Tag Archives: cooking

simple summer salad

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Simple summer salads are the best thing in the world. Produce is at it’s peak, herbs are fresh, and it doesn’t get better than that.

One of my favorite summer salads are fresh tomatoes, a cucumber, red onion, and a combination of Italian flat leaf parsley, fresh dill, Italian basil and a simple vinaigrette. If I have a sweet red bell pepper I will often add that as well.

To make the vinaigrette it is equal parts olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a small canning jar. Add salt and pepper to taste, garlic powder, and 1 teaspoon of sugar.

When I make vinaigrette for a mixed greens salad, I will add Dijon mustard to the above mix.

You can see the size I mean in the photo above. You will only use maybe 3 tablespoons of dressing on the salad, but save the rest for regular lettuce salads and just refrigerate.

Peel and cut your cucumber in half lengthwise. If it is not the English hot house burpless variety, remove the seeds.

Toss cucumber into the bowl.

Slice and rough chop fairly thin about half of a large red onion.

Add onion to the bowl.

Take your tomatoes, cut the core out, and slice into large bite-size pieces. Sort of small wedges. Small enough you don’t need to use a knife to cut your salad, but large enough that the tomato doesn’t disintegrate.

Chiffonade the basil leaves. In layman’s terms, that means gently roll up your basil leaves and create thin ribbons by cutting off “slices” of the rolled basil.

Rough chop the Italian flat leaf parsley, and do the same gently with the fresh dill.

Put all the herbs on top of the salad and give one light toss and then add literally 2 to 3 tablespoons of the salad dressing and mix gently and either serve or cover and refrigerate until serving.

And I almost forgot — fresh ground pepper and sea salt to taste!

Leftovers are good for a day afterwards, provided you refrigerate.

This is a totally simple, easy to make salad, and it’s delicious! Thank you to my friend Sara for giving me vegetables from her garden. The herbs in the salad came out of my garden!

Bon appétit!

lost and found

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I was rearranging my cookbooks and going through some older ones that were my mother’s at one point, and when I open one cookbook it was like opening Pandora’s box. Old photos and recipes. One recipe was hand typed by someone for my mother, and I remember her making this cake. I think this was a childhood friend’s  mother’s carrot cake recipe.

The other recipes were torn out of magazines and print publications. 

These are all from the late 1960s and early 1970s. I thought it would be fun to share.


blueberry fig preserves 

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I was given the gift of figs off of a friend’s fig tree yesterday, so even though I wasn’t sure I was going to be putting anything up this fall, this morning I made blueberry fig preserves.

2 teaspoons baking soda 

8 cups fresh figs stems removed or 2 pounds of fresh figs 

2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

1 1/2 cups fresh apple cider

1/2 cup water

1 cup turbinado sugar

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

5 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract – pure only

1 lemon thinly sliced into rounds seeds removed

Juice of one lemon

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

Half teaspoon ground cloves

Half teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

Healthy pinch of salt

Three cinnamon sticks

First dissolve the baking soda in about 2 quarts of cool water and immerse the figs in the treated water either in one half of your kitchen sink if you have a double sink or in a really large bowl. Gently stir to wash the figs using your hand in the water.

Drain the figs and remove all stems and cut in half and place in a bowl.

In a big stewpot or jam pot (depending on what you have) slowly dissolve the sugar, maple syrup, butter, vanilla extract, water, apple cider, spices and a pinch of salt.

Now that you have created a sort of syrup add your fruit – figs, blueberries, lemon slices.

Toss in the cinnamon sticks. Add the lemon juice. 

Bring up to a boil over medium heat and stir a lot because the stuff will stick to the pan. Reduce heat to a simmer and stir gently occasionally and cook down until the figs are golden brown and the blueberries are so deep they almost appear a purple black.

As the figs are reaching the right color, I use an immersion blender to break everything up while continuing to cook down. I have friends who don’t do this at all and the reason I do it is because I like to serve fig preserves with cheese when company comes over and when there are big chunks of fig it makes it clumsy.

Truthfully this all cooked a couple of hours. 


While your jam is cooking sterilize your jars and lids in your canning pot. I actually broke down last year and bought a real big canning pot – black granite ware.

