My parents were away for the weekend, my sister was out for the day, and I was home alone with a refrigerator full of food and my mother’s vague instructions that maybe I should do something with it instead of sitting on my couch all weekend watching the all-day Dogs v. Cats marathon on Animal Planet. (Which, whatever, was totally awesome.) I’d sauteed up the kale, I’d made some turkey meatballs that were good but the recipe needed tweaking before I was comfortable showing it to anyone, and all we had for dessert was a frostbitten fudgesicle, mango sorbet, and three over-ripe peaches that my mom told me I should get rid of. And then somewhere between my billionth episode of Dogs 101 I had a terrible, brilliant idea.

I should make up a dessert recipe.

Okay, for those of you who don’t get why this is a terrible idea, allow me to explain — anyone can make up cooking. Making up cooking is relatively easy. Cooking is not fussy. Cooking doesn’t deal with chemistry. What’s important in cooking is getting the ingredients un-raw (most of the time). All anyone really needs to make up their own recipe for dinner is a bunch of ingredients they know and a spice rack. I’ve only been seriously cooking for about a year and a half and I’ve made up at least five recipes. But making up baking recipes is very difficult.  Baking is chemistry (something I barely scraped by with a B in during summer school because it was easier than taking it during the school year). It’s an exact science. And if you start playing with ratios or substituting things you better damn well know what you’re doing. My only other experimentation with creating dessert was what I refer to as “The Lemon Meringue Implosion of 2008″ which, well, I think you can figure out how that turned out. But, with great trepidation, I forged ahead, combining a few of my favorite cupcake recipes and hoping the result didn’t turn out too badly, and totally pulling the frosting recipe out of thin air. And you know what? It didn’t suck. In fact, quite the opposite, it turned out delightful.

My aim, which I think I succeeded at, was to move away from the idea that summer fruit recipes have to be light and fluffy. I’ve tried a peach cupcake recipe before and it was good, but the cupcake around the peach was kind of bland. I still wanted the peach to be the star, but I wanted it to have an ensemble of sexy supporting characters like whipped cream (which I wanted to be stiff enough to hold up as frosting) and honey and spices.  I wanted cupcakes that I could just have easily been named “Auntie Clarabelle’s Spiced Peach Cupcakes” because you eat them in Ju-ly on your veranda while sippin’ on sweet tea and listenin’ to the sound of banjo music and breezes through the magnolia trees.

I mean, the only time I’ve ever crossed the Mason-Dixie line in my life was to go to Disney World so I’m not sure if my vision succeeded in that aspect, but I’d like to hope so. I’ve at least succeeded in one way — yum.

Spiced Peach Cupcakes
(Makes roughly 16 regular-sized cupcakes)

Ingredients:

1 ½ cup flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamon
3 peaches, peeled and diced in ¼ inch squares
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
½ cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. In a separate bowl, stir together dry mixture (flour, baking powder, salt, spices).
3. First mix the two sugars together until the mixture is fairly uniform. Then cream the butter and sugar mixture together in a stand mixer with paddle attachment on medium speed until soft and creamy.
4. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition to combine before adding the next.
5. Alternate between milk and dry ingredients mixture, waiting until each is fully incorporated before adding more.
6. Mix in diced peaches.
7. Using an ice cream scoop fill each cupcake liner.  Don’t be afraid to make the liners quite full, this recipe doesn’t rise much.
8. Bake in oven for 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Don’t worry if the tops look a little oily, that’s normal.
9. Let cupcakes cool before frosting.

Honey Cream Frosting
2 tbsp butter (room temperature)
2½ tbsp honey
1 cup heavy cream

1. Cream together butter and honey until there are no lumps left
2. Add cream. Beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks, but do not whip so long it begins to clump — that means it has turned from whipped cream to butter.

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Back in the day when I ate more carbs and less protein for breakfast, one of my favorites was a simple toast with butter and apricot jam (all-fruit, of course). Something about the combination was comforting and made the perfect way to start the day.

Even though I’ve moved on to sprouted 11-grain English muffins and sunflower seed butter with a soft-boiled egg, every once in a while I still crave some apricot jam, even though I no longer keep any in the house. Weirdly enough, an article crossed my path recently that solved this problem. We almost always have dried apricots, and if you’ve got those in the house, and some apple juice and a bit of arrowroot, you can make apricot jam in 20 minutes.

This intrigued me on so may levels. First, if I had a craving and didn’t feel like running to the store, I could have my apricot jam. The fact that there’s no added sugar pretty much rocks my world and I could have my treat in 20 minutes — bonus! You can simmer the few ingredients while making your homemade waffles and over-easy eggs so that your whole breakfast is ready at the same time.

I’m thinking this jam is a pretty good idea … what about you?

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I love how the best recipes are sometimes borne of desperation. I forgot to take something out of the freezer and then on the way home from the CSA farm, I forgot to stop to grab some meat. Since the men (OK, the boy and the man … or should I just say the boys?) don’t really think it’s a meal unless there’s a dead animal on the plate, the idea of a vegetarian meal was not well-received.

Enter the desperation, because all I had was some canned salmon left over from sprinkling on my salad for yesterday’s lunch. I also had some ground spices that Keith didn’t use up the other night when he made a crust for grilled salmon (he swears he’ll post the recipe test drive). Add some fresh cilantro, this and that and salmon cakes that were good enough to serve in a restaurant magically appeared on my family’s plates.

Salmon Corn Cakes

Ingredients:

• about 1/2 pound salmon (I used canned wild Alaskan salmon with skin and bones)
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander, cumin and sesame seeds (mixed)
• 1/2 cup corn kernels
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons corn meal

For the sauce:

• 1/2 cup plain yogurt (whole milk organic)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix the ingredients for the patties in a large bowl. This was absolutely the perfect ratio for us, but if you need more liquid, add a bit of lemon juice. If you need more texture to keep the patties solid, add more corn meal.

After mixing well, form into patties (it made 4). Cook over medium low heat in an oiled skillet until both sides are browned, flipping once during cooking.

