crustless ham + cheese quiche
This weekend turned out to be a cleaning weekend at Casa Kara. And because the majority of the cleaning focused on the freezer, fridge, and pantry, it also became a cooking weekend as I worked to use up a bunch of leftovers and bits and pieces. It also served as a bit of a “get back on track” weekend for me personally. My food choices the last few weeks have been... Read More
daring cooks | pierogi
The August 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by LizG of Bits n’ Bites and Anula of Anula’s Kitchen. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make pierogi from scratch and an optional challenge to provide one filling that best represents their locale. This was a really fun challenge for me, although it definitely drove home why I don’t make stuff like this on a... Read More
tomato salsa
This week at the farmer’s market, it was all about the tomatoes. I bought 2 large bags of tomatoes at about $0.30 a pound. I knew immediately that I’d be making a huge batch of my summer-time standby salsa. This is one of those “recipes” that is really all about personal taste. The technique is applicable to any combination of ingredients you choose. Core... Read More
frozen whiskey sours
Every year around the holidays our family makes frozen whiskey sours. The recipe is written on an old 3×5 card, smudged, folded, with bent corners. The jars used to freeze the mix are old peanut butter jars – at least 25 years old – with wide mouths, sealed with wax paper under the lids. These two elements are family standards – if the jars and the... Read More
daring cooks | nut butters + chicken in peanut sauce
The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online. Much... Read More
asparagus and red potato salad
[Printable recipe at the bottom of the page!] It’s that time of year again – fresh, green, bright asparagus spears are all over the place. I love asparagus in pretty much any form; steamed, grilled, roasted, baked. But every now and then I want something different and new. Tonight I needed a side dish to go with grilled london broil and I just sort of came up with... Read More
artichokes
Sunday at the grocery store I saw the most gorgeous artichokes on sale for $1.50 each. It was all I could do to not buy 10 of them. Have I mentioned that artichokes are one of my favorite things? I know some people think they’re too fussy and too much work for too little reward, but I think that’s part of the fun of eating an artichoke. I love the process of... Read More
asparagus soup
I can’t remember where I found this recipe, but it’s been saved in my “keepers” folder for a while. The original recipe calls for leek and a few other things that I didn’t happen to have around. So I made a substitution, an addition, and … well … yum! The photograph above doesn’t adequately show the complete yumminess that is... Read More
chimichurri sauce
I’ve seen recipes for this sauce everywhere and have always thought I needed to make it, but never got around to it. I don’t know why really. Well, tonight I grilled a flank steak and decided that it would be easy and fast to make this Argentine sauce … I started with a fresh bunch of Italian flat leaf parsley, which I washed and stemmed. It wound up being... Read More
