Simple Food. Good Ideas. Great Fun.
This classic Cheesy Broccoli Casserole is super simple, only requires a few ingredients, and is quick to make. Thus, I used to make this dish a lot for potlucks and guests when I was in graduate school and first working 
The recipe calls for Velveeta Cheese. If you don’t want to use a processed […]
My mom loved creamed spring peas and baby potatoes fresh from the garden. She made the best that I have ever eaten. She did not fix them very often, which made them even more of a treat. Despite my best attempts to make them the same way she did, I can not get mine to […]
Until recently, I did not roast my own peppers. I only purchased roasted red peppers once or twice as I rarely used them in my cooking. Well, no more….it is so simple and they taste so much better than jarred. A super easy way to roast peppers is under the oven’s broiler. You just place […]
I was reading through some of my cookbooks looking for a new way to fix mushrooms and instead found a recipe for “pickled” green beans. It was in one of my favorite cookbooks, A Taste of Toronto (Ohio, that is). So, I decided to give them a try. Although they were called pickled green beans, […]
I think one of the most requested dishes of my mom for extended family holiday gatherings was her sweet potatoes (her minced meat pie was the other). It was also one of the messiest dishes to transport as the sauce had a tendency to spill out on some turn or hill as we went; however, […]
There were very few things my mom refused to eat and many of them had some childhood memory associated with them. Cold mashed potatoes were one of those things. She said that by the time the got to eat the mashed potatoes they were often cold. Thus at our house, mashed potatoes were one of […]
Although there are times when I want to make mashed potatoes ahead or to change their texture or taste, I find myself most often making the basic mashed potatoes that my mom used to make. The ones that are smooth (or mostly smooth) and creamy. The ones that go great with gravy. Sure, they are […]
Whether you call it stewed rhubarb, rhubarb compote, or any other name, this simple, delicious preparation of rhubarb reminds me of my mom. She just called it cooked rhubarb. She often made it from the fresh rhubarb in my parents yard or what she had frozen during the growing season. In fact, she often served […]
This super simple mixture of cucumbers and onions is a refreshing and delicious dish. My mother and grandmothers would often serve it from as soon as the cucumbers ripened in the summer through the early fall. Today, I often make it using the “hot house” or “hydroponic” cucumbers available in supermarket all year round. In […]
Do you have leftover corned beef? You could use it to make a Ruben casserole or one of my mom’s “go to” meals, corned beef hash and hominy. What made it a “go to” or last minute meal for my mom was that we never had corned beef except out of a can. I am […]
