Butternut Squash Soup

Butternut Squash Soup

Food traditions can take root faster than you’d think. Several years ago (probably seven or eight) I decided to make a soup for Thanksgiving that I’d made a few times and had liked each time. It’s surprisingly simple, has few ingredients, and can...
Leftover Redux

Leftover Redux

While I love to cook for groups of people – friends, family, and sometime coworkers and classmates – I often end up cooking for one. This occasionally presents a bit of a problem in terms of leftover logistics. Such as a craving for roast beef right before...
Bread, egg, and pig – mmm… breakfast

Bread, egg, and pig – mmm… breakfast

La Quercia is a producer of delicious pork products from proscuitto to lardo to coppa. I’ve been sampling and cooking with their products for quite awhile now, and if you haven’t heard of them (they’ve been featured by Food and Wine,  Bittman for the...
Creamy Onion Soup

Creamy Onion Soup

A lot has been going on in my kitchen lately, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to share it here. Last month there was a Wine and Food Expo in Des Moines that a friend and I attended. For a first year event the Des Moines Register did a...
Creamy Tomato Soup

Creamy Tomato Soup

As the cold weather settles into Iowa, my cooking turns more to hearty soups and stews. One of my favorite soups is tomato basil bisque, but until recently I had never made it from scratch. Then about a month ago I ended up with about a pound of tomatoes on the verge...
My mother’s egg rolls

My mother’s egg rolls

I started this blog to create a record of my own cooking experiences, and as I’ve written this blog I realized that successful blogging is harder than it looks. When talking about my blog the question that often comes up is how I started cooking. I grew up in a...