This recipe can be the start of many improvisations on its theme. I always appreciate an easy, mix-and-match, recipe that’s built for flexibility depending upon what might be on hand. By now we have grown accustomed to making swaps to recipes, old and new, based…
Over five months into the shelter-in-place, pandemic kitchen and I am missing the variety of meal options we usually enjoy. I particularly miss shopping for foods, fresh and prepared, from the diverse variety of global foods readily available in the Bay Area. A recent craving…
We’ve been sheltering in place around the Bay Area for several weeks. I think there’s no time like the present to bring spice into our days that are blurring one into the next. This chicken packs a spicy punch for a “Blursday” dinner and will…
It’s the time of year when we’re looking to lighten up our meals, and hopefully lightening up cooking duties after months of large holiday meals. This soup checks the boxes for both and can be made from a well-stocked pantry. Bonus: it scales up nicely…
I recently enjoyed Poisson en Papillote at an excellent French bistro in San Francisco. I was with about a dozen friends who raved about the fish dish, served family-style – and several wondered how they might create it at home when I declared it would…
My first, and fortunate, taste of home cooked Filipino food was prepared by my friend, Erlinda, about 25 years ago. She and her husband, Amador, are skilled in their kitchen, and over the years I’ve enjoyed their lovingly prepared dishes. Just ask me sometime about…
Are you thinking of a January reboot? Now is a perfect time for this satisfying soup. It’s cold outside and also an ideal time to lighten up our meals following weeks of power-eating over the holidays. Like many Asian soups, this one comes together…
In the span of a recent week I had been out for dinner several times and, upon slight reflection, I realize I ordered meatballs every time. Three meals, three orders of meatballs! The selections were of a Mediterranean bent, Italian, Greek, etc. and all equally…
For years, actually decades, my family owned the Chinese restaurant within the large Roseville, California farmers market. One of our keys to success was everything we prepared used fresh, quality ingredients and all dishes were from scratch. This included making our own stock from chicken…
Sometimes that one-pound package of ground beef is begging for an inspired use. It just sits there, daring me to come up with something slightly out of the norm to give it a sense of higher value. I worked this up for a quick,…