Sauces & Dressings
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Homemade Pizza Sauce
Greg was recently out of town for a week. Gosh, just writing that sentence makes me tired. I don’t know how people single parent and survive. I’m horrible at it even for a week. Parenting, to me, can be a difficult journey on the best of days. When my partner in crime is gone, it’s downright lonely. Friday nights at our house mean two important things, pizza and movies. I buy a ball of regular dough for the kids, fresh mozzarella, Parmesan and whatever toppings we crave each week. Greg makes a gluten-free dough for himself (which I greedily share with him because it’s scrumptious.)
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Weekend Breakfast Love
I love weekend breakfasts, absolutely dreamy-stars-in-my-eyes in love with them. They are some of my favorite meals ever. Before we had kids, Greg and I enjoyed weekend breakfasts together, side by side on the dining room bench, with our amazingly rich cups of coffee, while trying to conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, the Merl Reagle Crossword. I made Greg hold the pencil because he always answered way more than I ever could. Unless, of course, it had to do with literature or French. It’s a little amazing to me the things that stick with us and the things that remain out of the grasp of memory. I can…
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Steak with Béarnaise
As June comes to an end, I think a lot about the nature of rituals in our lives. Every morning on these summer days, I make my coffee and go visit my garden, sometimes to water, sometimes to smash cabbage worms or pick a few strawberries, usually I do the heavy garden work later, saving my morning visit just for that, to visit, while I sip my rich coffee out of my favorite mug and breathe in the scents of roses and lavender drifting to me. I rub my basil leaves, take a photo in my mind of each new tomato blossom, admire the inches the sunflowers have stretched overnight,…
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Chive Vinaigrette
A month or so ago I made some Infused Chive Blossom Vinegar. I let it sit for almost two weeks, then strained the chive blossoms out of it, and was left with this beautiful, purple, oniony scented vinegar. At first I wasn’t sure I liked the scent. It’s such a gorgeous color that I wanted the smell to match that beauty. But then I started pulling out all my vinegars, the white wine, champagne, apple cider, and smelling them. Vinegar isn’t necessarily the best smell in the world, is it? But oh what the right amount of vinegar does for a recipe, how it pickles things, the way it can –…
