recipes, new cooks, good first recipe

good first recipe

picture of the zataar flatbreads

With all of us practicing self-isolation, many of you will suddenly be cooking for yourselves a lot more often than you're used to. And, if you don't have a large personal recipe repertoire, you're going to get really tired of burgers and spaghetti marinara after a while. As such, I'm…

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vegan, stews and soups, new orleans

vegan gumbo z'herbes

bowl of vegan gumbo

Yes, it's vegan -- yet it's fairly traditional, absolutely delicious, packed with vitamins, and even quick enough to make on a weeknight. Gumbo z'herbes is the gumbo that Creole folks have traditionally eaten on Good Friday, and sometimes on other days during Lent, so it isn't supposed to contain meat…

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seafood, oregon

garlic-pepper dungeness crab

garlic-pepper crab in a cast iron skillet

Dungeness crab season has started in Oregon! The commission made us wait for an additional month to get our crabs, but that wait was a good thing: crabs are larger, with sweeter meat and thicker shells. You'll have better crab this season than you did for the last several years…

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holidays, cuban food, gluten-free, meat

Cuban Christmas, part 2

picture of Cuban fish dish

Having finished the appetizers and salad course we moved on to our main course. Now, the super-traditional Christmas eve dinner for Cuban-Americans is Lechon Asado (roast pork shoudler), with rice and black beans, and I had to have all of those things, and you'll see them in a minute. What…

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holidays, cuban food, gluten-free

consider a Cuban Christmas

photo of holiday table with cuban fish in foreground

In the last few years, it's become my responsibility to feed family and Southern Oregon friends Christmas Eve dinner, and then we go to a friend's house for Christmas day. Yes, Christmas. My sweetie's family isn't Jewish, and I'm fine cooking for the holiday because, after all, my real religion…

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