Sharing my favorite recipes with you
My daughter is lactose intolerant so I have moved away from making cream sauces for pasta, which makes my son very sad because he LOVES cream sauces. I had some left over ricotta in the fridge so I thought, what the heck, lets just throw […]
This coconut rice dish is so easy to put together and has so much flavor and texture. My daughter, who loves coconut, really loved it. I toast almonds and coconut flakes and then incorporate them in separately. Great to serve alongside fish or chicken. It […]
I first discovered farro at a fast casual restaurant called Tender Greens. It’s a terrific place to get nicely prepared salads, plates and sandwiches. I sometimes like to get a salad they call the Happy Vegan (which I add chicken or steak to and then […]
I threw this salad together to pack for a picnic lunch for a dear friends birthday celebration. We packed it in cute mason jars along with sandwiches chips and some veggies and dip. So yummy and healthy. Ingredients: 1 cups quinoa 2 cups vegetable stock […]
We still love brussels sprouts even though it seems like they are a bit overdone which means that we must actually love them. Here’s a great simple recipe that doesn’t require use of the oven – which is a big plus when cooking a big […]
Here’s one of my favorite dishes to make when I need a big pot of something good to serve a crowd. We make this for big USC games when we’re entertaining all of our Trojan friends. This is a red chili with a good kick […]
This is caprese 2.0. I mean seriously so good. It’s a recipe from the cookbook Plenty that my girlfriend gave me so we could try out recipes together. So easy! You can just serve it as is or toast some yummy crostini and serve alongside. Ingredients: […]
This is my mother-in-law’s baked ziti recipe that is a staple for Christmas. She was an Irish woman from Brooklyn that made an incredible Italian dish. It’s just not Christmas if we don’t have sauce on the stove all day with family members and guests […]
My daughter Sabrina loves enchiladas. I’ve never been a huge fan because I don’t think the filling has enough umph. That is until I found a way to make the filling so good you can eat it on its own. I do an easy, quick enchilada […]
Okay, this is my Throwback Thursday recipe. These pork chops are a great retro, homey dish. Make sure you don’t over cook the pork chops or they will be as tough as shoe leather. We served this with a wonderful wedge salad and it felt […]
With my husband’s Italian heritage, meatballs are near and dear to our hearts. After lots of experimentation to make the best, classic meatballs that are not dry, we’ve discovered that ricotta cheese does the trick. We also started taking a small piece of the meatball […]
My family loves meat. We love a great steak, preferably aged, prime steaks or a beautiful filet mignon. But we can’t eat that all the time or we’ll go broke. So I have to come up with ways to make cheaper cuts of meat appetizing. […]
I’m not sure if we’re weird because we love radishes, but we really do. We’ll eat them raw with butter and sea salt or sautéed with butter. Either way, they are delicious. For this recipe, I really wanted to use the radish greens, but they […]
Yes, we love meat loaf. It’s meat, which is loaf as well! (I know it’s weird but that’s always the way we refer to it). So I was reading through Chef Edward Lee’s cookbook, “Smoke and Pickles, Recipes from a New Southern Kitchen” and came […]
I’ve been trying to come up with a new dip recipe to post because I have folks who make the rosemary white bean dip and the lemony chick pea dip over and over again. So here’s a new one that I hope you like just […]
I made this to take to our Father’s Day Picnic at the park. Kids, dogs, good food, great friends, lots of wine and oh yeah, the fathers too! Since it was Father’s Day, it was a good thing my husband really liked this salad. He’s […]
Ok, there are more things on this steak than the port reduction and mushrooms but I really couldn’t make the title any longer. So I ask, blue cheese? Yes! sautéed onions? Yes!, sautéed mushrooms? Yes! port wine reduction? Yes, yes, yes!! Sometimes, when I have […]
We went to a James Taylor concert at the Hollywood Bowl and I made these to take along for our picnic dinner. Meatballs make a great picnic dish because they’re bite-sized so they’re very easy to eat. It’s got a little kick but they’re not […]
So I’ve mentioned my pear balsamic that I’m in love with. I also have a meyer lemon extra virgin olive oil that is yummy and I thought that the combination of the two would make a fantastic dressing. It turns out that I was right! […]
I love curry. I love curry. I love curry. Do you get the sense that I love curry? Sometimes, I will go for an entire week and have it everyday. Making a good thai curry requires a little more than just opening a can of […]
