There are few things I enjoy more than spending an afternoon cuddled up with:
A: A warm body I love (Smudge, G Dawg or one of the pups all take first place),
B: Either my iPad loaded with new online mags to scroll through or a fresh batch of my favorite print titles to savor,
OR
C: A new cookbook to glean tasty inspiration from.
Lucky me, I have exactly three of those reasons to make a fresh iced coffee, kick off my shoes, and steal away for some “me” time but this time it’s with the debut cookbook from one of the web’s most popular food bloggers, Lori of Recipe Girl, appropriately titled The Recipe Girl Cookbook. Well said Lori.
Lori was one of the first food bloggers I discovered after being introduced to her blog by a friend of a friend. I had just started FoodieCrush and after blogging for a just a few months I boldly asked Lori if I could interview her. She was probably wondering what she got herself into, but graciously said yes to this newbie.
I got to know her a lot better on a blogger’s trip to visit Harry & David, and in person realized this girl not only knows food, but she’s generous and creative, offering advice when asked and encouraging others to reach their goals. Plus she likes a nice glass of wine. I can totally get down with a gal like that.
So when Lori asked me to take a look at her new cookbook, and cook and eat and share one of her recipes, it wasn’t hard to respond with an “Absolutely!” Send over the echo-sign, I’m in.
Lori paired my post with one from Amanda, who chose to make Lori’s Cheese Ravioli with Brown Butter & Fresh Tomato Sauce. My plan was to choose a side dish that would work with her choice, creating a complete—and simple—dinner. Oh but which recipe was would it be?
Before I talk about today’s recipe, I want to send my heartfelt thoughts to those that were affected by the bombing yesterday at the Boston Marathon finish line. Thankfully my friend, and many of yours, Dara of Cookin’ Canuck and her family—in Boston to cheer on her husband Steve who crossed the finish line just 3 minutes before the bombing—have let us all know via Twitter that they are fine even with the blast happening just one block and three minutes away from them.
Timing. It’s a tenuous thing.
My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families and participants, volunteers and emergency care workers who were affected, especially those that could not walk away. Special prayers to the family of the 8 year old who was killed in this manic event. That hits way too close to home. I cannot imagine.
Why did this happen? Why do any of these deranged plots happen? What are people thinking? I just can’t wrap my head around why anyone, ANYONE, thinks this is a good way to prove a point, gain notoriety or to simply create chaos through terror.
The only way I know how to address this is to love my loves and look for beauty and unselfishness in this unstable world. I hope you can too.
I’m very much a creature of habit. Or more likely a creature of cravings. When it comes to going out to eat I can rarely motivate myself to deviate from my standard favorites, especially when it comes to any sort of ethnic food. Mexican food: I always gravitate to the Chile Rellenos. Sushi: I must have Spicy Tuna anything.
When it comes to Italian, its rarely a question of what to order once the waiter rolls around: Gnocchi please. The sad thing is, at most Italian eateries gnocchi isn’t always standard fare. That’s why Sea Salt in Salt Lake City is one of my favorite spots to eat, since they have at least 5 different gnocchi recipes on the menu.
While Gnocchi alla Norma is my favorite and will make the blog sometime in the future, I’m working on spreading my wings and rallying through the rest of the menu at Sea Salt. Yep, I’m going wild around here. At least in the gnocchi department.
How it has taken me this long to get these potato pillows on the blog is beyond me. read more →
Okay, okay, I know. This grilled cheese is much more than just cheese. It’s a cacophony of flavors. Fresh, California-esque flavors packed and stacked into the theme of a grilled cheese sandwich.
With Grilled Cheese Month in full swing, completely creative cheese concoctions are popping up all over the web. Which makes coming up with something original not the most original idea.
