I could easily tell you roasted spaghetti squash tossed with peanut-sesame sauce is vegan, gluten free, healthy, low carb and so on.  But I’ve come to realize labels, diets, and nutritional fads more can detract from the diversity of the way people eat and obscure the need for regular people to be eating real food, [...]

I’ve been thinking about a recent opinion piece in Washington Post “The new domesticity: Fun, empowering or a step back for American women?” for a while now, especially as I made homemade ricotta last week for the first time and while I baked the olive oil granola recipe below. In the peice Emily Matchar argues that [...]

I’ve had chickpea flour in a reused peanut butter jar stuck in the back of my cabinet forever. I wanted chickpea flour to make socca or farinata, a savory chickpea flour pancake, but after going through that phase I forgot about flour.  The last cup or so of the just hung around with the rest [...]

  Garlic scapes are the cool kids at the farmers market in between late spring and early summer. Those alien-like spiral tendrils are part of the culinary in crowd. I finger their weird shapes in perplexity when they make their brief celebrity appearance at the market stalls—what do you exactly do with garlic scapes? And [...]

Sweet potatoes go well with everything, seriously. Those orange roots go from the standard thanksgiving fair all the way to sweet potato curry, sweet potato fries, black bean and sweet potato chili, sweet potato gratin, sweet potato and black bean chipotle burgers, sweet potato, chickpea, and collard green soup, and so on. I’ve also learned [...]

I love non-recipe recipes. The great thing about knowing what flavors and ingredients you like is that it makes creating fast, good meals without recipes easy. Black bean tacos are just that kind of thing. So while I’m sharing a recipe here technically, you don’t really need one. My recipe for black bean tacos & slaw [...]

Kitchen failures. That is the theme of January so far. First, my pita breads did not puff up in the oven. I pleaded with them. I rolled them thinner. But they ended up as limp mini pizzas. Was it me or the recipe? I can’t tell. Worst of all is that I just don’t have [...]

I was a bit slow this past week in reviewing a new cookbook, but Jim Lahey’s My Bread kept me busy with baking rather than reviewing.  I tried several of the book’s variations mostly with success and with one failure. The loaf featuring cranberries and walnuts pictured here worked out perfectly though; it was airy, [...]

I went apple picking a few weekends ago. It was the first time Brian had ever gone as well as the first time he had eaten  apple cider donuts. The last time I went apple picking was ages ago but it definitely was a rite of passage as a kid. I noticed a lot  of [...]

There is this soup from Smitten Kitchen that never leaves my mind, especially once it gets cold outside. It features spicy sausage and sweet potatoes. The end result is a delightful but rustic cross between a pureed soup and a hearty stew. And I just love the smoky flavor imparted by the sausage, which is [...]