A food blog from Chicago about keeping it simple in the kitchen
Crispy grilled red potatoes, grilled onions and fresh herbs. These three come together to make a pretty amazing side dish. But how do you get the potatoes crispy on the outside and not overcook the inside? The secret is slightly cooking them first in the microwave Whenever I’m cooking a […]
Beet Hummus is pretty tasty. So it must be even more amazing if the beets are smoked. The challenge I found is that nearly every smoked beet hummus recipe cheated and used smoked paprika. Find out how to make it for real by actually smoking the beets Never Let Good […]
Take your broccoli salad up a notch two ways: with bacon and by roasting. Roasted broccoli has a unique flavor that makes this salad simple and irresistible
Fresh artichokes are really tasty, especially when you get down to that delicious choke in the center, but they are a lot of work. So you’d think that canned, or jarred, artichokes would be a suitable substitute? Not really. It’s not as bad as fresh asparagus vs. canned asparagus, but […]
As side dishes go, Quinoa is the gift that keeps on giving. Here I give it a little Mediterranean flair with leftover pine nuts and olives. This dish follows the basic side dish formula of: Starchy Base + Something Crunchy + Something Herby + Something Acidic + A Little Bit of Oil. Though […]
Farro is one of those grains that I normally pass over in the bulk section, opting instead for the old stand-by’s like brown rice, quinoa or Israeli cous-cous. How foolish I have been. And then one day, there was this huge bag of Farro at Costco tempting me with promises […]
Hasselback Potatoes are a great way to use a large quantity of potatoes and feed a large crowd. It’s also a visually stunning dish that will look great, served in the cast iron pan, directly to the table if you’re serving up family style. In this case of when I […]
We can’t go to a Tapas restaurant without ordering at least one Tortilla Española. And it turns out that there isn’t a lot to it. Just 3 ingredients: eggs, potatoes and onions. Though somehow I’ve never really been able to make it as good as they do in a restaurant….until […]
As our son worked his way through more and more types of solid foods, macaroni and cheese was inevitable. It is a pretty simple dish to prepare, after all. The big stumbling block for me was the whole notion of cheese coming in powder form. That’s not really cheese. Not […]
How often do you find yourself with a head of red cabbage where you’ve only used a portion of it? A good sized head of cabbage yields a lot of shredded goodness. Whether you have one from your CSA, or picked one up just to use a small amount for […]