Meanwhile, whisk together the yogurt and the lemon juice and serve sauce with the patties.

You could definitely add some chopped onion to the patties and some raw garlic to the sauce — I’ll do both of these things next time.

Granted, the five-year-old squeezed ketchup all over his patty and ate it with his hands, but he loved it and it was the first thing gone from his plate. This says a lot since it was served alongside this potato salad, potatoes being the most revered food in the universe by the spud-worshiping child I am raising.

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Here’s a quickie for you … a potato salad that I threw together with some goodies we got from our CSA farm this afternoon: red potatoes, green and yellow beans, herbs from our garden (basil and parsley) and radishes from the local farm stand. The dressing was simple — just cider vinegar (but I think I’d use red wine vinegar next time), olive oil and stone ground mustard. Oh, and I almost forgot the sprinkling of feta.

You could definitely add some raw garlic to the dressing or some scallions or onions to the salad, but I love that I used what was freshly picked just today.

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In the interest of trying new foods, I grabbed some escarole off of the choice table of our CSA farm a couple of weeks ago. I was told that it was a versatile, somewhat bitter green that can be cooked or used raw in salads. Loving radicchio and arugula as I do, I thought I’d give it a try.

A day or two after bringing the escarole home, I pulled out salad ingredients and the escarole. To make a very long story short, I was able to save the salad but it didn’t include escarole. I just found the texture too tough to eat raw. So in my refrigerator the escarole sat.

I had been playing around with a few ideas on how to cook the escarole, and I kept coming back to white beans. Wouldn’t you know that when I went to the CSA farm the next week, Rachael Ray’s recipe for beans and greens (which I could find nowhere in the internet to share with you) was included in the newsletter, and one of the suggested greens was escarole.

After I finished patting myself on the back for thinking like a famous cook, I took a closer look at her recipe. Man, was it boring! I know some flavors are so wonderful that simple recipes are best, yada yada yada, but I knew I could do a little better than onion, garlic, beans, greens and chicken broth.

White Beans and Escarole with Fresh Herbs

Ingredients:

• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced
• 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 cups (or so) of escarole, roughly chopped
• 1 cup (or so) white wine or chicken broth
• 1/3 cup (or so) mixed herbs (I used flat leaf parsley, sage, basil and rosemary), chopped
• 1/2 tomato, finely diced
• juice of half a lemon
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
• pecorino romano for sprinkling

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until tender. Add the escarole and wilt. Add the white beans and white wine and simmer for about five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the herbs, tomato and lemon juice. Season. Sprinkle with pecorino romano or parmesan cheese just before serving.

We served this dish with some grilled sausage (I think it was the smoked turkey and chicken pesto flavor) and that was dinner, but it could easily be a vegetarian main dish.

I was fraught with indecision, I have to say, about the lemon juice versus a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. I suppose you could try either, but I went with the lemon juice and I was very glad that I did. It added just a bit of brightness that I was looking for in the dish, whereas the balsamic would have changed the flavor entirely. Experiment with it and see what you think works best.

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Usually I strive to find something original to add to a recipe to give it the “wow” factor. Hearts of palm in a sweet pea and black lentil salad, kelp noodles, well, with anything normal and homemade strawberry ice cream with coconut milk and Greek yogurt.

Some dishes, though, just don’t need anything funky mucking up the works. Margherita pizza, and broccoli saute using all that’s growing seasonally. I know I’m somewhat deviant — I think you’ve probably all caught on to that — but I get positively giddy when I eat something that has grown locally. My favorite Sunday game is guessing what we’ll get on our way to our CSA farm that week, and when it’s from our own yard, watch out … I’m a crazy woman.

This broccoli dish is everything that excites me: broccoli from our CSA farm, basil from our own garden and a tomato from the best farm stand in town. We’re talking local, baby! This is going to be as good as Kona’s farmer’s market pizza, I just know it!

I must digress for a moment and share with you the head-spinning fact that I had my first summer tomato today. Not the tasteless, store-bought, hard-as-a-rock tomatoes — I’m talking about the sweet, meaty fresh-off-the-vine down the street tomatoes … so juicy, so sweet, so delectably ripe and flavorful. Man, it was a good day. Digression over.

Summer Broccoli Saute

Ingredients:

• 1 giant head of broccoli, chopped
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium tomato, chopped
• 1 good handful fresh basil, chopped chiffonade style
• aged balsamic vinegar for drizzling
• pecorino romano cheese, grated, for sprinkling

Heat a little olive oil in a skillet over medium heat then add the onion and broccoli. Saute for a few minutes, then add the garlic. Cook until vegetables are tender-crisp and a bit golden, maybe 5 to 10 minutes. Add the tomato and heat through, and toss in the basil after removing from heat. Before serving, drizzle with the aged balsamic and sprinkle with the pecorino romano cheese. Toss and serve.

This couldn’t be a more simple, classic recipe, but it’s the perfect way to use your summer harvest — and get your joy on from all the fresh, local food you’ve included in one dish.

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Out of all of these recipes, that brioche is the one that makes me salivate the most. The combination of goat cheese and sweet peas … pardon me while I wipe my chin….

I love the way Heidi Swanson describes this chocolate loaf cake as “unattractive.” But she’s a girl after my own heart … she changed up a Nigella Lawson recipe with spelt flour and Muscovado sugar. It’s very few recipes for baked goods that I don’t have to change up a bit, but this one I’d make as-is.

Now, this recipe for raw energy bars in another story. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make them less sugary? I get that there’s no added sugar, but that’s a lot of dried fruit which is basically concentrated sugar, no mater how natural. I like that it’s not honey or agave or brown rice syrup, though, so I may give these a go with less fruit and see if they stick.

This simple brioche with crushed peas … I just can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe it’s because the peas from our CSA farm are one of the greatest things to happen to vegetables ever, or perhaps it’s the goat cheese, radish, watercress, shaved Parmesan….

