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.
Have you bought a carton of buttermilk? Have you ever used all of it before its expiration? I know. I make my own buttermilk, with just two staple ingredients: skim milk and fresh lemon juice. In short, the lemon juice curdles the milk, and the resulting concoction can be substituted for buttermilk in any baking recipe, or similar, … [Read more...]
I could eat pasta with meat sauce every day. One of my first posts was this basic meat sauce. I think it's cute how I ended the recipe with "let it simmer for 10 minutes." Ha! Like I have the willpower to not dig in immediately. This Take Two Turkey Ragu with Whole Wheat Spaghetti has a little twist, and I don't know why it seems so … [Read more...]
Would I make an entire Thanksgiving dinner one month before the holiday, just to have the leftovers to make this "All the Good Stuff" Day-After Thanksgiving Leftover Crustless Quiche? Maybe. Oh, did I? Yes I did. Pretty much. Turkey was quite a challenge to find a month before the big day {which I guess makes sense when you think … [Read more...]
Am I talking about Thanksgiving already? Under 4 weeks is fair game, if you ask me. Or, if you read my blog. Which, you do. You can certainly make this Thanksgiving Bounty Veggie Crustless Quiche on other days, if you are in the mood! But Thanksgiving lends itself to lots of surplus cooked veggies, and probably some extra people in … [Read more...]
"Pad See-Ew with chicken." That's my order when I go for Thai food. Every time. I don't deviate. I knew that "Pad" means stir-fried, but I had to look up "see-ew." Looks like it means "soy sauce"! That must be why I like it. Stir-fried soy sauce. Well, some other things too. When you order Pad See-Ew at a Thai restaurant, it is made … [Read more...]
When people ask me if I could do anything instead of my job, what it would be, one of my stock answers is: "Hang out with friends in a big vacation house and make brunch and sit around and drink coffee all day." The salary on this fantasy is a bit lower than my current gig, so I reserve such activity for special occasions... ...Such … [Read more...]
Some days, I just need healthy veggies until I can't chew any more. Today - sandwiched between last week (a busy week at work where I wasn't able to bring lunch), and this coming week (with a trip to Omaha for several days of wedding festivities for a friend) - was one of those days. So I got out my food processor's shredding disc, … [Read more...]
This is a recipe I would have shied away from when I first started cooking. Several techniques, "weird" ingredients, and do I even like "Ropa vieja"? Well, let's smash the why-I-can't list with a meat mallet. Upon further reflection, the "several techniques" were just a few rotations of searing (browning in a pan), and braising (cooking in … [Read more...]
Avocado toast. It's all the rage. You have probably heard of it, and you might be wondering - what is this fancy dish that everyone is talking about? You like avocado, and you like toast. But surely, there must be more to this game? Nah. You pretty much have the hang of it already. You can add some lemon juice to the avocado for a little tang … [Read more...]
I have so much time in the morning before work. I'm always looking for something else to do in those hours before I start my day, and I always have a delicious, hot breakfast. - No one, ever. I may be one for hyperbole, but the quality of my life has literally improved a million-fold since perfecting this recipe and process. With less than a … [Read more...]