I have this pear balsamic vinegar that is so delicious, I just want to find new dishes to use it on. I tried this spin on a traditional caprese using peaches instead of tomatoes and burrata cheese. Burrata is a mozzarella cheese that is filled […]
I love chick peas and will use them in as many ways possible. This is a terrific, fresh salad that is super easy to assemble and has a wonderfully fresh flavor because of the mint and lemon zest. Great for picnics and barbecues. Ingredients 1 […]
That’s right. I said spatchcock. What the heck is a spatchcock you ask? That’s what I said when my husband told me what he was making for dinner one night. I soon learned that it is a way to prepare chicken that results in delicious, […]
What do you do when you’re short on time, didn’t go to the grocery store and have to create something from what you have in the refrigerator and pantry? This lovely dish. Anything with a cream sauce is always a big hit with the kids. […]
I love the idea of a great hearty Sunday dinner with the family or sometimes in our case, the neighborhood. In the summers, we set up a few long tables in our front yard and serve Sunday dinner at 5. When the neighborhood sees us […]
Here’s a quick and easy weeknight meal. Make it vegan by substituting vegetable broth for the chicken broth and removing the cheese. Whenever I make soup, I make extra to freeze into single serving containers. Then I take them for lunch and keep them on […]
This is an adaptation of Ina Garten’s spinach gratin recipe which was always our go to for any holiday dinner. I added bacon and decreased the butter and we loved it even more. Ingredients 5 slices of bacon, chopped 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 4 cups […]
This is a super easy, delicious flank steak. Its a great weeknight meal. Just add a salad or your favorite vegetable to it and dinner is served. Can even the main course for a super casual get together. If you can’t find flank steak, I […]
This soup has got a kick. My husband’s comment was, “This is good fire soup”. If you are sensitive to spice, you may want to take down the amount of curry paste you use. Ingredients 1 tablespoon ginger, minced 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 tablespoon […]
Here is a favorite for my husband to make for me on Mother’s Day. He loves anything with a poached egg and he is also the egg poaching master of the family. It is very easy to assemble and so impressive to look at. The […]
Yes, greens and eggs, not green eggs. We love putting eggs on things. Its actually a good trick to get the kids to eat vegetables that they normally would not. We found and adapted a recipe we found in Food & Wine Magazine. Really great […]
My daughter and I had these at a sushi restaurant and they were fantastic so I recreated it at home. They are packed with garlicky, spicy, sesame goodness. I think my daughter sat and mowed through about a pound of them in 10 minutes. My […]
Once you’ve had fresh homemade pasta, you will be spoiled for life. Thankfully, I have an Italian husband who became obsessed with mastering the art of pasta making. All I had to do was ply him with wine to get him to sit and tell […]
I’m always trying to find new ways to serve chicken that isn’t dry and boring. Especially on those days that I don’t have much time to make dinner. This chicken is great served with a green salad or in a panini. Ingredients 4 chicken breast […]
I love good refried beans and I hate bad ones. By good I mean it needs to have good flavour and not be bland. Yes, this takes some time but its totally worth it. Beware, this is not a recipe for vegetarian beans. Ingredients 3 […]
Who doesn’t love fork tender pork served in a spicy chipotle sauce? This is a great dish to serve to a crowd because its not fussy and its so good. Just make sure your guests can handle some heat! I made this dish for a […]
Here’s just another reason and way to love bacon. We serve this as an appetizer and people go crazy for it. Kids, grown-ups, grandparents, everyone. Its really very easy but it can be a bit time consuming because you will need to make multiple batches […]
This is a very simple recipe with just a very slight twist on the classic mignonette. I just replace red wine vinegar for champagne vinegar. Ingredients 1/4 cup champagne vinegar 1 tablespoon minced shallot 1/4 teaspoons freshly cracked black pepper Combine all ingredients in a […]
You may be wondering why you need a recipe for shrimp cocktail. All you do is boil some shrimp or defrost cooked frozen shrimp and put out some store bought cocktail sauce right? Well, you could go that route, but you can create something more […]
This version of deviled eggs has a nice hint of spice to them with the curry. Ingredients 3 hard boiled eggs 2 tablespoon mayonnaise 1/2 teaspoon curry powder 1/3 teaspoon sea salt Preparation The best way I have found to make hard boiled eggs is […]