My Family’s Favorite Green Beans

I’ve been doing a fair amount of nervous-anxious-comfort eating lately. Here’s what that looks like:

Gee, that doughnut sure looks good. And so does that cupcake. Hey! You got your doughnut on my cupcake! And you got your cupcake on my doughnut! Nothing left to do but eat the whole dang mess…

It’s fifty shades of ugly. For sure.

Things came to a head the other night when I sat down next to A. on the couch with my Dignity Droppin’ Dessert du jour and he looked over and actually started laughing. Out loud.

I, of course, responded in the only way possible – with preemptive aggression: “What?!?!”

He, of course, responded in the only way possible – with a life-saving change of subject: “Uh, I just read something funny online. Have you heard this joke about the fiscal cliff?”

Well played, my friend. Well played.

So, you know, it occurred to me that it may be time to start getting some more veggies into my diet. And then I discovered this recipe.

Let’s just say that when you can get a chicken nugget-shoving, cupcake-pounding, queso fundido-funneling girl to look forward to eating fresh green beans, you’re doing something right.

The idea is to char the whole beans in a screaming hot skillet, then toss them with a light and lovely Harissa sauce. It is such a wonderful alternative to the heavy, cream of mushroom soup-laden green beans that we’re all expected to eat this time of year. You might want to considering switching things up at the Thanksgiving table, green bean-wise.

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Best Baked French Fries

Perfect French fries really are a science, wouldn’t you say? And maybe also an art – the art and science of the perfect French fry. With a side of perfect, spicy ketchup for dipping. This will be our topic du jour:  we’d better get started.

Now, of course, I’ve read all the rags and I know what’s what:  the truly perfect way to make French fries is to double fry them. You par cook them in oil at a lower temp then jack up the heat and get those fries sinfully crisp on the outside and wonderfully soft on the inside. It’s so wrong its right, and I enjoy being wrong/right every time I go to my favorite local fry spot.

But I’m lazy. And I’m not into eating deep fried foods all the time. And I still need to have some crispy taters, dang it! So I worked out a recipe that would get me where I needed to go without all the drama.

Perfect Baked French Frytown, here we come.

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Roasted Walnut Butter

I’ve recently been crushing on nut butters. Hard.

What’s not to love?

I love making nut butters.
I love gifting nut butters.
I love canning and storing nut butters.
Oh, and I love eating nut butters.

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Chocolate Chunk Coffee Cake Bars

The Olympics are here! The Olympics are here!

Will you be watching? Will you be cheering? Will you be reenacting your favorite medal moments?

Reliving the winning moves from my events of choice is a critical part of my personal Olympic viewing. Most years these performances are safe (excepting only an unfortunate reenactment of a winning luge run in ’88, which involved my teeth luging into the family coffee table) and all years they are thoroughly enjoyed by my audience.

After all these years I still thoroughly enjoy watching both the summer and winter games. The extreme pageantry and commercialism does turn me off, but the sheer athletic accomplishment is hard for me to tear my eyes away from – it’s pretty exciting.

Specifically, I’m a fan of swimming, diving, tennis (table) and, of course, gymnastics. Archery, rowing, and fencing are pretty fun too. Really, it’s hard to pick a favorite so I’ll likely be glued to the TV watching all manner of Olympic feats for the next few weeks. A. will likely restrict my reenactments to events that involve the least potential for personal harm, though. Given my lack of coordination, I’m thinking that judo and taekwondo are out.

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Monterey-Style Corn

I may have mentioned that I like to assign themes to my weekends, even when it’s just A. and me.

Themes set the tone. Themes provide direction. Themes get people excited about what’s to come. And everyone can get involved in a theme!

Tell me you’re not going to put your nose to the grindstone to figure out a menu that goes with a ‘Things That Start With ‘F” theme. Or work up a sweat thinking of entertainment options for a ‘Colors Of The Rainbow’-themed weekend? (Green Lantern! Blue Lagoon! Black Swan! Pretty In Pink! [Obvi.])

