I grew up with my grandmother making this soup after my grandfather and I went mushroom picking. We were in the woods and my grandfather would call out “houbiky, houbiky” which meant mushrooms, mushrooms while the 4 year old me ran around frantically looking for them and at the same […]
The lovely green sauce with tastes and fragrance of the summer is what I think of pesto. Most often used as a flavoring for pasta or with fresh mozzarella and garden tomatoes you can utilize this sauce for many other things. Mixed with mayonnaise it becomes a great dip or […]
Bringing out rich flavor in a vegetable dish can be a challenge. Vegetables are often cooked with bacon or pancetta, soups are made with chicken stock, split pea soup or beans are cooked with a ham bone. How can we go to flavortown without using meat? One good way is […]
With more people eating plant based diets these days, the challenge in the cooking world and especially for restaurants is how to create great vegetable dishes without sacrificing the flavor. Stocks and broths is the answer. The base for most stocks is mirepoix ,which is covered in the recipe index […]
At the end of the growing season, usually sometime in October around here, all the peppers ripen up at once. We use some hot peppers in our cooking but can not possibly use the dozens and dozens of peppers that ripen at the end of the season. Hot sauce is […]
This is a dish I grew up with, my grandmother used to make it and my mother used to make it. The vegetable mix is a bit eastern European and it was traditionally served at Christmas. We often make it during the summer to go with cookouts and it always […]
Oh the sweet perfume of garlic roasting in olive oil, just taking the scent in is like an appetizer. Years ago I had a restaurant where we served pizza and the roasted garlic was a very popular topping, we also made focaccia bread with roasted garlic. Each week we would […]
The sweetly fragrant shallots are not a dish or meal in itself but it is very useful in other preparations, just like the delicate oil they are roasted in. I enjoy the sweet flavor when used as a topping for pizza or when you use the shallots and the oil […]
Eat lentils on New Years day, it will bring money! That was the saying in Czech republic when I was young and still is I believe. We would often have this lentil soup which is simple but tasty. The lentils provide both protein and a satisfying texture even when made […]
This recipe is a a stepping stone in creating other dishes. Slowly sautéing the finely chopped vegetables in butter releases sweetness from the carrots and onions, balanced by the celery and imparts a wonderful aroma and flavor to your further creation. A combination of two parts onion, one part each […]
Welcome! I have been cooking professionally and for fun over 40 years and love it as ever. I would like to share some of the things I have learned over the years as well as some of the miscues.