Chicken with Lemon and Lemon-Rice Pilaf

This recipe is impressive yet quite easy with the oven doing most of the work. The savory, buttery sauce is a delicious complement to the pilaf. The pilaf recipe was adapted from a recipe from Central Market.

Mathew's Cottage Pie

This weekend when I was out of town, my husband shocked the heck out of me by making this cottage pie. Previously, his culinary experience consisted of a blue box of macaroni and a pot of boiling water. He told me how he suffered through the experience, but his suffering made an outstanding dish—most certainly the best shepherd's pie I've ever tasted. This recipe hails from Jane Hornby's What To Cook & How To Cook It. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is not a very confident cook. She has pictures of every single step—perfect for the visual learner!

New Search Function

Hey everyone! I've added a search function to my website (located to the right). I've tested it and it works a lot better than the previous generation of Google search function. It will find keywords you type in all across my blog. You have to be rather specific—e.g. "eggs" will only return one result, but "egg" will return a couple pages of results. So, have fun and hopefully this will make finding the recipe you want just that much easier.

Veggie Omelet

This veggie omelet was made with my Full-Circle produce. I swear this has a good day's worth of veggies in it, and most of those are dark, leafy greens. This could serve two people or one ravenously hungry me.

Breakfast Burritos with Mexican-flavored Bean Burger

Looking for an inexpensive protein source and great way to use some of my produce, I delved into Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. There, I found a great bean burger recipe and added my own flavor combination to. But, I didn't stop at that page. Bittman also had the fantastic idea of breakfast burritos that you make, then wrap in foil, store in the freezer, and pop in the oven for breakfast on a busy morning. It's fantastic, healthy fast food you made yourself. Brilliant! These are freakishly tasty with some extra salsa or Tabasco. The bean burger makes more than enough for burritos. The breakfast burrito recipe makes 10.

Thrifty Food Tip: Beans

This week we find ourselves down to the bone, money-wise. So, desperately looking around my kitchen for cheap food options, I stumbled on my forgotten dried bean collection. Whenever I need beans for a recipe, I eyeball the dried beans and think about how frickin' long it takes to cook them into a usable state. Then I go to the store to pay about a dollar a can. No more, I say! All it takes is a little time, stovetop space, and Ziploc bags to have yourself a rather large store of recipe-ready frozen beans. In a short afternoon, from a few small bags of dollar Walmart beans, I have made the equivalent of 15 cans of beans! Not too shabby. If you're curious about the things wrapped in foil, consider them a preview of the amazing breakfast burrito recipe premiering tomorrow! I've included a how-to after the break.

Full-Circle Farms

Full-Circle Farm is basically the perfect vision of what a CSA (or Community-Supported Agriculture) should be. They provide sustainably grown, high quality, organic produce at realistic prices. Other CSAs also provide the same, but I have never seen such a convenient and consumer-friendly payment method. You can choose one of two sizes of boxes—standard- or family-sized. The contents of the boxes are completely customizable. You can cancel or suspend your orders anytime. And best-of-all, you pay per box. That's right! Instead of paying upwards of $350 right up front with any of the other CSAs, Full-Circle charges you $42 for a family-sized box. And you can get a box either every week or every two weeks. It's absolutely amazing!

Gorgeous golden beets

In this week's box, I received: Crimini mushrooms, French shallots, golden beets, kale, red chard, mangoes, Gala apples, zucchinis, red potatoes, carrots, and broccolini.

I wish these people were everywhere. As of now, they are only around the Puget Sound area in Washington State and in Alaska. Hopefully, as they gain steam, the organization will expand.

Sherry Sugars

Wonderful for the holidays and made to be decorated, these cookies are delicately sweet and are a perfect backdrop for a little sugar glaze. In my sugar glaze recipe, I've used a few unusual techniques for getting some color since I don't like using traditional food colorings. Yields about 60 cookies.

Eggnog Cookies

These cookies are absolutely wonderful and are a must-bake. The nutmeg in these imparts a slightly egg-noggy flavor. These are fantastic for the holidays and anytime you are jonesing for some 'nog.

Penne Alla Vodka

This delicious pasta dish has subtle creamy flavor and richness. In the original recipe by Lidia Bastianich, she uses whole cream, however, a marvelous substitute for cream in sauces such as this is to blend nonfat cottage cheese and a little milk (depending on how thick you want your "cream") in a food processor. When you add the blended cottage cheese to the hot pan, it will separate a bit, but with heat, the cottage cheese should melt into the sauce. This dish is wonderful on its own, but if you wish to make this a complete meal, grill some garlic chicken (recipe to follow) and serve with a side salad.