I recently found myself going on a whirlwind trip through the grocery store, quickly grabbing something to make for dinner on my way home from work. Joey and I were all geared up to watch a basketball game, and I (of course) ended up getting caught in the office far later than I wanted. And …
Continue reading “Sometimes speed is what cooking is all a’sprout’”
For the week before Thanksgiving, some friends of ours invited us to their house for a “Friendsgiving,” where we’ll all enjoy a big potluck meal together with a large group. This is the second year for the tradition, and we’re really looking forward to spending time with everyone while eating a great meal. I will …
Continue reading “Baking pumpkin cake easier than pie”
Thanks to this column, I’m constantly on the lookout for recipes I have never tried. If you look at a lot of food blogs and recipe books like I do, you’ll find several common words and phrases in the titles of recipes. There are quite a few that include the descriptor “Amish” in the title, …
Continue reading “Chicken mushroom soup is ‘chowder’ this world”
As the leaves began falling off the trees recently, I got the chance to spend some time with my now two-year-old niece. She’s in love with being in the backyard, so we went outside for awhile, and she showed me the crunchy leaves laying in the grass. She would carefully pick up each one she …
Continue reading “Be ready to fall for a casserole with autumn flavors”
When I’m searching for recipes, I sometimes stumble across ideas that seem so weird that I’m completely compelled to try them. This week’s recipe is one of those: banana bread hummus. I have made hummus quite a number of times, and it’s a favorite for us, especially when we’re setting up a snack table for …
Continue reading “‘Hummus’ give a strange combination a try”
On our honeymoon, Joey and I visited a great Italian restaurant in New York City. It was the most expensive meal of our vacation, with us spending a generous gift from a family member that was earmarked for just that purpose. The place wasn’t all that fancy to look at, but when your waiter is …
Continue reading “Mushrooms are easy ‘caprese’ for dinner”
This past week, we went north to Iowa and Minnesota for a newspaper conference and to visit some friends. One of my wonderful friends, who has inexplicably given up her Kansas roots for the big city of Minneapolis, assured us that Minnesota is generally pretty mild in October, so we were excited to experience some …
Continue reading “Ring in winter with bell pepper soup”
I recently unpacked a few boxes of books that were stored away and uncovered some cookbooks I hadn’t looked through in awhile. They’re now all neatly in a row on my new bookshelf, so I suspect they will be getting some use in the coming weeks and months, but as I looked at each one …
Continue reading “Your spaghetti may be the ‘bella’ the ball”
When we were kids, my mom would give my sister and I each a quarter a day for snacks at the Haven pool when we’d go swimming with our babysitter. That quarter could get you some licorice or Now and Laters, but I would often hoard my coins for several sessions until I had enough …
Continue reading “Here’s a dessert that’s perfect for crunch time”
As I was poking around our local grocery store’s clearance bin about a month ago, I stumbled on a box of “dumplings.” I was a bit confused, since they really just looked like really wide noodles, and it certainly didn’t fit my internal definition of what constitutes a dumpling. But they were cheap. So Joey …
Continue reading “This soup is ‘dumpling’ you should try”