BasilandFig

The other night I was having this dream about food.  We were at a restaurant, or maybe I was cooking at home.  There was a meatloaf terrine-thing—basically a rectangular block of meat with a layer of potatoes all around it, which was then rolled in panko or maybe cornflake crumbs, and then there was a [...]

Last fall I did something that could either be called brilliant or insane (I’m leaning towards brilliant): I bought a 45+ pound box of sweet potatoes.  For $12.  At a hardware store.

It was for a good cause, okay? (I think it was a church, or something?)

And they were dug from a farm just a few [...]

There are a few things I learned about people and about grocery shopping during my time as a cashier, chief among them being OH MY GOD LADY, Why is your shopping cart full of 80 pounds of ground beef and 1 gallon of bleach?!

I also learned that the only thing more embarrassing than buying a [...]

We make a lot of pasta around here.  And we also make a lot of casseroles.

So it seems only natural that we’d end up making baked pasta casseroles, too.

One of the first dishes I ever learned to make was lasagna.  I mean, how hard is it, really?  Lasagna just falls into the ‘tedious’ rather than [...]

Pretty certain I will never be a hand model as there is always dirt under my fingernails. Sorry.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking, geez, couldn’t you have posted this recipe before the Superbowl, so that I could’ve had something easy and delicious to eat while we watched the game commercials?

Well, yeah.

But [...]

When I was a kid, broccoli was a persistent companion at the dinner table.

Often, to get us to eat more of it (or to eat it at all) it was accompanied by Cheez Whiz.

And I’m not gonna lie: it was delicious.

Usually the whole jar was microwaved, stirred at 30 second increments until it was hot [...]

Cooking fish is one of those tasks that, on the surface, is easy to do.

Anyone can cook a fish—but not everyone can cook a fish well.

And because fish cooks so quickly, it is easy to go from well-cooked—moist and tender—to overcooked, dry, and tough.  The difference is mere minutes.

I myself am guilty of ruining a [...]

Look, I know buttermilk is sort of having a ‘foodie moment’ right now, that it might be the pork belly of 2012.  There are these buttermilk shakes; the blueberry buttermilk shakes on special at Duck Fat; buttermilk banana bread; a new cookbook devoted entirely to buttermilk; and, of course, buttermilk biscuits which are no passing [...]

First of all, No.  This is not a recipe for the sweet and sour chicken you get at your local Chinese restaurant.  It is better.

It is also easier and healthier, as it is a one-pot meal that does not involve deep-frying.

And—bonus!—it is fairly cheap if you buy chicken thighs when they’re on sale, and makes [...]

When My Guy and I first started dating we briefly signed up for one of those online genealogy programs, just to make sure that we were not somehow distant cousins.

Because that would just be too Southern for me to handle, and nothing ruins a relationship as swiftly and terribly as finding out you’re related.

I don’t [...]