Winter is still with us, and I was planning on yet another stew, this time of lamb. However, as the weather was not as chilly, and as lamb is quite heavy in itself, I wanted a lighter stew with lighter ingredients in it.

Skirt steak is one of the most flavorful beef cuts. The outer part is mostly suitable for pan-searing or grilling (see recipe HERE), while the inside part is more suitable for slow cooking, which is the method I used in the following recipe.
This recipe is yet another version of the Sephardic “Sopado” dish, which consists of meat cooked slowly with tomatoes, onions and a large amount of parsley (check HERE for another version with lamb). Here I chose to add beef stock and some white wine to the flavorful meat, creating a wonderful, aromatic, yet very light sauce. Once again, I used the sauce to cook rice in, and added the shredded meat into it, creating a full meal in one pot.
The dish is quick to assemble and requires minimal preparations. Once these are done, just place the pot in the oven and let it do the…

Living in San Diego, Mexican and Mexican-inspired food are some of my go-to’s. I could truly eat Mexican food every day of the week, but there is nothing like the freshness of a steak fajita with onions, peppers, and spicy salsa.

Steak Fajitas

Nothing compares to the cheesy, saucy goodness of chicken parm. Scroll down for the game-changing recipe.

Chicken Parmesan

It is hard to beat the satisfaction of baking lasagna. All the time and energy put in is always worth it when you see the delicious bubbling cheese when you take it out of the oven. This recipe is based off of Spend With Pennies’ recipe for Easy Homemade Lasagna.

Sausage and Spinach Lasagna

One of my favorite pasta dishes takes an underrated vegetable, broccoli rabe, and makes it the star of the dish. I present, broccoli rabe and sausage pasta. This recipe is based off of one of my favorites from A Beautiful Plate.

Broccoli Rabe and Sausage Pasta

A recipe I make so often I practically know it by heart. These are from Weight Watchers back in the day, and they’re delicious! I typically double the recipe and freeze them for a quick grab and go on the way to work.

Ingredients:

1 cup wheat bran
2/3 cup all purpose flour, level measuring cup
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup Sugar in the Raw Turbinado Sugar
1/4 cup organic applesauce, unsweetened
1 egg
1 1/2 Tbsp canola oil
1 tsp vanilla

Preparation:

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350.
2. Lightly spray 12 1/4 x 1 1/2-inch nonstick muffin cups with oil
3. In a medium bowl, whisk bran, flours, baking soda, and salt until combined and set aside.
4. In another medium bowl, using a handheld mixer at high…

Ingredients:

8 chicken thighs skinned & 4 chicken fillets diced

3 onions diced

5 tomatoes diced

Red & yellow bell peppers diced

4 sweet potatoes chopped into chunks

90g of spinach

1 carton of passata sauce

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

4 garlic cloves chopped

1 thumb size ginger grated

3 green & 3 red chilli peppers chopped

4 jalapenos sliced 2 scotch bonnet pepper left whole

1 tablespoon of mixed herbs

3 tablespoon of curry powder

1 tablespoon of mixed spice

1 tablespoon of chilli powder

1 tablespoon of cumin1 tablespoon of turmeric

2 tablespoon of tomato puree

3 tablespoon of olive oil

½ teaspoon of crushed peppercorns

1 teaspoon of salt

freshly chopped parsley

Freshly chopped coriander

Method:

In a large bowl mix together tin tomatoes, passata sauce, mixed herbs, curry powder, mixed spice, chilli powder, cumin, turmeric, tomato puree, crushed peppercorns, salt, mix well and set aside.

Ingredients:

500g of diced pork

1 bag of baby potatoes cut in half

3 tomatoes diced

Half head if broccoli

4 shallots cut in half

Mixed bell peppers sliced

2 tablespoon of soy sauce

1 tablespoon of ginger puree

1 tablespoon of garlic puree

3 chilli peppers chopped

1 tablespoon of dried chopped lemongrass

2 bay leaves

1 teaspoon of turmeric

1 teaspoon of ground coriander

1 teaspoon of paprika

½ teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of crushed peppercorns

100mls of coconut milk

200 mls of water

Method:

Pour the water & coconut milk into the slow cooker and stir well.