Case in point: Last week when I posted my Spinach and Artichoke Grilled Cheese I knew from the get go that the ingredient list may not be the most original, but the combination wasn’t something I had recently seen. That is until later that night when I was perusing my Feedly blog feed and BOOM, right there in the popular post column (natch) I saw a version of the same sandwich on Joy’s site from 3 days earlier.
I took comfort in my duplication that at least I was somewhat in the same hemisphere of recipe creation as a doyenne food blogger and hey, there aren’t that many original ideas left in the world. And who cares? Nothing ever comes out the same way twice from the exact same cook anyway. There’s plenty of room for all of us.
Some food bloggers scour the web to see if their recipe ideas have been posted on sites far and wide. I’m not into that. If it’s something I think sounds tasty, I’ll post it. If someone else features the same recipe idea, I’ll consider that fate, fluke or simply a happy accident with the world telling us we need more Spinach and Artichoke Sandwiches. Of which we do.
I look forward to this time of year, all year long. That may not make sense when you read it but try saying it out loud. Loud and proud. There you go. See, it works.
With the neighbors firing up their lawn mowers for the first spring shave (as we currently sit in the midst of a snow storm) and the grasses green and the trees bloom (where’s my hay fever meds?) I find myself craving the same foods I do every spring: Fresh, clean and flavorful. Gotcha! You thought I was going to say chocolate and cheese. No, that’s every day, not just a particular season.
Flavor. That’s what makes these roasted Artichokes with Chorizo Dressing leap straight to the top of the want list.
I have a lot of artichoke recipes in my go-to recipe drawer, er, filed in my head: pasta, pizzas, with eggs and chicken. So far only Chicken Tzatziki Pizza with Artichokes, Spinach and Artichoke Grilled Cheese (come back tomorrow for another grilled cheese recipe to celebrate Grilled Cheese Month) and my second post ever, Spring Artichokes have made it to the blog.
Which leaves plenty of room to develop and share a lot more with you lucky devils.
Some of my favorite recipes are from canned artichokes—my faves are from Trader Joe’s—packed in water. Which is awesome because then I can cure the crave any time of year. But when fresh artichokes are in season? Forget about it. I’m going fresh.
While I usually hold out for the Ocean Mist brand at Costco because they are big, have tightly bunched leaves and I’ve found have the most meat on the leaf, my local store isn’t carrying them yet. So I went mini. I found these baby artichokes at Whole Foods, and bingo, they’re from Ocean Mist, so the first time I bought them I knew they’d be good. I was right.
This recipe is one I’ve kept in my piles, and I mean piles (just ask my husband who I believe is currently devising a strategic plan to rid the house of all “reference material”) of recipes pulled from magazines over the past 10 years. And even more when it comes to Thanksgiving, but that’s another season entirely so it’ll have to wait.
In a world where work is sometimes hard, long and sometimes unappreciated, it’s important to give—and get—unexpected rewards along the way.
My workplace has changed in a big way over the past year. I’ve transitioned from 20 years of working for someone else to finally taking that plunge and working for myself. I don’t have a commute—except from the kitchen where I do most of my foodie creating, to my office where I get the design work done.
I can wear what I want, even though I pretty much did that anyway. When I run out of olive oil or am craving a new white dish for a photo, I can run to HomeGoods in the middle of the day and not feel the least bit guilty about it. Hey, I may even stop at 7 grocery stores on the way home. Yes, I do that too.
Working for myself is something I wouldn’t change for the world. But I do sometimes miss the company camaraderie, the daily interaction with co-workers (read that with a big emphasis on ‘sometimes’) because I really have the best set-up I could ask for. I work from home but I have the support of fresh ideas, willing hands and not yet jaded minds who are eager to learn.
I have interns.
For the past three years—has it been that long already?—I’ve been teaching Advanced Typography and Magazine Design at a local university. One night a week I meet up with senior college students about to embark on the transition of student to worker bee and teach them not only about design, but also about the real world, with real expectations and the hard work that will be expected of them once they get into it. Oh how I remember the days, my whole future was a glorious open field, ripe with opportunity. And it was so scary.