Really? Could a dessert really be this simple? Raw foodists, celebrate, because all you have to do for a soft-serve ice cream is whip frozen bananas in your food processor. I’m not in love with anything too banana-y, but I’m definitely willing to give this one a try.

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Sometimes Keith is hard to tame when it comes to breakfasts. It’s not his fault; he loves to make pancakes every Saturday morning and every vacation day imaginable and sees himself as the breakfast master chef. I find it rather endearing when he takes charge of the kitchen, but when he wants to pack up all the ingredients for gourmet pancakes and try to make them in an efficiency kitchen in a small beach rental, I have to put my foot down.

When we go away for four days, I just don’t see why we have to have a different breakfast each day. Honestly, can we just keep something simple in this family? I took matters into my own hands and used up the blueberries in the fridge and made a blueberry buckle the day before we left, so we could take it with us and have a yummy breakfast every day.

Inspired by this blueberry buckle recipe, my recipe makes changes that suit our family’s needs and just taste good. I combined my usual sprouted spelt flour with some arrowroot to lighten things up a bit and help the cake be less crumbly. Success! I also cut back the sugar, substituted palm sugar and pumped up the crumb topping.

This was one amazing blueberry buckle. Let me explain to you in five-year-old terms just how wonderful this cake was — Owen requested that I make this cake for his birthday. His birthday, people! The kid doesn’t want a gooey cake dripping with day-glo frosting … he wants a blueberry buckle! Either the kid’s got taste or he’s as weird as his mother, or the blueberry buckle was that good … make it and you be the judge!

Blueberry Buckle

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup palm sugar
• 3 tablespoons organic unsalted butter
• 1 extra-large egg
• 1 1/2 cups sprouted spelt flour
• 1/2 cup arrowroot flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 3 tablespoons whole milk plain yogurt
• 2 cups fresh blueberries (other berries can be substituted)

Crumb Topping:

• 1/4 cup palm sugar
• 3 tablespoons sprouted spelt flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons organic unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan. Add 1/3 cup palm sugar, 3 tablespoons butter and an extra-large egg to a large mixing bowl and beat on medium to blend well.

In a separate bowl, mix together the spelt flour, arrowroot, baking powder and salt. Add half of the flour mixture to sugar mixture in mixing bowl, along with half of the milk. Repeat with remaining flour and remaining milk and yogurt, beating just until blended.

Stir in the blueberries gently with a mixing spoon and pour into prepared pan.

For topping, add 1/4-cup palm sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, cinnamon and 2 tablespoons butter to a small bowl and blend with a fork. Sprinkle crumb mixture over the cake batter, breaking the crumb mixture into small pieces with your fingers if necessary.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until texture seems firm in the center of the cake. Serve warm or cold.

I’m having flashbacks of this cake that can only be described as obscene … is it wrong to lust after a breakfast food with such fervor?

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I have to work on Saturdays, which sucks, but the upshot is that Luke stays home with the baby and desperately needs things to do in order to fill up the hours. So every Saturday morning, he takes Cooper to the local Farmer’s Market and I am greeted with a bounty of deliciousness every time I come home.

Debbie has already talked about how eggs from the Farmer’s Market are better than anything else on earth, but I would like to add to that by saying Farmer’s Market butter? Out. Of. Control. However, this post is about neither of those things. It’s about the traditional Farmer’s Market fare: veggies.

Luke usually brings home some zucchini and squash, but this past weekend he brought home a giant yellow squash. At the beginning of the season, he also brought home some heirloom cherry tomato plants, which we’ve been container gardening on the back deck. The cherry tomato plants have been growing like crazy, so we constantly need to find new things to do with our bounty of cherry tomatoes. So last week, I decided to make a kick-ass pizza.

Veggie pizzas are completely underrated, and a great way to use up veggies when you may have too many around the house. Plus, I have a toddler who lives on nothing but soy milk and fruit, so I’m constantly trying to find ways to get him to eat veggies — or anything else at all, really. So a deep-dish pizza seemed to be the way to go.

I would have loved to do everything from scratch, but I totally cheated. We used the “just add water” crust mix and jarred pizza sauce, but the sheer amount of veggie goodness makes up for it (in my mind, at least). Squash and mozzarella cheese from the Farmer’s market, tomatoes from our back yard, and grocery store portobello mushrooms and garlic made for a ridiculous pizza that even the baby ate. It was so good, in fact, that I even ate the leftovers for lunch the next day — and I hate leftover pizza.

Making this not only used up some veggies, but took just as long as ordering a pizza — and was infinitely better. So the next time you have asparagus that’s on its last leg, or you go a little crazy at the Farmer’s Market, throw it all in a pizza. If my kid will eat it, it’s pretty much a magical thing.

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A friend of mine recently started a raw food diet, and when I got the opportunity to split a case of kelp noodles with her, I jumped at the chance. Trying a new food is a beautiful thing, and when it’s this healthy for you, it makes it all the more exciting. No-carb noodles with all the nutrition of a sea vegetable and can be served like your favorite pasta? Yes, please.

They are so easy to use too — just rinse and plop in your recipe. You can heat them through, as I did here or just use them cold or room temperature. I’m not sure there’s a wrong way to eat kelp noodles. There’s another positive — they’re a forgiving food.

Speaking of forgiving … I ate “pasta” and didn’t leave the table bloated — score!

We bought some salmon to eat with the kelp noodles, so I went with some flavors I love combining with that flaky, oily, heavenly little pink fish — garlic, ginger, miso, lime juice, sesame oil. The recipe just created itself from there (based on what I had in the house) and this nutritious, vegetarian dish was born.

Kelp Noodles with Almond-Miso Sauce

Ingredients:

• 12-ounce package of kelp noodles
• 1 huge broccoli floret, chopped
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• sesame seeds for sprinkling
• red pepper flakes to taste
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped

For the sauce:

• 2 tablespoons almond butter
• 1 teaspoon miso
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lime juice

Saute the broccoli and the onion until tender and golden. Add the kelp noodles and heat through.

Meanwhile, whisk all of the sauce ingredients together.