Add ginger & garlic puree, soy sauce, and stir.

Add turmeric, coriander, paprika, salt, peppercorns, stir well.

Add tomatoes, shallots, chilli peppers, lemongrass and stir.

Add potatoes, mixed bell peppers stir add pork and stir.

Place the bay leaves on top cook on high for 3-4 hours or low…

Ingredients:

7 chicken thighs skinned & 2 chicken fillets diced

1 large onion diced

2 red onions sliced

5 tomatoes diced

Mixed bell peppers sliced

2 tablespoon of ghee

5 green chilli peppers chopped

1 tablespoon of tomato puree

1 tablespoon of cumin

1 tablespoon of coriander powder

1 tablespoon of chilli powder

1 tablespoon of paprika

1 teaspoon of coriander seeds

1 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds

1 tablespoon of fenugreek leaves

1 teaspoon of onion seeds

1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

Few pieces of cinnamon sticks

4-5 cloves

1 tablespoon of garlic puree

1 tablespoon of ginger puree

400 mls of passata sauce

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

I medium size yam chopped

1 teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of crushed peppercorns

Method:

In a large mixing bowl mix together 409 mls of passata sauce, tin tomatoes, salt, peppercorns, paprika, chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin, tomato puree, mix well…

Ingredients:

7 chicken thighs skinned

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

6 tomatoes diced

1 pk of button mushroom cut in half

1 large onion sliced

2 tablespoon of tomato puree

1 tablespoon of paprika

1 tablespoon of madras curry powder

1 tablespoon of ground cumin

1 tablespoon of ground coriander

1 tablespoon of dried fenugreek leaves

1 tablespoon of cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon of garam masala

1 teaspoon of turmeric

1 thumb size ginger grated

1 clove of oak smoked garlic chopped

2 tablespoon of ghee

1 teaspoon of fenugreek seeds

1 tablespoon of coriander seeds

1 teaspoon of onion seeds

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of crushed peppercorns

4 green chillies left whole

Method:

In a bowl mix together the tin tomatoes, diced tomatoes, tomato puree, paprika, madras curry powder, ground cumin, ground coriander, cayenne pepper, garam masala, turmeric, salt, pepper, mix into a paste.

Add the chicken…

★

These roasted carrots basically taste like candy. I’m only slightly exaggerating. But the beauty of roasted carrots is that as the moisture slowly cooks away, their sugars start to condense. And a sweet candy like flavor develops. They are mighty mighty tasty.

I paired these carrots with a Roasted chicken with roasted onions and potatoes. I mean, c’mon, there isn’t a more savory and umami dinner that I can think of.

Did I mention they are insanely easy to make? Give it a try and let me know how they turned out in the comments below.

Ingredients

• Carrots
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
• Salt

The Cook

Preheat oven to 425°.

On a baking sheet, lay out whole carrots. Cut off tops but leave about an inch of the stem. drizzle EVOO lengthwise over each carrot. Grind salt over the carrots.

Bake at 425° for 1 hour.

EAT.

Notes- I…

I’m not sure what it is about cucumber salads but I cannot get enough of them. I’ve got and addiction. And this Smashed Cucumber Salad is a go to for me every time that I am jonesing. In my book, it it right up there with Sunomono salad, the King of cucumber salads. The bonus of the smashed cucumber salad is it’s way easier to make and smashing cucumbers helps get some of the day out of your bones. When you put your weight into the broad side of a knife and the cucumber goes squish, well, it’s something that you should all experience. It’s magical.

Anywho, it is a really straight forward salad to make. Now let me break it down…

Ingredients

• Persian cucumbers
• Salt
• Sugar
• Sesame Seeds
• Red Pepper Flakes

Sauce

• 2 Part Rice Vinegar
• 1 Part Honey
• 1 Part Soy Sauce
• 1 Part Sesame Oil
• Salt to…

This is one of my favorite ways to make Salmon. My mouth is watering just thinking about how good this Salmon tastes. Seriously, lemon and dill are the perfect flavors to elevate Salmon. And to top it off, it’s incredibly easy to make. So give it a try and let me know how it turns out in the comments below.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lb Salmon
• 1 Lemon Squeezed
• Fresh and Dried Dill

The Cook

Marinate the SALMON in LEMON JUICE for 10 mins. Liberally apply DRIED DILL to cover all of the pink meaty surface of the SALMON. It will stick easily because of the LEMON JUICE. Lay FRESH DILL over the top.

