Blog
My purpose for this site is to learn to celebrate food by bringing families as much as possible back to eating right off of local farms, as cleanly and easily as possible, to ensure we’re eating real food and not stuff that has gone through an industrial process, been transported around the world, or been injected or covered with chemicals. I hope to do it in a way that creates pleasure in meals so food is a positive, beneficial, affordable, and joyful experience.
Documenting the process of how to change a family’s diet back to one based on real foods will:
- Show if we can do it and how, along with our other responsibilities. Our ancestors may have lived off the land, but maybe they were on farms, had stay-home parents, were way smarter, etc.
- Calculate the costs of eating the cleanest (additive-free) food possible.
- Share the learning process so other people can see how it will work for them, be affordable, why, and that they can start with the knowledge here and take a short cut to start celebrating real food in their own lives.
I hope to share a wide variety of recipes that I’ll modify – and simplify – to fit our new food rules and life, which may evolve as we live and learn. Eating is a daily occurrence so I intend to post a topic, recipe, or something for each day of our first year Getting Real.
Latest Blogs
When it’s too hot to turn on the oven, here’s an easy peach cobbler to make on the grill. It’s also an excellent use of over-ripe peaches. Peach Cobbler on the Grill 6-8 ripe peaches, mostly peeled...
I had to post a sour dough bread recipe for people that don’t want their recipe long, confusing, and full of links to buy all the supplies, ads, videos, popups, and if-then statements that are harder...
Have you spent an hour making dinner only to have your family eat it in three minutes? Besides being a total drag it’s kind of disgusting. To celebrate food, we need enough time to taste and be...
We had a box of Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn in the basement, and I was wondering if it was genetically modified corn. I checked the website one time and it said, “Exclusive...
I stopped at a tiny landscape nursery on the way home from work last spring to see if they had anything to feed my dying magnolia tree. I asked the guy working there what vegie plants he had because...
The American College of Sports Medicine releases the American Fitness Index in July, ranking America’s top 100 cities with healthy lifestyles. In 2024, Arlington ranked first for the seventh year in a...
Since we’re working all day, I don’t have time to plan meals last-minute. I used to get home and look in refrigerator, then try to figure out what to make for dinner. Switching to real food meant some...
In an effort to cut back on factory beef and start buying only grass-fed beef from a local farm, I discovered www.eatwild.com. The Eat Wild site provides information on the benefits of grass feeding...
To get ideas on where to find real food near you, www.Localharvest.org provides maps and information. You can find things like farms, stores, farmers markets, restaurants, butchers, CSAs, and co-ops...
Yesterday I brought the bread maker up from out of the basement and dusted it off, looking forward to fresh bread and filling the house with that wonderful aroma. Bread machines take practice because...
I thought of making Italian Cake for Nona but my best one has two cups of sugar and she doesn’t like overly-sweet American desserts. I had two pints of blueberries from a buy-one-get-one sale, and got...
The Sunday I moved from Michigan to Maryland to start a new job on Monday was an eventful ride. I drove straight through as far as Hancock, Maryland, just over the Pennsylvania line, then drove...
Another food revelation came after our oldest daughter had attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and I read that there was a link between sweetened foods, preservatives, artificial food...
Most people understand that you are what you eat, but it still usually takes an awakening incident to incite diet changes, especially since you can’t see most chemicals and unnecessary...
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Getting back in the food blog saddle with a nice post-election/tractor commentary (below) from a local farmer, Danny Rohrer. As Danny predicted, Sonny Perdue (not related to the poultry company) was...
There are still plenty of issues to cover including cooking topics like fermentation and bread starters, and real food issues such as artificial sweeteners, supplements, soy, nightshades, bees...
One of government’s most important jobs is to protect its people against foreign and domestic threats. The food industry is a domestic threat. But if the government tries to intervene to stop the...
If you ever saw Bugs Bunny, you know about the long, lacy green tops of carrots that give you a handle to pull them out of the ground (unless the wildlife ate them). I used to compost the greens...
Do you spend a lot of time reminding your kids or yourself to have a decent breakfast and pack a healthy lunch to get through the afternoon? At my house we mention one of the two almost every day...
My son came home from school yesterday with food across the front of his shirt. When we asked him why he was such a mess, he said it was “No Waste” day at school. No one was supposed to use anything...
Every day when I get home from work, I check the potato barrel and today there is one little inch-tall plant with purplish-green leaves. It’s very exciting so let’s hope a squirrel doesn’t dig it up...
Good thing I started the garden early so all the neighborhood animals know where they can get a free breakfast! The carrot tops are gone, some of the cucumbers plants, the bok choy, and the broccoli...
On a half-date-night, we went back to a place that I seem to have missed reporting on previously, the little old brick schoolhouse turned restaurant called Brick Ridge in Mt. Airy, MD. It was a...
I found a container of fresh mozzarella in the back of the refrigerator and have no recollection of buying it and it doesn’t match anything on the weekly menu. It was already at its expiration date...
While I was staying late after work, the rest of the family put together a dinner from an old Bon Appetit article about quick and easy dinners. The funny thing is that it’s a slide-show and summarizes...
Last time I reported on carrots I had not come across this 10-year research project that looked at the colors of fruits and vegetables and how their color-associated micronutrients and phytochemicals...
Don’t you just drag into the house exhausted some days and just want to take something out of the refrigerator or freezer and nuke it? Good thing we made gnocchi last weekend! One time when we let my...
It turned out to be particularly ironic that my son volunteered to make a brown rice stir fry today, first because I forgot to point out that the brown rice was in the freezer. When he could only find...
The potato seeds I bought last month have started to sprout and it’s time to get them planted in the outdoor container. You can plant potatoes in rows in your garden but a barrel, trash can, or other...
Gnocchi is a versatile little potato dumpling with trademark grooves on one side. Homemade gnocchi is worth the effort once in a while, just like all homemade pasta and dumplings. If you make a double...
Here are some ideas for vegetable stock and soup base from my neighbors. My next door neighbor saw one of my blog posts where I deposited the tough ends of my asparagus in the compost. He advises: do...
After Tony was successful making polenta, he searched online for other ways of serving polenta and found a breakfast casserole that we modified. We like having breakfast for dinner on occasion so it...
I’m not going to say how old I was the first time I tried risotto, but I can tell you it was in the past year! It tastes so much better than it looks. I had it at a restaurant and I’ve been wanting to...
A locavore is someone who advocates for and eats locally grown foods, which is usually defined as within 100 miles but there aren’t any hard rules. Congress defines locally and regionally produced...
Another dinner from my daughter the potato fan. Show the kids how to cut the whole potato to eat it including the skin, not just the filling, since most of the nutrients are in the skin. You can mix...
Happy Easter! We don’t have any particular food traditions in our family for Easter, how about you? I always make deviled eggs for an appetizer, but anything goes as far as the main course. This year...
Chronobiology is the study of the cyclic rhythms that exist in living things. Our bodies experience physical, mental, and behavioral changes based on the natural light and darkness in our...
When kids start cooking, the first few times they can build their self-confidence by making something healthy in their comfort zone. When my son first made dinner we bought hot dogs from the farmer. I...
What’s the difference between a quiche, strata, or frittata? So far we’ve made a quiche, which usually has a bottom crust filled with a baked custard of creamy eggs and all sorts of vegetables, meats...
Now that a new sports season has started, I’m reminded how inevitably the coach or one of the moms wants to put together the snack list –- who’s going to bring the snacks to each game. The kids should...
My daughter said one time that she likes it better when I am home when she cooks because she doesn’t have to worry about making a mistake. One reason not to stress when cooking, is that sometimes when...
Hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed some spring fever – but not the real kind you sometimes get with the weather change. Today was very Monday for me: wake up, go to work, pick up...
How are the baby vegie plants looking? I couldn’t believe how fast mine came up; the first week they were pushing at their greenhouse lid. It’s still too cold to move them outside. Although, out front...
I talked about all of the plastics floating in the ocean one time, and I really see a lot of water bottles in the streets heading toward the storm drains. There are very wide drains in Maryland and...
I looked through my entire blog history and cannot find a time in the past year when I made sloppy joes. That is really weird – it’s a staple of American food. Now that spring sports started, I need...
Kraft Foods has been in the news a lot the past couple of weeks. First they recalled 6.5 million boxes of Macaroni and Cheese because metal pieces were found in boxes. When your food goes down a...
For Tony’s menu day he did a search online for “healthy casserole.” I think I told you one time that his dad never allowed his mom to make casseroles, so we’re making up for the lack of childhood...
You can buy egg-poaching pans at kitchen stores, but poached eggs are easy to make in a pot of water, so today I’ll show you how. You can make quite a fancy dinner with poached eggs and you don’t have...
I was reading the Clemson University information on peaches and learned quite a bit, most importantly that my sole peach tree in the backyard does not need a mate. Peach trees are self-fertile and...
If you like using a lot of those little jars off your spice rack, you’re going to love making your own breakfast sausage. In the picture I put the spices in piles so you can see them, but sprinkle...
We had a parent’s date night and bought the kids a treat to stay home and eat without us – organic TV dinners. There’s a lot of very superficial organic food out there, so except for the rare...
Ogallala is a city in Nebraska and the name of the largest aquifer in the United States; although it stretches down into Texas, two-thirds of it sits under the state of Nebraska. An aquifer is an...
Why am I making sweet potato casserole when it’s not Thanksgiving? Because we can have it year ‘round – especially in the winter when our local sweet potatoes are still in cold storage. The first time...
A Cornell research group studied how women get their recipes and its relationship to weight gain, and found that watching food television or using social media correlated to an increase in Body Mass...
Happy St. Patrick’s Day if you happen to celebrate, although I hope it’s not with anything that has green dye in it – I think I’ve covered food colors well enough by now. Here is a twist on deviled...
I found the Clean Plates Cookbook that I told you about last Tuesday, and slightly modified their recipe for Kitchen Sink Almond Butter Snack Bars. They’re using that name because you can use any...
Although I don’t have the slightest fraction of Irish blood in me, Tony has a history of getting Irish soda bread at Radford’s Bakery (long since closed) in Aspen Hill, MD. With St. Patrick’s Day...
Ace Hardware had seed starter plant pot gardens on sale today for $3.99 so it cost about $15 to get the potting soil, four packs of seeds, and the plant pot. This is the fiber pot garden made from...
We’ve had a rough week here, passing a bug around, so it’s a resounding TGIF where we look forward to staying home and recovering over the weekend. It sure is beautiful, though, to see spring...
The movie Food, Inc. is a documentary where guest nutritionists, naturopaths and general doctors, journalists, and farmers weigh in on topics of industrial food, organic food, food safety, and...
Here’s a basic recipe for simple, professional-looking scones and you can add any dry ingredients you want to jazz up the flavor. I modified the idea from the March Eating Well (pg. 94). You can see...
Clean Plates is a restaurant review system designed by Jared Koch (pre-med graduate of University of Michigan, by the way!). It covers restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, and Austin to help people...
It’s almost spring! At least close enough to start thinking about getting seeds started for the garden. I was reading the back of a pack of cauliflower seeds at the market and they said to start...
It only takes a few minutes to make a special syrup that will give your pancakes or waffles an attractive appearance and much improved flavor. After I run out of the berries I froze in the fall, I...
Everyone knows now that trans fatty acids increase your risk of heart disease and stroke and are associated with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Warnings about trans fats started in the...
One time I was in the gourmet foods aisle at Marshalls, or maybe it was Home Goods, and I found a package of naturally colored Italian pasta shells. The pasta is colored with things like paprika and...
One time I bought this really pretty cookbook called Good Food Made Simple Vegetarian. I can’t remember when or where I bought it and never made anything out of it, but what I actually love...
There was a basket at the farm market full of what looked like giant radishes. Some of them were the size of softballs. The farmer said they were Scarlet Queen Turnips. She said they’re sweeter than...
My daughter needed green onions for one of her recipes and, while shopping for them and not knowing exactly what they are, my husband bought a bag of pearl onions. Plan B for the onions was a slow...
Last Saturday I wrote about what factory animals eat and this spring I’ll address the nutrients produce absorb from the earth. How these topics affect the quality of our food was addressed back in...
While I was still asleep this morning, Tony found a couple of recipes on a British website (BBC Good Food) for using up two over-ripe bananas to make pancakes. He combined them and used a conversion...
Animals raised in factory farms eat diets designed to fatten them quickly and inexpensively. Factory meat at the supermarket costs half what it did in the 1960s and now Americans are used to cheap...
One time in college, one of my housemates made the most amazing cabbage soup for us. We were all surprised and raving about it. I guess he was embarrassed because he got mad at us and when I asked him...
When I moved to Maryland from Michigan, I really missed the European and special ethnic foods and neighborhoods around Detroit. They have Pole Town/Hamtramck, Greek Town, many Hungarian restaurants...
Penzys (without an apostrophe) is a spice company out of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, that has stores in 29 states. My mom turned me on to Penzys because there’s one near her that she likes and she...
Daydreaming lately about taking an exotic vacation, a cooking class or, better yet, a cooking class on an exotic vacation, I was intrigued by a recipe that I cut out from the April/May 2012 Vegetarian...
Here’s a quick dinner or weekend lunch idea for grilling some sandwiches that include some of our homemade fixings. You’ll want sauerkraut that is not chemically fermented, so pick it up at a large or...
Once in a great while you’re on a road trip or rushing around town feeling starved and tempted to get fast food. Hopefully you have a decent option for a fast and inexpensive meal. Even though it’s...
The Thousand Islands run up between Ontario and New York, so there are Canadian islands and American islands. The dressing dates back to about 1900 when it’s likely a fishing guide’s wife made it as a...
I’m sure no one’s counting but me – yesterday was my 300th day in a row of blogging on real food topics and recipes. Hurray! Tonight we went out to dinner to a place called Firestone’s Culinary...
In food news today, Nestle is going to remove food coloring from all of its chocolate candy products – like Butterfinger’s red 40 and yellow 5 – by the end of this year due to consumer...
I should have kicked off my mayo post (because of the egg yolk) with the news from last week that the Agriculture and Health and Human Services Departments said in its preliminary recommendations that...
Today I made mayo for the first time and am totally floored with how easy and quick it was to make. I can’t believe I’ve been buying mayo all these years, most of which has added sugar, salt, and...
I briefly touched on the carcinogenic sodium nitrite treated cold cuts from the deli counter. If you’re still buying deli meats then you can stop when you run out of your current supply. Other options...
Once in a while Tony reminisces about the time everyone in the house was passing around a sickness. I don’t know how long we went with at least one person being sick, until at one point three people...
Happy Valentine’s Day! One time Tony and I were talking about our favorite old diners and he mentioned one and said, “They had the best red velvet cake.” I never had red velvet cake before our...
Previously I mentioned how most of the 90 million acres of yellow field corn in the United States is genetically modified and fed to animals – including cows and salmon who naturally do not eat corn...
I noticed at My Organic Market (MOMs) recently, it was difficult to find anything local. They had expensive grass-fed ground beef but the origin was Uruguay (and doesn’t have to pass USDA inspection)...
