Welcome to the dog days of summer. It is HOT outside, and not too pleasant in the house at midday either. You know, midday, say 2:00 to 5:00 or so, the hottest, stickiest part of the day – and the time when you have to start planning dinner. I dreamed up this recipe on one…
Eating ABQ: Van Rixel Bros. Gelato & Sorbet
Calling me a locavore would be like calling a meal vegetarian because there’s broccoli and a baked potato next to the steak. I love trying and collecting foodstuffs from all over the world – my pantry is crammed with Asian condiments and imported olive oils. But few things thrill me more than really good local…
Pennsylvania Dutch Baked Oatmeal
Yup, I’m back with another oatmeal recipe. I’m starting to wonder if I should change the name of this blog to “The Oatmeal Diaries.” But there are reasons, great reasons, for this obsession. Oats are convenient: They wait patiently in their cardboard tube (I buy them in bulk, but decant them into the familiar blue…
Roasted Asparagus
For years, I always cooked asparagus the same way – steamed in a covered saute pan with a little water. It is delicious that way, very simple and pure tasting. But then I tried roasting it, and I haven’t looked back. It’s utterly simple and frees up space on the stovetop (which is always at…
Double-Apple Oatmeal
As anyone who’s been reading this blog for a while can tell, I love breakfast. But it’s a lot more constrained than dinner, and it’s made first thing in the morning, when I am not at my most patient or imaginative. That means it’s easy to get into a rut. About a week ago, I…
Thai Tomato Soup
On Saturday I helped to host a meeting, one of a series that has been going on for a while. They’re quarterly, and long, so we decided to include lunch. It was a fantastic decision. People love to be fed – especially real, homemade food. To easily accommodate a varying number of participants, we usually…
Michelena’s Tres Leches Cake
Until I moved to New Mexico, I had never tasted tres leches cake. And the first few times I did, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. The samples I had in local restaurants didn’t have much flavor – and, shockingly, they were actually kind of dry! I couldn’t figure out how they…
Creamy Honey Mustard Salad Dressing
A little over a year ago I swore off bottled salad dressings. I grew up on Kraft dressing – sticky white ranch, sweet and oily dark-red Catalina, and (my favorite) bright orange French. I’d stopped using those several years before when the tangy orange dressing stopped tasting pleasant to me and just tasted like chemicals….
Moo Shu Pork with Vegetables
Cravings often come on hard and fast. Sometimes you don’t even know where they came from. I know right where last week’s craving for mu shu pork came from, though; I opened my bag of extras from the Los Poblanos CSA and spotted the package of Leona’s tortillas from Chimayo, NM. Something about their nonuniform shape,…
Creamy Baked Ziti with Cottage Cheese and Tomato Sauce
Baked pasta is incredibly appealing, especially on chilly winter evenings. Yielding pasta, tangy tomato sauce, creamy cheese, chewy brown edges – what’s not to love? Unfortunately, baked pasta often fails to live up to its Platonic ideal. The pasta overbakes to mush, or comes out dry and unappealing; the ricotta layer that should give such…