I am taking a bit of time to recover and spend time with the best thing we’ve cooked up yet. Please enjoy posts prepared ahead of time over the next few weeks. I will be back in the kitchen again soon!

One of my favorite ways to celebrate the coming of Spring is with lemons. Even just smelling a fresh lemon adds a pep to my step and makes me feel more awake and alive. A gift of home grown Meyer lemons and sweet limes from my gardening grandfather, gave me reason to celebrate spring by breaking out the sugar and flour and whipping up a lovely lemon pie. (more…)

It is that time of year again. Time to unearth summer produce from the depths of my freezer and skip around the kitchen pretending that the snow outside is a figment of my imagination. (Okay, so the skipping is also a figment of my imagination this year. Pregnant ladies just don’t skip very well!) Peaches, raspberries, pies- these are what summer pipe dreams are made of. (more…)

Sometimes Valentine’s Day calls for a little extra sweetness at the end of the evening. Nothing caps off a special meal quite like a dessert wine or aperitif. It can be the closing note to a symphony of flavors that pushes you over the top into a state of total food and wine bliss. Best savored slowly in the company of someone you love, dessert wines beg for languid conversation and dim lighting. (more…)

The worst Valentine’s Day gift I ever received was a sticky box of candy canes leftover from Christmas. I was 13 and smack in the middle of those few years of special hell otherwise known as middle school. My small school had the brilliant idea of assigning a sort of ‘secret santa’ project for Valentine’s Day. Everyone was randomly assigned the name of a classmate of the opposite sex and had to bring an anonymous gift on February 14th for that person. Boy-crazy and idealistic as always, I hoped that I might discover a box of chocolates, a stuffed bear, or something else romantic in my locker. Finding a box of candy canes confirmed my worst fears- no one liked me, everyone hated me, and I was going to die a lonely death by 14. (Yes, I was a bit of a drama queen!) (more…)

If I could ever be tempted to join the dark side, this is the dish that would do it. Normally I am a card carrying member of the lemon-heads; people who choose lemon desserts whenever possible. Yet, when staring at a silky dark chocolate mousse that melts in your mouth, each bite an oxymoron of dense fluffiness- my lemon-loving-lips begin to quiver. A whiff of the chocolate-meets-coffee-and-cream aroma and I’m done for. In plunges my spoon and with the first taste of mousse my eyes close in rapture. I’ve stepped into the dark side and there is no going back. (more…)

Way back in August, when The Kitchen Witch and I visited Babbo, we encountered a most unusual dessert. A small olive oil zucchini cake was paired with orange infused olive oil gelato and a drizzle of vanilla flecked honey butter. (more…)

Now that Thanksgiving is over can we talk Christmas cookies? To be perfectly honest, I often find baking Christmas cookies exhausting. With all of the busyness of the holiday, taking time to bake cookies that simply bring another source of ready to eat sugar into the house is far down on my list. Yet, without fail, there is always an office party, a cookie exchange, a visiting neighbor, or some unforeseen event that calls for cookies. (more…)

I first attempted to make a pumpkin pie from a whole pumpkin when I was in high school. Thanks to my Dad, I had conquered my fear of pie crusts and thus happily volunteered to make the pumpkin pie for our neighborhood Thanksgiving potluck. I don’t remember where I found the recipe, but when I read the words “pumpkin puree” I thought I could just use a pumpkin from our garden to make the puree instead of using canned pumpkin. What I failed to realize was that it is necessary to cook a pumpkin before pureeing the flesh. (more…)

After a summer hiatus it is time to get back into the swing of The Daring Kitchen challenges. The official line for this month is: The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Apple Butter. Two little words that invoke vivid memories of the first month of school and a kitchen filled with the scent of warm apples and cinnamon. Each fall when the apple trees near my childhood home filled with ripe fruit, my mom would quickly follow her famous apple cake with a big batch of apple butter. I never understood that apple butter didn’t actually contain real butter. The smooth decadent texture will have any kid convinced that mom has temporarily forgotten her judicious butter rules and is allowing a free for all in which you can slather apple butter on anything you like. I would beg for apple butter on my peanut butter and honey sandwiches and would take nothing else to school for lunch until it was gone. (more…)

If you have been hanging out here for some time you may be familiar with our obsession fascination with a certain triple ginger cookie from Trader Joe’s. Mixed into peachy kefir ice cream, crushed beneath a bright key lime pie, or supporting an oozing toasted marshmallow and dark chocolate- we can’t live without a stash of ginger cookies! You can imagine my dismay when I realized that once my parents moved nearby, our regular care packages from Trader Joe’s would disappear along with the steady supply of ginger cookies.

This desperate situation called for action and I immediately began trying different recipes in an attempt to recreate our favorite cookie. Too soft, too hard, not enough ginger; I felt a bit like Goldilocks as I searched for the perfect recipe. Nothing turned out like I wanted and I began to think we may have to adjust to a life without ginger cookies. (more…)