Happy Food Blog Friday!  This is my absolute favorite zucchini bread recipe and I’m thrilled to be able to share it with you today.  Heidi from 101 Cookbooks calls this her Special Zucchini Bread and with extras like lemon zest and poppy seeds, it truly is special.  Continue reading →

Don’t forget the deviled eggs this weekend!  Friends and family love these Deviled Eggs so much that the whole plate disappears quickly no matter how many I make.  I’ve learned that I need to hide a couple in the refrigerator if I want to eat any myself.  For an added kick, try sprinkling smoked paprika on top.

Best Basic Deviled Eggs Recipe

This was a simple but lovely treat on an extremely hot summer afternoon.  I had been snacking away on my first figs of the season when I remembered the bag of frozen bananas in the freezer.  Combined with whole milk, fresh figs, and a touch of local honey, I had a feeling that one of those bananas would turn into a unique and delicious shake.  I was right. Continue reading →

A couple of my peaches ripened overnight and I decided to try making some peach salsa to go with my lunch.  As I dug through my fridge for salsa ingredients, I realized that I was out of both jalapeño and serrano chiles, one of which I had been hoping to use in the salsa.  Since I didn’t feel like running to the store before lunch, I dug a little further in the fridge and found a container of Peppadews I had purchased last week. Continue reading →

Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending The Organic Stone Fruit Jubilee, a great event celebrating 60 varieties of peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, and pluots from about a dozen local certified organic farms.

After enjoying some music and eating delicious pulled-pork sandwiches topped with grilled peaches, we wandered from table to table chatting with farmers and sampling more varieties of stone fruits than I ever knew existed! Continue reading →

I love buttermilk.  I love lemons.  I love really tart, creamy, sweet things.  I also recently received this popsicle maker in the mail and had been trying to decide what to freeze first.  So when I ran across a recipe for these Easy, Creamy, Lemon Dream Popsicles at Whipped, I knew they would be the first ice pops to come out of my freezer.

Whipped is a food blog written by Caroline in Chicago and I’ve been a fan for a few years now.  She has lots of great recipes featuring buttermilk and even created a page listing them all. That’s my kind of food blog.  You might also want to check out her Greek Favorites page – lots of temptation there!

But let me tell you more about these popsicles.  They are a cinch to make and super delicious!  You should probably be a fan of lemon if you are going to make these because they pack some serious lemon punch.  The recipe includes lemon juice and lots of lemon zest so a microplane grater will come in handy. Continue reading →

I am a big fan of green salads topped with fruit and nuts, especially when the nuts are glazed or spiced!  I also love snacking on nuts – salted, spiced, glazed, smoke-flavored – I love them all.  I’m not sure why I’ve never tried making something like this before, but these glazed walnuts were so simple I’m kicking myself for not trying it sooner.

When I first saw Ellie Krieger’s recipe for Maple Glazed Walnuts, I was a little skeptical that they would turn out right.  It just seemed too easy.  If the recipe had been attributed to any other Food Network celebrity I’m not sure I even would have tried it, but I trust Ellie more than some of the others. Continue reading →

I grew up in central California where I certainly ate my fair share of artichokes over the years.  And during those four years I spent in Sicily, I probably ate way more than my fair share.  Sorry, it couldn’t be helped.

My standard way of cooking/eating artichokes is to steam them whole then peel off the leaves one by one, dipping each into mayo before scraping off the tiny bits of artichoke “meat” with my teeth.  I continue to do this until I have ingested way more mayonnaise than any person needs to consume in one sitting (as evidenced by the huge pile of artichoke leaves towering in front of me by the time I’m done) and I have made my way to the heart, which I carefully trim and clean before eating it with even more mayo.  Don’t judge. Continue reading →