Flavors of Fall
October,9th,2010
Image by ilovepics11
Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. I think I love it because it’s a season for the senses: the smell of cinnamon and apple cider, the taste of root vegetables and pumpkin pie, the colors that paint the trees and the sound of crunching leaves under your feet. Since this last weekend brought over 90 degree temperatures to Sonoma County and summer refuses to end (sorry to all who love the heat), looks like I’m just going to have to force Fall to arrive. I’m officially kicking off my flavors of fall recipe section and hoping the weather follows suit.
Image by Nicholas Erwin
I’m starting my forced arrival of Fall with a few different types of banana bread, inspired by some mouth watering new recipes in this month’s Cooking Light which include Bananas Foster Bread and Peanut Butter Banana Bread (my stomach is growling just thinking about it). I also included my mom’s classic Banana Bread recipe (borrowed from her Aunt Louise). The next few posts promise to be full of pumpkin, soups, root vegetables and the like!
Birthday Bliss
September,6th,2010
My Birthday Rock
Remember when you were little and the entire week before your birthday you could barely contain yourself you were so excited? I used to love to celebrate my birthday mostly because my mom always made it special. The week before my birthday arrived, my birthday rock would be put out on the kitchen table for everyone to see. What’s a birthday rock you ask? A birthday rock is a priceless item created by my Grandma for most members of my family. I included a few pictures of my own rock so you can get the idea. Each birthday rock is a little different and it’s a pretty big deal when Grandma decides to make a rock for someone outside the family. She just made my boyfriend of many years a birthday rock last year…I told him that’s his official “Welcome to the family.”
My Birthday Rock
But I digress. The other really special part of my birthday was that my mom would make us absolutely whatever we wanted for our birthday dinner. During my red meat loving days I requested roast pot (what I called pot roast) with mashed potatoes, year after year. The house would smell so good all day of onions, carrots, rosemary and potatoes. Once I entered high school, I switched it up and requested some sort of pasta.
Creamy Brie, Image by CMMooney
My mom scoured her recipe books and found a recipe for hot brie pasta and a chocolate snowball cake. Both recipes were a huge hit and continue to be my “birthday dinner” even to this day. For some reason when I make my own birthday dinner it isn’t quite as exciting and doesn’t taste quite as good as it used to when my mom made it for me…must have been that love she threw in there!
Pure Bliss, Image by Lee McCoy
This pasta is simple but decadent and the cake is ridiculous. If you are a chocolate lover and like me, very rarely use this phase “This is too rich for me” then this cake is for you. I wonder what everyone else considers their “birthday dinners?”
If you can’t stand the heat…get out of the kitchen! BBQ time
August,27th,2010
Image by Space Ritual
I don’t know how your weather has been but let’s just say Sonoma County is hot right now. Granted it isn’t Redding hot, nor is it Boston humid (this should prevent immediate phone calls from my sisters who live in both these places telling me that I don’t know what hot is), but it’s hot enough to make you despise your oven and your stove and get the BBQ fired up. And since having a BBQ for 2 just seems a little depressing I decided to make a party of it this past weekend.
Some of my friends have been home brewing their own beer lately so we teamed up for a beer tasting, meat barbecueing, bread toasting, rip roaring good time. I had a few recipes from other food blogs I’ve been following that I’ve really been excited to try out. I only had to turn my oven on for about 6 minutes total and the rest was no oven, no stove required. I think one of the best parts about q-ing it up is the q-er, or grill master if you will, actually gets to participate in conversation and be a part of the crowd. No one likes to be the secluded chef. So as our friends trickled in, I had appetizers set out and my boyfriend fired up the grill. We all headed out to the deck and enjoyed the entire eating and cooking process together, I love it!
Image by Whitneybee
We did some cool appetizers (cucumbers stuffed with feta and artichoke-olive dip), turkey burgers and chicken breasts, orzo salad, caprese salad (I know, surprise, surprise) and grilled stone fruit with honey balsamic glaze for dessert. The drinks consisted of home brewed brown ale, Opala Vinho Verde, Bartholomew Park Sauvignon Blanc and Stella Artois. It was a great menu that lasted us through about 5 hours of laughing and catching up with each other. Most importantly, the prep and cooking was simple enough that I got to enjoy the BBQ as well – which in my book is a must!
Blackened Steak Salad
August,14th,2010
Steak Salad, Image by Gossamer1013
I still vividly remember the first time I really felt like I could cook solo. My mom decided my sister and I were finally old enough to let us loose in the kitchen. I think I was around 12 years old at the time and my sister was 15. We took on the task with gusto! We selected a recipe my mom had made before (one that of course was included in her cookbook) for blackened steak salad and after shopping for all the ingredients, we meticulously followed the instructions. The end product was surprisingly very good and so launched my confidnece in the kitchen.
While I rarely eat red meat these days, once in a while the carnivore in me starts to get rowdy and I absolutely must have some. This recipe is still a go-to for me in these situations. When my boyfriend suggested steak salad the other night I pulled this gem out of the cookbook. I probably haven’t made it in a couple years but it’s still as good as I remember it being and fairly simple to put together.
Always Cook with Love
August,9th,2010
My mom on the right with a platter full of food, 1986
Who has influenced your cooking? When I think back to my childhood, my memories are almost all connected to the smells, sounds and taste of my mom’s food. She never failed to have a huge meal on the table every night and was always inviting others in to join our family.
For Christmas 2002, my family decided to do secret santas to take the burden of getting presents for everyone off of my mom. I remember thinking, she sure was spending a lot of time in the “present wrapping room” for only having to buy one present for one person. Come Christmas morning, I, along with my brother and 2 sisters, all had large presents under the tree from my mom. While we were upset that my mom didn’t adhere to the secret santa rules, of course we still opened the presents.
Christmas, 2002
Inside was a huge homemade cookbook of all the recipes my mom loved to make for us. She hand typed each recipe (there are nearly 350 included in the cookbook), put them in sheet protectors, and created an extensive index…for all four cookbooks she made for us kids. I can’t even imagine how much time she must have put into it. This cookbook is the best gift I’ve ever been given. When I look through the recipes, nearly every single one evokes a memory or an anecdote and I swear I can smell the food cooking on my mom’s stove.
Christmas 2002
Although I lost my mom just 2 years after that Christmas, I can always feel her presence when I flip through my huge binder of recipes and pick an old favorite. Unfortunately, I don’t know where all these recipes originated from but there are some great stories behind them which I intend to share.
Spaghetti night
For today, I wanted to share a few excerpts from the introduction of the cookbook and encourage all you home cooks out there to never doubt the impact that food can have on people.
About me!
Contact me!
Recent Articles