Sugar snap peas are a garden staple in the spring. At least around here you plant them in November or December and see them poking out of the ground late February to early March, depending on how warm or cold a winter it has been. In my garden they snake their way up a loosely put together bamboo trellis and if I'm not paying attention, climb over the fence into my neighbor's yard. As soon as it really starts to get hot, usually sometime in May, the pea vines dry up, telling me it's time to plant green beans.

And just so we are clear, I don't cook my garden peas. Why? Because I'm greedy. I snap the peas off their tendrils and eat them fresh and fresh right in the garden as soon as they get big enough. It's my garden snack bar. One of these days I'll compost and fertilize and mulch enough to have a harvest big enough to cook and/or share. Still, peas in the garden means local peas at the market, and this easy stir-fry with green onions, lemon zest, and mint, is a great way to prepare them.

Continue reading "Seared Sugar Snap Peas" »

Here's another recipe from the archives while I'm on vacation. Enjoy! ~Elise

Spring here means strawberries and rhubarb, sweet peas and asparagus, and dreams of the summer bounty to come. Asparagus are everywhere, big, fat, and fresh. And yes, although we can get them all year round, I'm especially happy to eat them in Spring. Not only are they likely to have been grown in the same Hemisphere, and could even be local, their very abundance signals the renewal of the season and a good-bye to Winter. Here is a fresh and easy asparagus soup recipe, a perfect excuse to buy more than one bunch.

Continue reading "Creamy Asparagus Soup" »

My friend Guy (that's pronounced "Gee" with a hard "g") grew up in Southern France, in Provence, near the sea. And like so many people from Provence, Guy has a passion for all things seafood, especially mussels, or as the French call them, "moules". Mussels steamed in white wine and served in a sauce made from the cooking liquid with butter and shallots is a classic French preparation of mussels, moules mariniere. This is Guy's method for moules mariniere, the way he grew up making it in France, and one of the easiest and loveliest ways of preparing mussels. It is wonderful for an appetizer or a light lunch, and excellent with a glass of white wine and some crusty bread.

Continue reading "Mussels in White Wine Sauce" »

Even though the weather has been rather dreary and cold the last week or so, spring is officially here, which means it's time for asparagus. This is a quick and easy salad, made with fresh asparagus spears that have been blanched for a few minutes, thinly sliced on the diagonal, and tossed with shrimp in an olive oil, garlic, parsley, lemon juice dressing. So good!

Continue reading "Asparagus Salad with Shrimp" »

One of the things I love about cooking is how some ingredients, tossed together on a whim, can turn out unexpectedly well. Like two people meeting for the first time, instantly recognizing they will be friends forever (has that ever happened to you?) Dear broccoli, meet toasted almond, and her friends grilled chicken, sesame oil, and red chili flakes. You are all going to get along swimmingly.

Continue reading "Broccoli, Chicken, and Almond Sauté" »

This is my lazy girl's lunch. Lazy, because even when I've eaten every last pickle in the fridge, I can usually find a few fresh eggs, a couple mushrooms, and half an onion there. Lazy, because when I can't be bothered to go to the store, I have to look for what I can scrounge in the garden, and the only things thriving in my garden bed at the moment (early March) are parsley and chard. And who wants to eat a big plate of sautéed parsley?

Continue reading "Eggs Nested in Sautéed Chard and Mushrooms" »

Updated recipe, from the recipe archive, first posted in 2007. Check out the comments section for some great ideas on other things to cook with smoked paprika! ~Elise

I first experienced smoked paprika on a trip to New Zealand several years ago in a sweet potato soup. My host laughed as my eyes lit up with "Wow, what's in this?!" At the time, smoked paprika could only be found in specialty stores or Penzeys. Soon after though, McCormick started selling it and promoting it as a spice, so it's much easier to come by, and we are always looking for an excuse to cook with it. If you've never used it, smoked paprika is to regular paprika what chipotle powder is to red chile powder. I like to think of it as the flavor of my favorite barbecued potato chips. The following recipe we've adapted from one in a free magazine by our local Raley's grocery store. The flavor of this chicken is terrific, well worth seeking out this spice if you don't already have some. Do you use smoked paprika in your cooking? If so, please let us know your favorite uses for it in the comments.

Continue reading "Smoked Paprika Roasted Chicken" »

Have you ever noticed how crowded restaurants are on Valentine's Day? Every table is a two-top, the menus are often fixed, and the staff frantically busy. After several misfires over the last few years, I've given up with going out that night, and instead focus on lovely dishes we can make at home. Here is a classic date night meal—filet mignon in a red wine reduction.

