There’s this debate raging about Mac and Cheese and whether it is considered a must-have Thanksgiving dish. I’m here to settle that debate. The answer is a resounding YES. At least in my house. Nearly every year that I’m hosting Thanksgiving dinner I serve Mac and Cheese. I normally serve it at Christmas too. In…
Category: winter
Cornmeal Buttermilk Biscuits
There is nothing more Thanksgiving to me than cornbread. I like to have it on my table every year or some sort of cornmeal or corn dish as a substitute. I didn’t have any clear idea of what I wanted to do this year with the cornbread. Last year I didn’t make cornbread because I…
Smoked Salmon Chowder {Seattle style}
One of the things I loved about living in Portland, Ore., was how close it was to Seattle. I love, love, love Seattle. I love Pike Place Market. I could walk around it for hours and I have before. One of the things I’ve never tried while in Seattle was Smoked Salmon Chowder. Clam Chowder,…
Easy Biscuits and Gravy Bake
The first time I ever ate biscuits and gravy was in high school. It was the first time I’d ever really heard of or paid much attention to the dish and didn’t know it would eventually become a breakfast favorite of mine. One of my high school friends had been born in Texas; they…
{lower carb} Broccoli Cheese Rice Casserole
I guess you could say I’m a little bit obsessed with cauliflower rice recently. I keep thinking of ways I can sneak it into dishes as a substitute for regular rice. So I got to thinking about the traditional broccoli cheese rice casserole dish my mom makes and the millions of variations of the dish…
Cheesy Creamed Brussels Sprouts
Whenever I decide to start eating more vegetables I go overboard in my buying. Which usually means I usually end up wasting too much. I randomly purchased a one-pound package of brussels sprouts last week with no real concept of how to cook them. Since I had bacon and heavy cream in my refrigerator that…
Spaghetti and Meatball Stroganoff
The concept of having stroganoff in it with anything other than beef didn’t occur to me until rather recently when I began googling stroganoff and finding all the different options that existed. Years ago I had made Lamburger Stroganoff, at my sisters suggestion, when we had extra lamb after a holiday meal. I’d thought her…
Pasta Bolognese
Originally posted on Le Food Snob:
My sister sent me this recipe about a year ago. The comment she made that she liked the smell of the sauce that infused the air in her apartment as it cooked for hours on her stove stuck with me and made me want to try it. I thought…
Grandmother’s Buttermilk Brown Butter {Thanksgiving Day} Corn Bread
No. This isn’t my grandma’s corn bread recipe. And, no. It’s not even Thanksgiving! Two strikes against me on this one. I made this recipe last year for Thanksgiving and it went over very well with the family who hosted me for Thanksgiving. So well that I intended to make it every year … but…
Spinach Gratin with Eggs
Would anyone think less of me if I ate creamed vegetables for dinner every night this week? Because I’m on that track. After the success of last night’s dinner, I had a sneaking suspicion that you can add heavy cream to any leafy vegetable, bake it with an abundance of cheese and it will…
Lacinato Kale Gratin
All right; listen up. This is a serious recipe my friends. It’s so special it’s a dish you want to eat all by yourself or share only with the ones you love the most. That’s right. It’s that GD special. To start with, this side dish is freaking expensive to make. I had to go to…
Tuscan White Bean and Kale Soup
If it seems like I haven’t been posting in a while, it’s because I haven’t been. Instead I’ve been out living my life, which must make me sound like a loser who never left her house until February 2014. I swear that’s not true! But I have been eating out more recently and trying to…
Broccoli Cheddar Soup
A few weeks ago I was on this broccoli-roasting kick wherein I was roasting broccoli every night for dinner. This was in effort to sneak more vegetables into my life. More recently I’ve been on a smoothie-for-dinner kick. I like the smoothie a lot better than making roasted broccoli for dinner for two reasons: 1)…
Chipotle Brown Sugar Baked Acorn Squash
With a snow storm hitting Portland hard this weekend, I was mostly stuck in doors. This gave me a lot of time to clean, organize, watch the Olympics and, of course, cook. I’ve had an acorn squash and some sugar pumpkins sitting on my countertop for a few months now. I noticed today that my…
Creamed Spinach
My friend Jennifer hosted a happy hour at her house this week where the theme was grey hounds, short ribs and shellac manicures. She suggested I bring a vegetable to go with the short ribs she was making. In discussing veggies with our other friend, Kyna, I decided I would bring the acorn squash that…
Dark Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Spice Cookies
Even though I’ve been obsessed with pumpkin everything this year, I’ve been hesitant to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Why? Because I generally don’t like the cakey texture the pumpkin lends to the cookie. If I wanted cake, I’d eat cake. But when I want a cookie, I want the texture of a cookie. Got…
Beefy Chili Mac and Cheese
The best mac and cheese I’ve ever had is served at Comet Cafe, located on Farwell Avenue on the East Side of Milwaukee, (Wis., not Milwaukie, Ore.). For $10 you can get a huge bowl of plain mac and cheese. Add chili for $2, beef for $3 or ham and peas for $2. My preference…
Crock-Pot Beef Roast
The last time I had a crock pot roast was circa 2005 or 2006, when my mom did all the legwork for her Lipton Onion Mix roast recipe in my crock pot, and I reaped the benefits. I’ve always been more of an avid cook than the regular Joe, but at that time I wasn’t…
Turkey Leftovers Bowl
My refrigerator is bulging full with leftovers. Pizza, turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, creamed spinach, spinach and egg bake, pie and pancake batter. There are so many leftovers stuffed inside my fridge it’s actually a bit daunting. I’ve never been a huge fan of leftovers. Mainly because I think that food doesn’t taste quite as…
