For this week’s entry to Weekend Herb Blogging, I’m sticking with the two herbs I’ve used for my previous entries…fresh mint and chives. I didn’t mean to do it but I was looking through my favorite cookbook and was inspired to make a lime and mint vinaigrette to drizzle over the salad I was planning to make for lunch.

I’m sure you’ll forgive me for using these herbs again because this dressing is really good! The original version of the dressing uses only lime juice for the acid but I added some vinegar too because that’s the way I like it! I also substituted chives for scallions because quite frankly, I don’t like raw onions…even the little green ones! But I love the milder flavor of chives. They add a bit of onion flavor but aren’t overpowering. I also used only half the amount of mint that is called for in the original recipe. What I ended up with was a light, refreshing dressing that perfectly complimented the ripe tomatoes that I picked up yesterday at the organic farmer’s market. In addition to tomatoes, my salad contained a mixture of romaine lettuce and baby spinach (also from the organic market), cucumber, and crumbled feta. A nice, simple salad. Continue reading →

Looking for a quick and healthy snack that doesn’t taste quick or healthy? With just a few simple ingredients, you can whip up a restaurant-quality appetizer that you can eat without any guilt. Black beans, one of the world’s healthiest foods, are packed with heart-healthy fiber and cancer-fighting antioxidants. And the best part is that when combined with a whole grain, such as these whole wheat pita chips, beans provide a high quality protein. That’s right, filled with complex carbohydrates and protein, this is a snack that won’t let you down after an hour or two!

This is one of those recipes that I just threw together from ingredients I had on hand. This means, you can do the same. If you don’t have black beans, use whatever canned beans you have in your pantry! Same goes for the spices. Experiment with flavors you like, and if you come up with something great, don’t forget to leave a comment so the rest of us can try it too! Whole wheat pita bread should be pretty easy to find at most grocery stores these days. I like to buy a couple packages and keep it in the freezer. If you can’t find it at your local store, don’t worry! I’ll be posting a recipe for the homemade stuff soon!

On to the recipes! Continue reading →

First of all, I would like to say happy Father’s Day to my Dad! I don’t think he will be reading this online but maybe someone (Kathy, Pauline, I’m talking to you!) will print it out and show it to him. This Web site would not be in existence if it weren’t for my Dad’s influence on my cooking. My willingness (and sometimes compulsion) to experiment with food is definitely something I get from my Dad and if it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have started creating my own recipes. I am extremely lucky to have come from a family where both parents were great in the kitchen! Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I love you!

For this week’s Weekend Herb Blogging entry, I made some tzatzki using fresh mint. Mmmmmmm…tzatziki! Have you ever tried it? Can you pronounce it? Tzatziki is a Greek sauce made of thick yogurt and chopped cucumber. I called it a sauce but it’s more like a cross between a sauce and a salad. I guess we could just call it a condiment. It can be served with pita as an appetizer and it’s a standard accompaniment to gyros. But you can really do whatever you want with it. I like to just eat it by the spoonful Continue reading →

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written about one of my favorite online shops. No, I’m not talking about Zappos, I’m not talking about King Arthur Flour, and I’m not talking about Burt’s Bees. While it’s true that all of those businesses get their share of my money, my most recent online purchase was from The Spice House. Does it seem strange to shop for spices online? I kind of thought so too. But one visit to their site changed my mind and after my first package arrived in the mail over a year ago, I was completely hooked!

I was one of those people whose spice cabinet was packed with old bottles of spices that had been purchased for one recipe or another and then never touched again. Continue reading →

There’s a weekly food blog event that I have been meaning to participate in for quite some time now. It’s called Weekend Herb Blogging and it’s a great way for people who enjoy using fresh herbs to share tips, ideas, information, and recipes with one another. The event, now on it’s 82nd week I believe, was founded by Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen and is still hosted there the first weekend of each month. During the other three weeks, the event roams around the food blog community, hosted by different bloggers each week. If you wish to participate, simply write a little something about a fresh herb and/or post a recipe featuring fresh herbs. Put it on your blog sometime during the week (any week, every week) and then e-mail the link to the person who is hosting the event. All of the links are compiled and then posted together at the end of the week by the host. Like all food blog events, it’s a great way to learn something new, find recipes, and also discover new food blogs. Continue reading →

Well, after all my talk about the warm, sunny days we’ve been having around here, the skies are now gloomy and overcast. It’s still not very cold but the dreary weather makes me crave something warm and comforting. And since my husband won’t be home for a while yet, I settled for some soup.

My original intention was to make the cream of artichoke soup featured on the Castroville Artichoke Festival Web site. I had a bunch of little artichokes in the fridge and I thought it would be an interesting way to use them since I had never tasted artichoke soup. But then I realized that I also had an entire head of cauliflower tucked away that I had been saving for soup.

Hmmmm. Guess what I did? Continue reading →

I created this salad quite a while ago but haven’t posted it because I haven’t come up with an exact recipe. Each time I make the salad, I change the ingredients and amounts, trying to come up with the perfect combination. But it seems that it tastes just as good each time. So, I’m just going to give you a basic recipe and some general guidelines and you can either come up with your own “exact recipe” or you can keep changing it up like I’ve been doing.

I started experimenting with this salad because I was trying to replicate the mexican caesar salad from El Torito, a chain restaurant here on the west coast. I haven’t had it for years but I’ve never forgotten the cilantro dressing. Since I was in Italy when I started my experiment, I ended up using olive oil, pine nuts and parmigiano reggiano cheese. What I came up with is basically a thin cilantro pesto and it’s REALLY good on salad and meat! I think the only resemblance my recipe has to the El Torito salad is the main cilantro flavor and the tortilla strips. But it’s similar enough that I no longer crave the other one. Continue reading →

There are so many yummy pumpkin bread recipes and photos floating around right now that I couldn’t help buying some canned pumpkin at the store yesterday. I had been planning on trying out one of the recipes I’ve seen lately but instead I decided to experiment. The recipe I came up with is similar to the other whole grain muffin recipes on this site with the exception that I used maple syrup to replace some of the sugar this time. The maple and pumpkin flavors are great together and these muffins are really nice and moist.

I ate one (ok, maybe two) of these with cream cheese this morning while they were still warm and I highly suggest trying them that way! Continue reading →