Food plays such an integral role in my relationship, to the point where I may apply romance to things that don’t necessarily ooze love, passion, and all that good, mushy stuff. Every New Year’s Day we order takeout for dinner from our favorite Chinese restaurant and lovingly share noodles from styrofoam containers while we watch old movies in our PJ’s. Sundays for us are usually filled with errands and chores and I sometimes don’t have time to prepare a hearty dinner to prepare us for what’s in store that week; in a pinch, we turn to Taco Riendo for my favorite burritos. Joe’s preference, if asked what he wants for dinner, is always pizza, and the oven baked, Italian flatbread has been a main character in our love story. Read More…

Looking back to 2011, I can’t say I would necessarily do anything differently. Still, a new year brings the opportunity to make changes or improvements and start new routines. I’ve never been one to make drastic moves when it comes to resolutions, especially since mine never stick – you won’t ever hear me declare I’m starting a new fad diet. In fact, my plan for 2012 is to do the exact opposite.

Over the holidays I came to the realization that my life revolves around food; what I’m planning to make for dinner, where I’m spending my lunch break or which restaurant I choose for Sunday brunch, for example, are all decisions that I treat with great importance. Simply put, creating and eating great food makes me happy as a clam. In the New Year, my goal is to make the most of every meal whether it’s making an elaborate dinner for friends or eating my favorite dishes at some of Philadelphia’s best restaurants. Everything I make will be Clean Plate-worthy, and anything I eat this year will be worthwhile.

2012’s first dish in the East Berks kitchen was a filling kielbasa stew, thickened with white beans and laced with tomatoes and spinach. Every spoonful was purely perfect. Read More…

My parents live in a neighborhood adjacent to a development with several windy, hilly roads and not too much traffic, perfect for a run when the weather is decent enough. I’m not one for combining physical exercise and the beaming heat of the sun, so my brother and I take advantage of this area for outdoor training in the evening and occasionally in the morning, as it tends to be a little cooler. It may be more of a workout for me, as he tends to put his cross country skills on their low setting when I ask to run with him. Still, my brother and I each get a lot out of not only spending time together but working at our shared interest of running.

The lengths of our runs vary; although I always ask how long he is interested in venturing out, my energy level tends to dictate our mileage. My brother, on the other hand, seems like he could run forever, quickly, and happily. Even though I always give myself something to train for, like a 5K, the Broad Street Run or the upcoming half marathon (yes, I’m crazy and no, I’m not ready) the biggest reward for me is the time I get to spend with my little brother. We always have an interesting conversation, or at least I listen and gasp for air while he tells me about all of the fun, exciting things he is experiencing in high school. It’s not always a deep, philosophical conversation but at our finish line I’m always left confident the kid has a good head on his shoulders.

Here and there our runs are interrupted by my heavy, burning calves in need of a good stretch. More often, though, we pass a few houses with the sweet scents of a hot grill wafting in our direction from their back yard. Whatever my brother and I happened to be talking about is forgotten, and our run concentration is broken. We then find ourselves discussing steak, burgers and anything else you can throw on the grill grates as we both imagine our dad working hard on our grill, preparing a summer feast for us to replenish our overworked leg muscles upon our return.

Summer scents always bring to mind a handful of my favorite memories, like these evening runs with my little brother. In a few weeks, though, those scents will be shelved until next year. Though my palette is raring to go for a warm pot roast, fall beers and Sunday football, every other nerve in my body is holding on for dear life to the summer of 2011. To help ease the transition, I cranked up the grill, grabbed some soon-to-be out of season ears of corn, and practically bathed in the delicious smells that traveled off of the gas-powered outdoor cooker. Read More…

Due to learning to plan ahead, “Can Can” sales at Shop Rite, and maybe a dash of impulse, the canned and dry-good section of my kitchen cabinets is stocked. I justify most of them as emergency items, but I can’t really foresee a crisis occurring that can only be saved with the power of canned sauerkraut or evaporated milk. Until I’m actually forced to utilize my “fallout shelter” of products, I enjoy finding alternate uses for them in recipes.

One of the items we constantly buy, and actually eat as opposed to allowing to pile up, are Ramen noodles. Not only are they irresistibly cheap, they are extremely useful. In their intended form (that is, boiled noodes with a powdered flavor packet), they are a quick, small meal. The fact that this version almost tips the sodium scale has led me to utilize only the noodles (without the flavor packet) in various Asian dishes, adding vegetables and a protein to get more miles out of the recipe. Never did I think, though, that they would work perfectly as a salad topping.

Several years ago, I was drawn to an Asian cabbage slaw recipe from the archive on the Kraft Food’s website. Everything about it seemed right up the alley for what I was looking to bring to one of my best friend’s wedding shower: a cool, light salad with fresh ingredients and a ton of flavor. The Ramen noodle topping, though, was what prompted me to commit – strange, but intriguing, I wondered if the slaw was going to be a hit or a bust.  Read More…

It seems like I was just hoarding tickets from Thrift Way to get my free Thanksgiving turkey and planning menu items for holiday parties. I’m in disbelief that Memorial Day weekend is upon us, mostly because that means I’ll be doing sit-ups and eating salads from now until then. Still, I can’t complain – whether it’s weekends in Wildwood or summer in the city, I’m really looking forward to the next few months of warm, sunny weather.

