When my parents visited us the Christmas before last, my mother made her grandmother's traditional animal cookies: a buttery dough that you roll out and cut with cookie cutters (they don't have to be animal shapes, of course) and bake and frost. The recipe makes a huge batch, so she divided it and froze two … Continue reading How to use long-frozen cookie dough
Recipes
Lemon Creamy Salmon with Tangy Greens
This is a meal my family has enjoyed repeatedly since it was inspired by a chicken recipe more than two years ago. We rarely eat chicken and never cook it at home, so we've always made this with canned wild Alaskan salmon. I've now made enough changes to the original recipe that I feel this … Continue reading Lemon Creamy Salmon with Tangy Greens
Baked Fish with Clementines
Pep up white fish or salmon, using citrus fruit that are getting kind of old for fresh eating but aren't actually moldy or vinegary-smelling.
Easy Fresh Apple Yogurt
I'm finally beginning to feel a lot better and get back into being able to think about food! I've actually cooked several meals from scratch, without collapsing, in the last couple of weeks. One of the oddities of this pregnancy is that I'm sometimes having a hard time with raw apples: Either they give me … Continue reading Easy Fresh Apple Yogurt
Ben’s Hot Chocolate
Autumn is here, and the hot chocolate season is beginning! This is a guest post by Ben Stallings (brother of 'Becca) , who is a permaculture gardener, home energy efficiency auditor, and owner of a curbside recycling business in Kansas and also happens to have a scrumptious hot chocolate recipe. For most of my life, … Continue reading Ben’s Hot Chocolate
No-Bake Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie for Summer
This is not so much a recipe as an example of how to work with the food, and the weather, that you happen to have. Last weekend was very hot and humid, and we had some ingredients that needed to be used, including just two potatoes from our farm share--not enough to make a baked … Continue reading No-Bake Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie for Summer
A Week of Vegetarian Lunchbox Lunches
Daniel is the lunchbox-packing parent in our family. He was in charge of grinding up leftovers for baby Nicholas to eat at childcare, and he has packed a lunch for Nicholas to take to school every day for the past three grades and to day camp every day for the past two summers. We love … Continue reading A Week of Vegetarian Lunchbox Lunches
Can you scramble frozen eggs?
Apparently, yeah, if you let the eggs thaw a little, you can make totally normal scrambled eggs out of them. At least, I did. I guess I'd better clarify that I'm talking about chicken eggs. In our scary high-tech world, "frozen eggs" often means human egg cells that have been frozen for later attempts at … Continue reading Can you scramble frozen eggs?
CONTEST: Name This Recipe!
I've developed a main dish that my family really likes, but we can't figure out what to call it! "That non-Mexican-flavored Mexican Pizza that fits in the toaster-oven" or "Beans and veggies and herbs baked on cornbread" is too cumbersome. Surely someone on the Internet will be able to think of the perfect, short, catchy … Continue reading CONTEST: Name This Recipe!
Cucumber Salad
My family has been loving this salad since we invented it a couple of months ago by adding ingredients to a recipe from The Frugal Gourmet for a "Jewish cucumber salad". It's sort of pickle-like yet without dill. It's sort of coleslaw-like yet with a very different texture. It goes well with sandwiches or burgers. … Continue reading Cucumber Salad
Freezing Cheese
We love cheese! However, with only three of us in the family, a block of cheese in the refrigerator can get moldy before we finish eating it. We came up with a cheese storage method that reduces the risk of mold, but it wasn't good enough for those times when we have either a large … Continue reading Freezing Cheese
Healthy Alternative to French Onion Dip for Veggies or Chips
I served this dip at coffee hour last Sunday and got many questions about the ingredients and requests for the recipe, so here it is! I actually developed this recipe for a coffee hour not long after I joined my church in 1996, when I was not as much into healthy eating as I am … Continue reading Healthy Alternative to French Onion Dip for Veggies or Chips
Fast, Frugal, Fruit-Flavored Oatmeal (or, how to use up the jam stuck to the jar)
When a jar of jam is depleted to the point that it's difficult to gather up enough jam for a sandwich or a slice of toast, it's tempting to just chuck it. If you're going to recycle or reuse that jar, though, you need to remove every bit of jam...and if you're removing it, you … Continue reading Fast, Frugal, Fruit-Flavored Oatmeal (or, how to use up the jam stuck to the jar)
Four Weeks of Pesco-Vegetarian Dinners (early spring)
A pesco-vegetarian is someone who eats no meat except fish. That’s what we do when we’re at home and most of the time when we eat in other places. Here's what we ate for dinner (plus weekend lunches) for four weeks in March and April, including Easter, trying to make the most of seasonal produce … Continue reading Four Weeks of Pesco-Vegetarian Dinners (early spring)
What to Serve for a Big Reception or Party (specifically, Easter)
I noticed my article What to Serve for Coffee Hour drawing more readers as Easter approached--probably people looking for ideas to make their church coffee hours following the Easter services particularly festive. I have often taken charge of coordinating my church's reception after the Easter Vigil (the night before Easter Sunday), and this year's went … Continue reading What to Serve for a Big Reception or Party (specifically, Easter)
Mexican Pizza
I mentioned in my most recent multi-week menu post making Mexican Pizza, an easy and versatile meal that my mom makes frequently. As I wrote that, it occurred to me to ask Mom if there is a recipe for Mexican Pizza or she's just been winging it all along! She has no written recipe, but … Continue reading Mexican Pizza
Emergency Creamy Tomato Soup (healthier!)
Okay, it wasn't really an emergency. It was just that our eight-year-old Nicholas really wanted creamy tomato soup for dinner when both parents were recovering--more weakly than we'd hoped--from a stomach virus that the kid had several days earlier. Daniel and I both were very sick Monday, a little better Tuesday, and then I went … Continue reading Emergency Creamy Tomato Soup (healthier!)
Less Acid Spaghetti Sauce, January 20 Version
Spaghetti with marinara sauce is my favorite food. However, tomato sauce and spices can be irritating to a stomach that's been having that burning "acid" feeling or a tongue with inflamed taste buds at the very back. I have been having both problems lately...but I really wanted to make a new batch of spaghetti sauce...so … Continue reading Less Acid Spaghetti Sauce, January 20 Version
How to Get a Kid to Like Mushrooms
We strive to be the kind of family that shares meals--not the kind that "has to" fix nuggets and fries for the kid every night! The reality is somewhere in between. Many of my multi-week menus indicate adaptations for Nicholas: We prepared meal components separately and served his in separate dishes not touching, while we … Continue reading How to Get a Kid to Like Mushrooms
Japanese Udon Noodle Soup
Happy New Year!! Somebody told me long ago that in some cultures it's traditional to eat "long noodles for long life" at the turn of the year. We all like noodles in our family, so we have taken up this tradition. This year and last I made Japanese Udon Noodle Soup for dinner on New … Continue reading Japanese Udon Noodle Soup
The Earthling's Handbook 