A year or so ago, Arne and I visited a very hip restaurant in Colorado Springs (or so it seemed to me, though I may not be the ultimate arbiter of coolness): Nosh. I was first attracted to it by the koi in its logo and the idea of small plates, which are my very favorite…
Easy Grilled Asparagus
Spring has sprung! It’s grilling time. Asparagus will soon be ubiquitous in stores. And that works out well, because one of my very favorite things to grill is asparagus. It’s the perfect side dish to grilled meats, fish, or tofu and, if you’re grilling already, will add almost no time to your dinner prep. I…
Kenyan Kidney Beans in Coconut Milk (Maharagwe)
It’s amazing how often I try something new and delicious because I’m too lazy to go to the store. That was the case last Vegetarian Week, when… Wait, I haven’t told you about Vegetarian Weeks. Let me do that real quick. I decided last December that, starting in 2012, I would cook and eat vegetarian…
Quick and Easy Whole-Wheat Flatbread
It happens to me all the time. I have a good idea for dinner, and all the components are in the house, but it sure would be nice to have some kind of bread with it. Something delicious and whole grain. But it’s too late to throw something in the breadmaker, and I’m too lazy…
Indian Sour Chickpeas (Channa)
I’m starting to run out of foods I don’t like. Radishes? I like those now, especially when they’re young and fresh. Turnips? I love them – there’s nothing I’m happier to see in the CSA box. Winter squash… well, I’m softening there. And chickpeas. I used to really dislike chickpeas, except ground into unrecognizability in…
Simple Olive Oil Crackers
I’ve been feeling ambitious in the kitchen lately. Well, not today. But I was last week. So when I made some pate (I’ll post about that later), I decided to try making some homemade crackers to go with it. I looked up several recipes, decided on a strategy, and headed into the kitchen. Ambition only…
Sour Cherries in Caramel Sauce
Yes. This is as delicious as it sounds. It came about simply enough: I got a sack of precious, rare sour cherries from the CSA. I wanted to use them in something simple but glorious, something that would show off their brilliance and not cover it up. Something, since it was midsummer hot, that did…
Any-Berry Summer Pudding
Once in a while, you find you have too much of a good thing. That happened to me a couple weeks ago, with berries. The CSA gave me beautiful strawberries, Sunflower Market had blackberries and raspberries on sale and blueberries REALLY on sale, and my favorite purveyor of unusual items at the Growers’ Market was selling black…
Spiced Plum Jam
Plums are not my favorite fruit. Even the best ones, eaten out of hand, don’t do much for me; to my taste, the skin is sour and the flesh insipid. However – as I learned years ago from a recipe for plum sorbet – a little home processing brings about a marvelous change. There is…
Quick and Easy Refrigerator Pickles
After much dawdling trying to find the original, I have finally purchased a new power cord for my old digital camera. Though it’s ten years old and has fewer megapixels, this chunky old Sony has a beautiful Carl Zeiss lens and a lot more manual control than my newer, more portable Casio Exilim. I was…