Globally inspired breakfast dishes, taste-makers agree, top the list of this year’s food trends. That’s according to the National Restaurant Association’s annual “What’s Hot” survey, as reported by Tribune News Service. Although 69 percent of the survey’s respondents cited globally inspired breakfast, the trend is hardly earth-shattering, acknowledges the story reprinted in this week’s food [...]
Few foods in our house are so simply, supremely satisfying as seared or grilled lamb chops. Served with a baked sweet potato and handful of fresh greens, the chops need little besides salt and pepper to accent their luxurious savor. And with just a pat of butter for the sweet potato and a little oil [...]
Holiday feasting, followed by a week away from home, revealed an all-but-bare refrigerator upon our return. The plan all along, of course, was to avoid leaving a refrigerator full of food that would only have to be discarded. Putting off my grocery shopping for a couple of days, however, tasked me to pull together meals [...]
The Whole Dish podcast: Egg thickens creamy, comforting chicken-rice soup As a mom of two young children, I’ve come to terms with being sick. A lot. Since the kids started school two years ago, I wryly comment that our household can hardly go a month before someone comes down with symptoms from the sniffles to [...]
I frequently serve as an unofficial ambassador for lamb. Most recently, a couple who have lived in the Rogue Valley for decades, surrounded by lush pastureland, wondered about how to incorporate lamb into their diets. Find someone who raises it. Buy the whole animal for custom butchering by any number of businesses locally. Then uses [...]
The Whole Dish podcast: Shrimp shells make stunning seafood stock For the second holiday-season meal running, I estimated just right. After preparing an 8-quart Dutch oven chock full of fresh mussels, clams, shrimp and Oregon halibut in a briny broth for six adults and two kids, I only had a few odds and ends for [...]
The Whole Dish podcast: Roasted chilies make for Latin-Italian fusion pasta A pasta purist I’m not. Zucchini strips or ribbons of collard greens in my pasta carbonara keep that classic bacon-and-egg recipe from being too rich. I just wouldn’t serve it in Italy and call it “carbonara.” Puttanesca is another storied dish that I’ve taken [...]
A friend’s gift of some tree-ripened Meyer lemons, redolent of California sunshine, put me in the giving spirit. Specifically, I’m considering spreading the holiday love around with a batch of lemon bars or bottle of limoncello or a lemon loaf cake in a fancy pan liner. This “very lemon” loaf doesn’t specify Meyer lemons, but [...]
A flavor sensation that’s more than the sum of its parts comes from simmering apples with spicy and savory seasonings. Like the chutney featured in this blog’s previous post, this cake fuses traditional Indian ingredients and, arguably, the Western world’s most iconic fruit. The combination of sweet apples, bitter tea and a pungent spice blend [...]
The Whole Dish podcast: Chutneys commingle European fruits, Indian spices They look like rare commodities, those first golden mandarin oranges, still boasting dark-green stems and waxy leaves. By contrast, the grocery-store bins of apples are commonplace, available for months now. And while some varieties are inherently good keepers, others are losing moisture and sweetness by [...]