Dark Days Week 18 – Roast Beef with Mushrooms and Shallots and Red Skinned Mashed Potatoes

The weather is warm and gorgeous and the dark days are definitely over in this part of the country, though the challenge continues for a few more weeks.  In solidarity with my brethren in colder climates, I made a warm, hearty wintery dinner this week.   Our meat CSA, Marin Sun Farms, delivered to us this [...]

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Easy Citrus Shortbread Cookies

It’s a lazy Sunday here in Berkeley, and I was getting the cooking itch.  My dinner tonight is easy – meat is marinating and there’s not much left to do.  I was having a cookie craving and decided to whip up a batch of shortbread.  This recipe could not be easier.  As proof, I offer [...]

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When the cat’s away…

My husband hates lentils.  They were a staple in my kitchen for years, back in my fresh out of college, underpaid world saving vegetarian days.  I moved in with my husband almost six years ago, and I don’t think I’ve cooked them since.  I miss them and I frequently joke that one day, I’m just [...]

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Easy Cheese

Not the nuclear orange stuff in an aerosol can.  Real, homemade cheese. I had seen homemade ricotta pop up here and there and I finally decided to give it a try.  It is so unbelievably simple that you will wonder why people don’t just make it themselves all the time.  Really.   It’s like brewing your [...]

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Not at all like Mom used to make…

Growing up, a staple at family parties was keilbasa in grape jelly.  There was other stuff in it, like ketchup or barbeque sauce, and probably some Lipton French Onion Soup mix, because wasn’t that stuff in everything in the 70s and 80s?  The dish was usually served warm, in a crockpot or on a hot plate [...]

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Beet and Beet Greens Salad with Oranges and Feta

I had never cooked a beet before, so I was really excited to find them in my CSA box on Friday. I also don’t think I’ve ever eaten beet greens before, so I really wanted to find a way to use those. This salad turned out fantastic. The original recipe from Epicurious didn’t call for [...]

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Collard Greens with Walnuts and Pickled Apples

This is a belated post on a dish I made a couple weeks ago, when my CSA box contained collard greens and apples. I had never tried collard greens before, and found this recipe on Epicurious and thought I would give it a try. The recipe was essentially a salad, and the collard greens were [...]

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Cranberry Vanilla Coffee Cake

This delicious little cake from Gourmet, via Epicurious, has been all the rage on the food blogs lately, it seems. It sounded so good, and I thought it would be a wonderful Christmas morning breakfast. Unfortunately, as I discovered earlier this fall, cranberries are in short supply out on the west coast. After checking at [...]

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Parmesan-Black Pepper Biscotti

I love these. They are savory, salty, crunchy, and perfect with wine. Being that they are biscotti, they last for a while, so they’d be great for gift giving. The recipe also makes a lot…about 5 dozen or so. I’ve made them a few times, and they are usually a hit. They are pretty easy [...]

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Cranberry Sorbet

This sorbet is wonderful, though it didn’t taste how I expected. The recipe on Epicurious said it was “Cranberry and Orange Thyme Sorbet.” You know how obsessed I am with putting herbs in my desserts, so I was really excited to try this. Unfortunately, it has no thyme flavor whatsoever. I used lemon thyme, which [...]

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