Clearly, Jared and I have been feeling a little ’nola lately. Actually, it’s more like a let’s-use-up-what-we-have-in-the-pantry and a-little-granola’s-good-but-more-granola’s-better kind of feeling. We’re also on a semi-serious mission to only spring for the pre-made/boxed snacks and foods at the grocery store when we can’t make them ourselves in a reasonable amount of time (i.e., I…
Happy day food: Lemon spaghetti, a la Giada
Ah, lemon. Is there anything more fresh, more beautiful or more satisfying than a citrus-infused dish or dessert? I think not. A while back, Jared grabbed a gigantic sack of organic lemons from the grocery store; he figured we could put them to use before their time ran out. And use them we have (think…
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…
Vegetable Week: It’s like Shark Week, but healthier
This week will go down in history as the week that Jared and I ate our weight in vegetables. OK, not really. But we made a mighty impressive effort, if I do say so myself. It all started with that veggie-filled garden minestrone soup earlier this week. Then there was Valentine’s Day dinner, which consisted…
Project NYT: Garden minestrone
There are some recipes that will confuse you from the very beginning. They’ll ask you to cook something on low when medium seems more logical. They’ll call for slicing and not dicing, when you know in your gut that the vegetables will never lose their crunch in a 20-minute cook time. They’ll give you strict…
Project NYT: Parmesan crackers, no boxes allowed
In the short while since I started this blog, the words made from scratch have taken on such new meaning to me. It’s no longer just about following a recipe or venturing beyond the boxed cake mix. Rather, it’s about taking even the simplest of foods and reducing them to their bare bones ingredients: the…
Good things take time: Butternut squash risotto
Few acts in the kitchen can make an amateur cook feel quite as accomplished as the successful preparation of homemade risotto. For a single dish, you get to chop, grate, season and sauté before spending 30-plus minutes standing over the stove while tending to your impending masterpiece. Yes, it’s more labor intensive than spaghetti or…
Winterizing summer favorites: Spanish roasted potato salad
My Grandpa Smith is a jack-of-all-trades sort of guy. A general contractor by profession, he’s been building houses for years and years and knows his way around pretty much any tool or project that Bob Vila could throw at him. When I was 10 years old, he built an amazing set of furniture for my…
Project NYT: What’s up, Butternut?
Around our house (and probably a lot of yours, too), winter weather means soup weather. Fortunately, considering the piles of cold and snowiness we’ve been hit with this season, there’s no shortage of classics to pull out or new recipes to try. Whether it’s time-tested favorites like tomato or chicken noodle or new spins like…
Secrets don’t make salads
Have you heard the story about the lady who, while shopping at Neiman Marcus in Dallas with her daughter, stopped into the café for a few chocolate chip cookies? According to the story, she loved the cookies so much, she asked for the recipe, to which the waitress replied, “Only two-fifty.” The woman agreed and…