From the category archives:

Fruits & Nuts

Pucker Up! A Dozen Yumm-O Lemon Recipes

Here in sunny So Cal, citrus grows everywhere. Farms and fields, front and side yards, pots on porches, stairways and terraces. We planted our tree in Y2K following our major home remodel. I’m the tree trimmer and keep it just a little taller than Larry. It took some years to become prolific but now… Got [...]

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Mango Avocado Salad ~ “Food, Fast” Is Much Better Than “Fast Food”

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Swear on a stack of bibles, I’m not sucking up to sponsors from Camp Blogaway. We ended our Camp with a HUGE supply of goodies, some ripening quickly. Today, I whipped up lunch in five minutes, made a pretty picture, then sat on the porch swing and savored my fresh Mango Avocado Salad.

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Mini Glazed Lemon Corncakes

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Holy Moly, these Mini Glazed Lemon Corncakes are fab!! {TWO exclamation points.} Dense, moist, lemony, sweet. Here’s the brainstorm… first, a too-large bag of cornbread mix in the pantry, left over from Easter. Next, lemon tree, loaded with fruit. I was on my 3-mile Sunday walk (good girl), pondering cooking (natch). There HAD to be [...]

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Kahlua-Glazed Peaches & Vanilla-Kahlua Yogurt For Two

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  Tell me if I’m wrong, but more words aren’t necessary. Fresh summer peach. Kahlua. Dunk, roast. Stir a little more into plain yogurt. Fresh vanilla bean. Drizzle. Sweet. Savoring. Kahlua-Glazed Peaches & Vanilla-Kahlua Yogurt for Two. Only Larry and me here, today that’s all that counts.

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Marty’s Spicy Almonds ~ Block Party!

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Every early summer for the past nine years, Larry has hosted a neighborhood block party. I say “Larry has,” because two chiefs don’t work so well for this event. He checks a date with a collection of immediate neighbors, who then help with distributing flyers, bringing beverages and ice, tent setup (always a comedy of [...]

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Happy Birthday Lemon Bars for my Dad

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The weekend of my dad’s 87th birthday is also the weekend of Camp Blogaway with 90 passionate foodies in the local mountains. The conflict, of course, is how to not be a jerk of a kid. WHEW, Cousin Wendy hosted Easter at her house, which gave me a visit with my pop. ACK a gift!!  [...]

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Tangerine Pudding with Citrus Yogurt

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You know I write from Southern California, right? Here, practically every yard has a heavily laden citrus tree. Ours are lemon and lime. Which was the problem; when I was making Tangerine Pudding one recent evening, I was a smidge short on fresh-squeezed tangerine juice. Lemon or lime wouldn’t fix my problem, I needed tangerine. [...]

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Your Advice, Please ~ What Do You Do With Chestnuts?

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Help!  My longtime food pro friend Lisa Ekus sent me a generous box of Roland specialty food products, lotsa fun stuff. But this California-born and still-lives-in-LA foodie (the Land of Every Kind of Eats, in other words) has a confession – Chestnuts are foreign food to me. I’m asking for your help here… what recipe [...]

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Cast Iron Apple Cobbler

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Larry was enjoying an Ozzie & Harriet Sunday.  First, a basketball afternoon game with buddy, Bruce. Returned home to a piping hot Cast Iron Apple Cobbler. “Wow, it smells great in here.” I appreciated the Ozzie reaction, thank you.  Too early for dinner, they then watched another game on TV. Are they living the life, [...]

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Guest Recipe ~ Plum Frangipane Tart by Gisele of Pain Perdu

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My readers here know by now that I had a big event last Saturday when I produced the Day Camp of Camp Blogaway. One of our sponsors, Viking Range surprised us with door prizes, which lead me to think… hmmmm, bloggers LOVE to cook and they love to compete. Thus, a “Bonus Competition” was born.  [...]

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Look: My Glazed Lemon Pound Cake Recipe Is Now An Illustration

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 This blogger is an artist with a delightful idea – draw high-quality illustrations of food bloggers’ recipes and post the art on her blog. Then, allow visitors to click to the source recipe. This is the work of the talented Lisa Orgler at The Lunchbox Project. Her artwork and products are available here on Etsy.  [...]

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Triple Citrus Cupcakes with Lime Glaze

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  Culinary throw-down: prepare a dessert elegant enough to complement friends’ upscale picnic contributions, portable, and cannot compete in flavor with the other two desserts: Larry’s Famous Brownies As Seen In Bon Appétit, plus a batch of caramel corn. The venue? A cemetery, but not to visit dearly departed. We were there to picnic and [...]

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Road Trip! U-Pick Strawberries in Carlsbad

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Our home in Westwood is at the north-west end of LA.  Cousins Nancy and John graciously hosted a family potluck at their home in Del Mar (North San Diego). That’s about a 2+hour drive IF no traffic. But since there ALWAYS IS traffic, we brought a big ice chest to keep our dishes cold. The [...]

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Strawberry Sour Cream Pie

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This pie was scrumdiddlyumptious. So much, in fact, that after Larry and I had our slices, I pawned the rest off on two neighbors’ households. It was TOO good and my fear was we’d eat it all. Larry wasn’t thrilled with this, scored one more slice, tucked it into the fridge and I bolted up [...]

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Namibia Sunset Orange Blossom Cake

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African sunsets go on forever; the sun drops behind the horizon quickly, then melts the sky into a full hour of magnificence. Considering there are no buildings to block the view, hundreds of miles of horizon can (and do) glow every night.

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Apple Cinnamon Brunch Braid

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What to do with the second half of my dessert dough from the King Arthur Flour baking demo? I did what they said, I froze it. And then I wanted to eat it. They taught us how to do this at the demo, too, so I made an apple filled braid. First, GO HERE for [...]

