Rice Bowls with Peanut Sauce and Chicken Satay This rice blow recipe features my all-time favorite Perfect Peanut Sauce recipe. I have tried several others in the past, but they either tasted too acidic or called for ingredients that required a separate trip to the grocery store as looking for obscure ingredients, with help from a well-meaning but confused clerk, is one of my least favorite activities. This sauce is creamy, peanuty perfection, and uses ingredients I almost always have on hand. I could eat it by the spoonful, which is why I usually double the recipe. The original recipe comes from lettuce wraps in Cooking Light's magazine Keep Reading
All About Hamburgers: How to grind your own meat
How to Grind Your Own Meat Despite the fact that we primarily eat a plant-based diet, if my husband and I were stranded on a desert island and had to choose just one meal to have for the rest of our days, we would pick hamburgers. But not just any old burger. It would have to be a juicy, perfectly seasoned hand-packed patty in between a soft yeast hamburger bun and piled high with fresh toppings. Oh man, that would be quite an island. For the last two years, I have been wanting to try grinding my own hamburger meat. I already owned the KitchenAid food grinder attachment (Amazon), which sadly I'd only used for fruits and vegetables. I wanted Keep Reading
Simple Kale Salad with Lemon-Garlic Vinaigrette
Simple Kale Salad with Lemon-Garlic Vinaigrette Back in January, I read that kale was so last year. Apparently this will be cauliflower's turn in the spotlight. Seriously, who decides this stuff? Is there some powerful vegetable lobby group in Washington? An Anna Wintour of the produce world? Some marketing experts doing vegetable focus groups? These are the questions that keep me up at night. So I set out to do some serious research Google it. It's true: cauliflower is the new kale. Just ask your friendly global culinary trendologist. I love a humble head of cauliflower as much as the next person, but I'm not ready to kick kale to the curb Keep Reading
Chicken Stew with Dumplings recipe
Chicken and Dumplings To say I am excited to be moving out of winter would be a huge understatement. So why in the world am I featuring a recipe for comfort food?! Chicken Stew with Dumplings is a warm bowl of chicken and vegetables simmered in a rich broth and topped with fluffy dumplings. It is the perfect meal for a wet, cold day. Hmm. Good thing we still have plenty of those with a Pacific Northwest spring. Use one of them as the perfect excuse to make this recipe. This dish is a flavorful one-bowl meal. And the best part? The dumplings can be stirred together in one mixing bowl, and the stew simmered in one pot. A filling dinner with only Keep Reading
Chicken Lettuce Wraps (PF Chang’s copycat recipe)
Chicken Lettuce Wraps (PF Chang's copycat recipe) My garden is exploding with greens right now. We have been drinking more green juices and eating more salads than I can count. Sometimes when we're out in the backyard, my ever-hungry kids will even climb into the raised bed and start munching on kale leaves like overgrown rabbits! I don't say anything, for fear of startling them off and losing the magical moment. I had two beautiful heads of butter lettuce last week, so I used them to create one of my favorite copycat recipes for PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps. There are several versions of this recipe floating around the Internet, but in this one I Keep Reading
Mushroom, Cheese, and Toast Frittata
Mushroom, Cheese, and Toast Frittata One of my goals for last year was to tighten up spending on the grocery/household line in our budget. Thanks to some good ol' fashioned discipline (and avoiding Target like the plague), I have shaved off over $300/month. Here are some of my favorite ways to save money on food: Cook your own beans. Eat more simple rice-and-beans dinners. Roast whole chickens (or buy at Costco). Use the bones to make & freeze chicken stock. Bake your own bread. I haven't bought store bread in months. Big savings! Eat more meat-free meals. Stop wasting food. Best way: keep your fridge cleaned out. Fried rice, Keep Reading
Graham Cracker Bread (recipe)
Graham Cracker Bread Thanks to these gray, rainy days I have been on a major baking kick. Granola bars, cookies, brownies, breads. If the sun doesn't come back soon, I am going to have to switch to elastic waistbands on all my pants. This week I was watching my kids roll out Play-Doh creations at the dining room table. It reminded me of one of my all-time favorite bread recipes, Graham Cracker Bread. The recipe involves splitting the dough into 3 equal portions, rolling each into a 12" rope, and braiding them together before tucking them into the pan to bake. The bread dough is really easy to handle and shape. Just dust off your Play-Doh skills, Keep Reading