Saturday Brunch: Baby Artichokes with Ham, Baby Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Saturday brunch! It’s my special John-n-Stephanie thing, and I love it like I love puppies and sunshine and champagne and straight hair. And I love those things very, very much, so now you know how much I love Saturday brunch. We don’t have our kids on Saturday mornings (divorce…
My Little Lamb Chop(s)
My initial dinner plan – being all Spring feverish and such – was grilled lamb chops with a pea shoot salad. Then I walked outside, into 26 degrees, and changed my mind. I couldn’t forgo the lamb chops (on my brain and all that) but a salad alongside seemed too…cold, so roasted vegetables stepped in…
Tandoori Chicken Skewers with Cucumber Raita
Spring has sprung in Minnesota, at least for this week, lalalaaaa! Birds are singing, I’m singing, I’m grilling, birds are grilling, the sun is shining, and all is right in the world. The heat feels good, everywhere, even on my tongue. I…
Central Park, 80 Degrees
Forget Florida, the heat is in NYC, baby (except for that patch of snow on the right, below, a little reminder of what just was). I didn’t really know this (we arrived today), so was walking around in jeans and a black sweater, but that’s OK. It felt amazing out there – not to mention,…
Taco Salad
This isn’t a recipe – just a reminder that when you make tacos, whether with beef, pork, tofu, chicken, or beans, you can make the dish a whole lot lighter, more nutritious, and filling by turning your taco into taco salad. I don’t always do this – sometimes I really want a taco – but…
Hazelnut Quinoa Cereal with Dried Cherries
Consider quinoa, an example of yet another delicious, nutritious (gluten-free to boot) food that I love and that my family won’t touch. I make it anyhow (I’ll post an easy pilaf recipe as soon as I pay attention to how I do it) and happily compose beautiful, satisfying lunch salads from the leftovers. Quinoa is…
Penny De Los Santos Food Photography Workshop
I’m back from San Francisco and the food photography workshop I mentioned below. Our instructor, Penny De Los Santos, photographer for National Geographic and Saveur magazine, was completely inspirational. (Check out her blog, incredible.) In fact the whole experience was, beginning with the morning’s activities, hosted at magical Contigo restaurant in Noe Valley. The food…
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
My favorite dessert? Cake. My favorite cake? Coconut, or anything with fruit in it. There – two things you probably didn’t know about me. Keep them in mind around January 6… Glazed lemon or lime cake, warm plum or apple crumb cake, a pear-ginger cake with whipped cream. Surprise me. …
Drunken Chicken, Crispy Kale
Rishia & Andrew Zimmern brought us an incredible dinner tonight. Chinese drunken chicken – fragrant, sticky, tender, and sweet – with rice to soak up the insanely addictive sauce. (The pic doesn’t do it justice, sorry, lost my light…) We four put away an impressive amount of rice, blame that damn sauce. I’m going to…
Tomato Soup & Flatbread
Minnesota is butt-ugly in March, there’s just no other way to say it. Mud-covered ice just sucks, although fog-covered snirt bites too. (I love using those words. That felt good.) Yeah, it’s time for some color. Time to buy a bunch of tulips (yellow!), time to make tomato soup…