Today's vegetable recipe: An easy-easy recipe for pumpkin dip, just cream cheese, pumpkin and spices. As dips go, unusually healthy with high proportion of pumpkin to cream cheese and sugar. Low carb. October 1, my hometown farmers market makes a magical transformation: the row of farmstands becomes a pumpkin patch playground, the perimeter lined with hay bales. Little ones play bumper tractors as the moms and grandparents look on, often recording the squeals of delight. Out front is a pile -- more of an engineering feat, really -- of many-sized pumpkins, minis to mammoths. When my Lady Dog was a puppy and teaching me to heel, the farmers market water spigot was a frequent destination. During that first October, as we approached, she would warily eye the pumpkin pile, the bulbous shapes, the alarming color, sensing I always figured, the frightening faces of the pumpkins' inner jack o' lanterns. Mustering bravery, she would bark -- furiously, wildly -- pulling at the leash to attack the vicious orange creatures. Isn't October grand?  read more »

When I chose the theme for the January edition of " Waiter, there's something in my... ", it was in the good effort to finally overcome my fear of making a proper (read: meat-based) terrine. I do enjoy eating them, especially when foie gras is involved, and these little earthenware pots of terrines are also pretty much the only way I tolerate liver. But it was not to be, I succumbed to the pressures of my own hectic schedule and ended up making something I was more familiar with: a vegetarian one. Who would have thought, though, that the majority of bloggers out there would go for a meat-free alternative?  read more »

They're popping, they're popping! (Let me preface by saying that I'm a raging nerd for just linking to this song . What it's doing on my ipod is a mystery. I was trying to come up with a title to this entry, and I couldn't shake the lyrics. Hey, it's catchy!) Welcome to the April Daring Bakers Challenge - Cheesecake Pops! Elle and Deborah are our hostesses, and I could reach through the computer and hug them!  read more »

I was recently contacted by a man who felt I had an important voice, and who wanted to see if I could do something to inspire us Britains to buy "British" and rally around local farmers and producers and help support the industry of food producing here in the UK. I thought it was very timely as this is British Food Fortnight , an event which is now in it's seventh year and is a celebration of the wide diversity of foods we have available here, locally produced and grown right in the United Kingdom. There is a real feeling growing here in Britain that we should rally around our local farmers and buy "British," in order to help support British farmers and help to maintain Britains fresh and local produce and goods, rather than support goods and produce being shipped in from abroad. My Todd, in his younger years, was once a cowman. He knows only too well how very hard these people work on their farms, and quite often for very little in return. So many of us never stop and take a thought for the hard work that often goes into producing these lovely things we enjoy on our tables every day and the history behind it. I try, whenever possible to buy British products. It really annoys me when I go to buy blueberries for instance, and the only ones on offer are from Poland, especially when I know that beautiful British blueberries are being grown just down the road. Oftimes I know it is because of trade agreements our country has with the other countries in the European Community, but I think it's really sad when you can't get a British Blueberry and, to be perfectly honest, I am getting to the point where I just won't buy things unless it says on the label produced in Britain . . . I firmly believe that if we fail to support our local farming communities, they will be forced to shut down shop and then where will we be . . . we'll be at the mercy of foreign producers and investors and will have lost a lot of the charm and pleasures of our local farming communities.  read more »

Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics with Ina Garten Thanksgiving Countdown Herb-Roasted Turkey Breast Homemade Gravy Sausage and Herb Stuffing Celery Root and Apple Puree The Food Network is doing a much better job than I am at getting organized for Thanksgiving. There have been slews of Thanksgiving shows with lots of turkey tips. Here are some of the T-Day shows that have been on: Sunny made a turkey breast. The Neelys smoked a turkey and served it with barbecue sauce. Giada is cooking Los Angeles style. Does that mean she cooks in her bikini while sipping cucumber infused water and nibbling on some green recycled appetizer?  read more »

"Once you get a spice in your home, you have it forever. Women never throw out spices. The Egyptians were buried with their spices. I know which one I'm taking with me when I go." NUTMEG POUND CAKE...spicing it up NUTMEG , the spice of choice for this months' Think Spice has weighed heavily on my mind. Ever since I saw that Aparna @ My Diverse Kitchen , a fellow DB & an Indian blogger (like me) from Goa, was hosting the event this month, I decided I had to send something in. Freshly grated... Piney, terpeney and citrus-like aromatics combine with sweet and bitter tastes to provide Nutmeg with its distinctive flavor.Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans), native to the Moluccas (the Spice Islands of Indonesia) is unique among spice plants, producing two distinct spices. The seed is dried, shelled and sold either whole or ground as the spice Nutmeg. The outer fleshy network is also dried and ground producing the spice know as Mace.Nutmeg is used in cakes, confections, eggs, cheese, meat dishes, sausages, sauces, vegetables, and in eggnog and several cocktails and punches. Think Spice is the brainchild of Sunita @ Sunita's World & was one of the first blog events I began contributing to. Of late, I have missed a couple of months, but am happy to be back here. Only point was, hmmmmmmmm... nutmeg?  read more »

You are quite amazing — and funny — and I am most likely predictable. You were right in guessing that there was stewed fruit involved in my dessert. What else? I could well have used tapioca — actually I did too one evening to use fruit leftovers — but instead, my dessert was an unpretentious rice pudding . To make P. happy. Because rice pudding is really a special dessert in his eyes. In fact, both P. and I are big fans of rice pudding . Moi ? It brings fond memories of my childhood when my grandmother used to make it for us at the farm. I doubt that she was using Arborio rice then but nonetheless, her rice pudding was authentic, the quintessence of comfort food: she would use the milk they produced and the fruit they grew. As to P. ?  read more »

Most of us who enjoy cooking and eating passionately shun Cool Whip. But it's bound to show up in any number of easy dessert recipes that we are occasionally forced to eat and sometimes *gasp* actually enjoy.

Sue recently mentioned eating a dessert that mentions Robert Redford and sex and contained Cool Whip. I knew exactly what kind of cake she was talking about. It's called Better Than Sex Cake, which has a few variations called Better Than Robert Redford Cake and Better Than Tom Selleck Cake. The original Better Than Sex Cake consists of cake mix, Cool Whip, and instant pudding. The Robert Redford version has cream cheese. The Tom Selleck version also contains choclate pudding. There is also a version of Better Than Sex cake that uses chocolate cake mix, condensed milk, fudge sauce, and Heath bars.  read more »

Have you ever heard about konyaku, shirataki or iles-iles before?  read more »

Contrarily to what you might think, BLT are not, in todays post, the three letters for Bacon Lettuce Tomato but for Bistrot Laurent Tourondel , or how a young French Chef has become the king of a gastronomic empire in the USA.   5 Restaurants in NYC ( BLT Prime, BLT Steak, BLT Fish, BLT Burger and BLT Market at the Ritz Carlton), some in other American cities, successful cookbooks, and so on Hey, why on earth would he want to go back to France ? His restaurants belong to the hype family : trendy decoration, loud music, but the food is good. I have had the privilege to dine at BLT Prime and I was just amazed by the decoration and specially   by the 30-feet dry aging room. Quite a scary vision, actuallybut the Kobe Steak we had was to die for ! Popover is totally unknown here in France. Would you agree with me if I say that they are a sort of bread served at the beginning of a meal, with butter, or can be eaten for breakfast or even accompany some main dishes just like his British Cousin, Yorkshire Pudding, does ?  read more »