Continue reading "Filet Mignon with Red Wine Sauce" »

"Now this is how oxtails should taste," my father declared after taking a bite of these glazed oxtails. I couldn't agree more. We have a thing for oxtails in our family. Oxtail stew was a favorite winter dish my mom prepared when we were growing up. If you are unfamiliar with oxtails, they are tails of steers, typically sold cut into segments. Most of what you buy is bone, and the meat is well exercised and fatty, so oxtail preparations lend themselves to slow cooking. Much like short-ribs, but in my opinion, even better. Think of the best pulled pork imaginable, but with beef. In this recipe the oxtails are first browned, then slow cooked with red wine and stock. Then the segments are removed so you can strip the meat off of them and the liquid is reduced to a glaze. It's actually pretty easy to make, most of the cooking time is hands-off while the oxtails are simmering.

Continue reading "Glazed Oxtails" »

Gobsmacked. I thought I was pretty well versed in what one could do with cabbage, addicted to the stuff as I am. Whether it's braised, in stewed, stuffed, boiled, or made into coleslaw, we eat cabbage in every which way around here. But this my friends, this has to be the easiest way to prepare cabbage and still have it taste great. (Boiled cabbage is probably the easiest, but then what you have is just boiled cabbage.) My mother made something like this the other day with curly cabbage. You just simply blanch the torn or roughly cut cabbage leaves in boiling salted water, drain them, and toss with butter, and seasonings. Butter and cabbage together? A dream team. And caraway and celery seeds just make them dance.

Continue reading "Blanched Cabbage with Butter and Caraway" »

Years ago in Manhattan, there was a rather famous German restaurant by the name of Luchow's. It was established in 1882 and operated continuously for a hundred years, finally shutting down in 1984. In its heyday Luchow's was well known as a hang out for musicians and entertainers such as Steinway, Dvorak, and later, Oscar Hammerstein. It even had a room named after Diamond Jim Brady, a regular.

I don't recall how it happened, but my father came across a used copy of Luchow's German Cookbook, a compilation of recipes from that now long gone restaurant. He quickly zeroed in on the recipe for an Austrian goulash with sauerkraut, also called Szegedine Goulasch in the book. I often accuse my dad of having sauerkraut in his veins, and not without reason. He just can't pass up an interesting recipe that calls for that fermented cabbage. This "goulash" is chunks of veal, cooked with onions and tomatoes in a paprika sour cream sauce, served over sauerkraut. So so good.

Continue reading "Veal Goulash with Sauerkraut" »

Updated from the recipe archive. First posted 2006. Enjoy!

"This isn't your everyday pot roast," my father declared as we sat down for dinner to enjoy the roast that he had been cooking all afternoon. No, indeed it isn't. The sauce includes an entire bottle of bold red Zinfandel wine. The vegetables in the sauce are cooked until every ounce of flavor is extracted from them, and then the sauce is pressed through a sieve and reduced even further. The beef, braised for hours is fork tender. Enjoy.

Continue reading "Beef Roast Braised in Zinfandel" »

Oh my, this is a good one. I never would have thought to pair kale with tahini (thank you to my friend Peg for the suggestion), but it's great. Sort of reminiscent of a popular Japanese dish with spinach and sesame gomasio. The slightly bitter green kale does a happy dance with the acidic lemon and salty richness of the tahini sauce. Very easy to pull together. Would make an excellent addition to a Thanksgiving or holiday spread. Enjoy. (And as my dad says, eat your greens!)

Continue reading "Sautéed Kale with Tahini Sauce" »

There is nothing better than garden fresh green beans. Even when my parents abandoned their garden beds for ten years, they still had their green bean "tee-pees" every summer. My father is rather picky about his beans. They must snap and break when you bend them, not wiggle around like a rubber band. That's how you know they're fresh. I have a couple rows of green beans this year, planted from seed right after I pulled out the fava beans and spring peas. (BTW, if you grow green beans from seed, it helps to soak the beans over night in water before planting them, or place them between two layers of wet paper towels for a couple of days, so they germinate first.) They like heat, and at least in our part of the world, come into their own in August and September. When I left for vacation the plants were only a foot high, two weeks later they are climbing over the fence.

Continue reading "Green Beans with Bacon" »

Another week, another refrigerator drawer filled to the brim with garden zucchini. Sound familiar? To take a break from our usual (almost daily in the summer) way to cook up the zucchini (see mom's summer squash), we prepared a classic French gratin, with grated zucchini, spinach, onions sautéed with bacon, a persillade of parsley and garlic, all bound together with a few eggs, tossed with Parmesan, and baked until golden brown.

Zucchini has never tasted so good.

Continue reading "Zucchini and Spinach Gratin" »