AWEsome Cookery

  The plan seemed doable. I wanted a photo of the stuffed mushrooms resting on a serving tray mere minutes before they would be introduced to the hungry post-wedding crowd.  Anyone who is or has been involved with catering or restaurants will know how incredibly funny that notion was.  Over and over I bring a camera to events telling myself THIS time I will have the presence of mind to snap the shutter at that moment the delicacies are perfect, and two moments before they vanish or become not so perfect. The

  My friend Robin gave me this recipe from the Real Simple magazine—she said that it has repeatedly been her potluck smash hit.  I made a couple of little changes, but not much.  Hearty yet lightly sweet-and-sour with a hint of cumin, this could do well in summer or winter.   All beans take a while to absorb the flavors of the marinade so it is a good one to prep ahead then add the greenery at the end.  If you’re starting with dry garbanzos,

  Gluten Free and Low Carb—perfect for summer!  You can put nearly anything in a lettuce leaf and it provides a handy shell to hold the flavors.  I often am looking for edible vehicles that can deliver the punch line and in the summer lettuce leaves are a refreshing meal-holding-husk.  But they can be a little messy so watch out for those after-Memorial-Day white pants.    . Fillings can be as simple or complex as you want to create.  A vegan alternative to bacon could be

  It’s amazing how much trust is involved in cooking for groups of people.  Individuals allow a complete stranger to set comestibles before them that will soon become a part of their bodies, ingested and integrated into their cells.  How crazy is that?  I am humbled by the confidence that is given to me.  The palette is the flavors and colors of the harvest, then it is activated to become a living part of the willing recipient.  This art may not last long

  With cooking I find it easy to maneuver my way around, look at recipes to get ideas then going my own route by having a basic understanding of the ‘laws of cooking’.  Baking, however, is another story entirely.  I seem to have the need to relearn the lesson that I am not very adept at the chemistry of sugar or flours or eggs, and that I still need to behave and have patience and follow some recipes to get a better understanding.  I

    Skewered roasted tofu with a peanut sauce is one of my all time favorites for catering, and it’s pretty awesome for eating at home too. When I began this site I wanted to start with some of my crowd-pleaser recipes, dishes that I knew and loved so you could get a feel for my style of cooking.  Two and a half years later seems like a good time to dig up and recirculate a few, just for fun.  This was

  Sour cream–it’s the perfect dip starter: a bit tart, a bit creamy, and it ‘plays well with others‘, merging and melding with most herbs or flavors.  Lightly fermented dairy similar to crème fraîche but is more tangy and often made with less fat…I say yes.  If you’re feeling the need for more scrumptious fats in your cream, try this little method of a non-cultured sour cream:   Quick Sour Cream:  pour 1 cup heavy whipping cream into a bowl and add 1 teaspoon (or a little

  These buddies were a scrumptious success at a luncheon I recently catered.  You can make them without smoking the salmon, of course, but smokiness adds a rich depth, a ‘something extra’, oooh I could even say “je ne sais quoi”…whatever you want to call it, it will compel you to eat at least ten of them.   Do you need a smoker?  No, a charcoal grill works splendidly.  My grill-guru cousin swears by the Weber grill for all of his smoking activities.  There are smoker boxes for

  While we were in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in February we ate lunch at a little place called Steep Creek Cafe (and White Cap Kayak Trips) in the Ironwood and I seem to recall we licked out the bowl that this dip was served in.  Having only the three ingredients listed in the title to go on, I came home and ran with it making a slightly different rendition that is very green and not half bad. Is it hummus?  Is it pesto?  Is

  Despite the occasional April snowstorm our landscape is about to explode into electric GREEN.  It’s been patiently waiting and waiting and the time is nigh.  Later this week I’ll plant my onion sets for green onions —I keep harvesting the shoots throughout the spring and the bulbs keep producing more.  But I rely on others with more space for growing the asparagus, especially since I don’t know where the secret ditch patches are around these hills.   A few

  This is a little recipe from Food Renegade with a few adaptations.  Light but a tad rich, it will be a great one for an evening meal on a hot summer’s day.  I used canned coconut milk but if you have access to fresh I’m sure it would be divine.   A person could also make this into a sweet lime rice by adding honey, nuts, a fruit puree or dried fruit. A person could eat that for dessert,

  This was a Comfort Meal in the deli, a bowlful of both Brothy and Filling.   It’s another soup with the tangy buttermilk-secret-ingredient, added at the end when the soup has cooled slightly (so it won’t curdle) and with the addition of a little baking soda to reduce the acidity (so it won’t curdle). The baking soda trick can also be used is to make beans more easily (and quietly) digestible.       Tamari is a great addition

  Question: What does one eat when coming home after weeks on a ski sabbatical? Answer: Whatever is in the house because the catering has not yet begun and we blew our wad for the winter.  I think it’s time to revisit pintos and Pinto Fuul because my sister fed it to us on our way home, and since then I’ve been utilizing my big bag of pintos making various versions of it.  Today it was with feta cheese, yesterday

    Croquettes enable you to eat mashed potatoes with one hand and no fork. Isn’t that what everyone has been asking for?   Last week we found ourselves driving home in the midst of another blizzard, perfectly bookending the trip with driving north in the snowstorm at the beginning.  I suppose we did yearn for the snow to come with us and prolong our skiing affair…and this was another reminder to be careful what we ask for!  Countless times

  Racing is a curious thing.  To the observer it makes no sense at all—people spend loads of money to travel to a location, sleep on floors (or wherever), rise early after not sleeping well, venture out into often uncomfortable conditions, stress and adrenaline courses through their veins, then they push themselves beyond their limits until weary, cramping, frostbit or nauseous….this has never has looked very fun to me.   But there is something about pushing, something about stretching beyond

  Sunrise at the Sand Point Cabin.      .   Warmth on a sled. .   Corn.  Soaked in the mineral lime.  Dried.  Ground.  Mixed with a sweetener and cinnamon. . Atole is generally made from toasted masa (corn hominy flour soaked in lime) or ground rice grains and mixed with hot water or milk, cinnamon and sugar. It is often served at celebrations like Day of the Dead and Christmas. Pinole comes from the Nahuatl word pinolli for cornmeal.

  Packing into ABR‘s remote cabin with cubes and a pulk and a sherpa.  As my cousin says…why travel light when you can travel well?   . For the most part the absence of internet access is welcomed when we travel or stay in remote locations.  But posting these recipes and staying in touch with family and catering clients means finding creative ways to turn everything into a digital form, including sitting in the car in church parking lots and pirating

  Half pack—not looking so bad.   To make things more interesting, in the wee hours of the morning the day before we left I came down with a stomach/intestinal bug. This made for a very slow day of packing that was not planned to be a slow day…which spilled over into a late departure the next day.  Life and skiing are both about adjusting to stay in balance, so we did, and let go of plans.   The lucky

  This may sound a little like ‘stone soup’ or just a way to use up loads of onions in a pie but it really is scrumptious, summer or winter.   These tangy squares will be our travel food—snacking in the car or popping it in the oven to heat as we unpack the hundreds of pounds of gear and food into the home-base cabin.  It seems fitting to eat this caraway-sour-cream-onion pie in heart of Old Bohemian northern Wisconsin.

  Hot soup in the cold days of January—it’s never a bad idea.       We are knee deep in the process of prepping and amassing supplies for the annual trek north.  Pulling skis out of hibernation for waxing, dragging out sleeping bags and the camping stove, changing oil on the vehicle, finding catsitters, taking inventory of canned and frozen foods so I can make the menu plans for the cabins, and cooking piles of dishes to be frozen