Gratin Dauphinois (Scalloped Potatoes) for Comfort in Winter

By rachelvanduzerJanuary 1, 2015April 21, 2023 Featured, Main-Dishes, Recipes, Root Vegetables

In winter, there is something so comforting about, well, comfort foods. Last week, my husband was getting over a cold. Coincidentally I had just found the first cheddar cheese here in France, so I decided to make some good old fashioned mac and cheese like my grandma used to make. I served it…

Honey Mustard Baked Brie Appetizer

By rachelvanduzerDecember 26, 2014April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Apples, Featured, Recipes

Christmas has come and gone, but the season of celebration isn’t quite over yet. In less than a week, we’ll be ringing in 2015. Can you believe it? My favorite part of the Christmas season is the many excuses to get together with good friends over delicious food. The week before Christmas, I cooked for…

Brambleberry Almond Pie for the Holidays

By rebeccatalbotDecember 18, 2014April 21, 2023 Apples, Berries, Desserts, Featured, Recipes almonds, pie

Have you had some culinary breakthroughs lately? Was there some process you couldn’t bring yourself to abandon, but couldn’t quite perfect, either? Last week I wrote about how I kept toting dried beans home from the grocery store, even though I wasn’t very good at cooking them, and then finally, I read a cookbook that…

Two Easy Bean Soups for Busy December Evenings

By rebeccatalbotDecember 11, 2014April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Leafy Greens, Recipes, Soup

Last October, the Onion published an article that began, “Immediately after sitting down on the living room couch and covering herself in a large cotton blanket, area girlfriend Amanda Bettman, 28, announced her intentions Monday to remain in this state for the next five calendar months.” This satirical article captured my exact plan. How did they know?! Winter…

The Gift of Homemade (No Sugar Added!) Applesauce

By rebeccatalbotDecember 4, 2014April 21, 2023 Apples, Featured, Recipes

Good food preserves memories. It pins down moments. It brings comfort and cheer. Several years ago, when I happened to be interviewing an Asian woman who worked at Chicago’s South-East Asia Center, she mentioned that one of the first things new Southeast Asian immigrants will usually do is find a restaurant that makes food like…

Repurposing Thanksgiving Leftovers and Searching for the Perfect Fresh Cut Christmas Tree

By rachelvanduzerNovember 25, 2014April 21, 2023 Apples, Featured, Holiday, Main-Dishes, Recipes, Sandwiches

Every Black Friday, my husband’s family had the tradition of going Christmas tree shopping. We’d wake up at a reasonable hour (reasonable, that is, for Black Friday), mosey over to the Christmas tree farm together and each pick out that perfect tree for our family’s Christmas décor. Then afterward, we’d enjoy a delicious lunch of…

Yam Apple Focaccia for Thanksgiving

By rachelvanduzerNovember 20, 2014April 21, 2023 Apples, Featured, Recipes, Root Vegetables, Sides

Last week my husband David offered to do the grocery shopping for us, not knowing that I had tasked him with finding sweet potatoes – not yams, sweet potatoes. He was up for the challenge of doing this (in a foreign country, no less!) and succeeded in finding the biggest sweet potatoes I’ve every seen…

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Maple-Bacon Vinaigrette

By rebeccatalbotNovember 13, 2014April 21, 2023 Featured, Holiday, Recipes, Root Vegetables, Sides

I don’t remember liking sweet potatoes until one year when I was in middle school. Middle school is all about reinventing yourself, right? It’s about wearing layers of friendship bracelets, trying on your friends’ glasses to see how you look in them, getting that atrocious haircut you’d hoped would rocket you to popularity. And so…

‘North American Thanksgiving’ and a Butternut Squash Salad

By rachelvanduzerNovember 6, 2014April 21, 2023 Featured, Leafy Greens, Recipes, Salads, Winter Squash

Next week, I will get to celebrate my first “North American Thanksgiving” celebration across the ocean from North America in France. I have been tasked with bringing a salad and a sweet potato dish, so I began looking over the repertoire of recipes that have already been shared on this blog. I came across this…

Pumpkin Sweet Potato Tacos

By rebeccatalbotOctober 30, 2014April 21, 2023 Featured, Leafy Greens, Main-Dishes, Pumpkin, Recipes

Autumn ushers in a time to indulge in pumpkin desserts, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin ale and all things pumpkin. I’m already craving the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies a friend is making for a party this evening. But even as I feast upon pumpkin everything, I want to make sure I’m still: a) making healthy choices, and…

