Main Dishes

Maple Planked Rosemary & Lemon Pork Chops

July 7, 2011

I got to be “that house” last weekend. The one in the neighborhood whose backyard grill is billowing out aromas that make you stop what you’re doing and say aloud, “OMG, what are they making over there and can we have some?” In my case it was the woody scents of the maple grilling plank [...]

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Sausage & Spinach Stuffed Shells

April 6, 2011

The panicked look on my face probably startled my husband into thinking something dire had taken place. “Where’s the ricotta???” Truthfully, for the first few seconds after I realized the stuffed shells recipe I was following seemed to have omitted the ricotta…well, I did have a minor momentary freakout. It shouldn’t have been a real [...]

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Penne with Artichokes…and How I Started This Blog

March 8, 2011

How many times have you come across a recipe like the one below for Penne with Artichokes on a food label? A tiny 3″ square with no photo or headnotes, significantly truncated to fit on the box? Recipes like this are kind of mysterious. You have no idea of what the dish looks like or [...]

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Honey Lemon Chicken

February 21, 2011

We have what I consider to be a great system in our house. I create the week’s menu, buy the food and cook the meals…my husband does the dishes. It works out most of the time except for my occasional penchant for using nearly every dish in the kitchen to prepare a meal. As I [...]

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Classic Meat Loaf

September 21, 2010

Are there foods that you could not stand as a child that you’re now realizing aren’t so bad after all? Meat loaf is one of those foods for me. It recently occurred to me…what’s my hangup? I love burgers and meatballs. Isn’t meat loaf basically the same kind of thing only sliced? I decided it [...]

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Homemade Pizza

August 10, 2010

The ten minutes of kneading involved in making your own pizza crust provided enough tension relief to save my sanity as I was preparing this Lamb, Goat Cheese & Rosemary pizza. I discovered there was just enough yeast left in the jar to make the dough so I ever-so-carefully inverted it so as not to [...]

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Crispy Baked Chicken

August 4, 2010

“Want French toast!” Try as I might, I could not convince my two-and-a-half year old that the corn flake crumb-crusted baked chicken my husband and I were eating was not the Crispy French Toast we had the morning before. The chicken breast half on my daughter’s plate was cut up so it didn’t look anything [...]

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Sweet & Spicy Grilled Steak with Tomato Relish

July 27, 2010

You’ve watched over your steak on the grill in hopes of getting it to your desired doneness. You’ve patiently waited while it rests and redistributes all of its juices. Then finally it’s the moment of truth…time to carve. I was full of pride (and relief) when I made that first incision into this Sweet & [...]

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Spinach-Pesto Lasagna

July 8, 2010

Baked pasta – seriously?? I know that for a lot of folks the weather this week has been an absolute scorcher. But here in San Diego, we’ve kind of been experiencing the opposite (but not at all severe) phenomenon…it’s actually been a bit cold and blustery. In fact, I nearly turned the car around as [...]

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Teriyaki Burgers

June 27, 2010

Teriyaki burgers. Sweet onions. Spicy mayo. Hawaiian rolls. Pineapple. Is your mouth watering yet? This is my kind of burger: medium-rare, grass-fed (Food Inc. opened my eyes), eighty-five percent lean beef bathed in homemade teriyaki marinade. The idea for the burger comes from the back of my favorite brand of hamburger buns, King’s Hawaiian. A [...]