Though Labor Day has passed, the heat remains here in Northern Virginia and we’re still enjoying outdoor cooking and our homegrown tomatoes, though we’ve hit a lull and possibly the end of the tomato season. We aren’t sure if it’s insects or just the extended heat wave, but the tomato plants aren’t looking good. Fortunately [...]
Slow-Roasted Tomatoes
August 3, 2010 By 16 Comments
Pasta with Chicken, Garlic Scapes, Tomatoes, and Basil
June 28, 2010 By 3 Comments
Weekend Gardening: Tomato Updates
June 13, 2010 By 6 Comments
We planted our tomatoes three weeks ago and so far they are doing very well. The plants all took readily after transplanting and they’ve grown like crazy; in fact half of them are already at the top of their cages. We set 19 tomato plants and 4 tomatillo plants, then had to add more tomatillos [...]
Pesto Hummus
February 20, 2010 By 10 Comments
The Daring Cooks Make Vegan Dosas
September 14, 2009 By 9 Comments
For the Daring Cooks September challenge, we made vegan dosas adapted from the reFresh cookbook by Ruth Tal. Fresh is a popular chain of vegetarian/vegan restaurants in Toronto, Canada with three published cookbooks teaching how to cook Fresh food at home. Our host Debyi of Healthy Vegan Kitchen chose this fun challenge for us, and [...]
Spiced Vegetable Dal and a Memorial
September 7, 2009 By 7 Comments
My first cookbook from Sheila Lukins was the 1980s classic Silver Palate Cookbook, a popular book that led many people in the United States to change the way they cooked and viewed food. I’ve collected just about all of the books she wrote and have cooked from them many times over the years, learning something [...]
Tomato Jam (Doce de Tomate)
August 18, 2009 By 26 Comments
It’s rich and complex, not your average tomato jam. The cinnamon and cloves spice it up, but the ruby port makes all the difference between an average jam and a memorable jam. It’s good by itself on toast, crackers, or baguette slices, and even better with sheep or goat cheese. The recipe comes from the [...]
Eggplant Gratin (Gratin D’Aubergines, Provencal)
August 4, 2009 By 14 Comments
The upcoming release of the movie Julie & Julia (August 7, 2009) has ignited discussions about cooking and blogging and caused me to reflect on my own cooking journey. Cooking always seemed like a big mystery to me when I was growing up. My grandmothers were both talented Southern cooks and seemed to hardly measure [...]
