Everyone has a favorite comfort food and mine is chicken pot pie. Far from pretentious, chicken pot pie is belly-warming and plate-scraping good. While frozen pot pies more often find their way to our table on busy weeknights, nothing is better than one made from scratch.
Thanks to a recent trip to the North Carolina mountains, I have a bushel of apples in my garage. The United States government defines a bushel of apples as equal to 48 pounds. My husband, who was in charge of carrying the box of apples, thought it weighed 25 pounds. But that’s because he is in denial that he has a wife crazy enough to buy 48 pounds of apples for two people.
I don’t hold his disbelief against him. The average American eats 18.5 pounds of apples in a year according to this website on North Carolina apples. If we, as in just the two of us, manage to consume our bushel of apples, we will have smashed the American average in a matter of weeks and will be well on our way to competing with the Europeans who consume about 46 pounds of apples a year per person.
I consider myself to be an adventurous cook. I’d much rather try a new recipe than make the same thing twice, let alone again and again. My husband finds this slightly annoying and dinner parties always have an air of suspense, but usually the result of my constant craving for something new equals lots of great tasting dishes on the table.
For all my culinary diversity however, I am downright boring when it comes to salad. Frankly, I rarely give it any thought preferring instead to throw it together right before dinner with whatever is at hand. Typically, this involves pre-washed mixed greens (yes, I’m also lazy when it comes to salads), tomatoes, carrots, onion, and some celery. Sprinkled with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic and then tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette, it’s fast, easy, and tastes good. But it’s never the highlight of the meal. Continue reading
When it begins to get cool, I fall in love with cooking again. It happens every year around this time. I love the bounty of summer for its delicious flavors that require a minimum of preparation. However, it’s autumn, with its shorter days, cooler temperatures, and changing leaves, that makes me want to cook. In the summer, cooking means slicing a ripe tomato and sprinkling it with salt. In the fall, the heat from the stove is no longer my nemesis and I look forward to filling my house with the smell of food simmering, roasting, and braising.
A week or two ago, I saw a display of pie pumpkins at my local grocery store and couldn’t help but pick one up. The orange globe sat on my counter as I impatiently waited for a day cool enough to make my first soup of the fall.
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