Vegan

New potato and asparagus salad with lemon-dijon dressing

3 May 2013 Food
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We’re having a heat wave in northern California, and it’s got me thinking about summer food. This potato salad, which I love warm or cold, is a dish you will want to remember for summertime entertaining. No mayonnaise or dairy involved, it’s a fresher take on potato salad that can endure the heat. And when [...]

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Stovetop asparagus

25 April 2013 Food
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It must be the inner grandma in me that has a thing for unfancy food. I love people’s enthusiasm for ingredient discoveries – smoked paprika! za’atar! pomegranate molasses! – but at heart I’m more of a basics girl than an accessories girl. Fresh ingredients don’t need a lot of dressing up, and my favorite preparations [...]

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Unplugging for a week (and roasted butternut squash)

6 April 2013 Food
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Heaven help me, I’m about to get on a Disney cruise. It’s about the last vacation I would have chosen – I’m deathly motion sensitive and the whole idea of being on a boat for a week makes me feel trapped. When I travel, I want to chart my path, explore new places, eat different [...]

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Northstar Café salad

23 January 2013 Food
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All restaurants have salads, but very few have good ones. Maybe it’s the low expectations: plenty of people would send back a disappointing appetizer, or main dish, or dessert, but no one sends back a salad for being limp, overdressed, or uninteresting. With so much creative talent in restaurant kitchens, too little of it makes [...]

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Kale salad with cranberries and toasted walnuts

6 March 2012 Food
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The best way for me to keep up my vegetable intake is to make a big batch that lasts for several meals. In the wintertime, roasted vegetables fit the bill handily. But by March I’m ready for a fresher taste. Salad greens are sad this time of year, but kale – a dark leafy green [...]

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Alice Waters’s carrot soup

1 February 2012 Food
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It doesn’t seem like it could possibly be interesting, or delectable, or surprising: carrot soup, made simply with onion, broth, a bit of thyme and a whole lot of carrots. No ginger, curry or any of your typical carrot soup dress-me-ups. Alice Waters is bold enough to leave humble carrots to stand on their own. [...]

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Chinese green beans

19 November 2011 Asian
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Chinese green beans may not seem like the most obviously perfect dish for Thanksgiving, but these really are. At a table laden with buttery bread stuffing, creamy mashed potatoes and candied sweet potatoes, lightly seasoned crisp-tender string beans make so much more sense than a heavy green bean casserole. My mom is famous for these [...]

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Easy cranberry sauce

15 November 2011 Food
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I’ve decided the way to tackle Thanksgiving this year is one manageable step at a time. Thanksgiving dinner isn’t hard, it’s just the number of dishes that can be daunting. This year I’m all about easy. We all choose our cheats for Thanksgiving. My mom always used dried stuffing mix, and my mother-in-law would make [...]

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Homemade ketchup

4 November 2011 Food
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Normally I don’t make my own ketchup at home – for a squirt here or there, Heinz is just fine. But when I make a ketchup-heavy recipe – like the sloppy joes recipe I’m getting ready to post – I don’t mind taking a few minutes to make my own so I don’t ingest a [...]

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Summer tomato salad

20 July 2011 Food
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Nature blesses perfectly ripe summer tomatoes with their own ideal dressing. Rich olive oil and a generous seasoning of salt and pepper are all that’s needed to bring out the sunny flavor of summer tomatoes and complement the sweet-tart acidity of their natural juices. This simple, unadorned salad is my favorite way to appreciate the [...]

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