Add the sauce to the broccoli and kelp noodle mixture and quickly heat through. Remove from heat and sprinkle in sesame seeds, cilantro and red pepper flakes.

The less you heat the noodles, the more you’ll probably like them, at least that’s what we found. They are pretty wonderful no matter what, but the longer you cook them, the more rubbery they become, whereas fresh from the package they have a delightful crunch. (The five-year-old called it a “pop.”)

Owen, by the way, loved these noodles (you’ll notice the dot of sauce on the tip of his nose — consider that proof), and if you’re a savvy parent, you won’t cut them to your desired size as the package suggests. No, your desired size will be the long, slurpy strings that make your kid grin from ear to ear.

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As I was dumping the ingredients for these brownies into my food processor, making this recipe for the first time, I was thinking to myself, “This may be the grossest dessert I have ever attempted. OK, maybe not the grossest. That would have to be the carob avocado banana pudding, which actually isn’t half bad.

People, I have hit rock bottom. This recipe doesn’t come from a place of healthy love for all foods good for you — I am desperate. Keith and I have given up caffeine, chocolate and white sugar for a couple of months to cleanse and I’m flippin’ hungry. Sure, I’ve lost five pounds and quite frankly look fabulous in my summer clothes, but I’m not sure the trade-off is worth it … I’m wasting away, I tell you!

I jest a little because I honestly don’t miss my nightly dose of chocolate as much as I thought I would, though I do wish I could have the occasional special treat. Enter these black bean brownies. Now, I’ve been making a recipe similar to these black bean brownies for years, but this recipe was a little bit different. It caught my eye because there were bananas in it, which cut back the amount of sweetener by over a cup from my other recipe.

I had to change things up a bit, but there was no time like the present to try, since Owen is going to a birthday party tomorrow and he can’t eat the cake with all his food allergies. Believe it or not (I’m still in awe), what I came up with works. It really works. I’m not feeling like I’m eating a second-rate dessert (the cinnamon is brilliant!) and they just looked so pretty when I took them out of the oven that I almost don’t care that they don’t stay together very well after you cut them.

Black Bean Carob Brownies

Ingredients:

• 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 whole bananas
• 1/4 scant cup of agave syrup
• 1/4 cup carob powder (or cocoa powder if you’re not cleansing….)
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon (brilliant, I say!)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup carob chips (any other day I’d use grain-sweetened chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8×8″ pan and set aside. Combine all ingredients except the carob chips in a food processor and blend until smooth, scraping sides as needed. Stir in carob chips. Pour batter into the pan. Bake about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool before slicing. (This is very important. If you try to slice them too soon, they don’t hold together.)

A few notes:

• Store them in the refrigerator after cooling, and cut them when chilled if you don’t want them falling apart on you. They still taste good, but tricky to bring to a party.
• They are mushy, so the chips are a great addition and I’d even throw in some roasted, chopped almonds next time.
• The cinnamon is brilliant — have I mentioned that yet?
• A dollop of coconut milk ice cream sprinkled with granola would top these brownies perfectly.
• The taste is a huge hit with the men in the house, and anyone who likes banana desserts will adore these.

Let me be clear — this is not my favorite dessert in the world, but it satisfied my craving and was pretty yummy. Not perfect, but just what we needed.

UPDATE: My men will not stop going to the refrigerator and snitching from the pan of these brownies. They obviously like them better than I do, or I am not the desperate woman I thought I was….

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Although I enjoy my sprouted spelt flour baking, I’m really trying to cut down on my carbs, grains and flours in general. Gluten-free is supposed to be easy to digest but mostly, it’s just a bunch of weird flours that tend not to have much fiber or nutrition.

So I’ve been on a hunt for some gluten-free treat recipes that use real food, not seven different obscure white flours and three different vegetable gums. Luckily, my hunt is proving fruitful and I’ve got some great recipes to share with you. The best news is that you probably have most of the ingredients in your pantry already, but if you don’t, a trip to the closest market will get you all you need.

Elana’s Pantry created this gorgeous cranberry almond loaf that she enjoys slathered with goat cheese (yes please) but that she suggests you could also toast and use for a turkey sandwich. Almond butter, almonds, seeds, eggs and other easy ingredients combine for a flourless bread. OK, so there’s a little bit of arrowroot in it that might be hard to find, but I got my Bob’s Red Mill Arrowroot Starch Flour, 20-Ounce (Pack of 4) for pennies on Amazon.

Yummy — oatmeal carrot cookies are gluten-free if you make sure you get oats that aren’t contaminated, but if you don’t have celiac you probably don’t care. They call for stevia liquid (I know, I really have to explore this stuff) as a sweetener, but I’d just throw in agave syrup, palm sugar, brown rice syrup or a little honey.

Melting Wok’s arrowroot cookies sound divine … it’s the coconut milk that gets me. I’m definitely trying these.

Is it painfully obvious that I have a ton of arrowroot flour and I’m looking for recipes to try? Here are two arrowroot cake recipes — a yellow cake and a double chocolate cake — made with all normal ingredients. Too normal … I’d use palm sugar and organic butter, and replace the cream with plain yogurt. Other than that, I’m anxious to try these recipes because we don’t often make cake.

I just have to give a shout-out to La Tartine Gourmande — she’s got a gluten-free (and fabulous) section on her website, my favorite recipe being the chocolate tahini gooey cake.

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The rosemary growing in our yard is lush and green right now, loving every minute of the above-average temps we’ve been having here in New England … well, until last week, when the 70s crept back in but the sunshine still made me cheery. I thought it was about time to find some recipes to take advantage of my tasty little plant.

Rosemary roasted red pepper hummus — Cumin, soy sauce, cayenne and all the other traditional hummus ingredients combine to make this a hummus I’m dying to try.

Rosemary olive oil cake — This recipe intrigues me like no other. To me, rosemary is a savory herb, occasionally paired with lemon in a semi-sweet muffin. But this cake’s got chocolate chunks!

Cheese and rosemary biscotti — See, now this is what I think about when “baking with rosemary” comes to mind. A savory, side dish biscotti — brilliant!

