Diwali, the Indian Festival of Lights, was celebrated last month. Diwali is a five-day harvest festival that celebrates the victory of good over evil – the transcendent inner light overcoming the darkness of ignorance to bring joy and peace. And sweets. Arne and I are not Hindu, but I love harvest festivals and winter celebrations…
Creamy Peanut Butter and Maple Oatmeal
There was a point where I was posting an awful lot of oatmeal recipes to this blog. But since I haven’t put one up since last March, I hope you’ll indulge me if I can’t resist adding one more. Because this one is really special. Why is it so special? Bang for the buck, baby….
No-Sugar-Added GF Banana-Oatmeal Cookies
I didn’t really think I was going to like these cookies. The first time I saw them was at the blog Lick the Bowl Good, as a “you might also like” at the bottom of a recipe for homemade oatmeal cream pies. The author said she’d made them for a little boy she cared…
Spiced Breakfast Bulgur with Winter Fruit
It’s January. The holidays, with their fuss and excess, are over. Thoughts turn, with some relief, to New Year’s resolutions: specifically, to diet and exercise. I don’t really like New Year’s resolutions, and I specifically am not a fan of diets – America’s favorite resolution – which I think set us all up for endless…
French Breakfast Radish Sandwich with Butter and Salt
For most of my life, I did not like radishes. I found them too harsh, almost acrid. I don’t know if my change of heart comes from grown-up taste buds or from access to better radishes, but I do know that it’s this simple recipe that changed my mind. A couple of years ago, I…
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…
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…
Chewy Cherry-Almond Granola Bars
We go through granola bars like crazy in my house. Arne eats two for breakfast on those days when we don’t have the time or organization to eat breakfast together. (Or when the cat lets me sleep in.) Plus he eats them for snacks, and we always take them when hiking and disc golfing. The…
Overnight Brown-Sugar French Toast
A couple of years ago, my friend Dianne hosted a brunch. I think it was on New Year’s Day. In any case, there was a lot of delicious food there, but what everyone kept coming back to was a big pan of gooey, decadent brown-sugar-topped French toast. Happily, our hostess declared it easy-peasy and photocopied…
Nigella’s Coconut and Cherry Banana Muffins
Perhaps my most exciting holiday present this year was The Flavor Bible, a cookbook with no recipes. It’s more of a reference guide. The book is an alphabetical list of various ingredients (bananas, cardamom) and flavor profiles or cooking styles (Spanish cuisine, grilled dishes). Under each ingredient or style is a list of flavors that…