From the category archives:

Pasta & Pizza

Attending the Idaho Potato Harvest to Learn About a Simple, Fascinating, Delicious Food

It was the Idaho Potato Commission’s 2012 harvest tour – eleven food bloggers, including me, were shipped off to Idaho to get the scoop on spuds for our readers. Think potatoes are a simple veggie? It took close to four days to deep-dive into the topic enough to really, truly grasp “why” Idaho, “why” fresh [...]

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Fresh Beets and Farfalle

This has been a Big Summer o’ Beets. Not complaining; here’s another beet-infused recipe. Honesty, if I tried harder I would find a whole wheat bowtie pasta, but this is DAMN GOOD. There, I said it – we attempt to eat whole wheat but luv the white stuff. Fresh Beets and Farfalle is a [...]

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Grilled Badda Bing Flatbread Pizzas

OK, I admit that my little pizza is not a pretty shape. And… a teensy bit burned on the edge, too. I decided not to Photoshop my mistake, but rather be honest and point it out. My oven rack was too close to the heat in the broiler, that was the source of the problem. [...]

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Mushroom, Basil and Goat Cheese Lasagna Roll-Ups

There’s this thing out there called Wordless Wednesday. I think food bloggers tire of writing posts, but have some nice food photos to share, so they use Wednesday to get caught up. I like the idea. So, consider this an Almost Wordless Wednesday post. I created this Mushroom, Basil and Goat Cheese Lasagna Roll-Ups for [...]

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Farfalle with Mushroom and Prosciutto Ragu

The backstory for this recipe is, admittedly, lame. I basically tore a recipe from a newspaper. Despite my home economics degree and decades-long food career, I don’t create many original recipes. My collection is pretty much everyone else’s work that I have tweaked to suit our tastes. What I’m good at is feeding Larry, someone who likes what [...]

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Lemon and Goat Cheese Pasta

Here is last night’s dinner — an adaptation of the easiest recipe imaginable penned by friend Erika of In Erika’s Kitchen. Her Meyer Lemon Spaghetti with Goat Cheese spoke to me. And I hadn’t planned on photographing the meal; I was just interested in eating it. But Larry said, “no, shoot it.” Wayadaminnit, that’s strange… [...]

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How to Cook Thai Rice Sticks

This cooking class at Let’s Get Cookin’ in Westlake Village was great fun — presented by prolific cookbook author, Hugh Carpenter, we foodies were immersed in Thai recipes, always good eats. Hugh’s dry sense of humor kept us in stitches while we soaked up cooking techniques that are quite useful. Cooking rice sticks, for starters.

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Patti’s Noodle Bowl for Two

Another name for the recipe could be, “What’s in the produce bin that needs eating NOW?” With a teensy bit of leftover meat, Asian-ish veggies and some noodles, Noodle Bowl is served. One challenge to this dish is ~ it makes you sweat. Not spicy sweat, but steamy sweat. Great for winter, but we eat [...]

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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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Bacon Macaroni and Cheese

Bacon, bacon, bacon. It’s not something that is always in the fridge here, and when it is, it takes several recipes to use it up. Frankly, I’d love to consume multiple strips each morning; guilt overrides that. What to cook with some el tocino? Four slices are needed for Bacon Mac N’ Cheese. If ever [...]

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Thai Pasta with Chicken or Turkey

In anticipation of turkey leftovers, friends… Larry and I both work from home offices so we share a good number of meals together. For my lunch today, I dibbed leftovers of this Thai Pasta with Chicken while we were still eating it for dinner last night. We were in Thailand a few years ago and [...]

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Larry’s Excellent Pizza

Have you seen the foodie blog, Hungry Hungry Hippie? Blogger Elise’s mom is my cousin, Melinda. I noticed this week that HHH was being written by middle sis, Laura – that’s how I discovered their ENTIRE family is vacationing in Hawaii, ‘cept Laura! What a good sister – and turns out, a good blogger. I [...]

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Tuscan Chicken Pallard over Fettuccine

There was this handsome, bald guy on TV making dinner with ingredients I already had (minus arugula). I’d never seen him before (and I love TV). His show was A Lyon In The Kitchen on the Discovery Health Channel and now I know his name is Nathan Lyon. A recipe like this is one of [...]