Perfect Creamed Spinach

Spinach is my all-time favorite dark leafy green. I particularly love it this way - softly wilted in a pan of sautéed onions and butter and then tossed with a rich white sauce made with chicken broth, a bit of heavy cream and spiced with a wee bit of nutmeg.  It's heavenly, as is, but if you have pine nuts for the toasting ? Oh my, they are a nice addition to the dish.

Seared Tuna with Anise Scented Tomatoes and Spinach

Sometimes I come upon a recipe that just feels right ... and this is one of them. How does one describe this dish? Subtle and lovely. This is a meal to make when you really don't want to fuss around too long, but really want to have something good on the plate in timely fashion.

Traditions ... Spinach Bars Get Their Due

Most foodies have onions, eggs, milk, flour, and frozen spinach ... yes? Add a few spices, mushrooms, leavening, some cheese and ... VOILA!

Rustic Turkey and Spinach Tart

I've decided to try serving our main meal of the day at the middle of the day - hence, what I would normally call lunch will be more like a dinner meal. That's hard for me, as years of eating a fast bite in the middle of the school day has become ingrained.

IHCC - A Riff on Jacques Pepin's Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

This is the first major meal that I have cooked this week. Really. You see, life's been crazy busy of late.

IHCC's Mystery Box Challenge - Pumpkin Tart with Spinach and Gorgonzola

Start with a sugar pumpkin...

Gnocchi with Spinach and Dolcelatte ... Cooking with Nigel ... and Potatoes

... Homemade gnocchi, double the spinach, and a creamy cheese sauce. What's not to like? ...

Tamal Azteca

It was a dark and stormy night ... and supper needed to be hearty and filling. Enough sweeping and shoveling snow! We made up the fires, dried out the mittens, put on the warm slippers and heavy sweaters and dipped into a steaming vegetable casserole with the biggest serving spoon in the drawer.

Bowls of Tamal Azteca and balloons of deep red Rioja - that's all. Until we were full and happily warmed from the inside as nicely as we were by the woodstove fires. Sunday suppers should be that warming on a snowy winter night, don't you think?

Virtual Supper Club Cooks Fresh and Local ...

This month's Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club theme is 'Fresh and Local' and aren't we all loving that? Our gardens are just starting to come on with greens and we picked the first strawberry of the season yesterday morning! It's all about the greens though ... new lettuce greens and the first kale, rows of spinach for salads - all brand new and minutes from the garden when it hits the salad bowl!

My favorite green is spinach and I pester my husband to plant it very early in the Spring so that we can have fresh baby leaves in salads. We never get enough to cook in the mounds that we like to gobble, so I do buy fresh from the farmers market and the super.  Today's recipe is a wilted spinach with a garlic vinaigrette sauce that when plated serves as a wonderful side dish or in this evening's case a bed for salmon fillets.

Green Pancakes with Lime Butter --- IHCC

These are pancakes that push the envelope a bit ... this from a Yankee who takes her pancakes seriously.

The Summer Kitchen ... in Winter

I went for a ride yesterday and then parked and walked in the woods for a bit ... before the roar of snowmobiles let me know that I was about to be engulfed by engines and exhaust and the spinning of metal belts and flinging of mud and snow. Then, I retreated back down the path and on further down the road.


There was a yeasted whole wheat crust rising at the house, so I was on a bit of a time table for walking, but it sure was a pretty day for a quick jaunt.


I found this summer kitchen sitting next to an old house down the road ... what colors next to the whites and greys of winter woods!  The light in the woods was really wonderful because of the cloud cover ...

Gateaux de Crêpes à la Florentine - It All Began With a Classic

Last year at this time, I happened upon Mary Bergfeld's post for a proposed blogging challenge  called '50 Woman Game Changers'. The premise was to follow a list of influential women that Gourmet's on-line magazine editors had deemed the most talented, inspiring, inventive, ground-breaking, marketed, media saturated, and controversial of all women in the food industry over all time. A tall order it is to make a list of that nature ... and a tall order it is to address these women on a weekly basis, but that's just what Mary and a group of women did.

Tuscan Malfatti or ... Making Gnocchi

Last night's dinner was one more for my culinary bucket list. Making a good batch of gnocchi has always been a goal, but I was intimidated by the dough and the cooking process. To boot, when I did some research, I learned that there are a bunch of different gnocchi recipes out there and all sorts of combinations of flours and cheese and vegetable additions that can make these soft little dumpling -like bites so different from each other! When I Googled 'gnocchi', I found out that they are usually served as a first course, but I was planning them as a main dish. I also discovered that they can be served in different ways - dressed with a variety of tomato sauces, in soup broths, or tossed with herbed butters. My goal initially was just to be successful in making them and if I failed, we were going to go out to a restaurant to salvage the dinner hour. So ... here's my 'making gnocchi' story.

Penne and Spinach in Cream Sauce

What could be more basic? This is my 'go-to dish' for nights when I don't feel like cooking, but want a good vegetable and some easy pasta.

The recipe comes from Jeff Smith's The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian. Poor Jeff ... consigned to the back shelf (Google the scandal if you're curious). I still say he was a hoot to watch and he made some really good dishes. Okay, that's been said ... RIP, Jeff.