Hot Corn Dip with Crispy Tortilla Chips: A Wolff Family Favorite

By rebeccatalbotOctober 23, 2014April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Featured, Recipes

Autumn is a time to gather. Summer’s heat lets up but the days remain sunny and energizing. Crisp air calls us outside. The harvest produces some of its tastiest fruits and vegetables. And we know that since winter will soon make us want to hibernate, buried under fleece blankets to match the blankets of snow,…

Pumpkin Pasta with Sausage and Sage

By rebeccatalbotOctober 16, 2014April 21, 2023 Featured, Main-Dishes, Pumpkin, Recipes, Seasonal, Winter Squash

Autumn collects synonyms. It’s already the only season with two interchangeable names, and from there, its monikers multiply. It’s also known as pumpkin season, apple season, cider season and more. But how long has autumn been known as the season for all kinds of pumpkin-spiced food and beverages, from pumpkin lattes to pumpkin ravioli to…

Mixed Green Salad with Apples and Candied Hazelnuts

By rebeccatalbotOctober 9, 2014April 21, 2023 Apples, Featured, Recipes, Salads

This past weekend, my husband and I had a few friends over for a couple hours in the evening, so, naturally, I made dessert. I even planned ahead and made this dessert, some toffee bars, the day before and stuck them in the fridge. The only problem? I forgot to cut them them before refrigerating…

Food or Decoration? Here’s Our Heirloom Pumpkin Advice

By recipesOctober 6, 2014November 2, 2017 Featured, Pumpkin, Seasonal, Winter Squash

Heirloom pumpkins are each varieties of squash, but they tend to be larger than “winter squash” and more unique and elegant than traditional orange pumpkins. Most heirlooms are great for cooking and make great pies, soups and more. A few, however, are not recommended for cooking and we hope to help you sort that out…

Canter Hill Farm: Starting a ‘Beyond Organic’ Farm from Scratch

By rebeccatalbotOctober 2, 2014May 12, 2016 Farm-to-Table, Featured, Vendors

Some farmers have farming in their blood. Knowledge of agriculture and of the joys, hardships and value of farming have been passed down through generations, and the family tradition continues. Increasingly, however, people who have not grown up on farms are learning to homestead, raise livestock and grow produce for their communities. They want to…

Celebrating Apple Season (Part 2)

By rebeccatalbotSeptember 25, 2014September 26, 2014 Apples, Cooking Methods, Featured, Gifts from the Kitchen, Holiday, Seasonal, Vendors

Apple season means apple cider season, apple fritter season, and of course apple pie season. For aspiring bakers, apple pie season can be a frustrating time indeed. I’ve been known to put my hands on my hips and glare at a pie crust that just won’t stop sticking to the counter and ripping. And I…

Celebrating Apple Season with Apple Sampling & a Cooking Demo (Part 1)

By rebeccatalbotSeptember 18, 2014April 21, 2023 Apples, Farm History, Featured, Recipes, Vendors

The Wolff family loves produce of all flavors, shapes and stripes. They not only know the farmers who grew the produce, they also know all you would ever want to know about the local produce itself: how it grows, the varieties you can find it in and when they ripen, how this year’s crop differs…

Smokey Eggplant Vinete & Lessons from the Garden

By rachelvanduzerSeptember 11, 2014April 21, 2023 Appetizers, Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Recipes, Summer Produce

I like to think that I am a great cook and a good gardener, but there is much more to these two tasks than meets the eye. This week I will be harvesting the last of the squash, tomatoes, peppers and herbs from my first-ever solo garden. I will miss harvesting armloads of tomatoes, handfuls…

Make It A (Superfood) Mocha

By rachelvanduzerSeptember 3, 2014April 21, 2023 Beverages, Featured, Recipes, Seasonal

A few summers ago, my cravings for iced coffee got the best of me. I knew that the best way to make iced coffee was to cold brew a serving of it specifically for that purpose, but it was so much easier to just refrigerate a mug of the morning’s leftover coffee. That usually worked…

15 Easy In-Season Recipes for Labor Day

By rebeccatalbotAugust 27, 2014November 2, 2017 Berries, Beverages, Featured, Peaches, Recipe-Round-Up, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce, Tomatoes

How wonderful are Labor Day vacations? They snag the last bits of summer, salvaging time with family and friends before the rush of fall schedules pulls us in different directions. They celebrate cooler weather and golden sunlit evenings. They offer rest. When I was growing up, Labor Day was our favorite family vacation time. We…