Maybe I should start calling this blog West of the Rhubarb. I'm clearly obsessed with this old-fashioned fruit-that-is-really-a-vegetable. It's tart! It's pink! It's versatile! Rhubarb is bae. (My eleven year old me that I couldn't write that. So naturally I did.) The other week, I arrived at the farmers' market late, something that I hate to ...
Rhubarb Jam Bars
I made these delicious bars last year at this time as a dessert to bring to the Swim Team Potluck. Guess what event is this Sunday? That's right: the Swim Team Potluck. I think it's time to trot out this recipe again. It absolutely kills me that my husband doesn’t like rhubarb. WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE? Rhubarb is tart — not cloyingly sweet like ...
Passover Dessert: Mini Pavlovas with Lemon Curd
This is the dessert that I wish I had made for my Seder last year: bite-sized meringues shells filled with luscious lemon curd and topped with a juicy strawberry. The dessert that I actually made was saucer-sized meringues filled with sliced, macerated strawberries and topped with a dollop of lemon curd. They looked great . . . but there was too ...
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cream Pie
JR has loved the game Skylanders for years. He collects the figurines; plays the game with his friends on our Wii and proudly wears his favorite Skylanders shirt to school every week. So when General Mills teamed up with Skylanders to offer an exclusive Skystones game free with selected boxes of cereal, JR wanted to collect them all. JR loves ...
Quiche Lorraine with Schmacon
I don't mind telling you that every since bacon became the hottest thing since sliced bread, I have felt left out. When I agreed not to have pork in my house many years ago as a way to bridge the gap between my heathen upbringing and the kosher home my husband grew up in, I did not know that bacon would become the darling of cooks everywhere. I did ...
Chocolate-Orange Cream Pie
One of the features of my upcoming book on food swapping are profiles of nineteen food swap groups around North America and Great Britain. I love this aspect of the book and thoroughly enjoyed interviewing all the different food swap organizers. But when it came time to write the profiles, I struggled. I was not certain how to approach it. Should I ...
Chocolate-Covered Blueberry Bread Pudding
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #LoveDoveFruits #CollectiveBias You know how kids ask, as soon as they have finished eating: "Can I have dessert?" At least my kids do that. The truth is, I feel much the same myself. Forty years on this earth have not diminished my sweet ...
How to Make Hamantaschen
In the interest of keeping it real, I will confess that I tried very hard this week to create a recipe for salted caramel Hamantaschen. Doesn't that sound amazing? Well, don't get too attached because I never managed to make it work. First, the caramel leaked out. Then my attempt to make empty Hamantaschen shells that I could fill with caramel ...
Dominique Ansel’s Banana Bread (Sort Of)
When I saw that the inventor of the Cronut had created a banana bread recipe, I expected that recipe to make the best banana bread I had ever tasted. I probably expected it to be fattening. (Not as fattening as it turned out to be.) I did not expect that recipe for banana bread to be even easier than the fairly straightforward recipe that I was ...
DIY Pokemon Cupcakes
As the deadline for my book manuscript approaches, I find more and more ways to procrastinate. This week, the project that was more compelling than my work was making cupcakes for JR's eighth birthday party. Confession: I do not usually bake for my children's birthday parties. Some years ago, I found a baker in my area who makes amazing custom ...
Valentine’s Day Cheesecake Brownies
In my view, the best reason to make brownies from scratch is so that you can add cheesecake to them. I’d turn down the chocolatiest, fudgiest brownie any day for a swirly, marbleized cream cheese brownie. The slight tanginess of the cream cheese is the perfect foil for the richness of the chocolate. Better than either cheesecake or a plain brownie, ...
Healthy Snack Idea: Homemade Plum Almond Granola Bars
It's okay to snack. Really. Snacks are part of a healthy diet. No one should be expected to go from lunch until dinner without some fuel. What do you think will happen when you sit down to dinner utterly famished? That's exactly how overeating happens. In fact, smart snacking may be the key to that new year's resolution to eat healthy that you made ...
Earl Grey Shortbread with Truvia and Bigelow Tea
This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SweetWarmUp #CollectiveBias Have you tried baking with the natural sweetener Truvia? I enjoy Truvia as a sweetener in my morning Bigelow tea but had not tried baking with it until recently. Truvia Baking Blend bakes like sugar but with ...
