From the category archives:

Meatless

Crockpot Overnight Apple Oatmeal

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I’m just thrilled with the fact that steel cut oatmeal can be easy to make. Waking up to the aroma of hot cinnamon and apples is lovely — breakfast is ready even before the coffee perks! This recipe includes fruit and nuts, healthy.

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Guest Post by Kelly, at The Pink Apron: Broccoli, Apple and Peanut Soup

From Kelly:  Patti graciously asked me to pen a post while she is away on vacation. She will be helping me out by sharing a post on mine as well. I write for the blog The Pink Apron, which I consider a marriage of from-scratch techniques and modern flavors. I wanted to share with [...]

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Guest Post by Elise at Hungry Hungry Hippie: Spaghetti Squash Mexicana

From Patti: Elise of Hungry Hungry Hippie is my ‘lil cousin. She’s vegan, a voracious food blogger, and a cardiac RN in NYC. On top of that, she and Kyle are getting married next summer.  My rule in life?  Always ask such “Type A’s” for favors like guest posts while I go on a [...]

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Westwood Village Farmers Market and How to Sauté Mushrooms

One recent Wednesday, I wanted to walk to our Westwood Village Farmers Market but had forgotten the hours. Google, google, google… where the heck is their website? All I found were press releases from last summer’s reopening after a lengthy absence due to construction, and plenty about our OTHER Farmers Market at the Westwood [...]

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How to Make Perfect, Best-Ever, Excellent Mashed Potatoes

What you’re looking at are riced russet potatoes (not actually rice). It’s a step before whuupin’ em with butter and milk to make mmmm mashed potatoes. While volunteering this week at Project Angel Food, we prepped 250 lbs. of potatoes for Chef Adrian. Then, they were cooked in a humongous brazier, mashed in a [...]

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Thai Green Papaya Salad

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. [...]

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Andersen’s Pea Soup

Pea Soup Andersen’s is a California classic for road trippers up beautiful Highway 101. Heading to our Santa Ynez wine country, setting for the movie, Sideways? Visiting the showstopper Hearst Castle? Blasting thru from LA to SFO? Pull off in Buellton for a bathroom break and incredibly luscious all-you-can-eat split pea soup.
First, I just [...]

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Paula Deen’s Warm Potato Salad (almost)

What would YOU bring to a potluck of food bloggers? Thanks to blogger In Erika’s Kitchen for pulling this growing group together! I hoped offering a side dish would give me wiggle room to ponder… salad? Veggie? Rice? Pasta? There would be husbands and kids. And of course, really good cooks (those dang food [...]

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Vietnamese Nuoc Cham Dipping Sauce

How making fresh pumpkin puree got me to prepare Vietnamese Nuoc Cham Sauce is like six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.
A) Can’t find Libby’s canned pumpkin.  B) Buy fresh pumpkins, roast and puree. C) Cook some sweet things with the puree, burn out, a good supply still in the freezer. D) Decide to [...]

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Thyme and Goat Cheese Tart Topped with Mixed Tender Greens in Champagne Vinaigrette

This isn’t exactly how we eat around our home, putting salad on top of a cheese tart. Yet, as swank as this appeared, our “Thyme and Goat Cheese Tart Topped with Mixed Tender Greens in Champagne Vinaigrette” (whew, the name alone is a mouthful) was neither pretentious nor weird. This was the salad course [...]

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Greek Watermelon Salad with Feta Cheese and Olives

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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Lemon Lentils

Autumn ~ the automatic trigger for my tummy to crave comfort food. Ordinarily, that means mashed potatoes or mac n’ cheese, but the ol’ hippie in me decided to cook lentils with lemon. Larry scarfed them down, and he doesn’t have an ounce of hippie in him.
Lentils are legumes. Cheap eats. No soaking. Nutritional [...]

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Larry’s Pesto Pizza

This is another installment in my series, “Hands Off, Ladies, He’s Mine.” Larry made dinner again recently and decided to create a spin-off of his most excellent pizza.   If you are skilled at making homemade pizza, then you can become comfortable playing with it.  Larry does this on occasion, deciding fun toppings and layouts.
This [...]

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Tri-Color Bleu Cheese Potato Salad

Picture a Sunday picnic at a countryside winery with good friends who like to cook and eat.   Homemade gourmet, local wine and a tinge of sun-kissed cheeks on a glorious Southern California afternoon really makes you believe that “life is good.”
Larry and I enjoy Gourmet Clubs, which amounts to three or four couples agreeing [...]

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Mini Basil and Goat Cheese Turnovers

Dinner party for four here. Casual menu:  Larry made his Excellent Pizza. I was excited for dessert, Butterscotch Pudding.  But while shopping for ingredients, it struck me…  I hadn’t planned an appetizer.
Wracking my brain (well, not wracking, but thinking harder than normal while shopping), my sis-in-law’s recent pool party snacks struck me as do-able. [...]

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Egyptian Tomato Soup

This is a shout-out to a terrific collection of Aussies and Kiwis (plus a few Americans and one Canadian) from our trip to Egypt.  Together, we covered long distances, soaked up history, rode camels, climbed pyramids, got our Sphinx fix, and ate lots of mediocre food.
Egyptian food is not so great.  Don’t drink the [...]

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Asparagus and Parmesan Risotto

“Anyone can make risotto, it’s impossible to screw up,” friend and former client, Carey, said.  We worked together when she was with Waterford Wedgwood.  And we worked together before that when she was with Kahlua.  My little foodie boutique firm did PR for those brands plus a bunch of others.  Carey told me she [...]

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Fresh Onion Soup for One

Not French Onion, FRESH onion. This recipe turned out about a thousand times better than I anticipated, and also rendered a masterful little recipe that serves one. Picture this… you are at the beach house, a solo traveler. By Yourself. ONE person. Who wants to be alone. And who hopefully wants to cook because [...]

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Fresh Basil Quiche with Tomatoes and Mushrooms

It worked, he ate it.  TWO portions.  I know that Larry is a Real Man, and now I know he will Eat Quiche.  Maybe it was the All Butter Pie Shell that put it over the top because nuttin’ tastes bedda dan budduh.
We humans really are easily swayed.  The stigma quiche picked up via [...]

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President Reagan’s Macaroni and Cheese

Mac ‘n Cheese has recently become a signature family dish, thanks to my sister-in-law, Lynne (who I call “Sissy”). Last Thanksgiving, she brought a whopping slab of it to my sister Gretchen’s big feast; Sissy apparently made way too much for another need and this one was a spare. (Imagine… a SPARE mac ‘n [...]

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