To celebrate the last day of the National Soup Month, I made this quick and easy Spanish Sausage & Lentil soup. I’ve made it before several times.  The major difference this time — I tried it in a clay pot (bean pot). This beautiful Italian bean pot has been sitting idly in my cabinet for […]

It’s cold out there… Well, it’s cold out there somewhere other than Alabama. I scroll through my Facebook timeline and see posts of my remote friends about freezing cold, and knee deep snow, and I want to be there with them.  I love snow.  I want to be cold, curl up on the couch all […]

Remember that feeling when you come from the market and realize you just overbought something? And we aren’t talking onions or potatoes. These things will keep forever if you store them right. I am talking fish. Yes, the king of all perishables, none other!  Ok, maybe I am the only one that does that (yeah, […]

I typically plan my meals quite loosely.  Once a week I pick a few cuts of grass fed beef from the freezer, maybe a pack of chicken thighs or breasts, plus whatever we bring from the store. Usually it’s a slab of wild fish or a cut of lamb.  Throughout the week, I couple the […]

Here it is — the mother of all homemade dishes. When mom cooked it, we were rushing back home from school, because we could smell it from the distance.  It’s an epitome of comfort food and, if you are lucky to be not counting carbs, home made noodles or mashed potatoes are in order.  Forget […]

If you are one of the 38% Americans who decide to lose weight after New Year, you are probably smack in the middle of the buyer’s remorse period: the enthusiasm and hot-headedness of the first week of intense dieting and exercising had already worn off; you’ve toned down your exercise intensity, but you are still […]

Growing up in Ukraine, we were consuming vast quantities of farmer cheese.  It was a staple, the kind of thing that you almost certainly would find in anyone’s fridge. It was cheap, it was filling, and it was made from whole milk.  Not ricotta. And certainly not the slimy clumpy foodstuff charmingly called “cottage cheese” […]