Meyer Lemon Meringue Tart
Brace yourself for more citrus recipes. Today it is a show-stopping tart filled with Meyer lemon curd and topped with clouds of meringue. Looking for your next dinner party dessert? I have it right here. Why is lemon meringue a thing? Beyond the tastiness of the combination, there is a wonderful symmetry to the combination of lemon curd and ...
Meyer Lemon Bars to Brighten Your Day
When I was in law school, I was always the one baking for parties and student group meetings. (I was also the one who hosted elaborate dinner parties and brought homemade soup to sick friends, one of whom later became my husband.) I had two go-to recipes, my grandmother's famous Halfway Cookies and lemon bars. If he weren't going to marry me for ...
Holiday Dessert: Maple Buttermilk Pie
Did you happen to catch me on Fox 32's morning show "Good Day Chicago" talking about edible gift ideas from the Chicago Food Swap? If not, be sure to watch the clip here! When your hobby becomes your profession, it is a bit of an adjustment. For years, it was my dream to cook and write about food professionally. Now that I am in the midst of ...
Cookie Exchange: Lemony Jam Thumbprints
It's holiday baking season and I am here to help with some of my best cookie recipes. This cookie came about because I wanted to showcase (read: get rid of) some of the beautiful jams that I put up this year with fruit from my beloved Oak Park farmers’ market. There is no better way to get a sense of who I am as a cook that to try some of my Black ...
Cookie Exchange: Key Lime Meltaways
I'm just back from our annual Thanksgiving jaunt to Florida, and of course, now that my beloved Oak Park Farmers Market is closed for the season, the only farmers market that I get to visit is the Saturday morning Third Street South Farmers Market in downtown Naples. My favorite stall at the Naples Farmers Market sells unusual varieties of citrus ...
Scenes from Thanksgiving Dinner
Another Thanksgiving has come and gone. Was your meal a success? Did you try new recipes or stick with your tried-and-true favorites? My mother and I hosted my family and several friends at her house in Florida, as has been our tradition for several years now. We have honed our menu over the years and feel like we have the perfect balance of ...
Apple Caramel Tart for Thanksgiving
Today's post is sponsored by Riveridge Produce, a Michigan grower and distributor of twenty-four delicious varieties of apples. Look for Riveridge apples, including Macintosh, Cortland, Jonathan, Empire, Rome and Honeycrisp, for your Thanksgiving table in fine grocery stores, such as Publix, Meijer, Mariano's, Copps, Pick 'n Save and HEB. In ...
Homemade Cranberry Sauce for National Cranberry Day
Did you know that November 23 is National Cranberry Day? I suppose it makes sense, being so close to Thanksgiving, which is cranberries time to shine. But I love to cook and bake with cranberries all winter long. In fact, I stock up on cranberries during the last few weeks of the Oak Park Farmers Market because these babies freeze like a dream. I ...
Baking for Dorie Greenspan
Revered American expert on French cooking, Dorie Greenspan, is on tour at the moment promoting her latest cookbook, entitled Baking Chez Moi. She stopped in Chicago over the weekend of November 8 and 9th and I was fortunate enough to hear her speak at an event with the Culinary Historians of Chicago. Several volunteers, me included, had baked ...
Gala Apple Orchard Salad
November is upon us. As soon as the Halloween decorations have been cleared away, I begin to think about Thanksgiving. I bet you are starting to think about it as well. Are you hosting this year? Traveling to see friends and family? As always, my mother and I are hosting Thanksgiving for friends at her house in Florida. My children are eagerly ...
Your Best Apple Pie
Are you finzlizing your Thanksgiving menu? Will you make the same foods as last year or will you try to mix it up? My mother and I love to host Thanksgiving together and we have pretty much honed our menu over past the few decades so that it is just how we want it. I did revolutionize the way we cooked the turkey about 7 years ago. (See this ...
Fall Cooking: Pear-Apple Crisp
I sometimes resist making apple crisp because, well, it's just so easy. I would rather spend my time making a recipe that will challenge me or show off some difficult technique that I had spent months mastering. My husband, poor man, just wants an apple crisp for dessert sometimes. Indeed, in my husband's pantheon of desserts, apple crisp resides ...