ShareTweet I love sweet potatoes. I love them baked. I love them mashed with butter and crunchy flakes of salt. I love them in kielbasa stew and in hand pies. I love them forgotten to bathe in the fat of a slowly roasting chicken. But no matter how much you love something, no matter how much… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Cooking
Mango Shrimp Tacos and Asian Steak Tacos: Taco Night Al Fresco Fiesta!
ShareTweet Taco night has been a longstanding tradition in our household, long before we relocated to Chicago. But the rich Mexican community here and the abundance of delicious taco joints has inspired us to take taco night to a whole new level. Taco night used to mean seasoned ground beef served with a few colorful… Continue Reading
Earth Week Green Tips: What to Buy Organic and How to Make Stock
ShareTweet We’re not a particularly green family. Sure, we recycle and walk to school, but the mere idea of cloth diapers stresses me out. And while I’m intrigued about composting and dream about a brood of happy hens laying pastel eggs with golden yolks in my backyard, I know my neighbors would purchase pitchforks to… Continue Reading
Quick French Weeknight Dinner: Pork Medallions with Mustard Sauce
ShareTweet When people ask me what type of food I like to cook, saucy French foods is my usual reply, but I worry that this gives the wrong impression. Our weeknight meals usually involve a protein with a sauce, but they’re far from fancy. Whipping up a little sauce to top boring pork chops is… Continue Reading
Bruschetta with Homemade Ricotta and Slow Roasted Tomatoes
ShareTweet This weekend, we baked and cooked as a family for the Chicago Food Swap. With the exception of a few challah loaves, everything we made for the swap was from Jennie Perillo’s new cookbook Homemade with Love. Steve and Bella made her buttermilk donuts in lemon and decadent dark chocolate. I made slow roasted tomatoes and homemade… Continue Reading
Homemade with Love – a Beautiful Cookbook from a Beautiful Cook
ShareTweet Homemade with Love is Jennie Perillo‘s first cookbook. It has the great recipes and lush images of a great cookbook, and while it is certainly destined to become one of your favorites, it’s so much more than just a great cookbook. Homemade with Love is Jennie’s ode to cooking from scratch and a love… Continue Reading
Quick and Dirty Croque Madame
ShareTweet Chances are that you’ve had a Croque Monsieur, the French take on grilled cheese sandwiches: bread, ham and cheese bonded with a generous dose of creamy bechamel sauce. But have you had Croque Monsieur’s better half, the Croque Madame? A Croque Madame is essentially a grilled ham and cheese with an egg on top.… Continue Reading
Chicken Croquettes: Roasted Chicken Leftover Solution
ShareTweet One thousand years ago, back when I was a size 0 and took it for granted, I studied abroad in Barcelona. After a disastrous month with an overprotective old señora, my program transferred me to the home of a very hip young single woman named Maria who was a hairdresser for movie sets. When… Continue Reading
Sweet Asian Chicken Thighs Inspire Highly Inappropriate Thoughts
ShareTweet Chicken thighs are sexy. There’s just something about the eroticism of the word thigh, combined with the utterly boring blandness of chicken, that appeals to me. That probably makes me something of a degenerate, but it is what it is. Chicken thighs are sexy, especially when they’re slick with a sweet Asian glaze. This… Continue Reading
Tealightful Gift Basket Giveaway
ShareTweet I come from a family of passionate tea drinkers. My mother and sister like their tea sweet and milky. They start their day with a steaming cup, and go through another 2 or 3 throughout the day. My mother in law also loves tea, but she prefers hers to be fruity and fragrant, and… Continue Reading
Stone Soup: a Child’s Invitation to Fill the Pot
ShareTweet Have you ever made stone soup? More than a simple vegetable soup, it can be an invitation to get creative and fill the pot for the whole family. Long before my kids discovered the Disney Channel and its bevvy of child stars, Little Bear was our favorite show. That mysteriously half-clothed bear wandered through… Continue Reading
Roasted Squash Arancini: a Celebration of Leftovers
ShareTweet Leftovers are unappealing. Dumped into dented plastic containers, they get shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten, until they’re discovered weeks later, covered in funky patterns of furry chartreuse mold. I’ve been reading a fantastic little book by Tamar Adler called An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace that challenges the… Continue Reading
Cutting Onions Tear-Free in Three Easy Steps
ShareTweet I’ve had some of my best cries while cutting onions. After a few vigorous chops, the waterworks start flowing, and the rest of the cutting is done through a curtain of tears. I don’t mind the onion tears, they’re oddly cathartic, but thanks to a super-easy technique I learned in a knife cutting class… Continue Reading
Chicago Cutlery Knife Giveaway
ShareTweet A great knife makes all the difference in cooking. Chopping and dicing becomes pure fun with a sharp knife that feels like an extension of your hand. Cutting through carrots like butter, knife beating a staccato on the cutting board, saves time and makes you feel like a kitchen rockstar. I’ve been playing with… Continue Reading
DIY Creme Fraiche Is Easy and Cheap
ShareTweet When I first started cooking on my own in college, far from my mother’s kitchen in France, I struggled to find creme fraiche. I searched through the dairy aisles of the DC supermarkets with no success. I tried to substitute heavy cream and even sour cream, but my pan sauces just didn’t have the… Continue Reading
Kitchen Crush: Cuisinart Multi Cooker
ShareTweet Committing to a big appliance is not an easy decision. No matter how spacious your kitchen is, the new appliance will need to replace something either in the cabinet or on the counter. A new appliance needs to earn its space, and my latest toy, the Cuisinart Multi-Cooker, definitely does. Since I unwrapped it… Continue Reading
Coconut Red Lentils: Getting Inspired at Exotic Cooking Classes
ShareTweet The cabinet over my sink is overflowing with spices, literally. They routinely tumble onto my head when I least expect it, a painful reminder that too many spices are gathering dust and losing flavor. I may be well stocked, but I am a creature of habit, and don’t experiment nearly enough with the coarse… Continue Reading
Wild Boar and Relaxation in La Campagne
ShareTweet As our plane to France was circling over Charles de Gaulle airport, I glimpsed fields of golden wheat and got that rush of being home feeling. Even though I grew up in Paris, it’s the French countryside where I spent weekends as a child that really resonates with me. There’s something about the colors,… Continue Reading
>Things I Love: Pyrex No-Leak Lids Bakeware
ShareTweet >I’ve fallen in love with the new Pyrex No-Leak Lids Bakeware. I Stored Leftover Orzo with Chicken and Broccoli in my new Pyrex Pan. I’ve had Pyrex pans since I had my first apartment my senior year in college. I didn’t have much money, but I happily plunked down my $10, (two hours of… Continue Reading
>a Big Box of Oxo Goodies
ShareTweet >I’ve always been a big fan of Oxo products. What’s not to love about a company whose mission is to make cooking easier and more convenient? So when I received an email from their marketing department asking me if I would be interested in receiving a big box of Oxo products to play around… Continue Reading
>5 Kitchen Gadgets I Can’t Live Without
ShareTweet >I’m a sucker for kitchen gadgets. I love to troll kitchenware stores for fun tools to make cooking easier. While that means that my drawers are overflowing with some fairly useless gadgets, I also occasionally find some tools that I adore. So off the top of my head, here are my favorite 5 gadgets… Continue Reading