When your jam is ready to jar ladle it into your jars, leaving about a quarter inch at the top of room. Put your lids and rings on completely seal super tight and put them in your boiling hot water bath for 10 to 15 minutes. I will note that I looked at several recipes when developing my own recipe and people were processing anywhere from six minutes to 15 minutes in the hot water bath. I would say I processed mine about 10 minutes maybe a little less.

Pull your jars out and place on a cloth covered or wooden surface several inches apart until they are cool. Once the jars are completely cool press in the center to make sure they are sealed. Store in a cool dark area and wait at least two days before opening. I personally like to let my preserves said a couple of weeks before I try them.

Another important note is this is a recipe without using pectin. So it will probably be more loose than a jam made with pectin. You can make it both ways. I have always made fig preserves or fig jam without pectin. This is also the first time I’ve actually ever written down or looked at recipes for the jam – I’ve just always winged it and it’s turned out fine

growing up pumpkin bread

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I love pumpkin bread, it is probably my favorite of the quick breads.  I wanted to do something different with it and have worked on a quick  bread recipe that was without nuts and raisins, but not boring. The other day I decided to make it with molasses and not just sugar. I think that made all the difference. I have a very moist quick bread that has some depth to it. Molasses is definitely something fun to experiment with.


New Pumpkin Bread Recipe
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 cup oil (canola of olive)
2 cups sugar ( can use all white or half white, half brown)
1 cup molasses at room temperature
4 eggs beaten in a small bowl
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice 
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cardamom
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon table salt 

Mix together with  mixer the following: pumpkin, oil, molasses, and sugar. Add eggs. Mix really well. Add vanilla mix a little more.

  1. Add remaining ingredients and mix just until all dry ingredients are well incorporated and there are no flour lumps.
  1. Pour into 2 well greased and floured 8 or 9 inch loaf pans. Use butter or oil or Crisco as the grease, not a baking spray.  Baking spray just doesn’t work as well as the traditional grease and flour for baking pans. Dust the batter in the top of the pans with sugar – either turbinado or plain white – it gives you a nice little crust.
  1. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean, and depending upon your oven it may take slightly longer than an hour to cook. I found they cooked perfectly in an hour.

When you remove the loves to cool on a rack let them sit in their pans for about 20 minutes to half an hour, then remove them from the pans and allow to cool completely. These loaves freeze nicely. 

* you can serve this pumpkin bread plain or for breakfast with  a little almond butter or whipped cream cheese or Greek Cream Cheese which has lower fat and calories.

hamburger pie…or how to get veggies into a teenager

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Hamburger Pie
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 sweet red bell pepper chopped fine fine
1 cup frozen peas thawed/drained
4 or 5 mushrooms sliced thin
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup plain tomato sauce
1/2 cup brown gravy
1/2 cup shredded sharp Cheddar
1/2 cup shredded Italian blend cheese
Salt and pepper
Oregano, basil, and cumin to taste
Chili powder to taste

Pastry for 1 double-crust 9-inch pie (recipe below)

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Line a baking sheet with foil.

2. Warm oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook beef, breaking up large pieces with a wooden spoon, until no longer pink, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add herbs , chili powder, and cumin, garlic, onion, pepper, mushrooms, carrots and celery; sauté on medium about 5 or 7 more minutes. Turn off pan.

In a large mixing bowl stir together tomato sauce and gravy and then add Worcestershire. Season with salt and pepper if needed. Let cool slightly. Use a slotted spoon to lift contents of skillet into gravy-tomato sauce in mixing bowl and fold together. Add peas.

3. (*pie crust recipe below*) Roll out 1 sheet of pastry and fit into deep dish pie plate. Spoon filling into crust and add cheese lightly and evenly on top. Roll out second crust; place on top of pie. Fold top crust over bottom crust; crimp edges to seal. Brush top with egg wash if you want. Cut steam vents in top. Place on cookie sheet and put in oven.

4. Bake for 15 minutes at 400°F. Reduce oven temperature to 350ºF; bake until crust is golden and filling bubbles at steam vents, 20 to 25 minutes longer.

5. Slice like a pie after allowing to cool about 20 minutes. Serve with a small dollop of sour cream on top of each slice.