Brie stuffed figs with fresh rosemary — I feel like I’m playing Jeopardy, and the question is, “What’s the easiest appetizer recipe dressed to impress?” I do think I’d go for blue cheese here, though.

Herbed chicken crepes with fresh rosemary cream sauce — Keith and I went out for dinner last week and had a wonderful crepe appetizer, stuffed with smoked salmon and asparagus and topped with caviar and the thickest creme fraiche I’ve ever seen. So I’ve got crepes on the brain, and this recipe sounds scrumptious. You know I’d make gluten free crepes and substitute Greek yogurt for the cream, but still.

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Happy 4th of July to everyone. Today is a day to reflect on the sacrifices of the many who are now serving or have served our country and to celebrate the birth of our nation. Today is also the day to adhere to the age old tradition of cooking meat over open flames in the back yard. Since the days of the cave people men have gathered around the fire to exchange opinions on the proper way to cook everything from mastadon steaks to pork ribs. For me there is nothing better than a rack of slow smoked pork ribs.

The secret to a good rack of smoked ribs is the preparation. The secret is in the rub. If you want really good ribs you have to have a really good dry rub to put on the meat.  There are several dry rubs on the market that you can buy with a variety of seasoning types and flavors that will enhance the flavor of the meat. I looked at several of these and I also looked at several recipes for dry rub online before smoking my ribs. I could not find a recipe I liked so I came up with one of my own. I have tried this rub on pork ribs, beef steaks and even chicken and it is good on all of them. The rub is also simple and quick to mix up.

J+L Meat Rub

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon seasoning salt ( I use Johnny’s seasoning salt, but you can use whatever is your favorite)
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar

Mix all the ingredient together in a sealable container and shake well to mix.

To prep the ribs for smoking make sure they are completely thawed and at room temperature. Generously cover each side with the rub and let the ribs set and absorb the rub for at least 30 minutes.

I use my Charbroil Smoker Grill to smoke my ribs. I start a couple of pounds of charcoal briquettes and add them to the offset fire box and let the smoke chamber come up to temperature. For smoking slow and low heat is the key. I keep the temperature of my smoker between 225 and 250 degrees for the cooking. When the smoke chamber is up to temperature I place the ribs on the grill and then add a chunk of wood to the coals for the smoke. You can use any type of wood for the smoke. My favorites are Alder, Apple, Cherry, Hickory, Maple, or Peach. You can buy most of these types of wood in bags of chips to add to your smoker. It is a good idea to soak the wood chips in water the night before to create more smoke and burn slower. I always keep the branches I trim from my Apple and Peach trees just for smoking. Keep an eye on the temperature and keep it low for 4 to 6 hours. The longer you cook the ribs the more tender they will be. Add more briquettes and wood as need to maintain the heat and smoke until the ribs are done.

After the ribs are done smoking they are ready to eat, but I like to then crank up the heat and add some BBQ sauce. I let the sauce caramelize for 15 or 20 minutes to get it thick and sticky.

When the ribs hit the table they do not last long. Everyone loves the ribs and they disappear off the plate as fast as I can  cut them apart.

Related posts

• Grilled Chicken – Redneck Cooking
• Did Sasquatch really get Jeff? – Redneck Cooking
• A Redneck 4th of July

I’m not sure I know anyone who isn’t attending or hosting some sort of 4th of July celebration this weekend. And why not celebrate? The kids are out of school, looking forward to a fun summer and there’s something patriotic to remember… with sparklers and loud things.

You’re either making or bringing a side dish to go with those burgers and dogs, so you may as well bring something new. I’m pretty sure if you showed up at my door with a potato salad dripping with mayonnaise that I wouldn’t let you in, and that rotini pasta salad with the bottled Italian dressing … well, there’s really no excuse.

These side dishes are easy to make, crowd-pleasing and non-offensive to your mayophobic hostess. What do you mean, your Aunt Sally isn’t afraid of mayonnaise? Well, she’ll like the following recipes anyway.

Tabouleh says summer to me. Maybe it’s because I’ve got most of the ingredients growing in my garden: tomatoes, mint, parsley, scallions. You can try the traditional tabouleh recipe made with bulgur wheat, or make it with quinoa instead, my favorite way.

Grilled zucchini and chick pea salad has a lovely tahini dressing and is so summery with the zucchini charred to perfection on the grill.

If the thought of quinoa with your tabouleh made your ears perk up, perhaps you’ll enjoy pesto quinoa with corn and baby spinach. This one might corner the market on summery, but don’t tell the grilled zucchini.

Remember Aunt Sally? Gourmet potato salads for the mayophobic, more potato salads for the mayophobic, and even more potato salads for the mayophobic should just about cover it. We’ve got your back, Aunt Sally.

Talk about refreshing …. this fennel, arugula and green apple salad is crisp and balanced and sweet and tart and goes with just about anything.

Instead of a traditional cole slaw, try this red cabbage salad. You’ll enjoy the sweet crunch and uniqueness at your cookout feast.

Aw, Heidi Swanson gets me every time. Her summer green bean salad sports cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs, lemon juice, honey, cream and hazelnuts.

If you’re bringing the green salad, try my favorite gourmet mesclun salad. It’s got minimal chopping and enough unique ingredients (but easy) that your guests will be impressed … and toast those pine nuts. Or, Kona’s vegetarian caesar salad might fit the bill.

I’ve done two versions of black lentil and sweet pea salad. This is the first, and it’s full of scallions, fresh basil and mint and sherry vinegar. Then I riffed and came up with sweet pea, black lentil and hearts of palm salad, this time using cilantro, lime juice, tamari, rice vinegar and ginger. Take your choice — they are both delicious.

Roasted broccoli salad with red pepper vinaigrette — need I say more?

This light and easy carrot and snap pea salad can be dressed up a thousand different ways if you so choose, but the flavors of the carrots and snap peas speak for themselves.

There are so may ways to make a black bean corn salad, but I did one this week with fresh basil, lime juice and balsamic vinegar that was just about perfect. I’d like to say that someday I’ll post the recipe, but I didn’t write anything down .. I’m becoming my father.

