It's Halloween and that means that a lot of families will be carving their pumpkins into scary or funny or ironic jack-o-lanterns. This year, Zuzu insisted on a good, old-fashioned face with triangle eyes and nose and a large, gaping mouth and, for the first time, carved her own pumpkin. And JR has requested a homicidal garden gnome for his ...
Apple, Fennel and Cheddar Quiche
Recently, my friends at Cabot Creamery Cooperative and their Vermont neighbors King Arthur Flour challenged a group of bloggers to come up with their best quiche recipe. At stake is a package of goodies from these two iconic brands. They are calling this contest #QuicheFeast. Well, it just so happens that I love quiche and I make it quite ...
Top 10 Things I Saw at the Fresh Summit
Thanks to Kitchen-PLAY and PMA for including me in this year's #TeamFreshSummit. As part of Team Fresh Summit, I have received compensation from Sun-Maid, Valley Fig, Outrageously Fresh Produce, and Hurst's Berry Farm. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own. I just returned from Atlanta where I spent the weekend at the Fresh Summit, ...
October Chicago Food Swap Recap
The Chicago Food Swap met this past weekend on a beautiful fall Sunday at the Peterson Garden Project's Community Cooking School. The group was made up almost entirely of veteran swappers, with only one or two new faces in the crowd. Having almost all experienced swappers in attendance certainly makes my job easier! The offerings were especially ...
The PMA Fresh Summit in Atlanta
Today's post is sponsored by PMA Fresh Summit, HBF International, Sun-Maid and Valley Fig & Outrageously Fresh! Join me tonight (10/20) at 8 pm CDT for a Twitter party to introduce the 2015 Fresh Summit sponsors and the #TeamFreshSummit bloggers. Grab your laptop for a fast-paced hour with these delicious brands and learn how they are ...
How to Make Baba Ganoush
It is hard to be an eggplant lover. We are a rare breed of individual characterized by an especially sophisticated palate. My mother and my daughter both share my love for this purple, bulbous vegetable but my husband won't touch the stuff. And JR. Well, did anyone think JR would eat eggplant? The year I lived in Paris, I bought the same lunch ...
Dips for a Party: Hummus
It's that time of the year again: parties. Book clubs, parent socials, and team dinners are all on the agenda for fall. And, believe it or not, the holidays are right around the corner. In fact, I just published a post on Inspired Home, the International Housewares Association's helpful resource for everything having to do with your home, with the ...
Homemade Pecan Butter
We found ourselves on the horns of a dilemma this weekend. A new round of allergy testing revealed that Zuzu might not be allergic to certain nuts after all. Her allergist recommended that we do a food challenge in his office to see if she could tolerate either walnuts or pecans. (You can only do one at a time for obvious reasons.) The problem? ...
Fall Vegetable Soup
It is such a bountiful time of year at the farmers market! I come home every Saturday laden down with red and yellow peppers, purple eggplant, green zucchini, orange carrots, scarlet beets, tan butternut squash, and even coal-black radishes. Somehow I still spend less than I did in July when I could easily blow a quarter of my walking-around money ...
Halloween Pudding Creations
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #MixInMonsterMash #CollectiveBias It's officially October and that means it is time to start planning for Halloween. What costumes will your kids be wearing this year? JR is dressing as the Greek god Hermes and Zuzu is going as a Barden ...
Five Ways to Preserve the Harvest
I recently gave a talk to a local garden club about different ways to preserve the harvest for gardeners who find themselves with too many tomatoes/green beans/peppers/zucchini ripening at once. It occurred to me that some of my readers might find this information useful as well. So, here it is! An overview of home food preservation ...
Gift Ideas for Cooks from Sur La Table
Being a food blogger has afforded me some pretty amazing opportunities, like the chance to meet chefs and authors I admire, attend a two-day conference on olive oil and take a cooking class on mangoes with my kids. But for a serious cook, few experiences are as cool as the chance to visit the Corporate Test Kitchen of Sur La Table and hear about ...
Everything You Need to Know about Olive Oil
In August, I had the opportunity, thanks to my membership in IACP, to attend a two-day conference put on by the North American Olive Oil Association entitled "Spend Wisely on Olive Oil." I am what NAOOA calls a "primary" olive oil user, meaning I use olive oil more than any other oil. I thought I was knowledgeable about about this ancient and ...
