Category — Recipes

Yesterday, I held my 5th annual Craft Party. This time around, I only provided three craft options and asked the attendees to provide crafts they wanted to share too.

Just as only one of my three crafts sold out while the other two went nearly or completely untouched – some of the guest crafts were very popular and others only had one or two that were made. But, it’s all good – everyone had a great time crafting, eating, drinking, and socializing.

I made two egg dishes, a sweet crêpe option, muffins, and, as promised, the Frosted Pumpkin Cookies.

The first recipe I’ll be sharing is a fun breakfast or brunch lasagna.

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I often wander through farmer’s markets and produce departments with the best intentions. Squash for a gratin, cucumbers for a dip, apples for a pie, spinach, and mushrooms for a salad.  Unfortunately, once I get home and pack it all away in the produce drawers – gratins, dips, pies, and salads don’t always get made.

Such was the case with my most recent packages of mushrooms and spinach. The meal that the salad was planned for didn’t happen when we were invited out to dinner with friends, and for some inexplicable reason, I didn’t feel like a spinach salad the next night. OK, honestly, I was too tired to make an entrée and a salad.

Instead, I combined the ingredients and just made one dish. The result wasn’t especially inspiring, but it did get dinner on the table … with minimal thought, time, and effort. Sometimes, one can’t ask for more than that!

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Aaron Chamberlain, co-owner and head chef from St. Francis, recently taught at Les Gourmettes.

He made this soup, which he simply calls Pumpkin Soup. As you’ll see, it is much more than just pumpkin soup.

Aaron uses a combination of squashes to create a more complex flavor. If he wants to call it Pumpkin Soup, so be it. I call it good!

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We’re on a chicken kick at my house. Boneless skinless chicken breast is what I make for dinner when I’m uninspired. Not that that’s a bad thing.

After all, one can’t be creative and “in the mood” to make a “wow” dinner every night!

Even so, this quick and easy pasta dinner put smiles on the family’s faces.

The best part …. even though the cupboards are quite bare … I had everything on hand and didn’t have to make a trip to the grocery store.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

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This summer, when we were out of town, my full-size freezer in the laundry room was accidentally left open for a day.

It wasn’t all the “openers” fault.

Although the freezer is only a few years old, the seal had come loose and instead of figuring out how to fix it, I used duct tape to keep it closed.

Additionally, I had a little chalkboard chef on the front of the freezer who told “would be openers” this:

“Do NOT OPEN! It is next to impossible to re-shut and keep shut.”

Unfortunately, the “opener” did not see or heed the chalkboard chef’s warning.

Even though I knew of the “freezer breach” immediately upon my return home, I avoided the freezer and refused to open it and face the music until two months later.

Nearly everything was a loss; homemade chicken and beef stocks, frozen citrus juices, handmade puff pastry, lobster broth, homemade mole, demi-glace, frost-burnt cookies and brownies, and quite a bit of meat. I threw out more chicken breast and chicken thighs than I’d care to mention.

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Everyone jumps on the Pumpkin Bandwagon this time of year. Recipe blogs have the best reason to do so! It’s our mission to spread the Pumpkin Joy!

These delicious cookies are inspired by a recipe I found in Better Homes and Garden Magazine.

The first ingredient is scary!

One pound of butter is A LOT!

The upside, if that is possible? The recipe makes 100 cookies. One Hundred – that’s A Lot too.

Luckily I have enough cookie sheets so I don’t have to use the same sheets over and over. If you do need to use the same sheets, be sure to let them cool completely between batches.

Plus, I have plenty of cooling racks. One of the advantages of having a cooking school!

I’ve named these cookies “cakey” because of their cake-like texture. I suppose another option could have been to name them “mini-cakes” instead of cookies.

You Decide.

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Throw Back Thursday!

One of my favorite recipes from Year One (2009) of the blog, is Lemon Curd Lemon Roll.  I highlight it again to show my love and gratitude for my beautiful baby girl, Marissa.

Bonus TBT picture: Christmas Day 1989 -Me and Maris, a few weeks after her 2nd birthday. xoxo

Marissa amazed me last week, when she sent me her Southwest Airlines itinerary confirmation, surprising me with the fact that she’ll be flying home for my birthday weekend, in late October.

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In late July, when we were staying at the Shelbourne, in Dublin, we’d have their breakfast buffet each morning. I saw something there that I’d never seen before. Fresh honeycomb in the frame (direct from the hives) with spoons to help yourself and scoop right off the frame. So Cool!

About a week later, at The Ballymaloe House, we were served Fresh Honeycomb Dipped in Chocolate as an after-dinner treat. Even Cooler!

I haven’t been able to get either thing off my mind since.

Last Saturday, Sheila invited me to go to Singh Farms (8900 E Thomas – just east of the 101 at the Thomas exit) with her. Their Farmer’s Market won’t be open until late October but their compost yard was open and they were selling herb starts, compost, bat guano, worm castings, fresh eggs …. and honey!

I wondered if they might sell fresh honeycomb in the frame. Sheila encouraged me to ask.

I did. And they do! I bought this lovely honey frame (easel not included) for $20.

You don’t have to buy an entire frame of honeycomb to make this recipe. You can purchase fresh honeycomb online HERE and have it delivered right to your door.

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Sometimes I am shocked when I discover the recipes that I have NOT posted on this site in the last five years.

I found a pork shoulder in my freezer and decided that the best thing I could do with it was to make carnitas. I would have sworn, that by now, I would have posted my carnitas recipe. I typed “carnitas” in the search bar over there on the right … No, there was no carnitas to be found. Strange!

In the old days, I’d make carnitas one of two classic ways … deep-frying it in lard (oh my!) or slow roasting it in a hot oven for hours on end (not the best idea in the AZ summer!) … today, I use a slow cooker. OK, not only a slow cooker. Also a skillet at the beginning and a sheet pan, under the broiler, at the end.

The skillet, and a bit of olive oil, are needed at the beginning to brown the meat.  The slow cooker is used in the middle to make the meat fork-tender, without heating up the entire kitchen. Finally, the broiler is used for only about 10 minutes, in the end, to make the pork crispy. Soft meat (which is what the slow cooker produces) does not qualify as carnitas! Below is a photo of some of the meat scrapes from the bottom of the slow cooker, placed in a tortilla. This is what you don’t want! Soft, over shredded, soggy meat. This is not carnitas!

Even though there are three distinctly different cooking stages, the hands-on time is minimal. Totally worth it! [Read more →]

Roasted vegetables are one of the most versatile foodstuffs to have on hand.

Case in point – I roasted up a bunch of vegetables last week for a meeting I had here at the house.

I used a few cups of the finished product for mini-pita sandwiches, which were devoured between the meeting attendees and my guys, after the meeting.

A couple of nights later I used them to make enchiladas for dinner.

And all week long, I added them to scrambled eggs for breakfast.

No need for the sandwich or egg recipes; just stuff mini-pita halves and warm in a skillet before stirring in a couple of beaten eggs. The enchilada recipe is below.

The link for how to roast the veggies has three more recipes using roasted vegetables. The only difference in how I roasted them this time, was instead of using olive oil, I sprayed the foil-lined pans with Pam, placed the vegetables on the foil, and then sprayed the vegetables again with Pam before seasoning with salt and pepper and place in the oven.

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