Quick! Enjoy all the stone fruit while you can. And while you’re at it, add some toasted crusty bread rubbed with garlic, creamy burrata, summer basil and flaky sea salt. Burrata and stone fruit crostini is full of sweet summer flavor and super simple to put together. Nectarines are my fruit of choice for this…
Appetizers and Snacks
Jalapeño Buttermilk Ranch
Ranch dressing: the natural partner for cold and crunchy iceberg lettuce, carrot sticks and slices of takeout pizza. I have two different versions of ranch dressing, one full of herbs and lemon, and the other full of jalapeño and cilantro. I’ve also been known to tone down the “green things” for picky eaters. For a…
Kale Guacamole
Just in time for your Cinco de Mayo fiesta, kale guacamole that will satisfy a crowd. We’ve been eating this non-stop over here: As an after school snack, on toast and of course tacos. It’s fresh, tasty and quick to put together. When we recently found ourselves with a bowl of ripe avocados and leftover…
Oatmeal Cranberry Energy Bites
These little nuggets are as good as stolen bits of cookie dough, serepticiously swiped from the bowl. Made from gluten-free oats, cinnamon, cranberries, maple syrup and crunchy almond butter, there’s also a little flaxseed for Omega-3s and cinnamon to stabilize the metabolism. Oatmeal cranberry energy bites are a bite size nutritional bomb. Basically, you just throw everything…
Deviled Green Eggs
After working on new spring recipes last week, I was left with a glut of hardboiled eggs. When life gives you lemons, right? So these deviled eggs were born, and boy am I happy they were. With Easter right around the corner, this recipe will come in handy to use up all those decorated eggs. And it’s pretty enough to serve for…
Spring Pea and Leek Tartine
Spring has sprung, evident in my corner of Texas by the fine layer of yellow-green pollen covering just about everything. But we can’t complain, this is the one brief respite of good weather we get. We’re ready for al fresco dinners, evenings in the Little League stands and weekends at the farm (not that I…
The Ultimate Cheese Board
My husband’s favorite couple days of the year are right around the corner. I’m sure followed closely by our anniversary and my birthday, right? The Masters starts Thursday, and we will be watching closely from home – I for one will be rooting for a certain young Texan. The weather in Houston is about as good…
Chèvre with Herb and Garlic Olive Oil
Goat cheese is one of those foods that takes me back to living in San Francisco in the late 90s (wow…that makes me sound old!). Cheese makers like Laura Chenel were gaining cult status, and chèvre was front and center thanks to restaurants like Chez Panisse. It would garnish just about everything: soups, simple green salads and pizzas….
Gluten-Free and Nut-Free Granola
This tasty gluten-free and nut-free granola (and egg-free and dairy-free) is super simple to put together. It’s full of flavor and sweetness from vanilla, maple syrup, raw honey and cinnamon. Hemp hearts add protein, and gluten-free oats, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds add fiber and crunch. It’s adaptable — if you can eat nuts, add slivered almonds, walnuts or…
Warm Spiced Olives
I have a salt tooth. And a sweet tooth. Which is the problem, but we won’t get into that. To satisfy that salt craving, there’s nothing like the briny, pungent and flavorful pop of warm spiced olives. I developed a serious olive habit in college during a semester abroad in Athens, studying Greek (which didn’t stick) and…