My mother makes the most delicious chopped salad with honey lime dressing … she totally stole it from Epicurious, but sometimes she pretends she doesn’t remember where the recipe came from. She’s like that.

Last but not least … if you’ve got a little extra time on your hands, there’s nothing cooler than serving homemade ketchup at your barbeque.

Related posts

• Potato salad, cilantro lime rice and more starches – Recipe Roundup
• Pesto quinoa with corn and baby spinach
• Red cabbage salad is side dish perfection

It’s not often that I find a collection of dessert recipes like this, all in the same week. Usually, I’m altering more conventional recipes into something naturally sweetened and substituting flours. Most of these ingredients are just fine for everyone’s issues in this house — yay!

Since we’re all taking a short break from chocolate in my house (short … I can only handle short, but it’s been good because I really was eating it abusively and I haven’t missed it quite as much as I thought I would), this carob layer cake caught my eye. It’s only sweetened with honey, agave or brown rice syrup, which I like and she gives alternatives to sugary frostings, which I also like.

I’m attracted to the idea of these raisin bars, because they don’t have sugar in them at all, but I still think all of that dried fruit is going to make them very sweet in their own rite. Since they sound so delicious and I happen to have all of the ingredients in the house, I just may try them.

I may not be OK. I’m not sure how to stop drooling … over the picture … over the recipe for cherry amandines … over the fact that there’s no wheat or white sugar in the recipe … over the fact that Bea used cherries, pits, stems and all, in her beautiful dessert. That’s bold! La Tartine Gourmande, you’ve won my over with this one!

Related posts

• Chocolate loaf cake, raw energy bars, brioche and ice cream – Recipe Roundup
• Meatballs in chipotle sauce, farro and radicchio salad, raspberry chicken – Recipe Roundup
• Beans, rice, pasta and gooey cake – Recipe Roundup

I have written many times about my gas grill that I do a lot of my summer cooking on. A gas grill is great because they are fast to light and bring up to temperature for cooking, but I have wanted one of the barrel style charcoal smoker grills for a while now and I finally broke down and picked one up. This is a great rig for all your outdoor cooking. You can slow smoke by using the small offset fire box, or put your charcoal in the main grill chamber and grill right over the coals. My first use of this new grill was to grill chicken, and it was the best chicken I have ever grilled.

The biggest obstacle with a charcoal grill is getting the charcoal started. There are many varieties of charcoal available that have lighter fluid infused in the briquettes to make them easier to light, but a better choice is to use a charcoal chimney to light the coals.

These are simple and effective tools to get your charcoal going. Load the top chamber with your charcoal, and wad up 2 or 3 sheets of news paper and stuff into the bottom chamber. Light the paper and let it set for 20 minutes. After that the coals will be burning perfectly for cooking what ever you have on the menu. There are no fire balls shooting up and snatching your eyebrows to worry about and no trips to the ER for severe burn treatment.

After cutting up a whole chicken I put the back, wings, and neck back in the freezer to add to the other backs and wings I already have saved. My wife and i will save up these pieces until we have a good amount  and then we will spend a weekend making home made chicken noodles. I will have to write about that the next time we make it. Neither of us really likes the back and wings that much so this is a much better use of them for us. The breast, thighs, and legs I seasoned with some Johnny’s seasoning salt and set them aside while I got the charcoal going. Once the coals were hot I dumped the chimney load of coals on one end of the grill and spread them evenly.

I was a bit nervous about grilling the chicken. I have always had trouble with chicken on the gas grill. There is just so much fat that comes out of the chicken I always get a lot of flame and burnt chicken on the gas grill. I have had the best luck with the two burner gas grills by simply only lighting one burner and cooking the chicken mostly over the burner that is not lit. My plan was to use a similar tactic on the charcoal grill. I started by placing the chicken directly over the coals to get a good sear on the chicken, and then moved it off to the side away from the heat. This grill has a couple of drafts on it that make the temperature fairly easy to control and I was able to easily maintain a temperature around 300 degrees inside the grill while cooking.

After about 20 minutes the chicken was cooked and had an internal temperature of about 180 degrees which is hot enough to kill any bacteria that may be present in the chicken. I then coated each piece with some Bull’s eye BBQ sauce. This is my go-to sauce. I like the original blend the best and always have a bottle on hand. I let the chicken cook still off the heat for 5 minutes and then turn it over and coat each piece again. After another 5 minute wait I flipped the chicken back over and applied another coat of the sauce and then moved the chicken directly over the coals to caramelize the sauce.

After another 5 minute wait I removed the chicken from the grill and was ready to eat.

This new grill is definitely going to get a lot of use. It is easy to assemble and even easier to use. I have plans to grill some steaks, burgers, hot dogs, shrimp, fish, and vegetables. I am also getting things together to smoke some ribs, pork shoulder, and fish as well. I will be sure to tell you all about each of those when the time comes. There is nothing better than food cooked on a grill and if you do some shopping around you will find a grill like this one for a price you can afford. Once you start using it you will not want to stop.

Related posts

• Smoking hot ribs – Redneck Cooking
• BBQ Addicts – A charred meat extravaganza
• Did Sasquatch really get Jeff? – Redneck Cooking

I’ve been on a pretty severe yogurt kick lately. It’s really a perfect snack to bring to work, and is a relatively healthy choice. Yeah, I’m not thrilled with the amount of sugar in most of the yogurts available, but it’s certainly a better choice than a pint of ice cream. For a while I was addicted to Stonyfield Farm brand organic yogurt. It’s thick and creamy, and really delicious. I still love it, but I have recently made a new discovery.

As you probably know, I have a slight obsession with Whole Foods Market. I’m there … let’s just say I’m there often. One of the great things about Whole Foods is the enormous selection of yogurts. Whenever I shop for it I usually spend some time ogling all the different varieties before grabbing a few of the Stonyfield Farm containers (lemon is a recent favorite). It isn’t that I’m unadventurous, but all the fancy yogurt is a bit pricey (read: over a dollar per six ounce serving).

