Cooking Articles

Gumbo For Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is a celebration that occurs around this time every year, between February and March, to mark the beginning of the Lent season leading up to Easter. Traditionally it is always the day before...

Tasty Veggies In or Out of Season

For us vegetable eaters out there or those just those trying to eat better, this can be a frustrating time of year. The long winter seems to drag on and on, with spring just far enough away to make one...

Is That Peach Butter or . . . Sauce?

When I came home with the cookbook Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker recently, I did what I normally do with cookbooks: I flipped through it the first chance I had. At breakfast, at bedtime, whenever...

The Best Kept Secret to Professional Pasta Sauce

Pasta, the simplest of meals, would seem one of the easiest dishes to make at home to rival the professionals. Yet again and again I find myself humbled in the hands of a chef who presents a plate of...

A Homemade Day at the Spa

Is this long, cold winter dragging you down? As we face a couple more months of chilly and cloudy weather, a day at the spa sounds heavenly. But if you have no professional spa treatments in your plans...

A Plea For Greens

Um, hello! Yeah, hi, this is your body speaking. Remember me? Yeah, I know, it's been a while. If you don't mind putting down that Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte Extra Whip for a second, I was wondering...

Presidents' Day and PB & J

Some of us may have grown up eating it every day like clockwork for lunch—and never want to see it again. �Others of us are still enamored with the classic taste of that creamy peanut butter and sweet...

The Hidden Potential of an Unloved Vegetable

I’m a sucker for an under-appreciated vegetable. Usually this inclination results in the dramatic rescue of a forlorn cabbage, celery root, or bunch of chard from a stand at a Farmer’s Market. I...

Vegetarians Get Gumbo Too

If it's not obvious by now, y'all should know I love to eats-da-meats: chicken, steak, alligator, or snail--if it is seasoned right, I'll put it in my mouth. Okay, well, not everything: I turn up my nose...

Let the Sun Shine With Citrus

The dead of winter is typically not the time I think of a bountiful harvest. And yet in the midst of the blustery weather that is exactly what I have found: heavy tree limbs dripping with golden orbs...

Cooking That's Good For The Soul

Are you looking for some new dinner ideas to share with your family this week? How about honoring a couple of different monthly observances by making heart healthy New Orleans style food? You may be scratching...

From New Orleans, With Love

I love New Orleans even though I have never been there. With the city in full swing for Mardi Gras right now and multitudes of people from around the country pouring into New Orleans to participate in...

Freezer Foods to Get Through Busy Times

By the time you read this, I hope to have welcomed a new bundle of joy into our family (or at least be on the verge of having that bundle of joy). Although I expected this baby to be born early like my...

Leaving a Culinary Legacy

There are some recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation within a family, and truly stand the test of time. Grandmothers have been sharing their treasured recipes and cooking with...

Beef, It's What's For Dinner. Maybe

“Beef, it’s what’s for dinner.” For years I’ve laughed whenever I heard this slogan. Probably because it struck me as so pompous. But it certainly had the makings of a successful marketing...

A Simple Scoop of Rice

This is a dispatch from Southeast Asia. For the last 12 days I have been eating chicken with green curry and rice, seafood soup with coconut milk and rice noodles, and stir-fried beef with holy basil,...