When the calendar turned to a new year a few weeks ago, I made myself get the stuff out and cook a batch – straight. I figure you can’t know how to use it until you’ve tasted it in its purest form. To my great surprise it wasn’t strange or weird at all. In fact, straight cooked quinoa has a wonderful little nutty flavor and interesting texture akin to a cross between bulgur and al dente Israeli couscous.
I immediately thought salad, which I had promised myself I’d eat more of anyway this year. Since really good fresh veggies are harder to come by in the winter, mixing a bit of dried fruit and grain into your salad just makes sense. I had dried cranberries leftover from the holidays and lemon and parsley live in my frig, so a tabouli-style salad was easy to throw together.
You can substitute any dried fruit you may have on hand, apricots, raisins, cherries or a mixture of all of the above. The sweet punch is a perfect foil to the bright lemon dressing and bite of the parsley. I was surprised how filling the salad is, just by itself. But it makes a fine side-salad as well. Culinary fear conquered. And now I have brilliant new salad to add to the mix. Enjoy!
Related Recipes
Lemony Quinoa Salad with Cranberries
Easy salad takes the mystery out of Quinoa.
Read full recipe.
But the stew is not completely dependent on the sausage and I decided to make it anyway, without the meat. For a deeper flavor (since the meat is gone) I switched to vegetable stock (in the same quantities). The photo is of the soup with sausage, but if you'd like to go meatless, try using vegetable stock and leaving out the sausage. Either way, you won't be disappointed.
Related Recipes
White Bean and Fennel Stew with Spicy Italian Sausage
Simple to make, yet immensely complex in flavor, this warm dinner takes only 30 minutes to stir together.
Read full recipe.
Are you a cherry? Chocolate? Nut? Or other pie lover? Let me know in the comment section below.
Related Recipes
All American Apple Pie
Easy as pie Apple Pie, really!
Read full recipe.
What in the ... kitchen is this?
Join the comment contest. And enter as many times as you like. Even if your guess is the same as another go ahead and comment. A winner will be randomly selected from all the correct answers.
Remember it is something that would be found in a kitchen - food, equipment, setting, place, etc.
Can't wait to see with what you come up with! Good luck!
]]>Isn't it a little too much to speak to me in the grocery store aisle? It's one thing to have samples. It's a whole other thing to have a motion sensitive ad that calls out to you as you pass.
Forget subliminal. This is in your face advertising. It didn't work for me, in fact, It made me not want to buy their product. But it did make me want to eat my of the classic - Sloppy Janes, served on hamburger bun or open faced, for a slightly more sophisticated sandwich.
So have you seen the talking ads in the grocery store? What do you think?
Related Recipes
Sloppy Janes
Our recipe for Sloppy Janes is a slightly more sophisticated version of a time-honored favorite.
Read full recipe.
This amazing stew is as easy as 1-2-3 and will have your kitchen smelling like old-fashioned goodness. Give it a try and let me know what you think. Enjoy!
Related Recipes
Great-Grandma’s Stew Beef
Here's a stew beef recipe with old-fashioned flavor that's made modern by using a slow cooker. It's rich and satisfying.
Read full recipe.
But the items that were the most difficult to deal with were those where practicality bumped up against emotional attachment. One piece in particular was my grandmother’s 9-inch cast iron skillet. Although I can honestly say I haven’t used it in at least three years, I decided I’d rather hang it on the wall than sell it at the yard sale.
Black and sturdy, that cast iron skillet has seen almost 100 years of cornbread recipes, salmon cakes, Spanish Tortillas, omelets and more. And hanging there it seemed to beg to be used.
So off the wall it came and into the kitchen I went ready to develop a recipe that was just for this precious piece of cookware. Several batches of cornbread later, I came up with a hard-to-beat basic recipe. But today’s recipe is a special twist on a basic loaf with caramelized onions and honey. It is worthy of any special dinner or, as in this case, a salute to a piece of my personal kitchen history.
The great news is you don’t have to own an antique cast iron skillet to make this quick bread. An 8x8 metal baking pan does just fine, even if the resulting loaf is a bit weaker on the crust. But I encourage you to seek out a 9-inch cast iron skillet and cook some love into it. Maybe one day your grandchild will write about it, too.
Related Recipes
Onion and Honey Cornbread
This updated cornbread is a great reason to own a cast iron skillet. Read full recipe.
