organizing my most useful kitchen tools
I love healthy food, but I love it more when it doesn’t taste like healthy food. Best of both worlds! Click around to find some of my tried and true staples - and new recipes too, whether my own ideas, inspired by other blogs, torn from the pages of a magazine, or passed through friends or family. Learn more about me and My Utensil Crock HERE.
Happy New Year! In law school in Virginia, officially the South, I learned that eating black-eyed peas for the new year was supposed to bring good luck. Huh! In briefly researching for this blog post, I further learned that Sephardic Jews have been eating black-eyed peas for the new year as early as the year 500! Double huh! A few years … [Read more...]
Today was a perfect Salsa and Chips Day in Washington, D.C. What do I mean by that? The kind of day when I want to snack a lot, and don't mind the oven on for a while. Winter has arrived, as evidenced by Winter Storm Diego wreaking havoc a bit to the south, and my hands and neck getting itchy again. Yeah, I have a weird winter thing. … [Read more...]
I started having to really actually feed myself during law school. My apartment in Ivy Gardens in Charlottesville, Virginia, is where I had 3 friends over for what I guess was my first real dinner party, of my mom's lasagna, something green (probably broccoli), and brownies. And a bottle of wine. SO grown up. I don't even think we really liked wine … [Read more...]
Winner: Easiest, prettiest, most impressive appetizer. Also Winner: Least planned blog post. The week before Labor Day, I headed back to my family's house on Lake Michigan. You may recall my trip from last year, when I posted about 10 Tips and Techniques That Improved My Food Photography, and told you about delicious grEATings™ as I launched … [Read more...]
Is it even a cooking blog if it doesn't have an "Easy Summer Ratatouille from the Farmer's Market" post? I'm not taking any chances. I didn't even mean to make this into a blog post; I was just enjoying some beautiful produce from the farmer's market... I have truly become a parody of myself. There is a (very) small farmer's market just … [Read more...]
I made this recipe, took a bite, and lost my mind. I mean, in a good way of course. It was SO good. And SO easy. Sometimes cooking is more rewarding than other times, and this Easy Roasted Tomatillo Salsa was a very rewarding time. And so little effort - 10 (TEN) minutes, start to finish. And it's SO good. I can't remember if I … [Read more...]
If you follow My Utensil Crock on Instagram, you recently saw this gem: I would like to wish a very happy birthday to my basil plant. I bought you a year ago this month, and you have thrived in this bowl that I fill with water when I don’t forget. I took you to Michigan last summer, where you helped out with some mahi and other recipes, … [Read more...]
When I visited San Francisco in April, my friend BG and I took a long walk to the Ferry Building's farmers market. BG enjoys fresh, delicious, healthy food as much as anyone, and she asked me a question that - surprisingly to me - stumped me. "What do you buy when you go to farmers markets?" ... Um... This was not a trick question, but … [Read more...]
We are having an exceptionally rainy spring in Washington, D.C. It may be hot, but rain always makes me crave comforting foods. I can eat warm, filling meals all the time, weather notwithstanding. I mean, it's never that hot inside, right? How did I come to add this Lentil Cilantro Soup to my repertoire? I was digging through my pantry for … [Read more...]
In January, I looked at a 4-pound bag of Domino's sugar and had a moment of terror. I bake a lot. This, you know. Recipes for baked treats usually have at least a cup of sugar in them, if not two or more. I go through that 4-pound bag in no time at all. I was not at all ready for a January cleanse of any sort, but I decided that in February, … [Read more...]
