Farmers’ Market Leek Tart

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I really enjoy vis­it­ing farm­ers’ mar­kets for the pretty visu­als of fresh greens, fruits, and veg­gies arranged neatly on dis­play. If an item looks par­tic­u­larly entic­ing, I might be swayed to buy it, even if I didn’t come to the mar­ket with it in mind.

That’s what hap­pened the first time I bought leeks. I‘m not sure how often I had leeks in the past, if ever. I don’t think my mom cooked with them very often, so I was going out on a limb when I bought them, because I didn’t have an idea of what I could make with them. But, they looked so pretty, I couldn’t resist. Con­tinue read­ing →

Homemade Sushi!

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My first for­mal intro­duc­tion to sushi was actu­ally through my job. For one-on-one meet­ings my boss would often take us to a Japan­ese restau­rant near the office. I would have never gone there on my own, but, being there with him, I felt it rude not to try. As you can tell from my Foodie descrip­tion, I enjoyed mostly tra­di­tional amer­ica foods prior to start­ing this blog. I began to real enjoy the basic, fish-free sushi, and even­tu­ally the tra­di­tional raw fish. At these meet­ings, I was always glad my boss cov­ered the bill, because good sushi can be expen­sive! Since my tastes have evolved over the past few months, I soon had the idea to make my own. I fig­ured we’d be sav­ing money on the meal, and we might enjoy the expe­ri­ence. I enlisted the help of rlk, and together we set out mak­ing our own sushi.

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Mom’s Homemade Apple Pie

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Process of making homemade apple pie (25)When I was younger, my Mom would take us apple pick­ing every fall. We always went to the same farm in “upstate” New York (side­note, my fam­ily called any place across the bor­der in NY “upstate” even if it wasn’t very far north) and so it was a yearly tra­di­tion. Another tra­di­tion was my Mom’s home­made apple pie that she would make as soon as we got home with our pick­ings. My Mom’s style of apple pie con­sisted of a very thick bot­tom crust, loaded with apples, and a top crust. My favorite part was the bot­tom crust, because the top of it would get nice and juicy from the apples but since it was so thick, the bot­tom of the crust would not get soggy, so it was a nice con­trast of tex­tures. Con­tinue read­ing →

Homemade Hot Pockets

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This recipe has been on my “to make” list for quite some time, because I love try­ing to make my own home­made ver­sions of foods that usu­ally come in a pack­age. Its such a great expe­ri­ence and an accom­plished feel­ing to make a food that is usu­ally bought pre-made. I found a great cook­book, Mad Hun­gry: Feed­ing Men and Boys, at the library. It’s writ­ten by Lucinda Scala Quinn, Exec­u­tive Food Direc­tor for Martha Stew­art Liv­ing, and includes recipes she’s cre­ated and made for her three sons. I give her a lot of credit, feed­ing three boys! Some­times I’ve got my hands full just feed­ing L. Smith; he can eat so much! Any­way, when I saw this book I knew it was right up my alley and would have some great ideas for me to make to help keep L. Smith full.  After try­ing a cou­ple of recipes, I scanned a copy of the ones I wanted to keep, before return­ing the book. This recipe was one of them.

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Christmas Challah Bread

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I love bread. That being said, chal­lah is one of my favorite kinds. It is sweet but not overly so, soft and chewy, and great for snack­ing.  So when I saw a local, hands-on challah-making class, I jumped at the chance to take it. What could be bet­ter? I’d learn how to make chal­lah, AND get to take my own hand-made loaf home! The class was great—it was offered by a local Jew­ish edu­ca­tion cen­ter and taught by a lovely woman who’s made count­less chal­lah in her life­time. Con­tinue read­ing →

Muffins!

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I’m really excited to share this first food, because it’s the first recipe I’ve ever cre­ated on my own! Last year, I made quite a few muf­fin recipes– from zuc­chini to apple, whole wheat to reg­u­lar flour. After a few batches, I started to notice that most muf­fin recipes were very sim­i­lar, with just a few vari­a­tions here and there in the mix-ins and the types of flours used. So, I sat down and wrote out my own recipe for whole wheat muffins with my choice of fruit (apple, banana, straw­berry, etc.) or veg­gie (zuc­chini, car­rot, sweet potato, etc.) mix-in. This recipe has worked for me, but I’m sure you can get var­i­ous results… Con­tinue read­ing →