Spice & KissesDifficulty level: easy (can be made post-call)
It’s that time of year again… when even a few minutes at the stove can leave you drenched in sweat… and the tomatoes are overrunning my kitchen (admittedly not a bad problem to have).
Hello August!
The AC situation in our home has improved since last summer, so cooking doesn’t leave me as overheated as it used to, but I’m still not super-excited about stirring a pot on the stove top for long periods of time. Enter gazpacho.
I have so many recipes that need to make it out of the notes app of my phone and onto the blog….in the meantime, however, here’s 11 new (to me) recipes that I’ve been enjoying since the last recipe-roundup. In no particular order:
Beware! Reading further may ruin your taste for any bread not freshly baked for you by your very own sister-baker.
You’ve been warned.
It’s not only bread: she makes muffins, pancakes, pizza and many other delicious goodies using sourdough. Until recently in human history, natural cultures of yeast and lactobacillus were our primary way to leaven bread and other doughs – all bread was sourdough. I used to assume that bread choices were limited and unvaried back then, but my sister has converted me into a sourdough fan. Her sourdough bread, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, muffins, etc. are soft, pleasantly tangy, and much tastier than anything I’ve bought at a store.
Alas, once she returns to Cali, I’ll get cut off. Which convinced me, a fairly unenthusiastic baker, to ask my sister a few questions about sourdough baking to find out how I can keep enjoying the baked goods. If you’re considering jumping on the sourdough bandwagon but don’t know where to start, search no further. In the process of learning to bake sourdough this year, Sumi experimented and amassed a collection of recipes that she’s tested and trusts. Plus learn about starting a starter, why “discards” aren’t trash, and about baking with a minimal investment in special equipment.
Difficulty level: Easy (could manage after overnight call)
Note: I wrote this post back in early November, when it made more sense to talk about pumpkins being in season. Several side projects distracted me from posting. The prospect of trying to rework this blog to fit a holiday theme (it could work! The salad has that red-and-green — if we consider magenta to be a shade of red — look) nearly made me abandon posting it. But as mentioned later, I took far too long to put this up, even though it ought to have been one of my earliest posts. Then I decided that since I’m not a professional blogger, but a hobbyist, that the post could go up as is, since there’s no reason at all that anyone besides myself should be concerned that it’s coming out a few weeks late. And even though it’s December, my grocery store still has pretty good beets, so you haven’t missed out much anyway – find some and make this salad!
With Hurricane Delta bringing cool, rainy weather to North Georgia, it finally feels like summer’s over. Time to retire the gazpacho recipe (saved for next summer) and bust out the warm, spicy soups that go hand-in-hand with autumn.
This weekend, as the rain drizzled on, I wanted to revisit Fine Cooking’s recipe for onion and ale soup with blue cheese croutons, which I linked to in my last post. Somehow, tending to slowly caramelizing onions in the kitchen feels less tedious and more zen during a chill, gray evening spent at home.
Looking for fresh recipes to try at home now that we’re into month SIX of our new (ab)normal? Here’s a collection of tried and true recipes—in no particular order, links included where available—that have recently been on rotation in my kitchen.
Hey y’all,
It’s been a while. Working in healthcare remains an adventure, but one that’s taken a dark turn lately. I’ve been cooking at home a lot more because of all this, and have several new recipes to share, but I have been slow in finding the motivation to write them up.
So instead of a recipe, I’m sharing some tips on eating healthy.
Why now? (After all, in times like these, chocolate is very comforting.)
What you eat, however, makes a big impact on diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity/metabolic syndrome, which are common risk factors for becoming very sick and/or dying from coronavirus. More than ever, it’s important to eat healthy to stay healthy.
Nowadays, however, eating healthy can seem confusing. Wondering whether you should go vegan or jump on the ketogenic diet wagon (previously popularized as the Atkins diet)? Or might you long for the easy days when the food pyramid ruled? Confused about what to eat? Confounded by the bewildering array of diets that cycle in popularity every few years?
Read on. I’m here to help.
I’m super excited about this easy low-carb dessert. It sounds exotic—posset? What the heck is that? And with passion fruit!—tastes rich and luscious—yet comes together in about fifteen minutes (less if you use frozen passion fruit nectar or try the alternate citrus flavors).
