Raisin Challah

We are preparing for Rosh Hashanah, so it is time to bake some raisin challah.  Although I use a recipe I found years ago in Joan Nathan’s The Children’s Jewish Holiday Kitchen, I am not yet ready to tackle it with Cam.  Look for that post in a year or two.  I am perfectly capable of making…

Fried Eggplant Khoresh (Bademjun Sorkh Kardeh)

It was an exciting night for cooking, and a good thing I planned a dinner that could all be done on the stove top.  Just as I was salting the eggplant and boiling the water to blanch the tomatoes, a storm blew through and we lost power for the next 2 hours.   Because of…

Cucumber-Melon Smoothie – San Diego Cooking Adventure, Part 3

It is my last day in San Diego, time for another treat, i.e. another smoothie with wonderful fresh fruits and veggies!  I decided that today was my day to go green and use green – honeydew, cucumber, and lime. Heather and I had had a wonderful brunch in La Jolla – Amazing huevos rancheros and…

Carrot Mango Lemon Smoothie – San Diego Cooking Adventure, Part 1

While staying with friends in San Diego, I got to try some cooking with a whole new bunch of local foods!  So the first order of business was a trip to the Hillcrest farmers market. What a treat that was!  Lots of things we don’t get in the mid-atlantic:  mangos, figs, almonds, olives, freshly dried…

Spaghetti Squash and Turkey Bacon Casserole

Spaghetti squash were the first of my winter squashed to be ready for harvest.  This is the first year I grew them and was surprised by how early they were ready.  The first picture was about a month ago, before it was ripe.  I just wanted to show how cheery they were in the garden,…

Pasta with Corn,Turkey Bacon and Tomato Confit

My friend Marian had told me how to make tomato confit, and it sounded so good, I made it the next morning!  Well, dinner that night was going to be Michael Symon’s Bacon and Corn Cavatelli.  But, once I had the confit, I totally changed the recipe and ended up with what I am giving…

Tomato Confit

  My friend Marian was over for dinner the other night; she saw all my tomatoes and suggested I make tomato confit.  Okay, so I had never had tomato confit.  So she told me how to make it and that I would then want to spread it on anything and everything. She was right!  Just…

Pasta with Potatoes, Green Beans and Pesto

Pasta, potatoes, green beans – sounds heavy, eh?  When I first saw Martha Rose Shulman’s recipe combining the three, I was skeptical.  But since I always have pesto and, in late summer, lots of green beans, I though I would try it.  To everyone’s surprise, the combination was wonderful.  Very homey and hearty.  It has…

Zucchini, Tomato & Eggs: Pan-cooked and Slow-cooker methods

I love the recipe for pan-cooked zucchini & tomatoes with eggs in Martha Rose Shulman’s Mediterranean Harvest cookbook. It is a ratatouille-like dish, to which eggs are placed on top and then baked.  I can’t describe how good this tastes!  Here I have done 2 versions of it, one fairly close to her recipe, using summer…