Avocado, Spinach, Gorgonzola Pasta with Walnuts

February 25, 2018

Avocado, Spinach, Gorgonzola Pasta with Walnuts

When you have an avocado tree, at some point you start wondering what else you can do with avocados beyond guacamole and garnishes for Latin American foods, though that’s a GREAT use for avocado. After branching out into smoothies with avocado (it gives them a wonderful creaminess), avocado truffles, avocado egg salad, I thought, “Hmmm, what about avocado and pasta?” I have no earthly idea what prompted this line of thought from me, given that I have an aversion to avocados being too warm (that baked avocado and egg thing that went around a few years back was gross!), but the thought popped into my mind and to the google I went, searching recipes.

I came upon a few recipes that combined avocado and spinach, though many of them used lime juice and seemed a little too close to what I was trying to stray from. So I started down the route of another classic pairing – spinach, blue cheese, and walnuts. How would these flavors play out with each other? (more…)

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French Onion Soup – Vegetarian style

January 29, 2014

French Onion Soup

Cold, gray, snow-filled days call for warm fires and belly-warming soup. While French onion soup always takes a while to make, what else are you going to do when you’re snowed in? So make quick work of the onions in this recipe in a food processor, and get to caramelizing! Soon enough you’ll have warm, sweet-but-mostly-savory soup topped with stringy, gooey Gruyere that is certain to warm your family up from head to toe. (more…)

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Hoppin’ into the New Year

December 28, 2013

Hoppin John

Hoppin’ John is one of my favorite dishes, and it’s something that really shouldn’t be confined just to the first day of the year. For those of you who have never heard of Hoppin’ John, it’s a traditional Southern dish made with rice and black eyed peas, and when eaten on New Year’s Day, it is supposed to bring good luck and prosperity for the year. It is generally served with greens. The black eyed peas are supposed to resemble coins, and the greens add to the year’s prosperity and wealth due to their green color (you know, the color of money). Sometimes cornbread also gets into the action, given its golden color (again, the color of a different kind of money). While I’m not sure about all that, I am sure that creamy black eyed peas mixed with the saltiness of bacon and spiced up with some andouille and pepper makes taste buds happy and fills up bellies. (more…)

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Sufferin’ succotash!

October 4, 2013

Roasted chicken with succotash

A few month’s ago, while in Carmel, I had what might be the best roasted chicken I had ever had out on the town at Hog’s Breath Pub. Maybe it was just because my husband and I were enjoying a weekend away together, maybe it was the wine, but either way, I couldn’t get the perfectly crisp skin, flakes of salt, and fresh vegetable succotash out of my head. So of course, I decided to recreate the meal at home.

Of course, I didn’t actually know what constituted a succotash. I assumed corn, because every succotash I had ever seen had corn. Making this meal was a little on the fly, as I noticed the grocery store had a large bunch of fresh corn in. So I wandered through the produce section, picking up some okra and zucchini, because it looked good. Only later did I learn that succotash also includes lima beans, by definition. So we’ll call this Courtney’s sort-of-succotash, sans beans, but you won’t miss them.

For the chicken recipe, I decided to try Thomas Keller’s simple roast chicken. (more…)

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Fall is in the air!

September 30, 2013

Pork Loin with Apples and Onions

On September 22, the first day of fall, that autumn feeling was in the air, and I completely switched into fall food mode. Even though here in the Bay area we keep swinging between crisper, breezier days and sunny, summer days, when my husband suggested we have something with pork for dinner, I jumped at the chance to make this whole pork loin atop apples. It is so simple I’m not sure why I haven’t made it in a few years, but I’m so happy I made a quick stop by the store for the ingredients this weekend. Pork + apples, it’s been too long! (more…)

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