Basic Cornbread
Just a good, reliable basic cornbread recipe.
Read full recipe.
When I was a child, I had a subscription to the kids version of National Geographic Magazine. I think it was called World or something to that effect. But I credit that magazine subscription with beginning my love affair with photography. My favorite part was the last page where they had zoomed in on an animals' eye or hooves or flowers and leaves and you had to identify the object.
When I turned 14, I asked for my first "real" camera and was gifted with a Nikon K1000. I still think that camera takes the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen. My mom has several that I took over the years, blown up as "art" on her walls in her home even today. (Moms do that kind of thing, even when the product is far from professional.)
I've moved away from film, and use a Nikon digital camera now. I love the simplicity, the ease and the sense of being able to take as many pictures as I want and ditch them later if I don't like them. I have a computer full of those type photos. Ones I "ditched" into a file. But while I was playing with my editing software, I realized, they make some pretty amazing photos when zoomed in. And I immediately thought of "What in the Kitchen? So I thought we'd give it a try and see how observant you all are.
It'll be a comment contest and you can enter as many times as you like. Even if your guess is the same as another go ahead and comment. A winner will be randomly selected from all the correct answers.
Remember it is something that would be found in a kitchen - food, equipment, setting, place, etc.
Can't wait to see with what you come up with! Good luck!
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Do you remember when everything was poured over a block of cream cheese?
Or when Brie was first widely available in the States and we went baked Brie crazy?
Or what about when everything was served in a bread bowl? I can't tell you how many pumpernickel loaves I carved into a bowl and I don't even really like pumpernickel bread.
So in celebration of all those "old" appetizer recipes, I'm pulling out one of the classics to share with you. It's a twist on my favorite plain baked artichoke dip. But this one has the flavors of the Southwest. Yes, flavoring everything with a Southwest twist is a fondly remembered food trend, too.
What's your favorite past appetizer food trend?
Related Recipes
Tex-Mex Artichoke Dip
This is a Southwestern version of our favorite baked artichoke dip.
Read full recipe.
Whether you choose the Greek style Chicken and Rice Soup, Gingered Chicken and Rice Soup or my take on the old classic Chicken Noodle soup, one of them will have everyone feeling better in no time.
Related Recipes
Gingered Chicken and Rice Soup
Gingered Chicken and Rice Soup is a “make you feel better about life” recipe. It’s also a “breakthrough the sniffles remedy,” and it’s ready in only 30 minutes.
Read full recipe.
Greek Lemon-Rice Soup with Chicken
Avgolemono, a traditional Greek soup made from chicken broth, lemon juice, eggs and rice, is a simple soup that we’ve somehow neglected to concoct a desperate version of – until now.
Read full recipe.
Chicken Stew the Easy Way
Here's a modern version of a kid-friendly classic -- Chicken Stew or Chicken and Noodle Soup -- whichever name makes you hungrier. This recipe combines the best of both.
Read full recipe.
Hi Alicia,I have been enjoying your Dallas Morning News column for sometime. Thanks for the great recipes and suggestions. I am looking for a good, but hopefully not too expensive vegetable slicer or mandoline. If you have any recommendations and where to purchase, I would be very appreciative.
Thank you
Gail S
Gail,
I'm not a mandoline fan. I prefer a sharp knife and cutting board. But in researching your question, I just might have to change my opinion. I found a top-rated mandoline for under $50 - The OXO V-Blade Mandoline.
I had a straight blade mandoline that absolutely was awful and evidently that was my problem. All the cooks I spoke with said the V-blade is the one to go with. The biggest problem I remember with my mandoline is it wouldn't slice. Kind of a bother when that's what it is for....Most bad reviews I read about the OXO mandoline had to do with blades being extremely sharp and "finger" accidents, but that is not surprising with this tool. It is dangerous when not used properly and several reviewers admitted to NOT using the finger guard! So I don't think slicing is a problem with this one.
You can spend upwards of $200, but according to America's Test Kitchen website, you don't have to. If you are cutting a lot of fruits and veggies, a mandoline is definitely the way to go. Not to mention cutting them ultra thin or rippled.
Here's what they had to say about their top pick: The OXO Good Grips V-Blade Mandoline Slicer
"Manufacturer: OXO
Price: $49.99 (suggested retail)
Recommendation Status: Highly Recommended
Testers’ Comments: Razor-sharp V-blade made short work of a variety of fruits and vegetables, with a wide, sturdy gripper guard that felt exceptionally safe. Extra blades conveniently stored beneath the frame. Measurement-marked dial sets slice thickness."
