From the category archives:

Vegetables & Herbs

Squash Soup with Cranberry Dollop

Thumbnail image for Squash Soup with Cranberry Dollop

The Gourmet Club tries to meet four times a year. That’s four couples, each responsible for a theme, a date at their home and wrangling the calendars of the rest of us. We’ve had some luscious eats: Cuban, Italian, Thai, Japanese, Mexican, Men’s Meal (Hawaiian is upcoming) in the three-plus years this has been going [...]

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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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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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Greek Potato Salad from LA Greekfest

Some cooks need an actual recipe to feel comfortable, so this was the PERFECT demo to help break free from those shackles.  LA Greekfest instructors Akrevoe Emmanouilides and Pitsa Captain were “a little of this, a little of that” cooks, and the audience ate it up. By the end of the salad session, we [...]

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Garbanzo, Onion and Tomato Salad from LA Greekfest

OPA! For years, I’ve wanted to attend Greekfest at LA’s stunning St. Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral. I’m a native Angelino, yet had only been inside once before for the wedding of our favorite Greek, Helen. Larry’s been there often; his high school, Loyola, is next door.
No waiting for the right year, I attended [...]

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Fresh Basil Soft Pretzels

Jen, our way-cool yoga instructor at Camp GetAway for Mothers & Others had an explosion of gorgeous basil growing in her victory garden.  She was asking me about making pesto — just as I was thinking of making pretzels.  The ideas collided.
The March 2004 issue of Gourmet had a Kitchen Notebook story on how [...]

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Emperor’s Farmers Market Salad

Entitled “Cucumber, Carrot and Tomato Salad,” the recipe served 130.  That’s a good sized “cooking for a crowd” recipe, but considered small at Project Angel Food.  This was my cooking task last week with fellow volunteer, Sarah.  Since it had great blogging/household dining potential, I wrote the full size recipe on a box sticker [...]

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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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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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Chilled Gazpacho

Somebody tell me:  why does any vacation now result in me coming home with a “muffin top” (aka pot belly)?  I’m technically a lean-ish person, but lately, yikes.   Even places with not great food, I channel Miss Piggy.  Thus, when we get back home to our “grind of choice” (as my friend, Cathi calls [...]

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