I thought I’d share one more vegetable recipe with you before the end of this month’s Kitchen Bootcamp challenge. My goal with this challenge was to encourage everyone to explore the local produce available this time of year, so I thought I’d develop a new recipe using one of my favorite summer staples – sweet [...]

I am ashamed to say that I recently made chicken tortilla soup by starting with a whole chicken for the very first time.  I have made chicken tortilla soup in the past, and I even posted it (a long time ago)… But, I have always used chicken breast and boxed stock.  Let me just say [...]

I’m on a mission to stop using canned beans.  Most canned beans contain BPA, and I’m not too sure about that. While I’m not a scientist, I figure it’s better to avoid it as much as possible instead of taking any chances. Cooking dry beans really isn’t very difficult. Plus, it’s much cheaper to use dried [...]

The best thing about slow cooker recipes is that I usually have leftovers. When I take the time to prepare a meal in my slow cooker, I always make sure to make a large batch so that I can use it later in the week or pop it into the freezer for a quick meal on [...]

On a cold, windy January day, nothing beats a nice hot bowl of soup. Right? Last week, I made a big batch of shredded beef in my slow cooker. After having the leftovers a few times, I knew I needed to re-purpose the leftovers and come up with something new.  It’s been pretty cold here (and [...]

We’ve had some pretty crazy weather here over the past few weeks. It was strangely warm for a while, and then last week we had a few days that were pretty darn cold!  I have to admit that I am a fan of the cold weather, and I love when it snows.  Unfortunately, we haven’t [...]

A few weeks ago, Kelsey of the Naptime Chef asked me to participate in a virtual dinner party to celebrate the release of Park Avenue Potluck Celebrations, a collection of entertaining recipes from those who do it best. The proceeds of the cookbook benefit Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the fight against cancer. I was [...]

Often when I am trying to think of something to make for dinner, I start with a particular ingredient… like my very own Iron Chef challenge for one!  Tonight’s secret ingredient?  Corn. We picked up our CSA share today, and it contained four ears of corn.  Unfortunately, there has been an issue with earworms on [...]

In the past week or two, it seems that both our garden and our CSA have started booming with tomatoes. I have already frozen as much tomato sauce as I can possibly pack into my freezer.  So, I decided to tackle some tomato soup.  It might not sound like a big deal, but the bar was [...]

I remember it like it was yesterday… Mrs. Weist, my first grade teacher, handed out a coloring assignment with a long list of directions at the top. I immediately got to work, coloring furiously as I worked my way down the list of directions. About halfway down the list, though, I ran into trouble. One [...]