During the time period when I had depression, one time I went to an acupuncturist through my health insurance, and she gave me a page of guidelines on how to eat based on my blood type. The same week...
Last summer when I told my godmother about my blog, she asked if I’d seen the article in the New York Times Magazine about making your own ketchup and other sauces. I had not, and shortly afterward...
Onions must be one of the most versatile foods on the planet. I know some people don’t like them and pick them off of things like pizza and burgers. Raw onions can definitely have a potent scent and...
I went off on a little tangent since the last meat discussion but I’m back today with an American comfort food – meatloaf. It’s really one of the most basic and simple meals. You don’t need a lot of...
There are three types of colors used in food and cosmetics. First are natural colors that come from nature, plants, insects, etc. such as turmeric and annatto. Second are synthetic colors that are...
Have you ever been to a farm stand and found produce with a sticker on it from the grocery store? Some people buy produce and then sell it at a stand as if they grew it themselves. One cattle...
The synthetic hormones approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the 1950s for use in factory cattle and sheep – banned in Europe since 1988 – increase the animals’ growth...
Yesterday I started talking about balance in diet and life, then forgot to make my point, which I so often do, then laid in bed dwelling on it much of the night only to completely forget what it was...
I was in the waiting room at the dentist today reading a Popular Science article about how some people are afraid of unhealthy food and eat the opposite extreme, for example, only eat leafy green...
There used to be a restaurant called Red Rock Canyon by our old house that had the best carrots and roasted garlic smashed red-skin potatoes. I could always take or leave carrots until I had...
Today we’ll eat our roots literally and figuratively. Although I try modern cooking techniques and recipes, most of this blog is about eating foods our ancestors ate. People with strong ethnic ties...
You know that cooking is one great way for kids to learn to follow directions. Sometimes we learn the hard way to read all of the directions first, like after you’re done assembling something and have...
If you follow my blog, you know I have a heck of a lot of smelt in my freezer. Having vowed not to repeat the same recipe twice this year, the only way I could think of making it on short notice was...
I previously touched on how important omega-3 fatty acids are to cardiovascular and mental health. Capt. Joseph R. Hibbeln, MD, of the National Institutes of Health, points out that in most modern...
While I’m on the topic of spinach, last weekend I purposely bought an extra bag of spinach and I have no idea what I was thinking because it does not match the food menu for this week. Tonight I...
My kids had a friend hanging out today and about five minutes before dinner, my daughter asked if he could eat over. We’ve asked the kids a hundred times not to ask for things at the last second...
MOM’s, My Organic Market, currently has 12 stores between Virginia and Pennsylvania. The owner started providing organic produce out of his mom’s garage in the 1980s. They’re very focused on...
I received my book Salt Block Cooking, by Mark Bitterman (2013 Andrews McMeel). It’s beautifully laid out with colorful photographs, although there aren’t always photographs of the recipes or the...
I’ve probably mentioned that I’m not a big fan of potatoes for a number of reasons including having enough growing up, they generally take too long to cook, the nutrients are mostly in the skin when...
Now that we’re in the heart of soup season, let’s talk about blending soups. If you have a nice thick, flavorful soup, it can make a hearty main dish – not to leave the family feeling hungry...
Most Americans want to save money on food and clothes without considering whether the products are lower quality. If we aren’t willing to pay twice as much for a shirt made in Nebraska, then it...
On a few issues related to food, first, using re-usable shopping bags. I’ve never bought a cloth shopping bag and we have at least ten of them – mostly handouts from various businesses. The county...
A couple of months back I finally rented the movie Fed Up (2014), but didn’t review it until I had a chance to look up some of the information provided. According to the movie, the current generation...
I’m working on trying to trace all the research from the movie Fed Up, and it’s taking longer than I expected, so I’m going to tell you how to make the easiest winter soup – Italian Wedding Soup. It’s...
We were in a deli in Mt. Airy called Concetta’s Main Street Bistro, and I saw this Himalayan salt block on a shelf in a pretty, decorative stand. One wall of the deli offers items like handmade...
I told you about Hedgeapple Farm one time but I finally got back out there today and took a couple of pictures for you. We were talking with the cattle farmer, Scott, about farmer’s markets and he...
We hired this woman recently where I work, and I noticed as soon as I met her in her interview that she had perfect skin. I thought it might be weird to ask her right away how she got such it, so I...
One thing our culture really loves is junk food rewards. When a group is doing well at work, someone brings in donuts or cupcakes. The worst is when you send your kid to school with a healthy lunch...
Here is another Hungarian recipe. City chicken does not have chicken in it, but it’s shaped like a chicken leg. My theory is that since country people have chickens, city people have to create chicken...
One way to get a steady supply of seasonal produce is to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). You partner with a local farm and purchase “shares” which entitle you to weekly food...
A Harvard psychology professor, Dr. Anne Fishel, just released a book called Home for Dinner where she gives tips on creating fun family dinners and discusses research that shows shared meals increase...
A quenelle is a French soft fish dumpling usually in a cream sauce yellowed with egg yolks. You can substitute other meats and make variations of the sauce with vegetables, but I made them vegetarian...
After I got married we were having a discussion about which vegetables we ate growing up, and my husband was raving about these baked lima beans that his mother made that were the best beans he ever...
Breakfast is our fuel to get through the first part of the day. It’s important that it’s not sugar-centric or carb- (quickly turn into sugars) centric, particularly for children who will be hyper...
Last Saturday I mentioned how people are skeptical about cooking foods that they don’t know well, for example making canned or frozen vegetables because they don’t recognize fresh vegetables...
Late last night I changed the name of this blog from Real Food Year to Real Food Forever. I’ll still post every day for the first year (not necessarily forever). But the point is that once you make...
Time to pull Sunday’s broth out of the refrigerator and make the matzo balls for the soup. Matzo is an unleavened (no yeast) bread that’s flat, like a cracker, made with flour and water. The flour can...
We have a lot of excellent seafood in Maryland but it is different from the seafood in other parts of the country, like the Great Lakes region. The fish I ate growing up were freshwater fish like...
Sunday (or whatever day you have off of work) is prep day for the rest of the week, if you have anything on the upcoming week’s menu that makes dinner creation somewhat time-consuming. Now is the time...
The ginger ale from last Saturday is ready to drink and it came out well although different from mass produced ginger ale. It has a sharp ginger flavor that you can feel on your tongue and the back of...
It’s wonderful when you have a variety of meatless recipes that you can add to your food calendar that will satisfy your family if you want to get out of a meat rut. I’ve talked to a lot of moms that...
Happy New Year! Welcome to 2015 – make it the best year ever! I promised a detox to kick off the new year and I haven’t forgotten. We are going to celebrate New Year’s first. I asked quite a few...
One thing Grandma showed me but I never exactly mastered, was cutting up a whole chicken into parts. I’m always relieved when I find a farmer that is selling the chicken cut into its parts; then I buy...
It’s been too long since I’ve made the staple of Hungarian diets, chicken paprikas. That’s because I generally avoid chicken and pork, which is a personal preference in line with having a B...
Last week I received my annual calendar from the humane society and the envelope to send in this year’s donation. I used to think it was a great cause to help spay and neuter all the cute puppies and...
Since I need another day to assemble my photos for a longer report on a visit to a local farm accused of animal abuse, today I’m going to share a potato and mushroom recipe. This recipe is based on a...
When I was a kid, if one of us were sick, we would get to sip on glasses of Vernor’s. Vernor’s was a Detroit company that produced a ginger ale with a bit more bite and fizz than other ginger ales...