I found the OXO V-Blade also on Amazon, Bed, Bath and Beyond and Cooking.com. All listed it for $39.99 (plus shipping unless you're a specialty member at one of them).
Even at $50 I think if it is as good as the ATK staff says it is, it's worth it.
I wouldn't buy one if I wasn't looking to purchase...but since you asked, I hope this helps. Let me know if you get one and what you think. And if anyone else has any suggestions, please chime in.
(Both photos are stock and not related to each other.)
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The Kitchen Scoop newsletter is up and running again. All you have to do to receive it every other week is type your email address in the above box and press go! Last week the New Year newsletter went out to all the 6000 plus people who have already signed up and they had first dibs on this delicious Lemon Chess Pie recipe.
Since new recipes are added each day to Kitchen Scoop and some never make it to the front page, the newsletter will keep you up-to-date on everything that's happening.
Sign up now to make sure you don't miss a thing. And tell your friends, too. Besides, why would you want to keep all this goodness to yourself?
Related Recipes
Lemon Chess Pie
Good 'ol Southern Lemon Chess Pie. It doesn't get any better than this! Read full recipe.
Congratulations to Cindy B of the Washington, DC area. As our random winner in Life Tips Comment Contest, Cindy writes:
"I’ve started keeping a list of things I’m thankful to God for - an answered prayer, a sweet time of worship, a little comment from one of the kids, a good meal, etc. It reminds me of how many things I have to be thankful for and helps me have a better attitude each day. "
Definitely good advice. Being thankful is life-giving to be sure.
Cindy's name was randomly (using random.org) chosen from all the approved comments.
It's not too late to get in on this week's comment contest. Give me your best laundry tips and you can win a copy of Desperation Entertaining!, too.
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I adore fresh fruit. And what's even better is a bunch of fruit combined in a fruit salad. There's no recipe needed. Just slice some fruit, stir it up and enjoy!
This time of year fruit is not only more expensive, it's less flavorful. So I've started adding a little zip in the form of fresh ginger to my fruit salad.
You can really tell the difference the next day, once the ginger has had a chance to seep into all the fruit.
Go ahead, give it a try. Here's how: Start with any type fruit, cut up in small bite-size pieces, add a few tablespoons of not-from-concentrate orange juice and a little grated fresh ginger root. Stir and serve. Ohhh, yeah!
Zippy says it all!
Top it all off with a spoonful of vanilla Greek yogurt...now we're talking. And eating and oh, enjoying!
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Community has become a buzz word for the last 5 years or so. Everyone wants it, is trying to build it and emotionally need it according to psychologists and counselors.
But my question is what is real community? And where do you find it?
According to Dictionary.com, Community is defined as:
1. a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage.
2. a locality inhabited by such a group.
3. a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists (usually preceded by the ): the business community; the community of scholars.
4. a group of associated nations sharing common interests or a common heritage: the community of Western Europe.
5. Ecclesiastical . a group of men or women leading a common life according to a rule.
All of these definitions really make me wonder if it has not changed somehow with the dawning of the internet age? I mean, I feel as if I have "community" with those who regularly comment here on the site. Most of whom I have never met in person; have never lived anywhere near; doubt I share common heritage with, and wonder if we follow any of the same rules (LOL- which is a whole other blog post!) Although our common love of good food and life does connect us. So there's definitely online community, I believe.
And I know what real local community feels like having previously lived in the same place for 22 years, established in a neighborhood, church, school groups, etc.
Finding community in a new place is difficult. If you have a job in an office or if you work even remotely with a group of people, you have built in community there. But when you work alone, as I do, and have only email, sometimes phone relationships with those folks who help get the newspaper column out and the website running, there's not much sense of community there.
My efforts thus far to find community in my new hometown have included:
Joining the Y. (Now I just have to get on a schedule to get myself there)
Visiting churches (but that can only happen once a week, unfortunately, and is cleared completely if I go out of town for the weekend)
Going to the dog park (this, I have found is more likely to be my kind of community before all the college students with their wild dogs get there to "play")
Walking through the neighborhood, saying hi when I can spot a neighbor.
It's too soon to say that any have been successful or failed. But I'm impatient, so I'd love your advice...
What is community for you? What's your advice finding it or building it anew?
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