However, everything changed when a couple days ago I noticed that Chobani Greek style yogurt was on sale. I picked up a few to try them and I knew I was going to be in trouble — and I was right, I’m addicted. The Greek style yogurt is so thick and creamy, it’s impossible to resist. It’s sour and delicious, and plays really well with the fruit flavors (or even the honey flavor). Seriously, I think I’ve been averaging about two containers a day, and if I’m being completely honest, I paused midway through writing this post to have myself a delicious helping of pineapple flavored Chobani Greek style yogurt. It was awesome.

I’ve been complaining about the price of the fancy yogurt, but I came to the conclusion that I’m worth the few extra dimes that a really great yogurt costs. Now I just have to try some of the other fancy yogurts available at Whole Foods. Although, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to cheat on Chobani now that I’ve developed a severe addiction to the extra thick yogurt.

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• Is it possible to be addicted to a grocery store? – Eat, Drink, and Be Snarky

A few weeks ago brought a day of firsts. It was Cooper’s first baseball game, and my first baseball game hot dog. Two momentous occasions, one of which was inevitable, and one of which I would have never thought possible without employing some awkward veggie hot dog smuggling. Also, “veggie hot dog smuggling” is not a euphemism for some weird sex act. For once.

I didn’t have to smuggle in a veggie dog because Camden Yards, home of the Baltimore Orioles, serves veggie dogs! Yes, that’s kind of a lame thing to get geeked about, but geeked I got. I finally got to be one of the beer-swilling, hot dog-eating masses at a ball game on a blisteringly hot Sunday afternoon. I couldn’t have been happier.

I was so excited that I may have gone a little overboard with the ketchup and mustard, but dammit, it was great. I didn’t get anything else on it, because I hate onions, and sweet relish is of the devil, but I didn’t need anything else. The sweet taste of victory was quite enough.

For meat eaters or recent vegetarians, my exuberance over a veggie dog may seem a bit odd, but it was a big deal for me, a life-long vegetarian. I’ve always been a weirdo, always conspicuously eating sides, or in cases like a ball game, popcorn, so it was really cool to be able to actually look normal for once.

I had my hot dog, my fries, and Cooper enjoyed his first baseball game while stealing peanuts from the lady behind us like the feral raccoon he clearly is. All in all, it was a fantastic afternoon.

Other posts

• Rice cooker risotto: it can be done – World’s Easiest
• Hold the Meat – Why don’t you just eat a burger?
• Pumpkin cornbread – Breakfast at Clique-any’s

This is just about the weirdest little collection of recipes this week. There’s something I like about each recipe, enough to want to try it, but then each recipe has something annoying about it. I guess that’s rather advantageous, because I get to tweak to my heart’s content. What fun is making a recipe if you don’t change it in some way?

I’m lazy enough to not make meatballs very often. If I find meatloaf to be a chore, then meatballs are like making about a hundred little meatloaves. This recipe for meatballs in chipotle sauce has so many tempting flavors that I just may solicit help from the five-year-old to roll all those little balls. Fresh herbs, cumin seeds, two kinds of meat and rice instead of breadcrumbs … yum.

This raspberry chicken recipe is vague, to say the least, but when a recipe for chicken doesn’t actually tell you what kind of chicken to use? The picture shows a breast, but baking chicken breasts for one-and-a-half houses seems like overkill to me. Nevertheless, the marinade sounds delicious and I think you could even use it like a grilling sauce.

Farro has quickly become the new trendy grain. The nice thing about trends is they tend to be based on what’s healthy and everything I’ve read about farro makes it sound like something I should be eating. Except for the fact that it’s a carb, but we’ll pretend I don’t know that so that I can try this farro, radicchio and roasted beet salad recipe. Slathered in feta. Just can’t suck.

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Well, it has been an unbelievable month for me. Despite all the internet rumors that I was killed in a horrible grilling accident or abducted by aliens or captured by Sasquatch, I am alive and well and have been extremely busy with family additions.

On Memorial Day, my third grandchild was born. That is him with me in the picture. He is awesome and will fit right in with my other two. My band of mischief makers is growing and I am looking forward to many fun adventures with them all.

I spent Memorial Day traveling from Washington to Idaho and waiting for the news about Little D. I traveled back to Washington from Idaho the next weekend to see my new Grandson. I enjoyed the short time I got to spend with him and he and I hit it off right away. I think he and Grandpa will have lots of fun together as he grows. I know I am looking forward to that.

While I was in Washington, the weather was much better than it was over Memorial Day. Memorial Day weekend it rained the whole time. As the weather was good I was able to grill some steaks on the gas grill.

I have not been doing a lot of grilling lately and that is bothering me. I really like grilling food and have recently gotten a new smoker grill that I will be using a lot soon and will be posting some of my experiments with the new grill.

Last weekend was my Birthday. I had plans to spend a quiet relaxing weekend at home with my wife. I wanted to have a cake and for the two of us to spend the afternoon making a celebration dinner together. We always enjoy spending the time working together in the kitchen making a good meal. That plan was tossed out the window when my Daughter called and asked if we could watch our other two Grand children for the weekend. We had not seen David and Millie for a while so we said yes.

It is always fun to have the grandkids around, but it has been a long time since we had to keep up with a 21-month and five-month-old. They are so much fun, and Millie is a Grandpa’s girl who loves to talk and play and sing with Grandpa, but they do wear me out. Instead of making a nice dinner for two, we ended up making hot dogs, chicken nuggets and baby food; not quite the intimate dinner for two I had pictured, but so worth it.

At least I did get to have some cake and ice cream to celebrate.

All in all the last month has been crazy mad, but it has been a lot of fun.

Related posts

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Pureeing some sort of legume and throwing in delicious stuff is my idea of a perfect dip. It’s easy, healthy, super-tasty and I love dreaming up different ways of scooping it up: corn chips, brown rice crackers, cucumber and carrot sticks or rounds, baguette, polenta … you get the point.