On the way home from Common Market, I realized I forgot to get an avocado which I needed to make the guests omelets for breakfast, so I stopped at the local grocery store. Near the produce section was...
Merry Christmas! I hope you are celebrating life somewhere warm and snuggly with something healthy to eat no matter what holiday(s) you do or do not celebrate! The best Christmas dinner I ever made...
Happy Christmas Eve! I hope you are not scurrying about trying to finish shopping, wrapping, or cooking, or at least are doing so in good cheer and not desperation. I had many desperate Christmases...
Finally I have a friend at work that likes to lunch at some interesting and foodie-type joints once a while – it only took me 12 years to find someone. This is the same person that accompanied me to...
One of the downsides of industrial agriculture is the elimination of variety of species. The supermarkets sometimes carry only one type of produce item (like carrots), and at most 3-4 apples...
Today I made dip as planned, with leftover ingredients from other things we’ve had lately; you can combine any similar ingredients as substitutes. A lot of cheeses can replace the goat cheese – even...
I haven’t made my chicken paprikas in a long time but the chicken has been waiting in the freezer. You have to have it with dumplings so I’d best cover dumpling-making in preparation. In Hungarian...
It struck me yesterday that anything we perceive as difficult is very easy to people who already know how to do it. So, many of the things you know how to do and think are easy, are actually difficult...
My daughter saw spring rolls on a magazine cover and wanted to try making them. She read the ingredients and we didn’t have many of them; I think it was to the point where we hadn’t heard of a few. To...
What a joyous time of year with all the eating and celebrating and eating and decorating, and eating. After a couple of holiday parties, and plenty of people bringing in treats, desserts, and snacks...
This week I’m in the process of filling holes in the kitchen walls with patching plaster so it will take time away from my food research, but every once in a while I have to pitch in around here...
I’m calling this slow cooker stew “beef Marsala” because there’s red wine in it, but I’m really not bothering to use Marsala wine. Feel free to use whatever red you have or even leave it...
I saw a picture of a quiche in Vegetarian Times (Sept. 2014, pg. 64) that used phyllo dough for the crust and it looked quite pretty. I often find that phyllo dough ends up making a mess during...
You may have noticed that I never list using low-fat versions of ingredients, and I’ve been meaning to explain why for a while. I cook with real butter, preferably from grass-fed cows making it higher...
Next on the menu for using up red pepper and celery was Tony’s American classic – tuna noodle casserole. Yes, we had two almost identical (in terms of the béchamel sauce) casseroles this week...
I never know whether to call the crock pot a slow cooker, so I try to use both names in each post; but a crock pot is really the thing my mom had when I was a kid. It’s a self-contained crock...
Breadcrumb topping adds texture, flavor, and appearance to a wide variety of dishes. I mentioned one time that you can save your bread heels and make your own gluten-free breadcrumbs. Obviously you...
Yesterday I caught part of a radio interview where the guest was saying that before Obama leaves office, he would like to succeed in establishing a free trade agreement like Clinton did with NAFTA...
Determined to make a somewhat healthy but still irresistible carrot cake for my son’s birthday, it took me a couple tries to figure out a recipe. I’ve learned that it’s important when using coconut...
My favorite way of having pork chops is breaded and baked because that’s how my Grandma made them, although I rarely cook pork. Today I was trying to use up stuff in the freezer and pulled out pork...
Maybe this is a Maryland thing, or at least the mid-Atlantic region, but everywhere you go they serve cream of crab soup. Some of the soups have sherry or white wine in them, and some have a lot of...
It’s Tony’s night on the meal schedule and he signed up for toasts for dinner – not toast, thank goodness! Toast would not cut it for me in the Breakfast-for-Dinner category. Here is a trendy cookbook...
I got sidetracked with the pretzel trout recipe yesterday and forgot to tell you about the second Lodge restaurant. I get to treat my team at work to a holiday lunch each December and yesterday we...
In food news last month, a Dallas restaurant critic who previously only presented herself as an avatar, outed herself and may regret it since now restaurants know who to Not serve. The critic is...
My Grandma Breza called this bread roll “kalacz” (ka-loch), which means cake; this is a less sweet, eastern European version of a coffee cake. You can roll it with either a nut or poppy seed filling...
Sometimes when you need a quick dinner and have eggs, you can either go for the fallback of breakfast for dinner, or spruce them up in a new egg recipe. I bought two tomatillos recently because...
One night when we were walking back from our cluster mailboxes – we do not get door to door mail service here (kind of un-American isn’t it?) – we ducked in to Vintage to have a small bite at the bar...
The new restaurant, Vintage, opened on Main Street in New Market, MD, early September. I told you about it in July when they were still just a Farmer’s Market. It’s a local ingredient focused menu...
Happy Leftover Friday! Today is a great day for leftovers for anyone who hosted a big dinner yesterday; in some cases they’re even better the next day. A common theme for articles in cooking magazines...
Happy Thanksgiving! Every day it is good to feel gratitude for what we have. Not only does it feel good in the moment, but it changes the energy level around you and after a while it is a permanent...
One good thing about factory turkeys is the rock bottom price – they were $1.19/lb at Safeway and I’m sure you can get them cheaper. That’s because as many as 10,000 turkeys can be packed into...
Irradiation destroys disease-causing bacteria and reduces the incidence of food borne illness like E. coli O157:H7. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved irradiation for eliminating insects...
I need to take a green vegetable for Thanksgiving, and I don’t feel like taking beans. The farm market I went to was out of Brussels sprouts so I settled for kale. I bought the two largest bags of...
Today it warmed up enough to go out in the back yard and do a few things, like make the kids rake the leaves . I brought in sticks and wood for the fireplace, turned some compost, and assessed what...
Dr. Katherine Reid is a biochemist from California and she cured her daughter’s moderate spectrum autism with dietary changes. In addition she has had similar success in 74 out of 75 other children...
Last summer my son spent a couple of weeks at an overnight camp that had a Parents’ Day — I told you a little about it back in July. We headed out there one Saturday for a potluck; I think we...
At the one-year-old’s birthday party that I went to this summer, the mom made a cold carrot soup to go with chicken salad sandwiches. I’ve been meaning to make it for a while, although I’d like the...
It’s no surprise that spinach is a super food due to its rich dark green leaves. Previously I talked about the calcium and vitamin content, and Popeye loved it for its iron. Besides being a good...
I made these last Thanksgiving and was really surprised they were a hit. I kept hearing, “Please pass the bean packages,” so I was really glad I made them. I had been saving the recipe for years – it...
I’m still thinking about carving our pumpkin and making something with it, at least pumpkin seeds – but it has not moved up high enough on the priority list yet. Since we weren’t home for Halloween...
The funny thing about having a B&B and making breakfast for others on the weekends, is that you can’t really eat breakfast in a restaurant anymore because you’ve made everything on the menu a...
A friend from India had the Dussehra festival at the beginning of October and invited my son and I to stop by on the way home and see her decorations and sample some of their foods. You can find most...
There’s a combination local butcher shop and restaurant in Baltimore called Parts & Labor, which someone at work recommended to Tony. Normally we wouldn’t drive that far to dinner but we made...
I feel really blessed to work at a company (Westat) that has a fitness center and a good cafeteria. You can make some unhealthy choices in the cafeteria, of course, but the majority of what they offer...
The first time I was invited to dinner at my husband’s parents’, his mom made salmon and pasta. She said she was experimenting on us with something new, which struck me as funny for a first-time...
The neighbors purged their garden late yesterday because they heard we were about to get our first freeze of the winter, which we did, and they gave us a nice crop of celery, leeks, and a variety of...
