so, so hectic (though we probably always feel like our lives are crazy busy, right?). When I think of an easy fall dinner, I often base its viability on a simple pre-trick-or-treating test. Basically, is it something that could be easily made and quickly served to a family (friends included!)…
Forget the French fries: Salt and vinegar potatoes
I love recipes that take a bit of work to put together, the kind that use a ridiculous amount of kitchenware, loads of ingredients and a fair amount of time before they even reach the oven. There’s something so satisfying about all that work, both in the finished dishes you’ve created and the chaos they…
On top of spaghetti: Fast and easy meatballs
While making a grocery list yesterday, I took a minute to peruse the recipe index on the blog for a few meal ideas for the upcoming week. During said search, two facts become abundantly clear: No. 1, we eat a lot of cookies. And No. 2, if our lives took place in Land Before Time,…
Easy (and lovely!) Asparagus Gruyere Tart
Although I will always and forever be a winter girl at heart (hence the yearly stream of holiday tunes and bi-weekly watching of Christmas movies), there are plenty of things to love about springtime. After all, if the outside can’t be covered in snow, it might as well be green and leafy and flowery and…
Pretty on Pinterest = yummy in the tummy
The old adage says you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and in most cases that’s super sage advice. I can think of some great books I’ve read that would have been labeled absolute duds if left to rely on their dusty old jackets. When it comes to food, however, the same isn’t entirely…
Go ahead, bake some love
I’ve been on a bit of a blogging hiatus as of late. And no, this wasn’t the kick-up-your-heels, toes-in-the-sand, relaxy-taxi kind of hiatus. Rather, it was the holy-moly-I-have-so-much-to-do-my-brain-will-surely-explode-if-I-add-one-more-thing-to-my-to-do-list kind of hiatus. You know the kind, right? It’s when you go to bed around midnight and say to yourself, “That’s all I can do today. I’ll…
Horseradish, I think we can be friends now.
What in the world did we do before Google? Remember in the olden days, when we’d have a question about something and had to dig around in the encyclopedia (or Encarta on the computer, for the high-tech folks), the dictionary or our own noggins to find the information we were looking for? Now when I’m…
Roasted carrots: Simple? Yes. Delicious? Definitely.
There is simple but profound nugget of wisdom I’ve discovered during this long, snowy wintertime of root vegetable eating: All root vegetables (and arguably any vegetable, for that matter) taste better roasted. Something lovely and miraculous happens when those chunks of vegetable goodness take a dive in olive oil, followed by a slight sprinkling of…
Back to basics: Dill fingerling potatoes
In many ways, a potato is just that — a potato. It’s plain, starchy, simple and unpretentious. It doesn’t pretend to be fancy, require loads of prep work or demand an onslaught of unfamiliar ingredients to make it an edible dish. Potatoes are like the ultimate blank canvas, and it really only takes one or…