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Easy Meyer Lemon Curd

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This is a sneaky trick. In my recipe binder there is a stunning magazine lemon custard recipe, which is baked in a water bath. I hadn’t made it yet, but had every intention. That is, until my friend Sandy told me her mother (native Californian, Meyer lemon tree owner) would make the lemon meringue recipe [...]

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Oven German Apple Pancake a la Dinah’s

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  Don’t let the photo scare you, this is Sunday brunch deliciousness in our home. My Westside neighbor and fellow food blogger, Erika Penzer Kerekes, tapped me for a classic Los Angeles recipe to feature in her cooking column on LA Examiner.com. Both her column on this national website and her personal blog In Erika’s [...]

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One Glass of Fresh Meyer Lemonade

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Too many lemons. I was telling friend, Sandy, about a giant box of Meyer lemons that showed up on my doorstep, catching me off guard. They were a prize for my Glazed Lemon Poundcake post; a recipe that totally ROCKS. Sandy grew up in Orange County (where orange and lemon groves took up the majority [...]

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Tangerine Tart with Cookie Crust

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For more than a decade, I’ve held onto this Sunset Magazine page. You see, the prolific tangerine tree that came with this house disappeared the day our yard was demo’d for landscaping. Waaaaa. Not sure why I never just bought fruit to make the tart; maybe I was insecure.

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Road Trip: On The Hunt for Ojai’s Pixie Tangerines

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My niece, Danielle, and I were on the hunt for the most awesome of snacks, the Pixie Tangerine. They only grow in Ojai. The region produces just enough to keep the best local stores and farmer’s markets supplied and then, BUMMER, gone ‘til next season (March through summer). If Larry and I hadn’t attended a [...]

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Darn Good Guacamole

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The Perfect Guacamole recipe title prompted me to quietly tear it from the dentist office magazine. Yes, I do that sometimes, but only an emergency like this one.

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Thai Green Papaya Salad

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Well, I now know what to make when our four-couple Gourmet Club has a Thai themed dinner – this delicate Thai Green Papaya Salad. The dressing is Thai-YUM, I wanted to lick the bowl.  It’s a combo of textures, too – crunchy almonds to crisp cucumbers to soft papaya to airy fried rice sticks. But [...]

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Chicken Pumpkin Lemongrass Soup

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Things to cook with pumpkin were getting boring here, so I thought an Asian flavored soup would be different. I took this ‘n that from about five recipes and came up with a pot of flavorful, thick Chicken Pumpkin Lemongrass Soup. What gave it Asian oomph was fresh-cut lemongrass from our patio. And juice from [...]

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Canned Pumpkin Shortage? Simple Steps to Make Fresh Pumpkin Puree

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This is a refresh of my original post. I wrote last year about the national shortage of canned pumpkin. Well, this year there’s plenty, and there are also plenty of these small sugar pumpkins, too.  Now I have canned pumpkin in the pantry once again, LOTS of it.  About a month ago, I noticed my [...]

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Greek Watermelon Salad with Feta Cheese and Olives

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The simplest salad of all presented at LA Greekfest’s cooking class: Watermelon Salad with Feta Cheese and Olives. Just those three ingredients, no dressing. Slices of watermelon, chilled Feta cheese in bite size pieces Black olives, Kalamata or others, pits removed, sliced Remove rind and seeds from melon.  Cut into triangular pieces.  Place on a [...]

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Blueberry Stuffed Apples in Pastry

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Naming this recipe was tricky; besides being stuffed with fresh blueberries and baked in flaky pastry, the apples are sweetened with Red Hot candies and pure maple syrup.  TMI for a recipe name, but Larry thought the Red Hots were a pretty good idea.  I like using up the second pie crust in the box, [...]

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Easy Fresh Apple Tart ~ Homage to Julia Child

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Fellow IACP members, who recognizes this plate?  Julia Child was a founding member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals; over the years, the group’s cookbook awards gala grew to a rather big splash.  The year 1997 was so splashy, attendees received this commemorative platter and Julia took the time to autograph plates for anyone [...]

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Glazed Lemon Pound Cake

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Do you have a go-to recipe that works for most occasions? Add Glazed Lemon Poundcake to your list. Hostess gift? Check. Dessert for potluck? Check. Neighbor thanks for taking in your mail? Check. Oops, I forgot a birthday? Check, check, check.

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Peppered Strawberries in Balsamic Vinegar

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The year was maybe 1965.  My dad’s job involved transforming a Southern California strawberry farm into a housing development.  Families were invited to “pick all you want berries” on a festive day prior to plowing the field under. Our family of seven had a Country Squire Station Wagon.   With all the seats down and five [...]

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Orange-Flavored Shortcakes with Strawberries and Cream

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The article in the LA Times Food Section was long-winded, but I was committed to discovering if it was a good shortcake recipe: Orange-Flavored Shortcakes with Strawberries and Cream.  As a kid, I tasted two versions of shortcake.  One was made from Biscuick, which I don’t buy.  The other was technically the outside of a [...]

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Big Bucket o’ Lemonade

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Once a week, I volunteer at Project Angel Food as a kitchen helper.  Very rewarding, good fun, and an important community service, the organization cooks, packs and delivers meals every day to homebound, terminally ill clients.  Sometimes as many as 1700 of them, at no cost to the client.  That, alone, is pretty heartwarming. As [...]

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Fresh Homemade Applesauce in the Crockpot

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I recently learned that it’s perfectly OK to re-do a recipe post as long as you keep the original title and the post date. That keeps you from erasing the post’s history, but lets you actually rewrite history! This was one of my very first, and the writing was crappy, at best.  My original photo was also [...]

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