There was a fun article in the Post today about a local high school cooking class. There are 160 kids taking the class at this one school. Only two of the 13 schools in that county offer culinary arts...
Aren’t I full of surprises – making sticky buns? There must be a story behind it. The B&B guests this weekend got the usual strawberry yogurt parfait before breakfast Saturday morning and it did...
A couple of days ago I mentioned a woman I met at the airport who was complaining about the price of (factory) ground beef. By now I imagine just about everyone has an idea of the way CAFOs...
I finally moved my range back into the kitchen last night – hurray! Although, my back is paying the price today. Since it gets dark so early now I decided to broil the lamb chops instead of using the...
I’m still waiting to get my stove hooked back up, but the floor is in and the grout is dry. I put lamb chops in the frig to thaw from the freezer two or three days ago, and I’m going to marinate them...
This is an easy dinner when it’s too hot to use the stove or oven, or if you don’t have an oven. My range is out on the back porch while the kitchen floor gets replaced. I had a plan to take up many...
Hello fellow voters; I hope you had a chance to vote early, absentee, or in person today. It will be a relief for the voter phone calls and ads to come to an end, won’t it? And I hope they clean up...
A friend on Facebook put a recipe similar to this on my page and it makes a great snack to have with a movie or cookout instead of regular chips. After removing some of the moisture, you can bake...
Today my brother invited us to The Huntsman Hunt Club, which is a private shooting preserve in Dryden, Michigan. There’s a large restaurant in the main lodge that takes reservations and a cigar bar...
Today was a no-cooking day since we were in Ann Arbor for the Michigan homecoming game. The pre-game alumni tailgate party was in the field house, and local restaurants contributed food in addition to...
Happy Halloween! I’m not much into Halloween – big surprise. One time a dentist told me that the best thing for kids is to let them gorge themselves on Halloween candy all Halloween night, as much as...
The blueberries are all gone for this year at the blueberry farm but I had an idea to add some of the frozen ones to a pear clafoutis from the book On Rue Tatin that I reviewed last month. A...
The first time I had an avocado I was in my 30s and a friend in Ann Arbor put chopped avocado on a grilled chicken salad. It was amazing. After that I found out about guacamole, which is even more...
Here’s another Hungarian comfort food. I buy lamb chunks and trim off the fat, or get a lamb shoulder and cut it into small pieces. You can substitute something else, although you don’t need to use...
A new food rating and comparison website launched today — Food Scores by the Environmental Working Group. You simply type in a food, for example you could enter “Frozen Sweet Potato Fries,” and...
Today we had visitors from New York that were in town for their granddaughter’s baptism. Luckily the mass wasn’t until 11:00 so they were able to have a nice, leisurely breakfast. Once in a while I...
The first time we went to the grass-fed beef farm, I innocently asked the cattle farmer if there was a chicken farm nearby. He said disgustedly, “I don’t even talk about chickens.” Next time I’ll ask...
The kids didn’t have school again for yet another non-reason, so my daughter pulled out my tomato plants for me in exchange for me taking her to get her Homecoming dress. There were a couple of...
Usually I cut acorn squash in half and use the halves as cooking bowls, which I’ll do some other time. I got this recipe idea in my email from Real Simple and I thought I’d give it a try, even though...
It’s really fun to make spaghetti squash because it’s so amazing how spaghetti-ish it is inside the squash! It’s really a fun ingredient to cook with and the easiest thing to do with it is to dig out...
One time I had some great Brussels sprouts at a restaurant, I don’t remember the name of it but it was a tapas place — where you order over-priced, appetizer-size portions of a wide variety of...
Walking through the backyard the other day I suddenly realized the broccoli raab (rob) my daughter planted a few weeks ago is starting to go to seed/flower. I looked back in the blog to see what day I...
Blueberries get their color from the flavonoid class called anthocyanins. They contain 15 different types of these anthocyanins which are powerful antioxidants that are as strong in your frozen...
Applesauce at the grocery store, particularly those single-serving brands that go into kids’ lunchboxes, usually contain either sugar or fake sugar, such as Sucralose (like Splenda). Unfortunately...
At first, it didn’t seem possible to me that cauliflower could substitute well in mashed potatoes but, except for a slightly different texture, it’s excellent. I’m not big on using a lot of potatoes...
On my top ten never-buy processed food list is carrot cake mix. Besides partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats) and other chemicals, there are absolutely no carrots in it whatsoever. The “carrots”...
In case anyone wonders why I suggest my pie crust for the empanadas, I ran a little taste test today. I made half of the empanadas with a coconut oil pie crust, and half with a more traditional eggy...
These are easy biscuits to make when you want to use up buttermilk. I will add a tag to the site for buttermilk recipes to make it easy to search for them because if you’re buying buttermilk for a...
Still looking for another way to use up the last of the cherry tomatoes, I came across today’s recipe which I modified from the October 2014 Cooking Light (pg. 26). It has two of the best sources of...
Yesterday we talked about some of the issues surrounding overproduction of feed corn, and now I’ll make something yummy with non-genetically modified sweet corn. This is sweet field corn grown on a...
Today I’ll talk more about feed corn and then tomorrow make something yummy with non-genetically modified sweet corn. Sweet corn is the corn that you buy at produce stands and supermarkets to eat and...
Today I had a weird craving for me, which was to walk in through the back door after work and head straight to the frig for a beer! I only buy beer about once a year, so luckily I still had one...
Pleasant Hill Produce was set up outside of England Acres farm store on Saturday morning and had a wide variety of produce. The owners are Heather (also my daughter’s algebra teacher at the high...
Can you imagine going a whole year and never eating the same thing twice? That’s what I’m doing, because if I eat the same thing twice I won’t have something new to blog about! Once in a while we have...
I was reading an article in the October Cooking Light magazine where a chef, Cory Bahr, was talking about the versatility of turnips. He grew up with turnips (in Louisiana) and it caught me by...
It finally struck me that coconut oil in its raw form (un-melted) is almost the same consistency as shortening, so I should use it in pie crusts. Pie crust recipes are almost always insufficient to...
This is the weekend I thought I was going to provide a video of Nona making her lasagna with her sister, Sylvia, visiting from Italy. I promised back in June to do an interview with the Italian...
For the first time I attended a birthday that had a fruit cake – not a fruitcake, but a cake made only out of fruit. It was for a child’s first birthday. I’ve met a few mothers over this past year...
Especially if you have rainbow chard and want to use those beautiful stems, here is a creamy chard pasta comfort food for the next day after you make yesterday’s chard soup or anything that calls for...
You can see that chard is a superfood by looking at it and noticing the super dark green leaves, and once you know it is a member of the beet family (but without an edible bulbous root), it becomes...
When I first heard about eating raw oysters in college, someone told me that you’re supposed to swallow them whole. It seemed kind of pointless to me to eat them because if you’re not going to chew...
Pick-Your-Own farms are not only a great place to take the kids so that they can see where their food originates – not really one of those cold aisles in the grocery store – but it brings everyone in...
Tomatoes are still coming in but I’m not sure how much longer we have until we get a frost. Right now it’s still in the 70s during the day here, and usually the 50s at night so the tomatoes are still...
Food scraps and yard waste currently make up 20 to 30 percent of what we throw away, and should be composted instead. Making compost keeps these materials out of landfills where they take up space and...
While many articles say that you don’t need sugar in canning, almost all of the recipes have sugar. I wanted to use up all of the sweet peppers from Full Cellar Farm in a pepper relish and spent about...