One of the reasons I enjoy working with these emerging careerists is not to teach them, but to teach me. To motivate me to be a better communicator and a wider thinker. To familiarize me with new technology I wouldn’t know was available as I work in my pigeon hole of doing the same thing the same way like I always have. To give me ideas and inspiration in an effort to keep fresh and relevant, and keep me up to date on the slang and fashion forward so I don’t seem like a total old fogie to my daughter and useful to my readers. read more →
One out of every two children is on some sort of food assistance today. Families are living on a daily food budget of three dollars a day for an entire family. I’ll spend twice that on an afternoon doughnut treat for my daughter and her friends. Or for a morning coffee and copy and a magazine that talks about food.
It’s time to put our voices where our mouths are and make some noise to fix what is wrong with the state of nutrition in our country. Thanks to Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry initiative and education of the general public through documentaries like A Place at the Table, the food plight of millions of American’s is being exposed.
When I walk into my daughter’s classroom in the morning, that’s when the notion that this is a real problem hits home. As I look around the continually changing and growing faces, I watch and wonder about who had what for breakfast. Do they look deflated because it’s early and they didn’t want to crawl out from their covers or because breakfast didn’t give them the energy their growing minds need? If they did eat was it a meal balanced with protein, whole grains and calcium or did they swiftly down a sugar soaked cereal that will bring them to a mid-morning crash? Or maybe they had nothing at all?
My daughter and I have an after school routine where she tells me three things about her day. The one I always care about most is about her lunch and how much she ate. While I loved school lunch as a kid, I pack my Smudge’s lunch instead. I want her meal to be balanced. I want to know what is in it and I want to know how much of it she’s eating. I’m not totally hard core about organic and avoiding sugars at all costs, but I definitely don’t want her eating frozen pizza or deep fried french fries everyday in lieu of fresh fruit and whole grains. The funny thing is she doesn’t even know what she’s missing. She doesn’t like french fries anyway. Is that why?
I’m pretty sure the majority of the children’s families in my daughter’s school have a pretty healthy notion of eating. But even having money to buy food doesn’t necessarily translate into buying the right food. You still have to make good choices. read more →
If you hadn’t noticed, I sort of have a thing for cheese, especially grilled cheese. Yes, I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to the grilling of the cheese.
I think it stems from some of my first cooking experiences as a kid, when one of my standy-by lunchtime masterpieces was a melted cheese sandwich, forever inking the taste of melty cheddar cheese and white bread into my tastebud memory bank. And it’s now become a favorite of my Smudge too. How could it not?
Last year I celebrated Grilled Cheese month by creating a new grilled cheese recipe to share each week during the month of April. With so much melted goodness to be had they’re still some of my favorite posts.
I hope you like them too because it’s time to break out the cheese grater and warm up the sandwich flipper because we’re doing it again this year. My mind just can’t quit thinking of some of my favorite ingredients to melt together.
And here’s a reason yours should get churning too.
My friends at Wisconsin Cheese and I are announcing Grilled Cheese Academy’s 2013 Recipe Showdown, where aspiring cheese heads can put their creative talents to the test to compete for the title to be crowned the queen—or king—of the grilled cheese sandwich for an entire year.
And lucky me, I will be one of the contest judges stuffing my face with amazing creations. Is there a crown? Possibly. A sash? I’ll make you one. But I do know there will definitely be prizes ($5,000 in value to the grand prize winner plus more!) bragging rights and some serious cheese cred.
All you have to do is create and enter your best grilled cheese sensation. Oh, TWIST MY ARM! Oh wait, I can’t enter since I’m a judge. Well then people, don’t let me down and please cook me a sandwich to make me and your mama proud.
Germany. Paris. Hungary. Malaysia. Tennessee. Japan. So Cal. Slovenia. Italy. China. The influences from travel and living abroad for Rachael Read Post >
