Discover the Secrets of Good health

I remarked to my father than we had been doing a lot of salads and veggies lately and without missing a beat dad said, “I want to make stuffed hot dogs,” adding, “on the grill,” pointing to a particularly appetizing recipe in our Mastering the Grill cookbook. Note that, in spite of gender stereotypes, [...]

If you grow zucchini in your garden, and you’re the kind of wonderful person who brings your neighbors a share of your bounty, and such bounty includes foot-long several pound zucchinis, might I suggest that you include a recipe to accompany such a welcome gift? I’m not kidding! Seriously, we have such a [...]

My father made this cold tomato and zucchini soup the other day.
“Don’t call it gazpacho.”
“Why not? It looks like gazpacho, but with some zucchini.”
“It’s my soup. I made it up. It’s not gazpacho. Don’t call it gazpacho.”
“Okay dad, whatever you say.”
So instead, my brother Eddie [...]

What is a tuna melt, other than a grilled cheese sandwich dressed up with tuna salad? Two favorite food groups, merged together. I used to love these sandwiches as a kid, and was inspired by a Karen Tedesco recipe in Better Homes and Gardens to make this slightly more fancy version with tarragon. [...]

Once in a while, Trader Joe’s has a great deal on limes; you can get a whole one pound bag for 99 cents. I’ll buy a bag with the best of intentions to put them to good use, but then most recipes that use lime only call for one. Not the 10 that [...]

Recently my father announced he had a cunning plan. He found a grilled turkey burger recipe that he wanted to try, but rather than just use any old ground turkey, he would make half the burgers with ground dark meat (his favorite) and half the burgers with ground white meat and see if he [...]

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Making popcorn from scratch can be tricky. Not only do you want as many kernels as possible to pop, but you also want to keep the kernels from burning at the bottom of the pan. Until my mother showed me her way of cooking popcorn, I usually took the easy way out and [...]

We’ve got plums coming out the wazoo at the moment. Every time I mention a potential plum recipe my mother’s eyes light up with what appears to be frantic joy; she can’t give them away fast enough and she’s tired of making plum freezer jam (20 pints and counting). Unfortunately, the plums required [...]

What would be your dream diet? You know, the diet in which you could really eat anything you wanted, and as much as you wanted. If you asked me at dinner tonight, I would have to say, spicy corn fritters. Yep, the corn fritter diet. (Haven’t you heard of it?) Just [...]

Have you ever come up with your own, never-before-seen recipe (at least not seen by you) and it turns out so well you just want to stand up and take a bow? Well, some of my friends do this all the time, but for me it’s a rarity. My mini-triumph today is a [...]