If you follow my blog, you may know my kids are Russian. Two of them (13 and 16) got together and made this great Borscht. When they first arrived from Russia, we did quite a bit to maintain their...
This is my Uno’s copy pizza. During and after college I bartended at Uno’s in Ann Arbor and in San Diego (Pacific Beach) and my favorite pizza was spinoccoli. I haven’t had it much since then, but...
There was a recipe I wanted to try that called for lamb rib chops but all I remembered when I was talking to the farmer’s wife at the market was “lamb chops” and it turned out there were a half dozen...
Right when I was thinking it’s squash season and time to start thinking of what to do with everything from a pumpkin to a spaghetti squash, a friend told me fall means it’s bread and pizza season...
It is getting CHILLY! Not an easy time to sit on the cold bleachers at the school stadium. I actually got a hot chocolate and have no idea what was in it or how they made it – it was the only hot...
An article in Eating Well this summer gave some misleading information about how much sweet corn in the United States is genetically modified. While it’s true, as stated, that over 90% of the field...
Here is a fall recipe based on one in the Good and Cheap PDF referenced Thursday. You can see in the photos that my husband followed the recommendation of grating frozen butter. I probably would use...
Three sociologists published a paper in Context this summer about how cooking for families, particularly in low-income households, is unjoyful and stressful, and simply idealistic and unrealistic. The...
Last Friday I talked about cruciferous vegetables which include Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts are a great source of isothiocyanates, one of the biologically active compounds formed in the...
I still had one zucchini and one squash to use that were starting to look a tad wrinkly. I had a recipe in mind from the time I read the June Bon Appetit magazine while I was getting a haircut, so I...
I had another load of cherry tomatoes starting to go bad on the vines again, and Tony pulled this recipe from his AARP magazine just in time. He prepared the tomato mixture (slightly modified) the...
When I was at the nearby farm, England Acres, to cut a bunch of dill to make pickles last weekend, I picked up a flyer for an organization called Fermentation on Wheels. They have a traveling culinary...
I got a great dinner idea from a friend and his wholesome-food-loving, young chef kids, Brendan (3 years old) and RJ (6 years old) in Washington D.C. They went to Larriland Farm in Woodbine, MD, to...
Another great day for canning and this time I made pickles. My cucumber plants are dry already so I bought 13 cucumbers at the farmer’s market for $4.00. This amount made seven jars of pickles so it...
The West Frederick Farmer’s Market moved from the north side of W. Patrick to the south side. You have to take Walnut behind the Red Horse restaurant and it ends on Oak, then go to the United...
Today I send warm thoughts to everyone on this anniversary of a painful day in our world’s history, especially for anyone who lost someone. Or even for survivors who may sometimes wonder what we’re...
I was running late and my husband was getting home first. I asked him to look up a recipe for beets because I had diced up 4 or 5 beets and had them in a container in the frig. He found a recipe...
There was a bizarre advertisement on the side of my yahoo email account. It was for Velveeta macaroni and cheese and, besides a picture of the product, there was a picture of a basic car with a really...
I just realized that I never posted my B&B specialty: raspberry sunflower seed butter granola pancakes. I even referenced it on one of the seasonal eating pages — how I substitute...
Sometimes I ask myself, “If purple carrots are the best carrots for the people, how come everyone buys orange carrots?” It’s kind of like asking, “If high fructose corn syrup is bad for you, why is it...
It took me about ten years on and off trying to perfect this recipe. There’s a section of Detroit called Greek Town, and in and around that area there is a pizza that is special to Detroit. It’s not...
I only had three pieces of tilapia in the freezer and we were down to three people for dinner due to extenuating circumstances of soccer practice and the first high school football game, so it was an...
This was my first time buying okra. I’ve eaten it a couple of times in the cafeteria at work (only deep-fried), but I had never handled a fresh one before. I read online that some okra recipes are...
Today Tony gave me an article from an AARP magazine that reported in the years between 2008 and 2012, home-based produce gardening increased 17% in the U.S. The National Gardening Association says...
I’ve been cooking a lot with tomatoes but haven’t really gone into the benefits of the vegetable, I mean fruit – it’s actually a berry! Unfortunately, it’s also a night shade plant; so if you avoid...
Labor Day is traditionally a grill day so luckily we had perfect grilling weather today after a stormy Sunday evening. I simplified this recipe from one in the June 2014 Bon Appetit magazine that I...
After making a wrong turn out of my daughter’s friend’s driveway out in the middle of nowhere the other day, I found myself in Mt Airy, MD, in front of one of the best shops in the area, Super Foods...
In the spring I posted the best times of year for planting, but more importantly (in case you aren’t able to grow your own food) is when things are in harvest. We’re about to get into the time of year...
I still had two steak burgers in the freezer from one farmer’s market and a package of sage sausage from another, plus with all of my newly canned tomatoes I thought it was a perfect combination for...
You’ll have to resist the urge to run and get your car keys when you hear this, but today on the way to my son’s soccer practice, I saw a sign in front of Burger King that says “Chicken Fries are...
I’m learning that the cherry tomatoes have to be picked before they crack or else they go bad fast. But with just two plants, they come in faster than a busy person can use them. My neighbor has...
Last time I was at the Common Market in Frederick, I signed up to become a member. This is a food co-op that supports farms and businesses within 150 mile of the store. You don’t have to be a member...
I still have some tomatoes left that I didn’t feel like canning, and bruschetta is a great summer side dish. We don’t really have time for appetizers at my house, but it would be lovely to have on its...
Some of the tomatoes have been on the vine too long and are starting to go bad, so it’s time to pick and “put them up.” I’m having to throw quite a few in the compost and the tomatoes in the kitchen...
Mussels are fairly inexpensive and cook quickly. Both farmed and wild mussels are both good seafood choices now in regards to sustainability and mercury levels. They make a great outdoor summer meal...
I caught part of a cooking show rerun last week – Bobby Flay was grilling with Kevin Clash, the voice of Elmo from Sesame Street. I was surprised...
These roasted potatoes are about the only potato recipe I make any more except for holiday mashed. Leave the skin on because the most nutritious part of a potato is the skin; which makes the smaller...
I was happy to come across a meatloaf recipe that’s only half meat, because we love meatloaf but want to eat less. It tastes great and the only difference from a full loaf of meat is a slightly less...
Today was a slow cooker day and I love the blend of spices in Indian tikka masala. It’s not hot spicy, it’s flavorful spicy. If you want hot spicy, you will need to add that in addition to the recipe...
Don’t you hate when you make something for dinner and just as you’re clearing the table after the meal you remember that you forgot to serve it? I did that today. I put the cucumber salad back in the...
You know you’re in Maryland when you go to a baseball game food counter and they’re serving crab cakes. Today we took in a minor league ball game at Harry Grove Stadium in Frederick where the Keys...
I had an interesting jaunt to Panama City Beach because luckily I have an adventurous Godmother. She lives in Naples, Florida, and I suggested last spring that we plan to get together either at her...
When we got to Moscow with two kids we were adopting, we met up with my ex-pat cousin and he took them to an American diner burger joint and fed my son more than he was probably used to eating in a...
Today I sliced the first melon that I’ve ever grown. I’ve always had a problem getting them to ripen before the first frost. It helps to live in Maryland, rather than Michigan, since I’ve never...
Getting back to the Cooking in a French Town book that I reviewed last week, today I tried the stuffed cabbage (pg. 108). I’ve made a lot of Hungarian stuffed cabbage with meat but this is the first...
If you grow zucchini, around this time of year one of them hides out under a giant zucchini plant leaf and grows like mad. Maybe you noticed it at one time and thought you’d just give it another...
