Dark Days – Winter Panzanella Salad

When we got married, we had the most adorable woman catering our wedding.  She was hilarious and so sweet.  In one of our conversations, she started talking about Tyler Florence, and referred to him as “a little slice of heaven.”  A couple weeks ago, I caught an episode of his, and he made a salad [...]

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Spinach salad with peas and feta

The best thing about spring is that I get to make this salad.  I adore it.  Fresh peas are absolutely amazing, and this salad has lots of them.  Freshly shelled and left raw, they are sweet and crunchy and perfect with the spinach, feta, and lemony dressing. The recipe comes from Jamie Oliver’s Naked Chef [...]

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Sweet Lemon and Olive Wafers

I love olives.  I am one of those people who can’t leave Whole Foods without stocking up on some goodies at the olive bar.  So when I saw these cookies on Lottie and Doof, I was completely intrigued.  Like, obsessing over day and night until I had a lazy weekend afternoon to devote to them. [...]

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Limoncello Cupcakes

  I love limoncello.  It’s one of my favorite adult beverages.  I haven’t tried to make my own yet, but it’s on my cooking bucket list.  Until then, I will just have to buy the bottles of stuff to drink straight or add to these cupcakes. I think this recipe might have originated with Martha [...]

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Dark Days Week 15 – Citrus Marinated Pork, Roasted Potatoes, and Radicchio Walnut Salad

This week, I prepared another piece of meat from my meat CSA through Marin Sun Farms – a boneless leg of pork.  Not something I’ve ever eaten before, as apparently the vast majority of this cut goes to making hams.    There wasn’t even any useful instructions in the Joy of Cooking.  The series of tubes to the [...]

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Bay Infused Blood Orange Syrup

I recently attempted an olive oil polenta cake that was a major fail.  I don’t know if the recipe was bad, if I missed a step, or if it was supposed to taste dry and bland.  So, I won’t be making that again.  What I will be making again is the syrup I drizzled on [...]

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Pizza with Broccoli Rabe, Lemon, and Goat Cheese

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been on a broccoli rabe kick lately.  I have no idea how much longer it’ll be at the farmers market, so I’ve been buying it up like it is going out of style.  This combo really works.  The bitter lemon and broccoli rabe with the tangy goat cheese – mmm, [...]

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Lemon Vanilla Scones with Saffron Glaze

  Since it’s Valentine’s Day, I wanted to make something luxurious for breakfast.  And what is more luxurious than saffron? To make these, I just followed my standard scone recipe.  I left out the berries, and replaced it with the goodies scraped from a half a vanilla bean and the zest from one lemon.  To make the [...]

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Dark Days Week 9 – Celery Root Soup with Mandarin Relish Toasts

  These ugly looking things are celery root.  I’ve never cooked with celery root, and not even sure if I’ve ever eaten it.  Nevertheless, this recipe for celery root soup has intrigued me ever since I saw it in Food and Wine last year. I’m not  a huge fan of celery, mostly because it’s just [...]

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Try to find this in a can

I adore cranberry sauce.  It is so simple to make that I don’t understand why people eat that weird stuff in a can.  1 bag of cranberries, 1 cup of water, 1 cup of sugar, boil, and done.  You can add spices and fruit to that, substitute juice or wine for the water, and reduce [...]

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