Author: karen

A former co-worker gave me this awesome recipe for double chocolate cookies. I’ve made them several times before but it has been a while since I made them. I’ve been really into dark chocolate of late so I decided that I wanted to tweak the recipe so it was double DARK chocolate cookies. To do […]

So at the end of last week I made a big batch of braised kale as a vegetable one night. I was a big fan but my spouse was decidedly not. Which left me with lots of leftovers that I’ve been making my way through. The problem is that I’ve sick and tired and reheated […]

I wanted to make some mini quick bread loaves to distribute to my friends for the holidays. I have 5 friends in various parts of the country and so I decided to make 4 different kinds of bread to send to them. Most quick bread recipes will make 3-4 small loaf pans so I to […]

This year like many years my spouse and I had Thanksgiving by ourselves. Because he’s diabetic we can’t have the typical trimmings: mashed potatoes and stuffing. It also makes no sense for us to cook a whole bird. So we bought a turkey breast and roasted it for ourselves. Because a turkey breast is lean, […]

We had some more fall weather this week and so I was inspired to make soup again. This time I decided to make a soup with acorn squash and mushrooms. I like the taste of acorn squash. It isn’t too sweet and has a nice creamy texture. I match this with cremini mushrooms which are […]

By an accident of duplicate shopping between my spouse and I, I have more carrots that I know what to do with. Up until this spring I’d have just whipped up a carrot cake. But we’re having to eat healthier now and avoid sugar, so carrot cake is out. So what I need is a […]

One thing that makes my soup taste better than some of my friends and relatives is that I typically use homemade stock. I often make soups requiring a poultry or seafood/fish base. For the “chicken” stock, I like to make it with the offal, neck, backbone and extra skin from a whole chicken that I’ve […]

A week ago my spouse had a craving for chili and I was feeling ambitious so I decided to try to make a more “Texas style” chili with fewer beans and more hunks of meat instead of ground beef. I started with a package of bone-in short ribs which I seared in a my enameled […]

A cold front came through Houston last week bringing with it much appreciated cooler truly fall weather. As soon as I felt the change in temperature I started scheming what tasty meals I could make that I haven’t had since March. First and foremost that means soups. Because soups were a mainstay growing up, I […]

The last time I went out to lunch I had a very nice hummus grilled vegetable wrap. I wondered how much work it would be to replicate this treat as a weekday lunch for myself. I wanted something new and healthier for lunch. My main issue was the grilled vegetables. I typically take maybe an […]