Time to grill that other chicken that I put in the freezer once after going to the farmer’s market, but this time I’m going to butterfly it instead of sitting it on a can. Since I got home late, I...
I took the girls to the ice skating rink and my daughter asked if she could take $5 to buy a snack. My first thought was, “It’s going to take $5 to buy a snack – what a rip off.” But I need to get...
One weekend this fall, I’ll try a real Hungarian apple strudel but for now I’ll take the easy route and use some phyllo dough for a quick strudel from the April/May 2012 Vegetarian Times magazine...
A farmer at the weekend market was selling meat cut and packaged for kebabs, so I bought one pack to put on skewers and grill along with a lot of vegetables. Otherwise, leaving the meat off and...
As promised during the sprouted grain discussion, today I tried another recipe from Janie Quinn‘s Sprouted Grain Baking cookbook. Honestly I didn’t quite have the 2 cups of sprouted grain flour, so I...
It’s sadly ironic that the wealthiest country in the world, and I dare say one of the coolest, most diverse, and beautiful, is not one of the healthiest. In fact we’re not even in the top 25 (#33 in...
The basil plants are large, healthy, and full of fragrant leaves. Basil likes moist soil and hot sun. A couple of plants will keep you with a steady supply of basil all summer, and you can certainly...
My local Slow Food chapter has a book club. It’s not currently convenient for me to make the meetings, but I’m reading the books on my own for fun. The first one I finished is On Rue Tatin, Living and...
There’s usually some kind of virus going around – stomach virus, cold virus – especially if you have school-age children, and we’re only a few weeks away from the start of another germ-filled...
I had garlic bread on the menu for today but forgot to buy the large loaf of bread that I wanted at the bakery. Instead of driving out again, I pulled out the bread maker and decided to make a more...
I had a friend visiting from North Carolina and made this recipe for the first time. It’s from an old issue of Vegetarian Times (April/May 2011). They said “you’ll need some dexterity to flip the...
A week or so ago, there was a radio discussion about the food-mood connection that addressed the relationship between long-term stress and eating habits. Stress can lead to consuming bad foods and...
Vegies and dip sounds like a boring meal until you call it “crudités” and have it beautifully arranged on a plate with a nice glass of wine and some freshly baked bread. Crudité is French for uncooked...
Usually I bake stuffed peppers in the oven, but you can also put the same peppers in the slow cooker. Get everything ready the night before if you want to save time the morning, then take it out of...
You may have noticed my serving sizes in some of my plated foods photographs, and I’ve mentioned portion control a few times. Portion size is a huge factor in health and weight. People can even become...
Tony started reading about different flours (because he is reducing gluten) and learned about sprouted grains digesting like vegetables versus starchy carbohydrates. The combination of having slightly...
This is the perfect time of year to start making my favorite cake because everything is coming into season. I would normally keep making this one cake through the fall, but this year I will try some...
Although only 1% of Americans have celiac disease which makes being gluten-free essential, many people realize it’s difficult for them to digest gluten and they feel better without it. In fact, 83% of...
When I was little, my Grandma had a little strip of garden bed across the back of her house and along the fence. She always had a lot of fresh parsley and tomatoes. When we were in the yard, she would...
Since we had leftover chicken from Monday, here are the instructions on mixing chicken salad. First, when you’re cleaning the meat off of the chicken, throw in any of the herb or spice mixture that...
When I cleaned the counters the other day I found a Cooking Light magazine from October, 2012. I haven’t gone through it yet to figure out what I saved it for, but today the cover photo of a streusel...
I feel compelled, after ripping on chicken the other day, to provide the dear readers a chicken recipe (and a beer can scavenger hunt story), because my point isn’t to make everyone a vegetarian...
I have almost enough food in the refrigerator for next week’s menu. I just need to make a loaf of bread, get mushrooms and a couple of things not in the yard or farm stands, and fish for one night...
Once years ago, I was out in my side yard talking to the neighbor and this big swarm of gnats came by and we were shoeing them off and shortly after I went inside. A few minutes later I started...
You may notice red dye on the ingredients label for salmon at your local grocery store. That indicates a farm-raised fish, which cannot naturally feed on zooplankton to get its pinkish color...
Today I had to clean the counter which meant moving a pile of cookbooks, magazines, and recipe notes. One of the cookbooks is Cooking for Heroes and was handed out by the American Red Cross1 one time...
Slow cooker (crockpot) recipes can really save you from a lot of stress around the dinner hour. Usually you dump everything in the pot and turn it on, so they are super easy. If there’s a chance you...
Tony spoke the famous words tonight, “There’s no way I can mess this up.” First, the menu for today had green beans on it. Then my son’s camp van got stuck in traffic on the beltway returning from a...
When winter sets in, we’re going to miss all of this fresh, beautiful, local produce. Of course you can buy stuff shipped in from around the world, but it doesn’t smell and taste the same. One time...
I saw on Facebook that my neighbor and friend was going to the Howard County Fairgrounds for the weekend Pow Wow. He has a Native American jewelry and arts shop here on Main Street. After getting the...
A new farmer’s market opened on Main Street in New Market, across the street from my B&B. The building is going to open soon as a breakfast and lunch restaurant called Vintage. I’m particularly...
Someone forwarded me an email about events going on through Slow Food DC. The Slow Food movement began in Rome, Italy, in the late 1980s after a McDonald’s tried to open a franchise there. Since then...
When I first heard of portobello burgers, I thought it sounded like mushroom overload, but they actually taste remarkably like regular burgers. In fact, most places call them mushroom steaks (you...
One of the many road trips I went on with my Grandpa was to northern Michigan to go fishing when I was a teenager. He probably took me fishing with him because I liked putting night crawlers on...
Finally got around to making the calzone that I promised last month. My mother-in-law made these with Italian sausage instead of the spinach. I got a late start so I didn’t feel like making separate...
There’s a natural food store and café in Frederick, MD, called Common Market that has been there since 1974. It’s similar to Whole Foods except more focused on small local farms, reasonably priced...
Today was a weird day to make dinner because one kid is at overnight camp and the other one had to work during the dinner hour. I had to cook lamb steaks because they were previously frozen and...
Today my son’s summer overnight camp in Gambrill State Park had parents’ visiting day. Parents were supposed to bring a dish to share for lunch. Everyone in his unit (besides him) is vegetarian...
Today we biked a portion of the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio) canal towpath trail in Maryland to end up at the bridge where you can cross over to old town Harper’s Ferry, WV. The trail is 185 miles...
Luckily I picked up a nice, little, backyard harvest yesterday since Hurricane Arthur is in town today. Once the cucumbers (or pickles, doesn’t really matter which) come in full force, it will be time...
After picking a kid up from one side of one town and another kid from the other side of a different town, which placed me in the perfect time and location for the height of rush hour, there was no way...
I went to a co-worker’s office at work and she had a McDonald’s bag on her desk and was eating dinner. She told me she stops at McDonald’s almost every day at least once. I didn’t ask her if she knows...
This makes a really colorful meal, especially when you use the rainbow chard. If you can buy meat from farmers that only pasture their animals in grass, then the meat is gluten-free because they...
This guy name Lou Altobelli, on the corner of 108 and New Hampshire Ave, sells the most giant horse carrots. I stopped there today to get a picture of one but he was out, so I’ll try again next month...
One weekend a month I go to the Blueberry Gardens Center for Yoga, Growth, and Healing in Ashton, Maryland. I’ve been waiting since January for the U-pick blueberry season. According to their website...
I usually wait to make eggplant parmesan for the weekend since it takes a while to brown the eggplant slices. Although, now I have shown the kids how to do the browning so it can be done when I get...