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Slightly Savory Pie Crust
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 cup vegetable shortening or butter
1/2 cup buttermilk

Sift flour and salt together in a bowl. Add pepper, garlic powder, basil, oregano. Cut in shortening until it looks like coarse crumbs. Add milk until dough forms. Split dough in two even balls and keep wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated until you are ready to roll out.
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quince-apple butter

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I don’t do much jelly and jam making (yet), but I love “butters”. Pumpkin butter, apple butter, peach butter, pear butter, and now quince-apple butter.

My friend Meredith had given me a lovely basket full of quince the other day, and I had a bowl full of apples sitting on the kitchen table.

So after I peeled, cored ,and chopped everything I threw it into a crockpot with a scant couple cups of apple cider three cinnamon sticks a couple chunks of peeled and slightly smashed ginger (to release the flavor), sugar, juice of one lemon and lemon peel , a little mace, and two days worth of cooking…and the end result is here.

In the end I think I used close to 3 cups of sugar because quince is so tart. And quince is a very hard almost prehistoric looking fruit and halfway through cleaning the quince I wondered if it would be worth it. It is.

It smells and tastes delicious! The butter is thick and velvety, and it is a coral meets red sort of color. It looks very pretty in the canning jars. I had started cooking this yesterday afternoon but then we went out for dinner so I turned off and unplugged the crockpot. This morning I turned the crockpot back on low for three more hours of cooking and this is the end result.

I realize my method of preparing this must be maddening to serious jam, jelly, and preserve makers because I’m a little of this and a little of that in the pot. but it works! I used a couple of recipes as a guide to make sure my proportions were right, but that is about it.

Thanks for stopping by!

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pie plates

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Yes I roll out my own piecrust. I don’t like a lot of the modern pie plates. I use vintage pie plates.

Yes, here again is my pitch for the vintage kitchen: The glass pie plates that were made by Pyrex and Anchor Hocking are terrific . I have a bunch that were probably produced in the 1950s and 60s. One was my grandmother’s.

My favorite of these pie plates are the deep dish variety – the edges are sort of ruffled and the pie plates have little handles. I also have the plain glass ones that are more shallow, and a couple of the Wear-Ever aluminum pie plates. And you can find them in different sizes too.

These pie plates are everywhere. Thrift shops, church sales, barn sales, your neighbor cleaning out their kitchen cupboards.

These pie plates are not expensive, and I think pies bake better in them. I know pies look better in them. You can easily put a pre-made roll out piecrust into one of these plates as well if you don’t make your own crust.

I tend to pick these up when I find them because a lot of times when I take pies to other people’s homes for dinner or holidays the pie plates don’t come back. I have been finding a lot of these pie plates at the Smithfield Barn in Downingtown. I also found one last year at Angel Fest at St. Paul’s in Exton which is coming soon! (See this link for further information)

Anyway, I am really not a 1950s housewife in disguise. It’s just that some of these vintage kitchen items are better made than what we have today. Besides, a little kitsch in your kitchen never hurt anyone!

Enjoy your day!

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baking powder breakfast biscuits

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baking powder breakfast biscuits

Preheat your oven to 450°

In a bowl blend 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, 1/2 cup sugar.

In a second smaller bowl whisk together 3/4 of a cup of buttermilk, 1/2 cup canola oil, one beaten egg.

Work the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients. Stir together lately. Do not overwork your dough.

To the dough add 1/2 cup of seedless raisins dark or white your choice, and a little less than half a cup of low-fat granola without fruit in it. The granola that works best for the ones that are just flavored with cinnamon and not much else and not huge pieces of nuts. This time I used Woodpecker low-fat granola that I purchased at Pete’s produce on 926.

Use a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. This recipe yields 12 to 14 biscuits, so break off pieces of dough accordingly and shape into a quick ball and then flatten somewhat and lay on the cookie sheet a couple inches apart.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes depending on your oven.

Serve with butter, honey, apple butter, pumpkin butter, or your choice of jelly.

(The plate the biscuits are sitting on in the top photo came from the Smithfield Barn)

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strawberry rhubarb pie

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My mother is coming for lunch tomorrow. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal, but this is her first outing of this kind with a longer car ride since she had heart surgery earlier this spring. So I thought I would make a festive late spring lunch inspired by the herbs growing in the garden and the early produce from the farmers markets locally.

When I went to the East Goshen Farmers’ Market yesterday, Brogue Hydroponics had the most beautiful strawberries and young rhubarb. So I planned the dessert first: strawberry rhubarb pie. I have been making variations of this pie for years, and I decided today I would write things down to the best of my abilities so I could share the recipe with you.