Heat oven to 425°. Bake SALMON for 20 minutes uncovered. Remove from oven, let rest under foil for 5 minutes, and EAT.

Wow ! This was delicious !Banana combined

with brown sugar and rum was tooo good.Easy

on the mix and time.Worth the try!

To the recipe right away

Turned upside down!😀

INGREDIENTS

1+1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp baking baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

A pinch of cinnamon powder

A pinch of salt

1/4 cup oil

1 tsp banana essence

1 tblsp rum

1/4 cup yoghurt/ curd

2 eggs

3-4 yellaki banana/red banana/your choice

3/4-1 cup brown sugar

Extra brown sugar

5-6 tsp . butter

METHOD

Mix the dry ingredients together.

Mix the wet ingredients till sugar is dissolved.

Now mix the wet ingredients, into the dry

ingredients and mix well with a spatula .

Slice the bananas.

Add 1/2 tsp butter in each cupcake tin.

Sprinkle the extra sugar according to your taste

Keep 1-3 slices of banana at the bottom, and

scoop on the cake batter.

Bake…

I wanted to really amp up my blueberry muffins. My Super Blueberry Muffin recipe is good, but I wanted to make it better. I still have frozen strawberries from my garden; so I puréed some and added it to the batter. Combine that with a strawberry jam center and you have muffins blasting with berry flavor!

I used Scottish oatmeal, but you can use whole rolled oats as well. If you’d prefer to leave out the whole wheat flour, just increase your all purpose amount by half a cup.

I did not measure the almonds I put in. I was given a bag of sliced almonds and I just grabbed two handfuls and threw them in. In the past I’ve gauged my handful to be about 1/4 cup, so my recipe guess of 1/2 cup chopped almond probably isn’t too off mark.

These muffins are amazing! They are a sweet…

These are my favorite peanut butter cookies. I wouldn’t kick you out of bed for putting chocolate chips in them. This recipe is from the Fannie Farmer cookbook, one of my favorite cookbooks of all time.

• 1 cup salted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup peanut butter (I prefer Trader Joe’s salted creamy)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (optional)
• extra 1/2 cup granulated sugar for coating fork

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment or grease lightly.

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, and beat well, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Add peanut butter and beat to blend. Add baking soda and flour and stir to combine well. Add chocolate chips if using.

Scoop onto cookie…

These are everything I want in a brownie. My sister-in-law, Lindsay, kept trying different brownie recipes until she found her favorite, and her dedication paid off. Now it is the favorite of everyone I know. This recipe is from King Arthur. Himself.

• 1 cup butter
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/4 cups dutch-process cocoa
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 TBSP vanilla
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups flour (all-purpose or a combination of all-purpose and whole wheat)
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I used mint chips, pictured)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease, or line with a foil sling, a 9×13″ pan.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add sugar and stir until hot but not bubbling. Remove from heat. Stir in cocoa, baking powder, salt and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, and whisk until incorporated. Stir in flour and chocolate chips…

These muffins are super moist, light, and delicious. Mix them by hand in a large bowl, bake what you want, then refrigerate the batter for up to 2 weeks and bake them as needed. This is my mom’s recipe.

• 3 cups All Bran cereal
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 1/2 cups flour (you can substitute up to 1 cup whole wheat flour)
• 2 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease or line your muffin tin.

In a large bowl, mix bran with hot water until moistened. Stir in brown sugar. Add buttermilk, eggs and oil, stirring until well combined. Add flour and baking soda, then raisins, if desired.

Scoop batter into greased muffin cups, filling about 3/4 full. Bake for 15-18 minutes until the tops spring back when touched. Serve…

These muffins pop up in my kitchen and my sister-in-law’s kitchen frequently – pretty much whenever there are 3 ripe bananas that need to be used. They stay moist and are kinda healthy.

