My mom used to make cauliflower that was served in hot milk with melting butter and plenty of pepper – and I loved it. I have always loved vegetables of all kinds, although it took me a few years to accept cooked carrots. Cauliflower is one of my favorites because it is so versatile.

Roasting brings out the sweetness of almost any vegetable because it caramelizes the natural sugars in it. The flavors aren’t diluted by water (even steaming involves water and evaporation of flavor) and the texture is tender but not mushy.

My family’s ability to consume vast amounts of potatoes should allow us to be featured in the Guinness Book of World Records.
It isn’t so much that the family gets bored with the same old potatoes day after day.. I do. I hate cooking the same thing more than once. In fact I am pretty sure that I did not repeat a meal for at least the first ten years of my marriage. After that I got lazy.

I was always taught to eat the whole potato, including skins. This is great IF you are buying organic, but if you aren’t you …read more

You know how you sometimes get behind and have to catch up? Well that is where I am now. I put in a bit of time on Erin’s cake, the stuff for the dinner at Evil Shennanigans, and the church fund raiser today so when I got home this afternoon I got straight into pajamas, grabbed my laptop and told the family they were eating leftovers for dinner. It’s not as bad as you may think, the leftovers are grain fed beef brisket from the dinner last night.
Erin, my daughter, is addicted to mango. It has been one …read more

I love cumin.  It adds a warmth and a flavor to foods that is absolutely amazing.  There is something about it that just tastes like the baking  warmth of an early summer morning in Texas.  It soaks up that intense heat and turns it into something warm and comforting, the way that clay tiles soak up the heat and then give off gentle warmth when you walk on them.
I am always looking for ways to fit it in in another dish.

I fell in love with risotto the last time I made it and my brain has been feeding me thousands …read more

This is my entry for Presto Pasta Night.  The host this week is Ivy of Kopiaste.  If you haven’t checked out her blog you should.  Why? Because it is always incredible, that’s why.
I am finding interesting and varied pasta shapes more and more in the local stores.  This may be old news to some of you but trust me, around here you just don’t get the variety that you do in other places.  Apparently that is changing, something for which I will foreve be grateful because I get bored easily.

I made a rolled beef roast the other day and it was so good.  There is something so down to  earth good about old fashioned, plain cooking.  We don’t seem to do it so much anymore, preferring to look to European, Asian, and Noveau cuisines for our special meals.  But set a platter of good roast, some roasted potatoes, buttermilk rolls, salad, and pie down in front of most Americans and they will lick the plate.
It is our roots. Someday maybe I will create a new trend in food and call it Noveau American Gothic.

 
It always amazed me that one of the best selling side dishes on the menu at the tearoom that we had was the humble carrot-raisin salad.  It was always the first thing we ran out of and people always wanted to know the secret.

Carrots are not often served cooked around here. Not because we don’t like them but because my kids will go through a five pound bag of organic carrots in about two days..so if I want to do carrots I better have them on the menu for the day I shop.