Avoiding kitchen disasters.
Even accomplished home cooks feel the pressure of preparing a big feast for family and friends on Thanksgiving Day. It’s a perfect storm of anxieties: Beloved traditions, high expectations, a huge menu and a big crowd …
Category: Main dishes
Fall gardening: arugula.
On this gloriously sunny and pleasantly cool November 1st, I have two things growing in the garden: garlic, which is poking its little heads up through the bed of leaves it’s mulched with, and arugula. I’m …
Late-summer provisioning.
We took advantage of the Labor Day weekend to do a bit of provisioning. The advent of fall annually sends me into a mini-panic, as I realize that summer—and its bounty of the vegetables and fruits …
Spiced steak and tomatoes.
There are two dishes that combined prevent me from becoming a full-on vegetarian: Rob’s always-perfect grilled hamburgers and this: Fennel-spiced steak that’s grilled and served over sliced tomatoes. When summer tomatoes are at their best—big ones, …
Easy chickpea, tomato and spinach stir-fry.
I recently finished up a writing assignment for SparkPeople.com about the stir-fry cooking technique. In a nutshell: stir-frying is similar to sautéeing, but it typically involves higher heat and less oil. Heat a round-bottomed wok or …
This week at the farmers’ market: Mid-July.
It’s hot. Really hot. Like, August hot. But it’s still early July, and we have many more weeks of this to go. But I love it. I love these days filled with the tchp-tchp-tchp-tchp-tchp of sprinklers …
Great marinade for summer grilling.
I’m a Leo, which means that I thrive in the warm sunshine. I love spending as much time outdoors as I can. So on gorgeous summer days, I move my cooking outside. Ahead of the holiday …
A different approach to cooking.
Rob and I have had a number of wine-fueled, dinner-table conversations in recent weeks about our personal approach to cooking, and whether it might be a model, in some small way, for a different way to …
This week at the farmers’ market.
We venture north for this week’s market recap, to the debut of Chicago’s Green City Market in Lincoln Park. Farmers from northern Indiana and Illinois, and from Michigan and Wisconsin brought spring produce, and some surprises. …