This recipe is from King Arthur Whole Grain Baking.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (3 large)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line a 12-cup muffin tin.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, banana and honey and mix until smooth. Beat in eggs. Whisk dry ingredients together. Add to egg mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Remove from mixer and give a good stir to make sure all the ingredients are incorporated.

Fill muffin cups…

Saturday morning breakfasts usually are rather simple in our house. We are usually running to some place or other. But, this week we had NOTHING! I had a package of Hawaiian rolls to use up so I picked up a roll of breakfast sausage to make some breakfast sandwiches for the kids. They were a nice start to our day. We had a nice sit down breakfast and then headed out to clean, get homework done and my daughter went to work. Perfect start to our day.

Verdict:

I make these from time to time with different fillings. I only had 9 slices of sausage so three of the rolls were just egg and cheese on the rolls. The egg and cheese rolls were delicious too. The sausage was good but a bit heavy for me. The kids really liked it.

I am not big on making breakfast during the week. Cereal, toast, eggs or oatmeal but that is about it. We have a couple big bag of blueberries in the freezer and my daughter really wanted to make muffins. I had her defrost a couple of cups of the berries to make some muffins to have for breakfast during the week.

I am thinking of taking this recipe next week and doubling it using half for blueberry muffins and maybe half for chocolate chip and nuts. That way there are choices for everyone too.

Verdict:

I am not a big fan of muffins because I think they are basically cupcakes for breakfast. These are NOT healthy muffins but I actually liked these though because they weren’t very sweet.  The blueberries were definitely the star of the show in these muffins. The blueberries were nicely distributed through the muffins and didn’t…

Today my daughter turns 16! Sixteen, it seems impossible. Everyone told me, “Enjoy it all time will fly past you and before you know it they are grown.”  I am thanking God that I have enjoyed each and every moment. Oh, they weren’t always easy moments but from the beginning when she was very sick and I told God that even if he took her then that I was so thankful that I got to be her Mommy even for those ten days that I was grateful beyond belief and that if there were more days I would look at each and everyone as a special gift no matter how long she was here with us. She truly has been an amazing gift. When people talk about the terrible twos, threes, tweens, and teens, I smile. They weren’t that terrible at all but a chance for the two of us to…

Growing up we had a few cookbooks. One which I remember clearly to this day is the 1972 Betty Crocker’s Cookbook. This is the cookbook that I learned to bake from. If we wanted cakes or cookies growing up we baked them from scratch. Whenever I mention this cookbook everyone says, “We had that too!” I don’t think kids today will have the memories of Mom’s cookbooks. It will be Mom’s Pinterest account they remember. I collect older cookbooks so my kids are very familiar with recipe cards and old-fashioned directions such as cream the butter and sugar together. I hope they love them some day as much as I do.

I make homemade Banana Bread from time to time but it usually has butter and more bananas than this recipe. As I was beating the banana bread it had the light flavor I remember from being a kid. So…

Our grocery store has a spot for bananas that they sell much cheaper than the other bananas because they are just starting to get spots on them and most people won’t buy them. If you are willing to make something right away or take them home and freeze them they can be a great buy! Usually they are $.25-$.30 a pound. These banana cupcakes are a good use of bananas that are really ripe. The flavor is more intense and they are nice and sweet!

Verdict:

These were delicious! I love buttercream frosting and the banana flavor was perfect to me. The kids gobbled these down. They were gone in 2 days! I liked that they weren’t overly sweet but were fairly light and fluffy. Make sure you beat them well between each addition to add air to the batter to raise well.

EGGPLANTS, ARTICHOKES AND MUSHROOMS WITH FLATBREAD AND FRIED RICE

I rarely contribute to any of my own blogs in the sense of contributing anything that WANTS to be an original recipe. I will spare everyone reading here the long story of why and let it remain at that, as I’ve studied and learned that there are too many different kinds of foodie suggestion blogs and there doesn’t have to be a start or end to anyone’s story. So as for my own blog and story — I’m also da capo ala carte and a capella — that’s to say, from the beginning, do as you will and off the top of my head in any direction the wind blows so long as it’s about food and someone else has provided the recipe which I have chosen. But that policy also just goes for posts in general. (No one else is…