no, really... it's the perfect margarita

For some reason last night, I craved a fresh margarita. My encounters in the past with homemade margs was never very successful and usually involved a tall neon-green bottle of high fructose corn syrup laced with preservatives and food coloring, and completely void of actual lime juice. My friend and I both purchased retro-looking juicers a couple of weeks ago, and since the big orange-arugula bomb of '09, I hadn't really used mine. So, one simple-sugar recipe, six limes, and about two ounces of tequila later... things were looking up. Since I teased 181 of my closest friends with...

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soup night: a weekly hit

I never used to buy bacon regularly. For the most part, the deli drawer in our refrigerator had a big, bacon-less void in it. But ever since the lentil-bacon soup success, the thick slices of salty pork have been a mainstay on the grocery list.And soup night, this time around, has stuck. I've stopped worrying so much about exactly what kind of soup to make, and have instead been relying mainly on my own intuition. So far, my intuition has done pretty well. And what's made these weekly soup adventures all the better is the homemade chicken stock that's stockpiled in our freezer. I must say that...

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chalk it up to lessons learned

I can’t remember exactly how he put it, but Ryan said something to the effect of... he expects me to mess up sometimes. My learning curve and success rate have been on a steep incline in the kitchen, happily, but I am far from mistake-less. Which brings me to Tuesday night’s pink slip.During my grocery shopping, I picked up a head of cauliflower for the sole purpose of roasting it. I’d heard from many people how delicious roasted cauliflower is, and couldn’t wait to try it. Besides, I get excited about any reason to use my favorite baking dish—a red 9x9 Le Creuset. I found a promising recipe for...

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oatmeal in a muffin tin

Remember my tease about the delish banana oatmeal muffins? This is it, folks.I happened upon this amazing recipe about two weeks ago, and can't stop thinking about it. This simple, healthy recipe resulted in little tiny cakes of sheer moist banana-y goodness. Not to mention, fellow food blogger Half Baked had a great remedy for the absence of oat flour: just pulse rolled oats in the food processor until the meal resembles, well, flour. Ta-daaaa!Holy cow, you must, MUST, MUST try these delectable muffins. There's just no reason not to try them. They're easy, they're healthy, and they're tasty. Of...

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a proper breakfast

One morning in January, when I had the day off and Ryan didn't, and I couldn't fall back asleep and the kitchen was begging to be dirtied and I just couldn't keep my hands off a new recipe, I made scones. And we haven't been quite the same since. You see, I never knew what having a scone really meant. The only time I'd ever, in my life, had a real honest-to-goodness scone was at my friend Ellen's house. She, being one of my highly cultured friends, made homemade scones with whipped cream (and having never eaten an honest scone before, I had to ask what the white fluffy stuff was) and strawberry...

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sweetness overkill: cake balls!

Please know that yes, I giggled the entire time I made, and wrote about, these cake balls, because sometimes I get stuck in eighth grade all over again (and so do you). I emailed this to my parents before blogging, and my mom suggested calling them "Red Velvet Truffles;" my dad suggested "Cake Spheres" or "Earth-like Cakes." I like both suggestions very much, but to humor my inner 13-year-old, I will call them BALLS. Sorry 'rents. Love ya both. My friend suggested calling them "Red Velvet Cajones" and getting it over with. Still laughing from that.The stars aligned this week when Valentine’s day...

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Sneaky, sneaky!

To make up for tricking Ryan the other day, I decided to try some different cookies. Lately I’ve been on a baking kick, trying to hone my skills in the oven. I’ve also fallen hard for organic rolled oats; they’re healthy, hearty, and tasty to boot. They can be dressed up to the nines, or cooked simply. (And just you wait for the delish banana muffin recipe coming down the pike.)But let me preface this by telling you that only a couple of days before I made these cookies, we’d given Ryan’s sister, Lynsy, the Deceptively Delicious (and highly controversial) book for her b-day. We thought it’d be...

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something old, something new...something in the freezer needs to be used.

One of my goals this year is to expand into other culture's foods. I've got Italian, Tex-Mex, and American foods down, but I lack experience in Chinese or Japanese foods (to name a couple; I also need to learn Indian, French, Irish, African, etc.... cuisine). Lately I've really been craving the spicy, salty, cheese-less combinations often found in Chinese food. This means lots of trips to P.F. Chang's for lettuce wraps and crab wontons. So the other night, when I looked in our pantry and saw the makings of orange beef stir-fry, I was thrilled. We had broccoli and carrots, flank steak from...

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good ole country BLT

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with my mom. When our schedules allow, it is wonderful to have time together to do a couple of the things we both love: cook and talk. It's always therapeutic to go home, and now that my mother's garden is flourishing with every variety of vegetable that can grow in black Texas dirt, the therapy is even stronger medicine.My mother also has a wonderful knack for buying things at ridiculously low prices. I'd call it thrifting, but it seems so much classier when she does it that I almost want to assign it a more glamorous name. After I...

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finally, something just for fin

My sweet Fin-Bear. I know she only wants to help, what with her incessant nudging, pressing her sweet heart-shaped nose into my thigh while I chop, flip, saute, or mix; what else could she possibly be thinking? Certainly she's never thinking only of herself. "Mom, are those steaks for me? Since I've been such a good girl and only chased one big buck today?" "Moooommmmmmm, you're cutting up that carrot just for me, right?" Yes, my dear, sweet Fin. I love her. But more and more, my cooking episodes are peppered with only sometimes-patient exclamations: "Get outta the kitchen, babe. Out, out. OUT!"...

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