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 →

I purchased my ice cream maker late in the summer and therefore the second frozen concoction to emerge from it is a dense, creamy ice cream that manages to straddle the seasons–cooling me off during the still-too-warm days of late summer but welcoming fall with the warm flavors cinnamon and vanilla.

How it is I’ve been on this earth for 31 years without ever tasting a cinnamon-flavored ice cream is a complete mystery to me. Because even though I have tasted so many wonderful gelatos in Italy, (each time exclaiming, “THIS is my new favorite flavor!”), I can now say that this cinnamon vanilla ice cream is the best I’ve ever tasted.

I used the recipe found on allrecipes.com and the main change I made was to use a vanilla bean to replace the vanilla extract in the recipe. Continue reading →

This was a soup that came about because I needed to use up some vegetables that had been hanging around my kitchen for a while. I had some chicken stock in the freezer so that’s what I used but using vegetable stock would make this a great vegetarian soup (leave out the cream and it becomes vegan-friendly too). I like everything a bit spicy these days so I added a couple hot Italian chilies (peperoncini). It wasn’t terribly spicy but I think the chili is what really made this soup special. I think any type of fresh chili would be fine but you could use some crushed red pepper instead. Or if you prefer no heat, add some bell pepper or leave the peppers out completely. Like most of my recipes, this soup is very flexible.

Creamy Spinach Soup

2 T. Olive Oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 hot peppers, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 large potatoes, peeled and chopped
4 C. Chicken or Vegetable Stock
1 10 oz. box frozen, chopped spinach, thawed
1/4 C. chopped flat leaf parsely
1/2 T. fresh chopped thyme
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1/2 C. cream

1. Saute onion, carrots and pepper in olive oil until just starting to brown.
2. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for one minute.
3. Add broth and potatoes, bring to a boil. Turn heat down then cover and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
4. Add spinach, parsley and thyme; cook for another five minutes.
5. Puree in blender or food processor (in batches if necessary) or put through a food mill.
6. Return to pot. Add salt and pepper to taste then stir in cream and cook, stirring, over low heat until heated through.

This tastes even better the next day!

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For as long as I can remember I have loved blue cheese! Even as a kid, it was my favorite salad dressing whether it was creamy or dry crumbled with a vinaigrette. I can remember coming home from school and fixing a bowl of blue cheese crumbles, vinegar and oil then dipping carrots in it.

Now that I’m older, I’ve discovered lots of new ways to eat blue cheese but I still love it on salads and I still like to dip my carrots in it for an afternoon snack. Here’s a dip I made up yesterday just for that purpose. The chives weren’t added until this morning when I went outside to water my plants and realized I hadn’t used any fresh chives for a while. I think they made the dip 10 times better! Continue reading →