But back to the easy. I’m going to go so far as to say bean dip goes beyond easy, into the territory of sheer laziness. I love knowing that I can make a spur-of-the-moment dip from ingredients in my pantry and refrigerator and barely lift a finger. Pushing the button on a food processor? Lazy. Delightfully lazy.

C’mon. Be lazy, lazier than me even. If you have a 15-ounce can of white beans, open it, rinse and drain the beans and follow the directions below to make a dip so simple you’ll feel guilty. But only for a moment.

Pesto White Bean Dip
Puree beans and add 1-2 tablespoons store-bought pesto (or to taste). Add equal amounts of olive oil and lemon juice until you get the consistency you like. You’ll need a few tablespoons of each to get the consistency I like. Try this dip with breadsticks or polenta rounds.

White Bean Dip with Fresh Herbs
Puree beans with 1 teaspoon of Better Than Bouillon’s vegetable broth concentrate. Add equal parts lemon juice and olive oil until your favorite consistency is attained. Pulse in a handful or two of your favorite fresh herbs — I like basil, sage, rosemary, flat-leaf parsley, chives, thyme…. I love serving this one with simple crispy rice crackers or flatbread.

Caesar White Bean Dip
Puree beans with 1 teaspoon anchovy paste, 1-2 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon stone-ground mustard and 1/2 cup grated parmesan or pecorino romano cheese. Add equal parts lemon juice and olive oil until you reach your desired consistency. This one’s great served with baguette or lettuce cups.

Only slightly more challenging (which means you can’t be comatose and make them, but sleepwalking is fine) are some of my past white bean dip recipes:

• White bean dip with sun-dried tomato and roasted garlic
• Roasted red pepper white bean dip
• Easy white bean dip with garlic and fresh herbs

Related posts

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I don’t cook with grains very often, and if I do it’s my favorite sprouted spelt flour (which digests like a vegetable so I have myself nearly convinced it’s not a carb … some of us embrace our denial). These grainy recipes caught my eye this week and even though they aren’t usual menu items for me, these recipes are so appealing that I know I’ll be trying them in the near future.

Everyday granola makes it sound not very special, but to me, this recipe is a winner. I’ve been searching for a granola recipe that’s not overly sugary and doesn’t have any wheat in it. Epicurious has not let me down with this recipe: oats, coconut, pecans, dried fruit and honey, plus a little brown sugar and some cinnamon and ginger. That’s it, and it sounds just perfect.

Just imagining the texture of these peanut butter cornmeal cookies gets my mouth watering. They won’t be too mushy, and they’ll have a hearty crispness to them that’s irresistible. They’re sweetened only with maple syrup, but I think I’d try a combination of agave syrup and molasses.

I’ve never made a soda bread, ’cause I’m rather fond of just dumping a bunch of ingredients into my bread machine and letting it do all the work. This six-seed soda bread sounds so simple, though, that I’m pretty sure I’m trying it — and soon. Tons of buttermilk (which I’ll substitute with plain yogurt), lots of seeds and about one minute total kneading time. I can definitely handle that.

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As I may have mentioned, the strawberries at our CSA farm are at their peak right now and I’ve been looking for ways to use them since the very ripe ones don’t last but a few days, if that. The strawberry ice cream recipe was a smashing success and we’ll be making more of that this weekend, but I’ve got the hankerin’ to use some berries for breakfast tomorrow. We’ve just been eating them as-is or with yogurt, but with just a little more creativity, I’m sure a great breakfast is in my future — with a berry on top.

Berry muffins sweetened with agave could do the trick … we actually have some store-bought (gasp!) blueberries too, so these would be delightful. Or maybe these oatmeal strawberry muffins are what would make my world go ’round….

Maybe I’ll just toss some in a strawberry banana smoothie for Owen and Keith, while I partake in my favorite (bananaless) smoothie. I’ll just use strawberries instead of cherries … done!

If I’m feeling decadent tomorrow, perhaps I’ll make these strawberry crepes with honey sauce for the family … can you make crepes with spelt flour…?

It’s been a while since I’ve made a quick bread and this strawberry bread (with lots of cinnamon) has me feeling inspired. It would need a bunch of tweaking to make it work with fresh berries and less sugar or an alternate sweetener, but I just might be up to the challenge.

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We’re into the full swing of summertime and cookout season, and I couldn’t be happier. I had my own little cookout not so long ago and I was looking for a unique pasta salad to serve. Frankly, I was sick and tired of the usual mayonnaise-y, mostly flavorless pasta salad. Not that I’m some sort of weird mayophobic like Deb, but I do like to change it up. So, I scoured the internet looking for delicious pasta salad recipes, and let me tell you — I found one!

Epicurious’s whole wheat pasta salad with grilled zucchini and olives is a total winner. Seriously, it might be my favorite pasta salad ever. I was a little suspicious at first, mostly because of the whole wheat pasta, but it worked well in the salad. If you really hate whole wheat pasta, though, just use regular, I won’t tell anyone. It’s not the quickest pasta salad to whip together, mostly because you have to grill all the slices of zucchini. It’s certainly not difficult, there are just a lot of steps.

The results are worth the work, though. The blend of flavors really works well. There is a distinctive Greek flair to the salad, with lots of garlic, feta cheese, Kalamata olives, and a red wine vinegar based dressing. If I were to do anything different next time, I think I would add a little bit more feta cheese (I love feta cheese), and some more of the zucchini. I cut the zucchini a bit thinner than the recipe called for (because I really wanted to use my mandoline), and I think it got lost a little bit in the salad. It is advertised as a “grilled zucchini” salad, after all. I wanted that grilled veggie flavor in every bite.

Rest assured, if you follow this recipe to the letter, you are not going to be disappointed. The dressing is light, but flavorful and chock full of garlic and basil. The olives and feta add a nice salty bite to the side dish, and the onions and tomatoes pile on an additional level of flavor. There’s a lot going on in the salad, and it will definitely spice up any cookout. Next time you’re looking to feed a crowd, leave the boring pasta salad at home and try this one.

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