Currently cooking from The Carefree Cook by Rick Rodgers.
The weather up here in North Idaho has finally warmed up enough to get the grill out of storage, and to celebrate, we made these pork souvlaki skewers.
You start out by marinating cubes of pork in the classic greek flavors of onion, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic [...]

Currently cooking from The Carefree Cook by Rick Rodgers.
I don’t have a very large repertoire of side dishes, and I haven’t cooked with orzo before, so I was excited to try this recipe.
If you aren’t familiar with orzo, it is a small, rice-shaped pasta that cooks up quickly and can be flavored in a hundred [...]

Currently cooking out of The Carefree Cook by Rick Rodgers.
I have mixed feelings about this recipe. It was easy and fast, but I didn’t really like the taste of the meatloaves. The recipe calls for meatloaf mix, which is a mixture of equal parts ground beef, pork and veal. None of the grocery stores around [...]

From Mes Confitures by Christine Ferber.
For the past couple of years, I’ve been hearing about French Pastry Chef Christine Ferber and her preserves made from local ingredients. They are supposed to be out-of-this-world good, with unique flavor combinations.
Mes Confitures was originally published in French and then translated into English. Some of the directions are a [...]

Currently Cooking out of The Carefree Cook by Rick Rodgers.
The next cookbook under the microscope is The Carefree Cook by Rick Rodgers. The book is aimed at people who don’t have a lot of time to cook, but want great tasting food. As he says in his introduction, “The Carefree Cook is about how to [...]

I have a thing for whoopie pies. To me, they are a perfect snack. Little chocolate cakes sandwiched together with filling. Unfortunately, they are usually disappointingly not chocolatey and the filling is super sweet. But I just keep trying new recipes, hoping to find the perfect one.
I snagged this recipe off the NY Times website. [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
You might remember this cake from the chocolate spelt pound cake. Originally, I had wanted to do the kamut version, but couldn’t find any kamut flour. During a weekend trip to Portland, OR, though, I stumbled upon some in Whole Foods. When life hands you kamut flour, [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
I grew up on burnt chocolate pudding that came out of a box. Back before there was instant chocolate pudding, there was the chocolate pudding that you actually had to cook on the stovetop. I remember my mom standing in front of the stove, stirring away, muttering. [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
I hadn’t planned on making these muffins, but every time I flipped through Pure Dessert, I kept stopping on this recipe. Muffins just didn’t seem exotic enough to try. But they have raspberries. And chocolate. Really, it was only a matter of time before I caved.
The batter [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
This is actually two recipes in one. First, you make a batch of Desire’s Brioche dough. But instead of making traditional brioche loaves, you roll the dough out and spread a filling of muscovado sugar and cinnamon on it, then roll the dough up and cut it [...]