Fall Salad Days

I think I love my kitchen garden more in the fall then in the spring: cooler temperatures are accompanied by a lot less bugs and the beds are brimming with salad greens (sorrel, lettuce, frisée, endive, mache, arugula), cooking greens (tatsoi, pakchoi and other mustard, …

Pineapple Upside Down Cake for 150

Note: Recipe has been updated on February 11, 2009 to clarify some instructions and correct a typo. When we moved to the country, we decided to join the local Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company. It took us a while to actually do it, but both …

When You Have Eggs, Make Custard… or Flan

I love a good baked custard – or flan as we call in France (which is not the same as a Spanish flan – maybe a post for another day). And although the last few days have been warm, the down spiraling leaves are letting …

Of Apples and Apple Soup

Gala, Crispin (or Mutsu), Fuji, Honeycrisp, Rhode Island Greening, York, McIntosh, Jonathan & Jonagold, Stayman Winesap, even Golden Delicious (one of MY favorites), Red Delicious & Granny Smith: those are just a few of the cultivars of apples available for pick up at our local …

Roast Chicken on Sunday = Tex-Mex Chowder on Day 4

Continuing our series of Roast Chicken on Sunday means easy tasty meals for the week… This is day 4 and we are using the remaining Day 2’s Chicken Tomatillo Soup of which we made a big batch. With the help of onions, potatoes and corn, …

Chicken on Sunday = Fall Rainbow Stir-fry on Day 3

Continuing our series of Roast Chicken on Sunday means easy tasty meals for the week… This is day 3 and we are using one cooked breast from our Roast Chicken. You can still make this stir-fry using an an uncooked chicken breast. You just need …

Chicken on Sunday = Chicken Tomatillo Soup on Day 2

I love visiting other people’s gardens and tasting food they cook from their garden. So when I went to visit Pat D.’s garden in Castleton, VA, I was in for a treat. She asked me to stay for lunch, and served a most intriguing Tomatillo …

Roast Chicken for Sunday; Tasty Dinners for the Whole Week!

When I am really busy, I don’t always have the time to cook from scratch everyday (and frankly, sometimes I don’t have the energy!). Yet, we eat well. One of my strategies is to cook something purposefully large on the week-end, and reuse it during …

Early Fall Tomato Soup

The season is changing: I can taste it in the air. The nights are getting cool yet the days are still warm. The daylight hours are shortening; the light is mellowing; the air is crisper. The leaves on the trees are subtly goldening – soon …

Rusty’s Italian Plum Cake

Vanille teased me for being in an “upside-down” baking mood (and she should know – being “down under” in New Zealand) because I blogged back-to-back about Tomato Tatin and then about Upside Down Plum Spiced Cake. I felt like I had to make a post …