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pepper season

I have too many peppers. In addition to a crisper full of red and green varieties of varying levels of heat, I have a whole bunch in the deep freeze. Today I got to work tackling the ones in the crisper.

The reds became a mild hot sauce. It has just a tiny kick. I used this recipe, which was recommended by a friend. There weren’t any habanero in mine (too much heat for me!).

The others got stuffed in a big jar to become pickles. I had some extra room, so I threw in some carrots, too. Here’s the recipe. All I added was a pinch of turmeric.

I also made a small jar of dill cucumber and green bean pickles. The cucumber was from my garden!

The peppers in the deep freeze are destined to become jelly, I think. They’ll have to wait for another weekend. I’m done in the kitchen for today.

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kale, quinoa, tomato soup

I made this powerhouse of a soup last night and it turned out so good! Minor modifications: used 1T dried basil instead of the suggested blend because that’s what I like, used fire roasted tomatoes because that’s what I had. Suggestion: buy whole leaf kale and de-stem. I used bagged/chopped and no amount of wilting will make the stems not chewy.

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a delicate little squash

  
I tried delicata squash for the first time tonight. It was so good, plus it doesn’t need to be peeled! Roasted with olive oil, salt, garlic, red onion and served over rice. It was perfect on its own, but I whisked a little yellow curry paste with coconut milk, tossed it in and OMG YUM. #csa 

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making fränkische butterplätzchen


on Instagram: http://bit.ly/1dhHxdk

The Girl Scout snack badge says to pick a savory or sweet snack from another country and make it for your friends. She picked Germany, and was disappointed that her butter cookies weren’t very sweet. We are debating whether to add icing.

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“guess I should start cooking”

I posted the above status that to facebook last Thursday late morning. I didn’t want to cook. Earlier in the week I was hoping I could convince my family to go out for dinner. They said no. I have to say I was proud of the fact that I did all of the grocery shopping without a list. That’s probably because I took the easy way out for most everything I made — except for the pumpkin pie and stuffing. They are the two most important parts of the meal.

My daughter was playing Minecraft and my husband was still asleep. (He was sick. I let him sleep in.) I was in the kitchen and lonely and decided to live-gram cooking in the hopes that social media would keep me company. Facebook did not disappoint.

Here is my dinner in 8 steps. I don’t plan to live-gram all of my holiday meals, but if I do, you can find me here.

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

thanksgiving dinner

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peeps fondue for dessert (yes, we are insane)

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We did a crazy dessert tonight: Peeps fondue. I know, it’s a school night and all that sugar!

My daughter received this Peeps “cookbook” last year and has been talking about the fondue recipe since then. Yes, for an entire year. It’s Peeps season. How could I say no?

We limited her to two and had big bowls of fruit and angel food cake for dipping, but have no idea how she’s going to sleep tonight. She was so excited all day and evening, helping to prep everything, that it was totally worth it.

For the record, we made Michael Chiarello’s recipe and it was really good. I highly recommend it for a non-school night treat.

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summertime roasting

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It seems fitting that I started writing this right before vacation and finished just after coming home. A few days before we left I went on a roasting frenzy to cook up all the remaining veggies in the fridge. I served them with everything — warm and cold. Potatoes with eggs for breakfast: check. Turnips and beets with dinner: check. Zucchini on toast for a snack: check.

When we got home, I had a lot of veggies that my friend had dropped off while we were gone and I did the same thing. It seems a little crazy to have the oven on for so long in summertime, but it’s so worth it! I have a fridge filled with antipasto ingredients that are sweet and delicious.

Some tips:
Roast on a cloudy day, early in the morning or after the sun goes down so your kitchen doesn’t become a sauna.

Use more than one roasting pan and combine veggies with similar cooking times. I don’t even wash pans in between.

Limit your ingredients and roast at a high temperature to get everything nice and carmelized. A little oil, salt and garlic go a long way.

Experiment with herbs! Roasted potatoes with thyme are my favorite.

Pictured above: beets, turnips, green onions :: red potatoes :: yellow squash