Even though we have a handful of holidays in the summer, a weekend without one doesn’t mean there won’t be a celebration. There’s never a better reason to have a cookout or small get-together than having no reason at all. Last minute or impromptu gatherings are usually the best kind and as long as you have a few recipes set to the side in the event that a spontaneous bash starts to take shape, whether you’re crashing a friend’s Saturday night or people happen to show up at your house, the planning and preparation can go just a smooth as your seated, four-course Thanksgiving dinner. An interesting side salad, like this Quinoa-Avocado dish, can be whipped up in no time at all. Read More…

It’s funny how our tastes change with age. As a kid, I expected Brussels sprouts to taste like fresh, crispy, Iceberg lettuce in miniature form, and was so disgusted when I discovered it to be false. Now, I’m dying to re-introduce myself to the teeny-tiny cabbage (and invite my faithful friend, bacon). My younger self would get away with not eating all of her vegetables and still get dessert, but as an adult I crave corn and steamed carrots. Any item from the ocean only ever crossed my lips if I were duped into eating eat when I was little, yet now I am to shrimp cocktail what Wing Bowl 2011 winner Jon “Super” Squib is to chicken wings.

There are certain dishes I would think were unimpressive (I was a very opinionated child) and could only find them edible with a condiment on the side. For example, pot roast never seemed like a “fun” dish and I’d only finish my dinner  plate with a side of ketchup. As an adult, the thought of braising a chunk of meat for hours in juices and stock and topping it with ketchup is heart-wrenching. Here is a for the comfort-food classic that requires nothing more to dress it up than what is listed below.  Read More…

Remember when this winter wasn’t supposed to be like last winter? It seems, with the snow we’ve been getting, we were fooled. Since our local bow-tie-wearing weatherman has revised his snow total expectancy for the winter of 2011, I’ve been working hard to make sure we have plenty of “fuel” in the fridge and cabinets since, at this rate, you never know what to expect.

Since it’s difficult to stock the fridge with food that will stay fresh until the next snowpocalypse, I focus on maintaining the stock of dried, canned, and even frozen goods. At this point, there are an infinite number of dishes that would result from a varying combination of canned or frozen vegetables, pasta, rice, beans, and other goodies, all hearty enough to make you forget about shoveling your car out. This one, for sure, is warm, filling and just a tad spicy; the perfect mixture of each to help you brave the cold.  Read More…

My 8-year old self would have scoffed at my twenty-something self if she knew I made a dish centered around cabbage. I would then explain, over her laughter, how I actually liked it, and that she’d be amazed at the slew of things she would one day enjoy. The leafy, bitter vegetable falls under the heading of “Things I Would Have Never Eaten as a Child,” with brussel sprouts, kiwi, and seafood. If the 8-year old me thought it was ridiculous that she would one day like the taste of cabbage, she would be speechless at the thought of devouring a sushi roll.

My library of cookbooks includes a giant compilation of Cook’s Illustrated dishes, separated into chapters by the regional cuisine they represent. This has made it especially easy for my recent appreciation for Eastern European dishes, and this section of the book includes a pierogi recipe (similar to the one I just tried), beef goulash, and blintzes. The stuffed cabbage recipe was impossible to pass over: reading the description for Stuffed Cabbage with Sweet and Sour Tomato Sauce made me salivate to the point where I had no choice but to satisfy the craving I had just created. Read More…

Last week, summer poked its steamy little head back into our lives with a few days of heat. Thankfully, they were nothing compared to the high temperatures and humidity that we experienced over the sweaty summer of 2010. Still, it was enough to make the handful of comfortably crisp days from the week prior seem like a tease for those of us yearning for autumn.

When the seasons change, we tend to enact our yearly rituals to adapt. For example, when winter is looming we search for the box of heavy clothes, warm coats and snow boots hiding in the basement or attic, and cross our fingers for a blizzard-less season. As spring approaches we find an available weekend to clean the house, top to bottom, and open the windows for the first time in months. Several months later, some of us begin gearing up for swimsuit season with a strict diet that soon becomes a distant memory with the first taste of a hotdog from the grill. When autumn is around the corner, we pack away our beach clothes and exchange them for wool, denim and flannel. Just as I store my wardrobe from last season to make room for something more practical, I collect my summer recipes and place them at the bottom of the pile until next year.

When Mother Nature graced us with a few cooler days a few weeks ago, I took it as an opportunity to welcome fall foods back into my life. My brain is officially in harvest season, and the last week of warm weather couldn’t shake my craving for stews, ciders and warm casseroles. This recipe for Tortellini Soup was a compromise for the weather; the sweet, light taste of onions, tomatoes and spinach combined with a warm, meat-filled tortellini, bathed in broth.  Read More…

Early last week, I made one of my favorite pasta dishes and proceeded to eat three bowls of it. Atkins diet supporters would have cringed at the sight of me overdosing on heaping servings of warm, saucy noodles. Though I rarely feel guilty about eating too much of anything that tastes amazing, my stomach compensated for my lack of remorse and felt as if it were expanding like a balloon on a helium tank. The effects of my carbo-binging carried over into the next day when I could barely get out of bed, and wished to hide under the covers at the thought of trying to button my work pants.

Two days later, I was back to normal and felt I could reward myself with a healthy, yet hearty, home cooked meal of good, old-fashioned steak and potatoes. The guilt that failed to set in after my weeknight Italian feast a few nights prior reared its ugly head and scolded me for even thinking a starchy side would be smart. Not willing to sacrifice the flavor I was hoping for, I decided to get creative and trick my tastebuds into thinking I was indulging yet again.  Read More…