I was in line getting a coffee recently and the woman in front of me was telling the barista about a granola bar she liked (I didn’t catch what kind it was), and the barista told her that she liked...
Back at my mother-in-law’s today and picked a bucket of sugar snap peas. She has found that there’s no such thing as deer-resistant anything, so you can see the extent of fencing around the main...
Here’s a garden update: the carrots never appeared unfortunately. There’s only one and I think it’s a volunteer back from last year. I went out to get a picture and ended up spending a half hour...
I suddenly realized that we could have been using the slow cooker through the height of sports season when we sometimes had to eat in shifts. A slow cooker dinner can sit there and be ready and warm...
Sometimes on Sundays we get a coffee in the grocery store and have been trying to remember to take along our re-usable travel mugs from home — it struck me one day that we keep buying single...
Today at the farm market (England Acres) there were a lot of peach and apple pies and Baker Jack was there to point out the ingredients, how heavy they were (3 lbs!), and answer questions. I never had...
I decided to find out what happened with the House bill that I reported about (on May 27). This bill would allow schools to opt out of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 if they showed...
Understandably, I had a dream last night that I was reading ingredients on food labels. I like to keep track of whether there is a cost difference between real food and fake food over time, based on...
It was in the 90s today (I love spring but I was starting to wonder what happened to summer). While I was at work, the plumber came over and put in a sump pump since after the last deluge we had about...
I was perusing the news and saw an article in Tech Times about a beef recall last week with possible links to mad cow disease. You see these recalls more often now. The recall was from a factory in...
I have a couple each of blueberry and raspberry plants that came back from last yet, but the fruit is still tiny and green, so I bought some organic raspberries. I also keep a bag of organic...
Happy Father’s Day! My son and I went to a local fish market called Lighthouse Seafood because Tony was hoping for tuna steaks for Father’s Day dinner; he said he used to make them often. Everything...
My son and I stopped at a local farm called England Acres (their last name is England) and found a great market with everything fresh in season and organic. It’s a beautiful 1870s farm and besides the...
One of the goals of this site is to celebrate our food. People never need to feel guilty about their eating habits, as there is no benefit in doing so, and guilt isn’t a prescription for better...
Earlier (May 13) I posted my Caesar dressing recipe which has six ingredients in it. A name brand Caesar dressing at the store has over 20 ingredients. Among them are phosphoric acid, modified food...
Today I received a telephone survey about food from an organization associated with our supermarket. The topic of eating a wide diversity of vegetables came up and I mentioned that we were trying to...
I mentioned my previous groundhog posting, that they’re huge, eat everyone’s gardens, and nothing can stop them. Last year I tried to grow lettuce, kale, and rainbow chard, along with a lot of...
One day I was at my desk at work and my son’s teacher called to tell me that he stole a cinnamon roll at breakfast. Yes, the lovely Friday free breakfast offering at his school – the cinnamon roll...
No cooking today because I’m blessed to be working for a company that still provides a summer picnic for the employees. At least 1,000 people attend for the day of fun activities on this huge...
The longest running farmer’s market in our area (within ten miles), since we live in the north, is May-November. I searched using a friend’s zip code that lives in Louisiana, and the farmer’s market...
Earlier this week my daughter volunteered to make Lo Mein. It’s her favorite thing to order at a Chinese restaurant. She saw a picture of it in a magazine ad and got the idea to search online for a...
If you ever have food at home that you don’t want to eat or receive it as a gift but can’t bring yourself to throw away, just take it to the vultures at the office. They’ll eat anything you leave in...
My daughter had another softball game about 40 minutes in one direction while my son had a baseball game 40 minutes in another direction at the same time with no time between work and games to drive...
I got the idea for the presentation of this dish from the cover of the April 2014 Cooking Light magazine. Their dish was crab cakes with a different sauce and these are salmon patties but it still...
Yesterday while I was mixing various things into the bison to make burgers, my son sliced the cucumbers for the salad. This is a “salad” for Eastern Europeans — if you’re from somewhere like...
Meat-free meals are not the norm for us, and doing a complete transition,not just from fake foods, but all the way to vegetarian, would be a major shift. We’re still going to eat local farm purchased...
I spent last evening and part of the night going through recipes, organizing what could be accomplished on a weekday versus the weekend, and figuring out what ingredients could be used to their...
Took a different route home from work today to avoid accident traffic on the highway and saw a farm market called Rock Hill. I pulled in they had some nice, healthy plants out front that were only...
Tony was inspired by the kale slaw on his sandwich last Friday at Beck’s and found a recipe on the Food Network website which we highly modified to make it much simpler. I try to make all of the...
I read in the Washington Post one day about a House measure, supportedby Republicans and pushed by food industry lobbyists and some school officials, that would allow some districts to opt out of...
Dill was the only herb left in the back porch planter that needed a serious haircut so I had planned for fish thinking a lot of dill could be used in the marinade or topping. This marinade can be used...
Someone from work invited me to their annual Memorial Day potluck cookout. I volunteered Tony to make his tortellini salad, which I do whenever we get invited to a potluck. They have a beautiful place...
This is going to be an herb extravaganza weekend because we have been getting so much rain that the herbs are growing out of their planters. If I don’t give them all haircuts, I’m going to need to...
My sourdough starter needed a kickstart, so I’ve been pouring off discard twice a day and finally had a chance on the weekend to use some of it for these very easy biscuits. I like the look and...
I picked up my mother-in-law because she likes to go to Whole Foods, and we headed out on the gray day, with clouds looming and Rockville Pike covered with traffic. Although Whole Foods has a great...
I’m finally doing a Happy Dance over here with a nice, fresh loaf of bread! Tony took both kids to my son’s baseball game and I stood next to the island and watched the bread maker like a hawk. ...
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), consumers can reduce their pesticide exposure by 80% by avoiding the most contaminated fruits and vegetables. Definitely check out their list of the...
You can make these square gardening beds yourself but I bought them on sale at Ace Hardware for $28 plus I had a $5 off coupon from the back of a grocery receipt. I’m going to start with two (in...
Mother’s Day was behind us, and I hadn’t even started, but it’s never too late. Last year, I planted small vegetables in the same planter as the tomatoes. When the tomatoes grew huge, they blocked the...
One of the first people I met in my town after moving here was the egg lady. Everybody knows her and she delivers eggs on Main Street from her farm that’s only a couple blocks away. She’s not exactly...
Since we had raisins, I tried a cinnamon bread recipe in the bread maker yesterday which did not turn out (surprise!), but I sliced it up for dinner today to make French toast. Apparently it was a...
Happy Mother’s Day!! My kids gave me some sweet (and pretty funny) cards. All of my kids are adopted from Russia and I remember the first mother’s day with the siblings, which was about nine months...
While out trying a local food restaurant (more on that later) we stopped at an organic grocery store called Roots and bought dry milk powder to try a new bread recipe. It didn’t work, so I visited a...
I was walking through the meat department at the grocery store and theywere selling boxes of pork short ribs on sale for $10, originally $24. It said therewere 4-6 slabs in each box, which could mean...
I put the ingredients in the bread maker before work and came home to bread, but that turned out to be a bad idea. You need to be home when the bread is finished otherwise it sits in there are gets...
I was at Safeway looking at the produce one day, trying to figure out the difference between a turnip, rutabaga, and a parsnip. Tony said, “If your grandmother could see you now, she’d be saying, ‘She...
When looking at fruit juice labels, get 100% juice with no high fructose corn syrup or sugar, artificial colors, or other additives. The downsides of 100% juice are that it’s still processed with, for...
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