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Fruit Travel
In Season: Get Your Dekopon On with Sumo Citrus
If you ever want to know the backstory on a fruit, David Karp is your man. Last year, he wrote about the arrival of the dekopon, a Japanese variety of mandarin, just entering the market in California and I was all over my local stores in Washington trying to see if they'd carry them. No such luck. So when Karp heralded the arrival of this year's dekopons, marketed as "Sumo Citrus," in last week's LA Times food section and it coincided with a trip down south to visit a friend, I knew we had to find a Whole Foods in her neighborhood.
February 14, 2012
Baking Dessert Recipes
Ovaltine Nutella Cookies
World Nutella Day coincided with the SuperBowl this year and they basically cancelled each other out on the food front for me. I did make guacamole. You can't have the Superbowl without guacamole. Anyway, I've been playing a little catch up, so instead of just going the Nutella route, I did one better and came up with these Ovaltine Nutella cookies, because, well, just because.
February 9, 2012
Book Reviews Recipes Side Dishes
Bulghur Pilaf from Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty
Getting more whole grains in your diet is easier than ever with the wide availability of bulghur, quinoa, barley and spelt, but it's also easy to fall into a rut with the most basic preparations for these grains. My regular bulghur pilaf is pretty simple, relying on onion, crimini mushrooms and chicken stock for its flavor. That simplicity makes it a great side dish when your main, say baked chicken, has a more dominant flavor profile. But why should a side dish have to take a back seat?
February 6, 2012
coca-cola braised pork
Main Course Recipes
Korean Inspired Coca-Cola Braised Pork in the Slow Cooker
  coca-cola braised porkIt's almost February. We're in the thick of winter, when a slow cooker should be getting a real workout. But strangely, I haven't been using mine that much. I like doing soups and chilis on the stove, but the truth is, the slow cooker is almost a magical appliance. You throw in a few things, cover it with the lid, abracadabra and 6-8 hours later, you have something amazingly delicious. It took this Coca-Cola Braised Pork shoulder to remind me just how magical it can be. I'm not even going to feign modesty and say, "Oh, it's pretty good, you might like it." I'll just say it, this pork shoulder is super tasty. It's not just good, it's gooooooooood.
January 30, 2012
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
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