Hopefully everything works for you the way it did for me. Anyway, here is the recipe:

preheat oven to 425°

2 cups of fresh sliced strawberries
2 bunches of as thin as possible rhubarb from your farmers market – you will end up with 2 cups or so by the time you trim and clean it.

1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
Scant 1/4 cup of instant tapioca
Zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Dash of cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of butter cubed small
1 tablespoon softened butter
Grated fresh ginger to taste

Pie crust: you need two pre-made rolled up refrigerated pie crusts as this is a double crust. Or you can make your own pie crust and roll out enough for two crusts.

I think the brand I bought yesterday was Pillsbury. I didn’t have time to roll out pie crusts so I bought them this time. These rolled up pie crusts can be found in the refrigerated section next to the dairy in your supermarket. (Look for where your supermarket stocks pre-made cookie dough and biscuit dough you will find the pie crusts.)

Line a deep dish 9 inch pie plate with one crust and use 1 tablespoon softened butter to coat bottom of crust- this will keep your piecrust from getting soggy. Put pie plate and crust into refrigerator to stay chilled.

Chop up the rhubarb into little quarter inch slices and slice up your strawberries and add the sugars, tapioca, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, and lemon juice and lemon zest. Mix together gently but well and set aside for 15 minutes.

Once your oven is preheated, remove the chilling piecrust in the pie plate from the refrigerator and put on a baking tray that is lined with parchment paper. This is a pie that can bubble over so you definitely don’t want this sticky goo all over your oven.

Fill your chilled pie crust with the fruit mixture and next take one egg white and 2 tablespoons of water and whisk it together in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush, paint the edges of your bottom piecrust in preparation for adding the top crust.

Add the second piecrust or top crust to your pie. Then use a fork or your fingers and crimp the edges together. Using your pastry brush wipe the top of the pie with the egg white and water mixture. Don’t soak it, just enough to make a couple tablespoons of granulated sugar tossed over the top stick.

Next use a paring knife and cut that holes in the top of your pie. I cut them in a circle so they almost look like flower petals.

Now your pie is ready for the oven. I cover the edges of my crust with tinfoil gently on top of that so they don’t overly brown. You can also buy one of those piecrust rings out of either metal or silicone rubber stuff that goes in the oven. Keep meaning to get one of those and I just keep forgetting.

Bake the pie at 425° for 15 minutes. Then reduce the heat for 350° and bake another 45 minutes to an hour depending on your oven. The crust should be slightly toasty in color and the filling mixture bubbling out of the vents you cut ever so slightly.

You can serve the pie warm or cold. Some people like serving the pie with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. I like it by itself without anything.

Again, this is the first time I really written this recipe down so I hope everything works! Enjoy!

quick and fresh pasta sauce

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It’s a quick, fresh pasta sauce kind of evening.

Two sweet onions chopped

Five cloves of garlic minced

Two thirds of a container of grape tomatoes cut in thirds

One fresh red bell pepper, chopped

One can of tomato paste – 6 ounces

One can of crushed tomatoes -28 ounces

Kosher salt to taste

One fresh bay leaf

Fresh basil, oregano, and flat leaf Italian parsley chopped – as much as you want. I like a lot of fresh herbs in my sauce

1- 16 ounce package of organic Angus ground beef

1 dash or two of good balsamic vinegar

Extra-virgin olive oil

I toss a little extra virgin olive oil in the bottom of my pasta sauce pot. I add the onions garlic, fresh tomatoes, and one chopped fresh red bell pepper.

I sweat the vegetables down a little with a dash of kosher salt, and then I tossed in the hamburger. I allow the hamburger to cook down, next tossing in the herbs.

Next a small dash or two of balsamic vinegar before I add the canned tomatoes and paste.

I bring everything up over medium heat (stirring often) to close to a boil and then I reduce to simmer cover and let simmer for an hour or hour and a half.

I serve over whatever pasta I happen to have on hand . Tonight it will either be spaghetti or whole-wheat linguine.

I dust each bowl of pasta with some grated Parmesan cheese when I serve

Keeping it simple, this dinner is best with a fresh salad – right now I have some wonderful looking arugula and romaine that I picked up at the local farmers market.

It’s what’s for dinner in my house this evening. Try this sometime and I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!