If you have read this column for any length of time, you know that I am, in no way, a gardener. Despite that, I still follow a Kansas gardening group on Facebook, and I love seeing the posts of beautiful gardens, weird plants and bugs that show up in people’s yards and discussions about how …
Continue reading “Pepper recipes abound for whatever might pop up”
I don’t know about you, but I find myself searching the Internet every summer for new side dishes to take to barbecues. Joey is really, really not a mayonnaise fan, so the traditional offerings like potato salad and coleslaw are mostly out of the question. But then you also have the problem of how to …
Continue reading “Flex your cooking ‘Brussels’ with a new summer side dish”
We always host friends at our house for the NFL playoff games—especially if the Chiefs are still in the race—and the recent AFC Championship game was no exception. Along with having folks over to yell at the TV with us, we try to put out a good spread of food for everyone to enjoy. While …
Continue reading “Get ready to ‘chowder’ down on some hearty soup this week”
As soon as the weekly forecast came out, telling us that the opening weekend of football would be perfect for spending some time outside, Joey announced we were going to invite some folks to watch the games and throw some food on the smoker. Of course, I had to stick my nose in and announce …
Continue reading “Kick football season off with a bang by making shotgun shells”
Just as French fries are from Belgium and Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada, Scotch eggs are actually a British creation. Traditionally, a Scotch egg is “a shelled hard-boiled egg that is wrapped in sausage, covered in breadcrumbs, and then deep-fried or baked until crispy,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. They’re often served cold in …
Continue reading “You have ‘Scotch’ to try these tasty smoked eggs”
There is enough debate about black-eyed peas that there’s actually an article about them on the Library of Congress website. It starts out very simply, asking, “Are black-eyed peas really peas?” The answer is simple: “No.” The article then goes into a very technical, scientific explanation of how peas, beans and legumes are classified and …
Continue reading “‘Peas’ your tastebuds with a spicy crockpot soup”
Joey and I tied the knot back in 2010, which meant our 10-year anniversary was pretty anticlimactic last summer with COVID in our backyard. No date night out on the town. No restaurant dinner. We still enjoyed one another’s company (I mean, it’s not like we could be apart while quarantined in the same house.), …
I have had several people over the years tell me that this column is promoting bad eating. I mean, yeah, I agree at least somewhat. If you eat many of the recipes I write about every day of the week, you’re probably not making your doctor or your bathroom scale all that happy. But I …
Continue reading “‘Poutine’ all this in a taco is a little crazy”
While I have always thought of collard greens as something eaten mainly by southerners, an article from the website “What’s Cooking America” notes that even the ancient Greeks and Romans enjoyed the leafy greens. For the U.S., the tradition of cooking collard greens with pork—often using a ham hock to simmer in the broth—came from …
Continue reading “Tasty collards will ‘leaf’ you wanting more”
Well, I can officially say I survived my first experience with hosting Thanksgiving dinner. I floated the idea a little over a week out from the big day to my mother-in-law, not wanting to step on her toes but also knowing she’s been extremely busy at work lately and could likely use a break from …
Continue reading “Leftovers may necessi’tater’ cooking some soup”
