Veggies

Roasted potatoes with garlic and lemon

23 May 2013 Food
roasted potatoes with garlic and lemon

I really wanted to write about steak this week. It’s Memorial Day weekend, and everyone is scrubbing their grills to kick off summer. But three things happened: 1) I kept messing up the steak, 2) I had to shovel through a mountain of construction decisions, and 3) I made some really good potatoes. Roasted potatoes [...]

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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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Ham and cabbage soup

31 January 2013 Food
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I hear what you’re thinking: First she dishes out health advice (bleh), followed by salad (lady, it’s cold out, give me some real food!), and now soup? With cabbage? Enough already! But truly, this soup is no punishment – it’s honest comfort food for dreary days. Technicolor summer calls for bright, gorgeous food. But the [...]

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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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Pasta with butternut squash, sausage and sage

26 October 2012 Food
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A lovely butternut squash, at once elegantly elongated and voluptuously curvy, kept me company in my kitchen for a couple of weeks as I wondered what to cook with it. Fresh produce items generally demand immediate attention, wilting petulantly to show their impatience, but butternut squash waits serenely, saving its soft golden sweetness for when [...]

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Quinoa with roasted vegetables

5 October 2012 Food
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I’m not one for trends, food or otherwise, so it took me a while to bring quinoa (“keen-wah”) into my kitchen. But now I’ve developed a real fondness for this crunchy little pseudo-grain with a funny tail. It’s easy to make, versatile, keeps well and satisfies the increasing number of friends I know who are [...]

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Shaved zucchini and parmesan salad

3 July 2012 Food
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July is a good time to enjoy young zucchini, before it becomes a overgrown burden come August. Zucchini (aka courgette in much of the world) is a versatile cooked vegetable – grilled, sauteed, shredded, stuffed. With its subtle taste and texture, zucchini is a useful partner in both savory dishes and baked treats. Rarely do [...]

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California Greek salad

24 April 2012 Food
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To me the cooking ideal of fresh, seasonal and local is hardest to live up to in the spring. Summer is bounty time; crisp fall brings novel late-harvest crops; cold winter welcomes hearty root vegetables and winter squashes. But spring’s warmer air and bright green landscape tickle yearnings for fresh new produce. And right now [...]

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