This simple method makes a whole batch of berries or grapes ready to eat when you bring them home and keeps them fresh a few days longer.
fruit
Yogurt Sundaes: A healthy treat!
I've been eating Yogurt Sundaes since I was a teenager. This versatile bowlful of food can be a yummy breakfast, a light lunch, a late-night snack that keeps you full until morning (crucial for fighting pregnancy nausea!), or a satisfying treat when you want the fun of eating a sundae without the calories and sugar … Continue reading Yogurt Sundaes: A healthy treat!
That Time I Drank 33-Year-Old Grape Juice
My family has an ancestral home, a place that's been owned by our family ever since it was built in 1910. It's a large, elegant, three-story brick house on the main street of a pleasant town in Ohio. My maternal grandmother grew up there, and although she itched to leave that town because of the … Continue reading That Time I Drank 33-Year-Old Grape Juice
Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake
This recipe was in the cookbook that came with Daniel's grandmother's food processor, decades ago. Daniel and I bought a used food processor shortly after we began living together 19 years ago, and when his grandmother heard about this, she insisted that we look through her recipes and copy some we'd like to try. Next … Continue reading Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake
Bean Wraps with Smoked Gouda and Pineapple
UPDATE: Eight months later, I'm sharing this recipe at Meatless Monday. It's a great quick meal at any time of year because all the ingredients are shelf-stable except for the cheese and wrapper; it doesn't use fresh foods that are in season at a particular time of year--unless you live in pineapple country! Don't eat … Continue reading Bean Wraps with Smoked Gouda and Pineapple
How to use long-frozen cookie dough
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
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
An Abundance of Apples
Here's what we did when we saw a bunch of ripe apples dropping into a neglected parking lot near our home.
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)
Pumpkin Burritos
It may seem somewhat obvious that, if you can make Butternut Squash Burritos from the same recipe as Sweet Potato Burritos, you could also make Pumpkin Burritos. But if you're among the many people desperately searching the Internet this month for new and different ways to serve the remains of your jack o'lantern, it might … Continue reading Pumpkin Burritos
What to Serve for Coffee Hour
Many places of worship, and a lot of non-religious organizations, have a "coffee hour" or "fellowship time" or some other name for "when we all mill around and have a little something to eat and drink." At our church, this is a particularly vital time. Many interesting conversations happen, friendships are formed, and plans for … Continue reading What to Serve for Coffee Hour
Spaghetti Sauce, September 16 Version (with apple!)
This most recent in my series of spaghetti sauce recipes is good for "Guess the Mystery Ingredient" if you like to play that game. I added the apple, and added it early in the cooking process, because I was concerned that the mostly-green pepper would give this sauce a sharp, tangy flavor. I have disliked … Continue reading Spaghetti Sauce, September 16 Version (with apple!)
Dining at The Purple Tulip
Our son Nicholas is almost seven years old and has three possible careers in mind: railroad engineer, teacher, and waiter. This last interest has increased in the past year, and at dinnertime he sometimes wants to pretend our home is a restaurant. He got particularly elaborate during my mother's summer visit and named his restaurant … Continue reading Dining at The Purple Tulip
Raisin Bran Bread, Revised Recipe
Two years ago, I developed a recipe for Raisin Bran Bread to use up a bulk purchase of raisin bran cereal whose flakes were so big and hard and rough that it was painful to eat! We love the bread, so I actually bought more of that aggressive raisin bran whenever Costco issued a coupon, … Continue reading Raisin Bran Bread, Revised Recipe
Cranberry Bread Without Sugar?
This is not a recipe. It is a story of a recipe that does taste very different if you forget to put in the sugar, but the result is still edible! I have made the Cranberry Orange Bread from the 1968 Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook (snag this one if you see it in … Continue reading Cranberry Bread Without Sugar?
Homemade Frozen Shredded Vegetables
Like reusing glass jars, this is an idea I've mentioned before that has increased its importance in my day-to-day life to the point that it deserves its own article! When you have more of a vegetable than you can eat before it goes bad, clean and shred the extra all at once, put measured portions … Continue reading Homemade Frozen Shredded Vegetables
Fruit Labels, Jar Labels, Six-Packs, Environment, and Health
You know those annoying little stickers that are on most fruits you can buy individually in supermarkets? The ones that are so thin and so well-glued that they're often impossible to remove without gouging a hole in your fruit? Yeah, I always knew they were evil. In addition to being annoying on edible-skinned fruits, if … Continue reading Fruit Labels, Jar Labels, Six-Packs, Environment, and Health
Things Not To Do: Cooked Fruit Edition
Don't cook cantaloupe. Most other kinds of fruit can be cooked and will still taste good, maybe even better. Cooking is an ideal way to use scraps or fruit that's too old to eat fresh. But not if it's cantaloupe. Cooking makes cantaloupe fragrant in a bad way. It doesn't smell like food anymore. It's … Continue reading Things Not To Do: Cooked Fruit Edition
Apricot Lentil Soup
This vegan, gluten-free soup has an interesting flavor, different from most lentil soups yet not too sweet and fruity. It's easy and inexpensive!
The Earthling's Handbook 