Let’s just preface this post by saying I’ve always hated pickles. Not just disliked, but hated in that “oh my god I’m so grossed out by this thing” way that you can hate a food. In high school someone taunted me by waving a pickle in my direction (of the food variety, let’s not let our minds end up in that track!). I immediately, without hesitation, slugged her as hard as I could. Hmmm, anger issues much?

Anyhow, fast forward to the present-day, calm-cool-semi-collected Courtney, who last year in her CSA received a pound of pickling cucumbers. Not one to throw away good food, I decided I would attempt to pickle the things, and at the least I could push them off on my husband and friends. I dug in, searching my favorite sites for pickle recipes, hoping to come across something that didn’t include dill. After all, if I’m going to spend the time in the kitchen, I would like to at least try the thing I make. Not being a fan of dill or pickles, I can’t imagine bringing such a thing near my tongue.

Then I stumbled upon it – the Sriracha pickle! Sriracha = something I love. Pickle = something I hate. (more…)

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Condiments, Dairy free, Gluten free, Prep for Later Use, Vegetarian by Courtney

This recipe is one of the gems I discovered this summer in Tennessee. We grilled out at my dad’s one evening (very different from barbecuing in the South), and on the menu was chicken wings. I have to say, I was a skeptic that these were as wonderful as my dad and his wife touted, but they definitely delivered on flavor. Plus, the recipe is pretty darn easy to pull together, and once you’ve made the marinade, you’ve got enough for more than a couple of batches of chicken wings. (more…)

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Cooking outdoors, Dairy free, Dinner, Gluten free, Lunch, Prep for Later Use, Quick and Easy by Courtney

And lunch, and dinner… But that’s because it is just so yummy. A friend of my husband’s passed this recipe along to me, and she’s even given me a few slices from time to time. Since I had a ton of zucchini to deal with, I thought I would make a couple of batches of this recipe and freeze most of the loaves, since bread freezes nicely.

That was the plan, but it went a little awry as we’ve snacked and nibbled our way through two and a half loaves now. This morning I finally tucked one lone loaf into the freezer for a good winter snack. (more…)

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Bread, Breakfast, Dairy free, In the Garden, Prep for Later Use, Snack time, Vegetarian by Courtney

As soon as I saw this recipe on Food In Jars, I knew I had to make it. I had quite a few roma tomatoes, and while I initially had set them aside to make massive amounts of pizza and pasta sauce, I was really, really dreading peeling that many tomatoes.

Enter the Tomato Jam recipe. Tomatoes, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and red pepper. Those ingredients alone sounded too good to be true. But the kicker was definitely this line, which was like poetry to my ears: “It needs the skin and seeds, to keep things interesting. Don’t take them out.” (more…)

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Appetizers, Condiments, In the Garden, Prep for Later Use, Vegetarian by Courtney

One of my favorite prepare-ahead meals is pizza. Every month or two, I make up a big batch of pizza dough (usually doubling or quadrupling the recipe I have for 2 12-inch rounds), and I portion those out into large size and individual size lumps that are frozen for later.

When I do this, I also like to cube up some mozzarella and portion it into baggies (generally around 5 – 8 ounces per bag) and make a few batches of pizza sauce, freezing those in individual baggies as well. At some point in the month or two, I end up poaching a bag of sauce here, a baggie of mozzarella there, and I end up with just the pizza dough. So there are a couple of go-to pizzas I make when missing the other ingredients. (more…)

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Dinner, Italian, Lunch, Pizza, Prep for Later Use, Vegetarian by Courtney