French Green Beans with Prosciutto and Pine Nuts
June 3, 2010 by Andrea
Filed under Vegetables
Our nighttime temperatures settled into the 60s last week, so we could finally plant the basil, peppers, eggplant, and beans. My favorite kind of bean is the very thin French type, aka fillet beans, and we decided to try growing them last year. We planted the Maxibel variety of fillet beans and the plants sprouted just fine, then we agonized as two full rounds of bean seedlings were devoured by ravenous bunnies. We never got a single French bean (or snow pea or sugar snap pea or yellow bean), and the only bean plant they didn’t touch was the asparagus beans. This year we are better prepared after 99% bunny proofing the yard, but of course there’s always a flip side: the bunnies are now terrorizing our neighbors. Read more
Slow Cooker Paprika Chicken
April 22, 2010 by Andrea
Filed under Main Course, Poultry
Though the days are getting warmer and the summer daylilies have just started to bloom, I still feel the urge to pull out the slow cooker on cool spring mornings. When most of our days are swirling with activity, it gives me a sense of accomplishment to get a meal going in the slow cooker. I know that dinner will be ready later and I can focus on the boys and their needs or the endless to dos and errands and avoid the rush to get something ready for dinner at 5 p.m. when they are all standing around the kitchen telling me that they are starving. Read more
Creamy Grape Salad with Almonds
March 29, 2010 by Andrea
Filed under Salads, Summer Favorites
One of my favorite childhood memories is creamy fruit salads made with various combinations of grapes, cherries, mandarin oranges, pineapple, or apples, sometimes with crunchy nuts mixed in. The creamy part also varied, often made with sour cream and cream cheese or whipped topping, but all were sweet and sometimes tasted more like dessert than a dinner side dish. As far as my sweet tooth and I were concerned, creamy fruit salads were as good as it gets.
Don’t judge me. Read more
Moroccan Chicken Soup
February 1, 2010 by Andrea
Filed under Poultry, Soups & Stews
I had one last butternut squash in the kitchen waiting to be used and this soup had been calling my name for a while. The flavor is warm and inviting, perfect for a cold wintry day, and the soup is easy to put together and easy on the budget using widely available ingredients. The recipe comes from one of my favorite everyday cookbooks, The Essential EatingWell Cookbook, which is full of healthy and mostly easy-to-prepare meals. Read more
Mexican Spiced Butternut Squash Soup with Beans and Corn
January 21, 2010 by Andrea
Filed under Soups & Stews
Michael isn’t a huge fan of butternut squash, but if you browse my archives you’ll see that I have quite a few butternut squash recipes. You might even think I am torturing my poor husband with all the butternut squash, but really I’m not. The sweetness of butternut squash just doesn’t appeal to him, so I try to find ways to spice it up and make it savory. Every once in a while another of my butternut squash soup experiments catches him by surprise and he’ll say he likes it and asks me to make it again. This soup is one those. Read more
Pomegranate-Ginger-Chile Nojito Cocktail
Pomegranates are one of the most festive fruits. The deep red color of the arils captures the eye, and the flavor of the juice is a wonder on its own and is very versatile. Though we’ve enjoyed pomegranate juice for a while, this year marks the very first time we ever purchased pomegranates, and as we munched on the arils we wondered how we ever managed without them. Read more
