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Baking Recipes
Banana Maple Date Scones
  If you grew up in Southern California, you're probably no stranger to Hadley's. It's an institution out in the desert, and it's synonymous with 1 thing -- dates. When I was a kid, we'd drive out to Palm Springs, passing the dinosaurs off the 10 freeway, and stop off for a date shake. Medjool dates are wonderfully sweet and sticky and they're amazing when whirled up with milk and vanilla ice cream in a blender. But my dates were headed to breakfast, in these banana maple date scones.
January 25, 2012
Recipes
Rainbow Chard & Red Potato Hash…or Home Fries?
  I popped out of bed at 5 a.m., an ungodly hour for a Sunday. Knowing we wouldn't have a hankering for breakfast for at least 3 hours, I put some black beans on for a speed soak with a mind to make this Southwestern Hash for breakfast. I'd actually thought ahead for once and boiled the potatoes the day before. So while the beans were doing their thing, I went and did my yoga and came back, only to discover I didn't have any bell peppers in the house - not red, not green, not anything. It was a snowy/icy/slushy/no-driving-if-you-can-avoid-it week in Seattle, so the cupboard was a little more bare than usual. Time for Plan B.
January 22, 2012
Appetizers Baking Recipes
Baked Not Fried: Spring Rolls
Upfront, spring rolls should be fried. Really, they should. But sometimes, you don't want to deal with the oil, or you want to eat about 4-5 of them without [as much] guilt. Just remember, when you cut corners, you give something up. These are not going to be a miracle replacement for fried spring rolls. You good with that? You sure? Ok, let's talk baked spring rolls.
January 17, 2012
Recipes
OMG: Olive Oil Cake with Clementine Marmalade
  This week there were two desserts on Serious Eats I bookmarked to try -- first, this maple cake with brown butter apples and this olive oil cake with tangerine marmalade. I took it as a sign from the universe that just because it's only half way into January, there's no reason I shouldn't have dessert. And the olive oil cake is practically heart-healthy, on account of the olive oil and all. It's literally a single layer olive oil cake soaked with tangerine marmalade. And if you saw the Clementine-Ginger marmalade I made last weekend, well, it was kismet, or serendipity, or maybe just plain timely.
January 14, 2012
Recipes Salads Side Dishes
Cooking from the Pantry: Celery Apple Salad
apple celery salad Sometimes a salad is born of necessity, like when I ordered pizza on Tuesday night and then peeked in the fridge for a salad to go along with...and nothing really looked like a salad, including those two bunches of celery in the crisper. Celery rarely has a starring role. It's part of an ensemble on a crudite platter, it's a chaser (afterthought?) to buffalo wings, it's passed over on the salad bar for grated carrot, or jicama. Even when it does star, as in cream of celery soup, it's probably just going to end up in a casserole. But, last night, it was time to let celery be a star.
January 11, 2012
Recipes
Oh My Darlin’, Oh My Darlin’ — Clementine Ginger Marmalade
Over Christmas I kept meaning to buy a box of clementines, but the Satsumas kept coming in our CSA box, so we were fully stocked on citrus to eat out of hand. But when I stopped in at Trader Joe's this weekend, the clementines just looked so pretty, so I bought a 2 lb. bag and thought, I'll make marmalade. Well, refrigerator marmalade. These little guys were sweet, so I knew they'd be fantastic.
January 8, 2012
Recipes
A Proud Moment in 2011: Giada’s “Let’s Get Cooking” Photo Contest

image from GiadadeLaurentiis.com

2011 was the year my friend Nicole turned me onto Tastespotting and inspired me to get serious about the photography on this blog. Rather than just looking to the posts for culinary inspiration, I started studying the photos on the site, how people were styling and lighting the food. I started looking at food mags in a totally different way. I read about how hard it was to get photos accepted and I took my lumps with critiques on (under)exposure and composition, but once I managed to get photos accepted on both Tastespotting and Foodgawker, a light clicked on. All that led me to enter a photo contest Giada de Laurentiis sponsored on Facebook.
January 3, 2012
Appetizers Recipes
Dip, Baby, Dip: Muhammara (Roasted Red Pepper Dip)
  Happy New Year, folks! I'm not much for new year's resolutions, but coming off two weeks of insane indulgence, it's time to get back on the wagon. I won't be vowing to hit the gym only to poop out by the end of January, but I will be trying to eat more vegetables and get more whole grains into my diet. So let's start off the year with this gorgeous muhammara dip, shall we? Using a base of roasted red peppers, it makes for a pretty healthy snack with pita chips or carrot sticks and offers a nice alternative to hummus. It's fantastic alongside tzatziki for grilled chicken or lamb kebabs, too.
January 1, 2012
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