I'm always focused on pantry items I can have on hand for quick meals. And now, with all the rules changing in our lives, my pantry items are even more critical. What's at the top of my must-have list? Instant Pot black beans and chickpeas. If I turn back the clock a few years, I cooked all my beans on the stove top. Then I switched to the slow cooker. But now, cooking dried beans is the most frequent way I use my electric pressure cooker. Every week, I make a fresh batch of either chickpeas or ...
Honey Lemon Ginger Tea
It's stressful managing fear and all the news about the COVID-19 pandemic racing around the world. So it's more important than ever now to take the time to relax. Take a breath. Find ways to nurture yourself. Since I returned from Mexico earlier this week, this immunity boosting Honey Lemon Ginger Tea is my answer. Travel out of the country?? I know, I know. It might sound a little crazy right now, but the trip was long planned, and the virus totally exploded while we were gone. And it was, ...
5 Easy Ways to Boost Energy
This post offers 5 easy ways I use to boost energy through the day on a vegetarian diet. Most of these can also be used on a vegan diet. A few days ago, I posted about our March Vegetarian Challenge: Fatigue, and listed some of the common dietary reasons you might feel fatigue on a vegetarian diet. For example, the bioavailability of nutrients, vitamins and protein found in plants is not as great as that found in animal products. This means we need more protein and more ...
How To Make Pomegranate Molasses
Instructions and tips for making the best pomegranate molasses you've ever had with 3 ingredients and an optional spice + ways to use this Middle Eastern ingredient. When you live in a small town, with limited grocery stores, it's good to know some work-arounds when you need special ingredients. Case in point, I needed some pomegranate molasses for a pomegranate glazed hasselback butternut squash recipe I'm making next week. I searched high and low, and couldn't find any without driving ...
Easy Peruvian Pisco Sour Cocktail
Before I was a Lemon Drop Martini girl, I was a Pisco Sour girl, and it all began in Portland, Oregon. A few years ago, my husband and I were visiting family in Portland. We kicked around ideas for dinner out, and opted for Andina - a Peruvian restaurant downtown in an old brick building. The exterior was inviting, and once inside, it was stunning. And so was the food. Andina completely excels at their small plates. The four of us shared everything with each other, and they were all solid ...
Creamy Feta Dip with Lemon, Rosemary, and Honey
Feta dip + lemon + rosemary + honey + olive oil + garlic = my favorite dip! And it's ready in 10 minutes. Summertime entertaining calls for easy recipes, and that includes appetizers. I first made this feta dip last summer to take to a pot luck. I needed something quick, but something with a little pizzazz, and threw some goat/sheet feta cheese in the blender along with some lemon, garlic paste and olive oil. It was good, but not particularly memorable. After a few ...
Frozen Mudslide (Cocktail or Dessert!!)
The Frozen Mudslide cocktail is easy to make with a couple scoops of ice cream and equal parts of Kahlua, Bailey's, and vodka. And it's a two-fer since it can be either a cocktail or boozy dessert. I'm a recent fan of the Frozen Mudslide cocktail, and it all started with a gift. Some friends recently quit high altitude living and moved to an area much closer to sea level. It's a bridge many up here cross - facing the fact that all this clean air is just a little too thin for optimal ...
Lemon Syllabub : The Hamilton Cookbook (Review)
I'm a history buff. I've read books on Elizabeth I, Catherine De' Medici, and Russia's Catherine the Great, and willingly dig into books about the Middle Ages. More recently, the 1700's and 1800's have captured my attention. I'm endlessly fascinated by the environment people grew up in, how it molded them, and how they impacted events in ways that we still feel. I'm now reading Ron Chernow's tomb, Grant, on Ulysses S. Grant. I'm learning a lot about the Civil War - or at least one side of it; ...
Pear Vinaigrette
I would argue that you can have all the makings for a stellar salad, worthy of a James Beard award or something equally lofty, but if you dress it with some mediocre dressing you threw together at the last minute, the salad will quickly become forgettable at best, and jarring at worst. Case in point: I recently had a lentil salad at a restaurant that could have been amazing. But it missed the mark due to a tart lemon dressing that overwhelmed the flavors of the salad. It needed the rounded depth ...
Parmesan Piadine (Italian Flatbreads) | #BreadBakers
Classic piadine Italian flatbreads, with a dusting of Parmesan cheese. Instructions provided for making it at high altitudes and at sea level. We’re here now. Living in Tahoe full-time … one of the most beautiful places to live – and, I’ve decided, one of the most insane for weather. While you planted flowers last week, we watched two feet of fresh snow blow through, and we’re expecting more in a couple days. Cah-razy! There’s more nature than people here, with yipping coyotes out back causing ...
Savory Finnish Baked Pancakes (Pannukakku) with Smoked Salmon | #BreadBakers
The Finnish words lettu and pannukakku both translate as *pancake*, but have different meanings. Pannukakku is the type of pancake baked in an oven, my favorite way to make pancakes. Lettu, the kind we're all more familiar with, is the stovetop kind made in a frying pan or griddle. I think of them as the high-maintenance, demanding kind. You have to be with them every step of the way to make sure you flip them at exactly the right moment. They're the kind where the second batch never ...
Butternut Squash Soup with Apple Cider & Crème Fraîche
My husband was under the weather last week, and weakly pleaded for this soup from underneath a mountain of quilts one afternoon. I nearly fainted. He wasn't begging for a burger or ice cream topped with hot fudge. He was requesting, sit down for it, a vegetable based soup. That's when I realized just how sick he was. He was hallucinating that he wanted vegetables. I didn't waste any time, and set out to make this one I posted on my blog a few years ago. I love how the ...
