Kara Cooks

October Unprocessed

With the help of a little push from a friend, I’ve decided to take the October Unprocessed Food Challenge from the folks at Eating Rules. The Unprocessed rules are pretty simple and straightforward – if you can’t make it in your kitchen from whole ingredients, then you can’t eat it. It sounds a bit rough, [...]

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It’s September Already!

Betcha all thought I’d fallen off a cliff somewhere, didn’t you? Well, all 2 of you who are still reading here, anyway! The truth is, I didn’t fall off a cliff or otherwise become totally incapacitated. I just got caught up in life. Work, family, relationships … all kinds of things overwhelmed me this summer [...]

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pesto mayo chicken sandwich

This afternoon as we were wandering around Atlanta I got a craving for some fresh bread from Star Provisions. They really do make the best bread – especially the baguette (nicely chewy) and the ciabatta bread. The minute we walked in and I smelled the bread baking, I decided I wanted sandwiches for dinner. Knowing [...]

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review – Amy’s Cheese Enchilada

First of all, let me state that this is NOT a paid or compensated review. This is purely my desire to post about a food that I eat and enjoy. I am committed to cooking healthy foods from real ingredients. I work really hard to avoid processed and packaged foods (with a few guilty pleasure [...]

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painted lady – a drink

A few weeks ago I spent a long weekend with my sisterfriend Cathy at her place in Birmingham. We planned some cooking, some shopping, some hanging out. Her wonderful hubby helped lubricate our weekend by providing some quality adult beverages. It started out with a recipe that came with the gin, but we found that [...]

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Chicken Sloppy Joes, Blogging, and Photography

I’ve been having a hard time with blogging lately. Well, you can see that right? Since my last post was three months ago. Time, desire to cook, availability of light – all of them have messed with my mojo. It’s been a tough few months at work as well, as anyone who follows me [...]

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baked brown rice

This is such a staple recipe in my house that I can’t believe I’ve never posted about it before. I can’t take credit for it; it’s one that I saw years ago on Alton Brown’s Good Eats, but I’ve modified it and tinkered with it and have variations that work for just about every situation. [...]

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shrimp & oats & cheese

Monday night I came home from work after walking from the train station in a gray, drizzly mist. I was damp, cold, and in a grumpy mood … so my first thought was to make comfort food. (Ok, no I lie … my first thought was a vodka martini. My second thought was comfort food!) [...]

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sweet pork tacos

So I’m pork-obsessed lately. I think it comes from the fact that I have 8 or 9 pork loins in the freezer that I bought when Publix was having a sale. In keeping with my promise to start working through my archives of saved recipes from 2010, I pulled a recipe that was posted to [...]

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slow cooked pork loin in beer

This is not a recipe per se and the photo is not gorgeous. In fact it’s probably not even borderline attractive. But by the time this pork loin came out of the oven, I was so hungry and it was so good … that I didn’t even think of picking up the camera to take [...]

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monday links – jan 24

Good grief this year is already getting away from me! I have 100+ drafts on the blog here and none of them are finished or photographed. I started out with good intentions and then … well I don’t know what happened. Life, I guess. Here’s my list of links (brief though it is) for this [...]

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mon links – jan 17

I re-read the Julie/Julia blog today – the original one on salon.com – and it inspired me to make Julia Child’s French Onion Soup. As it turns out I didn’t pay attention to the recipe exactly and wound up making something not anything like Julia’s soup. It was good, but not hers. Anyway … I’ll [...]

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sourdough from scratch

Last year Donna Currie started a project to create sourdough from scratch. She documented the project in a series of 13 posts on Serious Eats and I followed along avidly. Now that the holiday craziness has passed and we’re into gray and icky part of winter, I thought I’d try my hand at it. I’ve [...]

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crockpot: pork loin & green chile

I love cooking in a crockpot – especially in the winter. It’s wonderful to put something together in the morning before leaving the house and come home to a cooked meal, ready to eat. This recipe is strongly South Western based and is super flexible. Serve it as is as a fantastic one-bowl meal … [...]

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monday links – jan 10

The very first links post of 2011! (This was the view outside my front door at about 11 last night … pretty cool!) There was some really good stuff posted this last week. Of course I still have my whole 2010 list to work through … but I’m gonna make an effort to include some [...]

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texas caviar!

For the first post of 2011 I’m going to jump right in with a recipe that’s not only a Southern tradition, but is a yummy AND healthy way to start the New Year. In the South, it’s a tradition to eat black-eyed-peas on New Year’s Day; it’s supposed to bring luck and prosperity. In my [...]

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goals and thoughts and 2011

What a year it’s been! Not to be a complete cliche, but 2010 was a year of ups and downs, highs and lows, starts, stalls, and stops, and much craziness, both personally and professionally. Now that it’s nearly the end of the year, I’m a little introspective … and a lot ready to make plans [...]

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happy holidays

No links today … just a wish for Happy Holidays from my home to yours. I’ll be back after Jan 1st. PS – The Christmas Eve prime rib was wonderful – thanks to Steamy Kitchen’s prime rib recipe! [ happy holidays is a post from kara cooks. If you are reading it anywhere but in [...]

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monday links – dec 20

It’s been a busy week and I haven’t had time to edit photos or post recipes. (See above and think of the hours I spent filling and frosting 72 mini cupcakes!) I have a ton of stuff waiting, but it’s not going to get up this week either. Sorry! I know that makes me a [...]

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monday links – dec 13

So many delicious looking holiday treats and foods on the various blogs this week! Deb posted the most delicious looking garlic butter roasted mushrooms. I gotta admit that these are my favorite part of going to a good steakhouse … just as she described! These mini Loaves of Cranberry Bread from Food in Jars look [...]

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split pea soup

Up until a few years ago I was skeptical about split pea soup. I didn’t dislike it … I just didn’t like it very much. Then a friend of mine encouraged me to try it again and so I made it. And I tweaked my recipe and made it again. And again. And now it’s [...]

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roasted brussels sprouts

When I was a kid, I loved brussels sprouts. I loved them just plain, boiled, and with a little butter on top. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with my mom calling them “little cabbages”. I was in love with miniature food I think – brussels sprouts were little cabbages, broccoli were little [...]

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monday links – dec 6

I love clementines. Love them. I’ll probably buy 10 or 12 boxes of them before the season is over. I love the holidays anyway, but clementines make the season even that much better!! Ok, let’s get on with the links for this Monday morning! There weren’t that many things that struck my eye this week. [...]

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gravy

Before I get into the recipe for this – and it’s a very easy, but very important recipe – I have a confession. Or a realization. I realized that while I’m pretty good at taking the process photos of a recipe, I fail miserably at taking photos of the finished product. A few days after [...]

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skillet cornbread dressing

Let’s get the definitions out of the way first. This dressing is not “salad dressing”. This is dressing the way we Southerners use it: a bread based side dish that is baked in a casserole and NOT stuffed into the body of the bird. In other words if you cook your stuffing outside of the [...]

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