Ratatouille is one of those country dishes that, despite its simple ingredients and appearance, is surprisingly complex to produce well. If you’re not careful it can easily turn into a watery/oily bowl of mushy vegetables. Something no one ever wants! However, with a couple simple little steps you’ll be well on your way to mastering not only ratatouille, but a whole world of wonderfully exciting veggie dishes that will keep your family coming back for MORE!
If you’ve eaten Asian food there’s a good chance you’ve had 5 spice powder (wǔxiāng fěn, 五香粉, Pong Palo). Especially if you’ve had dishes with fatty meats, braised dishes or many stir-fried noodle dishes. It offers a deep, rich flavor that helps cut through the fat and I’ve heard it said “it brings harmony to chaos”. (Sadly I don’t remember where I heard the reference.)
Growing up, I spent a good bit of my early years living on a farm just outside Crawfordville, Fla. The majority of the food we grew was for our personal use. We’d grow the normal stuff you’d expect… tomatoes, watermelons, okra, bell peppers and greens were pretty much always on the list to plant. As you’d expect, we’d do various things to preserve the fruits of our labors. The most commonly used method was canning. (Followed by open-air dehydrating.)
I LOVE DIM SUM (點心, 点心, diǎnxīn, dímsām)! I love it so much in fact that over the years I’ve learned to make quite a few of my favorite dim sum dishes, and make them pretty regularly. (A few times a month if I’m being honest.) I love how the simplest of ingredients can turn into something so complex and mouthwatering that people will drive for hours, spending hundreds of dollars for a meal of it! Not only is dim sum delicious, it’s also a wonderful way to bring friends, family and even strangers together in a way that is sadly missing in today’s fast-paced world.
When I was growing up there wasn’t really ‘vegan’ or ‘vegetarian’ food in the South. That was only for those “hippies in California” or “fancy rich people”. Looking back, I don’t think my mom (or most of my aunts for that matter) ever cooked a vegetable that didn’t have at least one animal byproduct in […]
My family loves Asian food, and one of our favorites is Chinese-inspired egg rolls. Pork, chicken, or shrimp, yes please! More times than I can count, I’d come home and my mom and I would spend a whole night rolling egg rolls. Looking back, we’d end up eating almost as many as we’d roll, but hey, memories right? Hehe!
Growing up, we didn’t eat a lot of fresh lemons in our day-to-day lives. I don’t mean that we never had lemons. We had loads of lemon-flavored things like candy, cakes, cookies and lemonade, but whole fresh lemons were something we’d have at restaurants or special events. Our mom wouldn’t buy them because she had […]
Being from the south, sausage is a main stay in most homes. When I was growing up the majority of sausage was pork (or deer) based and contains a good bit of sage, fennel and often comes in both spicy and non-spicy. I don’t mean this was the only type of sausages sold in the […]
I often hear people say our bodies are a temple… But in this fast paced world of go, go, go, my temple starts feeling a bit more like 6 Flags on 4th of July weekend than a holy site of introspection. So I started working on a group of recipes I call restoratives. Contrary to […]
Lately I’ve been pretty busy due to the death of a coworker and sorting out some medical issues. So I’ve not had a ton of time to create and post new recipes on the site as much as I wished. I am sorry about this and I should be ramping up service again shortly. In […]