Four for Dinner

Generally, when we have friends for dinner, I make something that I’ve made before. I don’t like to treat my guests as guinea pigs. Sometimes, you make dud dinners and I usually don’t like to risk it. Last Wednesday night, however, we decided to have dinner at our house at the last minute (5-4-Dinner) and [...]

My brother-in-law made an interesting comment to me regarding our divergent cooking styles. It turns out, that because of this blog, he thought that I cooked from recipes whereas he cooks without them. In reality, I use recipes as guidelines, and much of what I have posted (except for breads and sweets) I have measured [...]

Make this! Vietnamese Chicken Salad is delicious! No batteries while I was cooking or eating and thus, no photos of the delicious salad. But you need to have fish sauce – pictured above. This salad was reminiscent in flavor to Green Papaya Salad. But, without the effort of trying to find green papayas and shred [...]

I’m still full. Actually, that isn’t true. I’m full from eating leftovers for lunch. The new recipes that I tried for our celebration last night with JS and JO were a hit. First off, we had wonderful starters prepared by JS. Perfectly ripe honeydew melon draped in shaved proscuitto and creamy, rich deviled eggs sprinkled [...]

After a week and a half away, S & I returned home on Friday…exhausted. We were in New York, for my parents 50th wedding anniversary, and in Washington, D.C., for a grand tour. Before returning home, we sent the girls off to camp for the summer. We came home kid-free and slept-in on Saturday, which [...]

When we were in Seattle visiting family, my sister-in-law was reading a cookbook called Olives and Oranges, by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox. It is a beautiful cookbook – nice looking recipes and gorgeous photographs of food. A feast for the eyes. One recipe that caught both of our eyes was a recipe for Roasted [...]

When we were in Italy, almost 3 years ago, we took a family cooking class in Tuscany. It was a blast. The cooking class took place at the home of the cooking instructor. Some of the participants were staying at the instructor’s home to cook for the week. We were only there for a morning/afternoon [...]

Last time I checked, chicken was still supposed to be fully cooked when it was served. Juicy, but well done. Oops. Last night, mine came out medium-well. I had to boost the finished product with a little zap time in the microwave. Not the best solution, but if you have to give your medium-well chicken [...]

Day two of a nice heat wave. Like the last one, it is warm enough to eat outside in the evening, which is pretty unusual for where we live. So, we like to take advantage it. Tonight, we had a Salade Nicoise, which is something that you put together, more than something you cook. Though, [...]

When we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium a few weeks ago, it was noted that Tilapia was a good, sustainable fish to eat. In looking at the aquarium web site, I saw that tilapia farmed in the U.S. is considered a “best choice”, with Central and South American farmed tilapia a “good alternative”. I [...]