A Trip to the Orchard and an Apple Recipe Round-Up
On the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, my family and some friends drove out to the country to go apple-picking. Apples, of course, are a traditional Rosh Hashanah food and there was something that just seemed right about spending the holiday together as a family outside on a beautiful fall day. My favorite spot to go apple-picking near Chicago is ...
Ancho Chile Smoked Salt Caramels for IFBC
On Friday, I will leave for Seattle and one of my favorite weekends of the year: the International Food Bloggers Conference. I am so excited to spend time with my fellow food bloggers in one of this country's best food towns. Among the activities and sessions that I am most looking forward to are a pre-conference excursion to the Sur La Table ...
End of Summer Peach Pie
It's hard to deny that summer is over and fall is upon us. The kids have all gone back to school. The pool is closed for another year. In some places, the warm weather lingers, but it is no longer welcome. Sweaters and boots, that's what we want now as September settles in and August is dismissed. But here in Illinois, the farmers market ...
Rosh Hashanah Recipes: Kreplach
If you think the matzo ball is the ultimate Jewish soup dumpling, let me quickly disabuse you of that notion. As much as I love a fluffy matzo ball, my heart truly belongs to kreplach, the meat-filled pasta triangle known affectionately as Jewish tortellini and served during the High Holidays. Never heard of kreplach? You are not alone. While ...
Rosh Hashanah Recipes: Round Challah
As I mentioned earlier this week, the Jewish New Year holiday, Rosh Hashanah, is right around the corner. The holiday, which lasts two days, begins at sundown on September 13. Rosh Hashanah is a festive occasion, as most New Year celebrations tend to be. Many Jews will mark the occasion with a holiday dinner for friends and family. I explained ...
Rosh Hashanah Recipes: Carrot Tzimmes
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year holiday begins at sundown on September 13. One of my favorite holidays to cook for, Rosh Hashanah is a joyous occasion and the holiday meals are festive. Traditional Rosh Hashanah foods are often sweet to express our wish for a sweet new year or round to symbolize the circle of life in which one year ends and ...
Bucatini with Corn Crema, Cherry Tomatoes and Green Chiles
I do not mean to alarm you, but you need to go out and buy the ingredients for this recipe right now. It's Labor Day weekend, folks. That means that summer is almost over. That means that corn and tomato season is almost over. Before we say goodbye to summer and fresh, sweet, corn and juicy, ripe, tomatoes, you are going to want to make this pasta ...
Chocolate Zucchini Cake
Chocolate zucchini cake may sound weird, but it is delicious and fun way to eat your vegetables! It is so zucchini season, is it not? Whether you are a gardener overrun with the stuff or a savvy farmers' market shopper buying 6 zucchini for $4, these green squash are everywhere. In fact, I'm going to be on WGN's Midday News Lunch Break ...
Scenes from the Chicago Food + Wine Festival
The inaugural Chicago Food + Wine Festival took over Lincoln Park this weekend and judging by the enthusiasm of the crowd, Chicago was clearly hungry - pun very much intended - for an event of this kind. Perhaps because this was the first year, the crowds were not overwhelming. There were very few lines, except for highly-sought-after events like ...
August 2015 Chicago Food Swap Recap
The Chicago Food Swap had its August event on a perfect summer Saturday. A large group of returning swappers and some new faces joined together to trade and swap a diverse array of homemade and homegrown treats from backyard herbs and vegetables to South Asian curry and rice dishes to New York’s iconic black-and-white cookies. The offerings were so ...
Tropical Smoothie Bowl with Silk Dairy-Free Yogurt
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SilkDairyFree #CollectiveBias Today, I am resetting your expectations about what breakfast can be with a quick and easy recipe that is packed with nutrition but tastes like a trip to a tropical island. This tropical smoothie bowl, which ...
Moroccan Fava Bean Dip
I buy ingredients on impulse. Buy first, investigate later; that's my motto. I never pick something up in the store, turn it over in my hands and then put it down with a "but what would I do with it?" If it interests me, I buy it. I will figure out what to do with it later. Why else do I have this collection of cookbooks that long ago outgrew my ...