Happy New Year! Let's get healthy. Have you tried romanesco yet? It's my lastest vegetable to play with. I'd already made up my mind to like it simply because I think it looks so cool. It looks like something whimsical you'd see growing from the ground in the Lord of the Rings series. With a hobbit sitting underneath it. But it's a little known vegetable originating in the 1600's in Italy. I call it "broccoli light", because that's what it tastes like, but it's ...
Jack-O-Lantern Apple Hand Pies: #ProgressiveEats
Are you ever overwhelmed by all the types of apples that show up in the markets around now? For a good snacking apple, I generally grab Honey Crisps and Fujis, in that order. They have the best balance of tart and sweet for me, and they're both juicy without risk of mealiness. But what about cooking and baking them? Obviously you don't want to use the same apples for making applesauce as you do for an apple pie. When it comes to baking, Braeburn apples are at the top of my list. I can ...
Pumpkin Applesauce Muffins with Pumpkin Seed Streusel
Secret Recipe Club: Pumpkin muffins made with fall spices, applesauce, and golden raisins, topped with pumpkin seed streusel. How is it possible I've never posted a muffin here? I've made coffee cakes, breads, and even cinnamon rolls. But never a muffin. So after more than five years of blogging, I'm finally posting one for fall. And it's one you're going to love, thanks to Karen at the Karen's Kitchen Stories blog! It's Secret Recipe Club again! Whaat? Two posts for Secret Recipe Club ...
Curried (Paleo) Cauliflower “Risotto” with Pickled Apples
First of all, this isn't really a risotto, and purists out there (and anyone of Italian descent) may be a little offended that I even use the word when there's no arborio rice involved. (And yes, I know it looks like scrambled eggs, but I promise you it's cauliflower.) Second of all, since I'm being all honest here with you all, it doesn't have the consistency of a risotto. It sits squarely somewhere between a pilaf and risotto, since cauliflower isn't a grain. Clearly this is a work in ...
Spiralized Sweet Potatoes and Apples with Dates | #SundaySupper
October 1 is World Vegetarian Day, which kicks off Vegetarian Awareness Month. When it was created in 1977, vegetarianism was still a fringe thing. Today, 40 years later, vegetarian diets are mainstream. Most restaurants across the country offer vegetarian options on their menus, and grocery stores pack their shelves with packaged quinoa dinners, multiple brands of tofu, and other soy-based meat substitutes. In honor of Vegetarian Awareness Month, October is a great time to think about adding ...
Spiced Fig Jam
Fall is in the air here in the Sierras. There's a new chill that wasn't there a couple of weeks ago, felt even while the sun warms my face. With the turn of a calendar page, nights are suddenly plummeting into the 30's, and some days barely rise into the 60's. On hikes through the woods, I smell tangy pine, dried sage, and autumn leaves, and hear the soft rustle of tall grasses. Pine cones are stripped clean by squirrels and chipmunks starting to hoard their winter stash. How is that even ...
Crunchy Kale and Apple Salad with Thai Peanut Butter Dressing
Crunchy winter salad of kale, Napa cabbage, apples, and honey roasted peanuts all dressed in a fabulous Thai peanut butter dressing. This post is part of The Food Network's #ComfortFoodFeast series on their blog, FNDish........ Some salads are all about the salad, and the dressing is just along for the ride. But sometimes, the salad is all about the dressing. This is one of those. The unassuming sauce you see in the jar is a peanut butter dressing, and may look a little drab, but trust ...
Sweet Potatoes Pommes Anna with Apples and Raisins
Why should white potatoes have all the fun? Take Pommes Anna. The classic version will always be with russets, but we can have some fun and make it with sweet potatoes, beets, apples, or squash. If you haven't enjoyed this wonderful way to dine on potatoes, I should add, Pommes Anna is a French dish of layered thin slices of white potatoes interleaved with butter, salt, pepper, and an optional flurry of herbs. It typically starts on the stove top, but not always, and finishes in the ...
Cauliflower Apple Cheddar Melts
I saw some Cauliflower Melts on Epicurious the other day that looked so melty that I had to make them. This is the time of year when anything with melted cheese (or hello, chocolate) catches our eye. We tramp in from the cold, stomping our feet to get the snow off, our bodies shivering as we peel off layers of wet clothes. And then we see melty cheese, hot from the oven, blanketing a little morsel underneath. We hardly want to take the time to slip into dry clothes before sitting down to ...
Cranberry Cake (Tart) | #Secret Recipe Club
OMG you guys. This cranberry cake is the easiest, tastiest cake I've made since the peach cake I make every summer. This is exactly the kind of cake I love most to make -- a simple cake loaded with seasonal fruit. It's not that I don't love frosting - it's just that I see it as a whole separate food group and I love frosting so much, it can overshadow the cake. Cakes like this are all about the cake and the fruit. For the uninitiated, The Secret Recipe Club is a group of around 130 food ...
Fig Basted Roast Butternut Squash with Quinoa, Apple, and Fig Stuffing
We should have more than one day set aside each year to give thanks. Some might declare we should give thanks every day, and I don’t disagree, but I’m actually stating we should have Thanksgiving once a month. Not with all the commercial hoopla of people rising before dawn the day after so they can shiver in dark parking lots to be in line for some amazing-never-to-be-offered-again deal on a big screen TV, thank you very much. I’m talking about quietly setting aside one day a month on ...
Butternut Squash Panzanella Salad with Apples and Kale
Make an autumn version of a traditional Italian salad with this butternut squash panzanella salad tossed with apples and kale, dressed with an apple vinaigrette. I spent much of September in Italy attending an Italian language school in Treviso, a smallish town outside Venice. For 2 1/2 weeks I ate a ton of pasta, pizza, risotto, and tiramisu (a dessert created by a restaurant in Treviso). The trip was about language, food, and people -- meeting local Italians and making new friends with ...
