Peel and stuff hard-cooked eggs for easy Easter dish.

Today's quick supper or side recipe: Pasta tossed with an Asian-style sauce of garlic, ginger, sesame seeds, peanut butter, soy sauce. Weeknight quick. Vegan. Low carb (with low-carb pasta). Weight Watchers 5 points. Who else is prone to this? Day One. Spy a recipe calling for some obscure (to us) ingredient, fun! Take note. Day Fifteen. Spot the ingredient in a grocery. Hey! that's what such-n-such recipe called for. Bring it home, add it to the pantry, middle shelf, front row, right in plain sight. Days Sixteen to Sixty. Life. Day Sixty-One. Spy the ingredient again, this time at the back of the pantry during the quite-successful-so-far ambition to actually use , not just store, the pantry's contents. Wonder, Now what recipe was that for?  read more »

Today's recipe: A thick relish with a bite of pepper made from 'huge' zucchini, onion, carrot and peppers. Free food: think 'monster' zucchini and 'prolific' peppers. This time of year, free food makes its way into our kitchens where we become its steward, charged with 'no waste' and looking for recipes to use up large zucchini and piles of peppers. With this recipe for zucchini relish, I made good use of two extra-large zucchinis, each one weighing 2+ pounds and still only Size XL beside a four-pound Size XXXL. The zucchini relish recipe is 'tried and true' -- it came from my friend Linda who got it from her friend Kathie who got it from her mother-in-law who got it from, well, you know. Grating and chopping takes a good hour, then the vegetables rest for three hours before getting cooked and processed in canning jars. The relish is sweet, almost enough to be called a 'zucchini jam' but still, leans to the savory side. It's got some bite too, thanks to a good measure of black pepper which shouldn't be skipped. It's thick and good for spreading (as photographed, on bread atop feta cheese, say). The color is beautiful! The carrots and red peppers stay bright and colorful, the zucchini takes on the amber color of turmeric. Yes, I really like this stuff!  read more »

This anytime easy meal is a cultural icon on a plate.

Today's recipe: A cupcake adaptation of a Cook's Illustrated recipe for carrot cake. Light crumb, lightly spiced. Excellent cream cheese frosting. People, as if we need one more reason to share our very best recipes, it's this: should we lose a recipe, we can call to ask, "By chance, did I give you my carrot cake recipe?" and then sigh with relief when hearing, "Yeah!  read more »

I am a baking and cooking machine lately. After several weeks (okay, maybe months) of neglect, my beautiful and revitalized kitchen is finally serving its true purpose...lots of counterspace for lots of dirty dishes...er...lots of cooking for lots of hungry people.

Yup, that's TOTALLY what I meant to say.

You'll have to forgive me if this is a little disjointed - it's already after midnight, I should *technically* be in bed and the babe is kicking up a storm and addling my brains. I must say, it makes the formulation of a complete sentence a bit of a challenge.

We had some friends over for dinner this weekend, and, as per usual, I had lots of fun putting together the menu. Making it didn't go so smoothly, but at least picking out the recipes was fun. :)  read more »

"Who knows but that something wonderful may happen today. Have Faith that it will. After all, every morning is a chance at a new day!" ~Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Here it is my 150th post and I have two reasons to celebrate and a whole lot of things to give away! I was just thrilled to discover a day or so ago that Lindsey of Cafe Johnsonia had gifted me with a "Blogger With Purpose" award. I just love getting awards! For one thing it lets me know that my readers appreciate all my work and effort and two, it affords me the opportunity to pass them on in turn to other bloggers that I love and adore!  read more »

Today's salad recipe: Colorful salad of raw grated vegetables, raw beet, raw carrot and raw kohlrabi. Low carb. Weight Watchers 1 point. It's no surprise to regular readers that I love-love-love recipes for beets . (There's even a beet rivalry. Am I the reigning 'beet queen'?  read more »

Today's soup recipe: Simple soup made from leftover lettuce and new potatoes. Surprisingly tasty. Weight Watchers 2 points. "Supper contrived from air" is what comes to mind with this soup recipe. Seriously, I used nothing more than less-than-perfect romaine and bok choy and some completely wilted radish leaves. And still?  read more »

Thank you for all of the nice comments everyone left. Mom is doing better! The accident happened a week ago, but it feels like a month. Now comes the insurance problems, bills, and lawyers.

The judging panel came together, on Easter, and picked out our St. Paddy's Day Pub Crawl winners.
It was a tough decision. We were stuck in a hot room, all day, trying to come to an agreement. There was constant bickering, pacing, and some people started throwing items across the room.  read more »