Themes are just natural party starters.

So color me the giddy planner now that I’ve settled on this coming weekend’s plan:  Fresh Stuff.

That’s right - She’s Fresh from Kool & The Gang will be in heavy rotation, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns will be all over our TV, and we’ll be eating and drinking all manner of fresh food and beverages for 48 straight hours. I plan to hit up the farmer’s market on Friday and keep the freshness flowing all weekend long in the form of local peaches, some early season Hatch chiles, and tons and TONS of fresh, fresh, fresh corn. I’m going to shuck it myself with these shucking hands. Fresh!

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Junk Drawer Ice Cream

I can never remember not having a junk drawer in my life – double negative aside, it’s true. We moved around a few times when I was young, but there was always a junk drawer on the premises. And now that I operate my own premises, I insist on curating my very own junk drawer.

The thing about junk drawers is that they are commonly known to contain, well, junk (duh). But I learned early on that they’re actually a veritable gold mine of available castoffs just waiting for one to claim as their own.

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Frosted Dulce De Leche Fun Cake

I was never a big fan of summer as a child, which I attribute my fear of the ocean, Frisbees, and potato salad. Luckily my lack of fear of ice cream, pie, and running through the sprinkler helped me to make peace with the fair third season, and now we’re living happily ever after.

It’s a good thing too since I now live just down the street from the surface of the sun.

But summer is about so much more than just the temperature outside, don’t you think?

I can still smell my father’s old charcoal grill heating up. Taste my grandmother’s fresh raspberry jam. Feel myself freaking out over the faint chimes that could only mean the approach of the ice cream truck.

Summer is bonkers.

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Jalapeño Pesto, Insta’d

Not a lot to say today. But a lot to show.

The Jalapeño Pesto Show!

As seen through the lens of Instagram.

You may have guessed that I’m obsessed with jalapeños.

But you may not have known that I am also a huge fan of pesto. And Instagram too.

So this post is pretty much a trifecta for me. It’s nice to be surrounded with stuff you like.

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Cumin Roasted Carrots

I seriously think that if one more person tries to talk to me about Tangerine Tango I’m going to punch someone in the face. Probably myself.

Orange is my favorite color. It has been for a long time. Definitely for a lot longer than the Tangerine Tangos of the world have been around. And I kind of feel like somebody’s trying to sell me something that I’ve already been buying for years.

It’s like that indie band that you’ve been loyally following since they performed their first show in the garage across the street.

You bought their CDs. You rocked their bumper stickers. You were there for every live performance.

That’s me and Orange.

Then one day, Simon Cowell discovers Orange when his limousine breaks down across the street from their garage.

All of a sudden, Orange is all over iTunes. Orange is doing Pepsi commercials. There’s even a tawdry story on the cover of The Enquirer about Orange cheating on Red with Yellow.

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Margarita Cupcakes

Some days you feel like a margarita.

Some days you feel like a cupcake.

Well, I guess you can call me Babe Ruth because today I’ve got all the bases covered.

I never really thought much about curds until I moved to the southwest and was literally surrounded by citrus. When there’s such an abundance of any type of produce, it’s only natural to start thinking about new and interesting ways to eat it.

Curds remind me of a fresher, lighter version of pudding:  sweet, creamy and lightened up with the sweet/tart flavor of fresh juice.

Who wouldn’t want to put that on top of a cupcake?

Crickets…

So then it becomes a question of construction:  we know what’s going on top of the cupcake, but what’s going inside it?

I’m a big fan of cupcakes baked with buttermilk. There are flavor benefits, but more importantly there are textural benefits; no one wants to bite into a crunchy cupcake.

Buttermilk banishes crunchy cupcakes.

Tequila, on the other hand, brings us closer to margarita authenticity. Just a little bit, and make it silver, if you please. (Of course, if these cupcakes are for little ones instead of weekend warriors, simply replace the tequila with buttermilk.)

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