Coconut Pineapple Upside Down Cake

pineapple-cake

Pineapple upside down cake reminds me of my childhood and the countless afternoons I spent watching my mother play bridge or mah jongg with her friends and the Wednesday evening potlucks at our local church. She always brought one of three dishes to those potlucks: spaghetti pie, seven layer dip or pineapple upside down cake.  I [...]

Grain-free Shortbread with Salted Caramel

Last week I shared my recipe for Grain-Free Shortbread Wedges, crumbly and buttery and just in time for the holidays. Now it is time to share how I morph that recipe into delectable shortbread bars that are delicious on their own, but go completely over the top when dipped in caramel and sprinkled with sea [...]

Love and joy come to you, and to your wassail too!

I love a traditional wassail, and I make it three times  a year – on the first day of snow, on the longest night of the year and on New Year’s Eve.  And today marks the longest night of the year and the shortest day.  We’ll celebrate with wassail and by lighting a candle that [...]

Date-sweetened Gingerbread Men for a Christmas Tree Hunt

We headed into the woods this weekend to hunt for our Christmas tree and a log for our yuletide fire.   Living close to nature as we do, after all the National Forest is within walking distance of our home, we relish the turning of the seasons and, perhaps, feel their urgency more than most [...]

A Recipe: Sourdough Challah with Poppy Seeds

Whole wheat sourdough challah, fragrant with olive oil and honey, is a nourishing bread – rich, flavorful and worth the extra effort it takes to lovingly prepare the dough, roll out the strands and intricately braid the loaves.  While typically prepared from refined white flour, vegetable oil or margarine and refined white sugar, challah is, [...]

A Recipe: Pumpkin Custard for the Thanksgiving Table

Pumpkin custard, faintly sweet and deeply nourishing, finds its way to our Thanksgiving table each year.  One of my favorite desserts, pumpkin custard is suitable for those who adhere to gluten- or grain-free diets, serving as a perfect and elegant substitute for classic pumpkin pie.  I love the gentle sweetness, the rich and creamy texture [...]

Curried Lentil Soup with Coconut Milk

Curried lentil soup, rich with the heady scent of toasted cardamom, coriander and fenugreek, moves from the humble to the extraordinary. I don’t often cook curries, not that I dislike them: far from it, I love curry; it’s just that I find more easy inspiration in culinary herbs from the kitchen garden (many of which [...]

Every Apple Has Its Star & a Recipe for Apple-pear Sauce

apple pears sauce

I love the fruits of autumn - pears and quince, yes, but it is the apples I love most of all.  Indeed, eighty-five pounds of pomaceous fruit lurk in stacked cardboard boxes in my living room.  They wait for me, quietly.  And as they ripen, they release their gently scent – mildly floral and slightly spicy. [...]

Strawberry & Rhubarb Compote with Honey Custard

Spring inches its way forward, blossom by blossom, bee by bee and leaf by leaf, but in the high country, winter still sleeps soundly at my doorstep, snow continues to fall with unyielding abandon and I crave the sun. So we pack our bags, hop in the car, and hightail it out of the valley [...]

Onion Bisque with Frizzled Leeks & Rosemary

Onion bisque, a decidedly humble food, bridges the seasons of winter and spring in a beautiful marriage of overwintered onions and shallots with the new leeks of early spring. While many traditional bisques rely on thickening from cream or a floury roux, this simple onion bisque relies instead on a smooth body of pureed leeks [...]